Something Right Behind Her (5 page)

I let Eve chill
out in her chair in front of the house, and did all the clean up and stuff that
I knew my Mom would ask about. After Doug got back, we sat out front at the
patio table and ate our pizza, and I poured three beers I found in our fridge
into some plastic cups. Doug waved me off, though, since he was driving. Eve
drank hers out of a straw.

We were
finishing up, when my Mom called on my cell, like I knew she would. I told her
about Bob, about Eve going into the water. “Oh, my God, Andy, I can’t believe
he did that.” Mom seemed pretty spooked by the whole story.

“Just don’t tell
Mrs. O’Meara,” I said, and Doug pressed his hands together as if in prayer. To
change the subject I told Mom I’d be staying over at Eve’s. Whenever I stayed
over now I had to sleep downstairs in the guest room, since Eve’s room was so
cluttered with medical stuff, but at least we could stay up late and talk, like
in the old days. Doug was standing right next to me when I said I was staying
over, and I saw him glance my way, then pull his baseball cap slightly lower
down over his eyes, the way a pitcher sometimes does right before he throws a
pitch.

CHAPTER THREE

We hit traffic
coming over the Tappan Zee Bridge, and it was after nine by the time we got to
the O’Meara’s. Mrs. O’Meara had been waiting for us, still in her yellow track
suit from that morning, which seemed like an eternity ago. She gave Doug a hard
time about getting the wheelchair all sandy, and then she got a look at Eve.
“Look how sunburned you are!” She gasped. Then she looked at me and Doug,
“You’re all burnt to a crisp!” It seemed sort of funny to me, as if our biggest
problem was a sunburn. I thought Eve looked pretty damn good, actually, but I
kept my mouth shut. Having a little color made the unmoving side of her face
look more normal. Her still eye had begun to droop, but the beachy glow made
her seem more tired than sick.

Mr. O’Meara came
downstairs and he seemed really glad to see us, like maybe the two of them had
been sitting there driving themselves crazy with worry. “You got a nice glow in
your cheeks there, Andy girl!” he said, and patted me on the shoulder. “Check
this out, Eve-darling, I got the ramp all set up! Had the electrician come out
today and do the wiring for you! Dougy and I just need to put an attachment on
the chair and then you’ll be in business.”

“Did it come
yet? Or do I need to come back up again, Dad? It’s getting kind of hard to keep
coming home – they really pile the work on.” Doug was standing in the
doorway now, with a beer in his hand. The O’Mearas were pretty lenient about
Doug drinking beer in the house, now that he was in college.

Mr. O’Meara
looked a little uncomfortable. “Yeah, actually, it’s back ordered. We should
have it in a couple weeks.”

“Great, Dad,
that’s great,” Doug said and then walked out of the room. I heard him switch on
the TV in the next room. It seemed like Doug-the-hero and
Doug-the-college-freshman were having a bit of an internal struggle.

“Let’s get you
upstairs, then, Eve darling,” Mr. O’Meara said. He wasn’t one to chase after
Doug. He’d prefer to put a cheerful face on for Eve.

Mrs. O’Meara led
the way up the stairs. She moved quickly, and her wide bottom sort of jiggled
in front of me. Then Mr. O’Meara wheeled Eve to the bottom of the steps, where
he lifted her into his arms and carried her up to her room. Eve could still
stand, and walk a few steps at a time, but a whole staircase had been out of
the question for a while, though she had a crazy scooting method she’d use in a
pinch. I thought Doug was being kind of an asshole to just sit down there and
make his dad do all the work. That Doug was so pissed about having to come back
to town sort of hurt my feelings, but I knew that was stupid. Why should he
want to come home again? To see me? It was a ridiculous thought.

Mrs. O’Meara got
Eve changed and settled into bed. There was the dismal routine with the
bathroom, but I made sure to stay out of the way for that, though I’d helped
her on and off the toilet down in Jersey. Somehow, when it had been just us,
and Eve needed me, I could rise to it, and nothing frightened or disgusted me.
But once we were home, I started to feel jittery again. With the parents
around, I felt there were things I wasn’t supposed to do, wasn’t supposed to
know. There was everything no one was saying, and it kind of clogged the air.

Eve was wearing
a white nightgown, and her face seemed to glow with a health that had the effect
of making the rest of her appear even more oddly proportioned, with her right
shoulder sloping down to her withered arm.

I changed in her
bathroom into a t-shirt and shorts. In the old days, I’d have changed in front
of her, but I used the fact that her room was crowded with the metal hospital
bed as an excuse to leave the room. I felt like there was something wrong,
something cruel about revealing my body to her, though we’d been to the beach
just that afternoon. Her room was for a sick body, and mine, though far from
perfect, wasn’t sick.

I climbed up on
the bed beside her - two typical teenage girls having a sleepover. Aside from
her bed, the rest of her bedroom was the same as ever - the dresser with the
gold trim she must have picked out in her Disney princess stage and never
replaced, the white-painted vanity with the lighted mirror for putting on
make-up. I guessed she sometimes still wheeled herself up to that mirror,
though what she thought when she sat there, I could only imagine. I wondered if
she cursed at her reflection. Or wept. Or maybe, the face that was half dead
was something else to her now. Maybe it represented whatever force it was that
made crap-things like ALS happen to people. Maybe her own face had become, in a
sense, like the face of God. Unknowable. Inexplicable. Maybe she sat and stared
at herself and wanted to run. Maybe every part of her that could still move
froze. Maybe her heart beat the wild beat of an emergency. Those moments, if
she had them, must have been like waking versions of my nightmares. The thought
made my throat feel tight like it did when I woke up from one of my dreams. I
had to struggle to keep from making any sounds. I felt a sob rising in my
throat. But then Eve started to speak, and I pulled myself out of my own
thoughts and turned to her.

“It feels kind
of strange to be back here, “ she said. “Like we were gone so much longer than
a day.” She sounded weary.

“Yeah, I said.
That was pretty intense.”

“You know, I
must be really exhausted, Andy, because I can barely move my head.”

“I know what you
mean,” I said. “I think it’s from the sunburn.”

“No, “ she said.
“I mean I can’t move my neck very well. It feels weak.” Her voice sounded small
beside me, with an uncharacteristic tone to it, something like a whine, like
self-pity. I remembered how she’d been holding herself since I’d gone to see
her earlier in the week, her head at a slight angle.

“Eve?” I said.
“You’re just real tired.” It didn’t happen that way, I wanted to say, you don’t
just lose a whole body part like that in one day. My heart started to pound.
Maybe I had helped speed this thing up? Maybe taking her to the beach had been
the wrong thing to do?

“I am really
exhausted, “ she said, and I started to relax again. Her voice sounded calm.
Maybe the beach trip was worth it, whatever the cost. “You know, I wish my mom
had let me get highlights.” She paused for a second. “My hair didn’t get light
at all this summer.” She said this as if she hadn’t spent the summer in
hospital rooms - as if not getting highlights stood for so many other missed
opportunities - vain, girlish moments that she had every right to.

“It’s so pretty,
though, I said. It’s nice and sort of golden against your skin.” I opened my
eyes, and she was looking right at me, and she smiled, her small half-smile.

“Thanks,” she
whispered. I could feel her warm breath against my face. I knew she wasn’t just
thanking me for the compliment, but for the whole thing, for the day out, for
my wanting to be there with her. I wanted to explain to her it wasn’t all for
her, it was for me too. I didn’t want for her to be grateful to me. I didn’t
want her to need me more than I needed her.

Pretty soon
after that, she was asleep, with her head turned toward me, but hanging a
little unnaturally off the pillow. I knew it was true then. She couldn’t make
the natural adjustment, couldn’t lift her own head. I could have gone to get
her mom, or Doug, but what could anyone do for her, really? At first I was
afraid I’d hurt her, but then I knew I was being silly, so I shifted the pillow
around underneath her until she looked more comfortable, and she murmured
something in her sleep.

I climbed out of
the bed and around all the equipment they had in there - chairs and
contraptions so Mrs. O’Meara could move Eve if she had to at night. My heart
was still beating sort of fast. I had to steady myself against the bedside. I
knew from what I’d read about ALS that activity didn’t make the disease
progress faster, it helped patients stay strong longer. Still, I felt guilty.
Maybe it was the pot? Maybe pot had some weird effect on people with ALS that
no one, not even the doctors, knew about? After all, how would they test such a
thing? If it had been harmful, there wasn’t anything to do about it now.
Anyway, Doug had been there too, and he was her brother. Wouldn’t he have said
so if he thought we were doing something stupid?

The tightness
returned to my chest, a dark cloud-like feeling pressing on my head, making my
vision strangely contracted, like I was looking out of a telescope, or
binoculars. I had to calm down, stop this paranoid train of thought.

I heard the TV
as I made my way down the stairs, and I half expected to find Doug asleep on
the couch, but he was sitting there, upright, as if he’d been waiting for me. I
started across the room, and he stood up to meet me. I had a crazy thought that
maybe he’d been downstairs thinking the same thing I had been, that Eve was
worse, and it was all our fault. He had small, white half-circles under each
eye where the sun had been blocked by his sunglasses. He looked tired. I took
another step forward and he just stood there looking at me. His eyes were dark
and troubled-looking.

I still felt
shaky. I wanted to tell Doug about the dumb thoughts I was having. I wanted to
tell him everything, tell him about my nightmares, and how I was afraid I was
somehow always making everything worse. I opened my mouth, and began to say his
name, but then, suddenly, he pulled me close, took my face in his hands and
kissed me. I found my hands reaching up, almost involuntarily, to clutch at the
material of his polo shirt. I couldn’t speak. I kissed him again and again.

Doug pushed the
towels Mrs. O’Meara had neatly left for me on the floral comforter off onto the
floor, and then lifted me onto the bed. I tried to recall the moment when I
knew this was going to happen. I pictured him standing on our front porch by
the pot of yellow marigolds my mother had planted. Maybe I had known then,
maybe I had even known why, but now I was all instinct and forgetfulness. I
wanted to forget every awful thing I’d wanted to tell him.

I had boyfriends
before. Phillip Wang and I had been hot and heavy freshman year, before he
moved away. But that was a different kind of thing. He was one of those cute,
little guys who you weren’t even sure had hit puberty yet. That was almost two
years ago, stupid kid stuff.

My lack of
experience was something I failed to mention as Doug reached to the floor and
pulled a condom from his wallet. I could have said something to him then, but
suddenly, I wasn’t sure whether losing my virginity was something that mattered
all that much. It seemed an almost innocent thing in that house, filled with
its machinery. How were Doug’s warm hands on me anything but innocent? It was
ALS that was corrupt, that was taking Eve away, that had us all in the grip of
its dark reality.

“I can feel the
heat radiating off your body,” Doug whispered in my ear. At first, I thought he
meant the state of my arousal, and then I realized he meant actual heat, my sunburned
legs pressed against his own. But I murmured back “like a stray electrical
current,” and he turned over on his side to face me. It was all over now, and a
sense of camaraderie had replaced the feeling I had earlier of a shared guilt.
“What do you mean?” He asked.

“Oh, you know,
when we lived in the city it would happen every once in a while - there’d be
some stray electrical current and then some ordinary object you would never
expect to conduct electricity, or be electrified by, suddenly kills some lady
or her dog. This one woman was electrocuted by a lamppost. That’s what I mean -
between you and me - there’s some stray electrical current.” I stopped speaking
when he seemed suddenly quiet.

“Andy,” he said,
“maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to share your feelings with the next guy you
boff, because that’s not exactly the warm and tender thing a guy expects to
hear afterward.”

“Sorry,” I said.
“I just thought this was kind of random. Like perfect in a way, but, you know,
I’m your sister’s best friend.” I wanted to say something more, something about
how we had been thrown together by something larger than ourselves. I felt at
once like I had known this thing between us had been happening all day long,
and like it was a sort of sudden accident, like a car crash. I felt attracted
to him, but like I wanted to punish the both of us for what had happened, for
what we were doing to Eve. I reached then for what was harshest. I needed to
get at the truth.