Stealing Heaven (22 page)

"Yeah."

I look at him and he's staring solemnly at me, his eyes shining
brilliant green.

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"I haven't eaten," I say, and he smiles, goes to his
car, and comes back with a paper bag. He sits down on the steps.

After a moment, I sit down next to him.

"How are you?" He asks me that as I'm finishing my
second hot dog. I put my hands on my knees, stare . out at the water.

"I--okay, I guess." I wonder how long he's known about
me. Did he know before he saw me at the police station? Should I ask?

Do I want to know?

I do.

I take a deep breath. "Did you--when did you know about me?
About... about what I am?"

"Didn't," he says. "I knew you were hiding
something, but figured you and your mom were running from a bad family thing or
something. It was a real surprise to see you in the station."

"Oh." He didn't think I was a criminal. He was-- when he
said he wanted to spend time with me, he really meant it. He always meant
everything he said. I dare a look at him. "We're--we're leaving soon. I
know someone must want to know that."

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"That's not why I'm here."

"Oh," I say again, my heart pounding hard. "But
still. We are."

"Where are you going?"

"Nebraska."

"I guess I asked for that. But I'm not asking as a cop. I'm
asking for me. I'm asking because I want to know you're going to be okay."

I look at him. He looks steadily back at me.

"I don't know," I tell him. "I never do. We just go
somewhere and stay for a while. And then--"

"Can I tell you something?"

"Can I stop you?"

He grins at me, that grin that's gotten to me from the first time
I saw him, and then rubs one hand against his knee. "Look, everything that
happened, the silver getting stolen and then--" He stops. "I know
what you're thinking."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You get a little"--he points at my
forehead--"crinkle when you're mad. But I'm not here because of that and I
think you know it. I came because I..." He looks down at the ground, then
back at me. "You deserve more than not knowing where

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you're going or how long you'll be there. Don't you want more ?
Don't you-- ?"

"You don't get it. It's all I've ever known. All I've ever had.
What you have, what everyone else has, a normal life--I've never had that. I'm
never going to fit in anywhere, never going to be able to stop--"

He presses two fingers to my mouth and I stare at him, silenced
and waiting, a fierce heat rushing through me.

"You can stop," he says. "You can do whatever you
want."

I pull back, startled by what he's said, by how he's made me feel.

"Why? Because you say so?" I'm trying to sound tough but
have to settle for surprised and breathless.

He grins. "No. Because you can say so."

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29

Mom comes home really late and in a strange mood. She's smiling
but it doesn't reach her eyes, just stretches as a false curve across her
mouth. She asks me what I'm watching but clearly doesn't listen to my answer,
stands next to the sofa with one hand curved tight into it, pressing so hard
her fingers sink deep into the cushion.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she says, but the words come out slowly,
strangled and breathless. I turned off all the lights earlier, but in the
flickering glow of the talk show that I'm not really watching, her face is
strained, lit blue and red and green as she tries too hard to breathe normally.
Before I can say anything else she turns away and goes upstairs.

I turn off the television and follow her, but by

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the time I get upstairs her bedroom door is closing. I think about
saying something, about telling her she has to go to the doctor, and catch the
door with one hand. I push it open, peer inside.

Mom hasn't turned on any lights and is standing framed by moonlight
coming in through the windows, reduced to nothing but a shadow. I push the door
open more, clinging to it like a security blanket, like it will tell me how to
say what I want to.

"I'm tired," she says sharply. "I just need some
sleep. That's all."

"Mom-"

"I'm tired," she says again, and this time it sounds
like a plea. I've never heard her sound like this before. I back out of the
room, stand in the hall staring at the door I've pulled closed, at my hand
resting on it. Eventually I walk to my room, get ready for bed. I don't sleep.

In the morning I'm up extra early and wait anxiously for Mom to
get up. I make coffee, and when it sits so long it gets cold, I dump it out and
make more. When she finally comes downstairs she heads for the door and before
I can even say a word she calls me over, tells me she's going out, and hands me
a cell,

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saying, "Come get me when I call you, okay?"

I know what this means. She's picked a house, found a collection
of silver she wants to hold in her hands but she can't really be serious about
this. This area is too small and we're way too well known. I grin at her, or
try to, and she just gives me a look.

She's serious.

It hasn't even been two weeks since I walked out of the
Donaldsons' with a bag slung over my shoulder and she greeted with me a smile,
and now she's going to try and steal silver from someone else? She's been
reckless sometimes, but she's never been stupid. But this? This is stupid.

I can't say that to her though. I never would, not before and not
now, definitely not now, and so I just stand there looking at the cell she's
given me and listening to her breathe. She sounds normal today. Maybe that's a
sign. Maybe things will be okay.

She doesn't say good-bye. She just leaves. After she's gone I put
on my shoes and then take them off. I put the car key in my pocket and then
decide to leave it on the hook by the front door. I pick up Dennis's card and
fold it into thirds. I put it in my pocket.

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I turn the television on and flip through the channels, then turn
it off. I make a peanut butter sandwich and eat half of it, tearing the crusts
into smaller and smaller pieces. I walk around the house. I get the car key and
put it back in my pocket. I make sure the cell is on.

I take Dennis's card out of my pocket and fold it into thirds the
other way, then put it back in my pocket. I check to make sure the cell is on
again.

I can't stand this. I want to go out and find her. I want to--I
don't want to help her. I should, but I don't. I want to leave town. I want to
stop this, stop all of it.

I want to stop. I wonder what she would say if I told her that.

I shouldn't say it.

I want to, though.

Why hasn't she called ?

I put my shoes back on. I open the window and try to listen to the
ocean. I shut the window and turn the television back on. I watch and walk
around and around the room, waiting. The afternoon lasts forever, four o'clock
creeping to ten minutes after, crawling

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to fourteen minutes after. At four thirty I make another sandwich,
but can only eat half of it again.

At twenty minutes after five I decide I won't say anything. I'll
just pick her up when she calls. Things will be better after we get out of
here. Everything will go back to normal. I just want to see her. At five thirty
I take the phone and go outside, get in the car. I start it.

I can't leave, can't go looking for her. Mom's never been much for
rules, but one of the few she's always made me swear to follow is that no
matter what, I will always wait for her. I've done this all my life. I've
waited and she's always come back. Always. I go back in the house. Twenty
minutes till six.

"Ring," I tell the phone. It doesn't. I think about saying
it again but I can guess what will happen.

The phone does ring, finally, at seventeen minutes past six. I
answer it before the first ring has even stopped. "Where are you?"

There's silence for a moment, and then an unfamiliar voice says,
"I'm calling from the emergency room at Provincetown Hospital."

The voice keeps talking but there's a roaring in my

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ears like the ocean but louder, a million times louder, and it's
all I can hear. The voice keeps talking and I catch a few words, feel them
smash into me.

Collapsed

Difficulty breathing

Emergency procedure

I hear a strange brittle snap and realize I'm holding the phone so
tight it's cracking around the seam that holds both halves together.

"Are you there?" the voice says, and now it sounds a
little unsure. "Are you a family member? It was hard to understand what
she was saying when we asked who we should contact and--"

"Mom," I manage to say. "She's my mom."

The voice tells me how to get to the hospital, talks about exits
and the interstate. I want to ask how Mom got there but the words won't come. I
just hold the phone in my hand while I walk to the car, nodding as I listen to
the directions as if the voice can see me. The voice cuts off, the phone going
silent as I'm halfway down the driveway, and I have to stop at the end of it
because I don't know where to go, have forgotten where all the roads are,

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forgotten where each one leads.

I stare at the phone. It tells me "call ended." I'm waiting
for my mind to wake up, to remember, and then all the words I heard come back,
collapsed
emergency procedure difficulty breathing,
and I drive.

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30

Once, when I was younger, Mom sent me to the library to do
research and I ended up reading a book instead. I don't remember who wrote it
but the cover had a girl on it. She was standing in the middle of a grassy
field and it looked like she was staring off into the distance but I could tell
she wasn't. She had this look on her face, a look I couldn't place but somehow
knew, and so I pulled the book off the rack it was sitting on and read it.

It sucked. The girl lived in the country like a hundred years ago
and spent all her time thinking about being a schoolteacher. That was it. That
was the whole story. I stopped halfway through and looked at the cover again. I
would have pulled it off the book and taken it with me, but there was a woman
sitting across from me with a little kid in her arms, staring at me like

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she knew what I was thinking. I put the book back and walked away,
but I never forgot that girl's face.

It wasn't even a real face, just some picture, but I still never
forgot it. And when I walk into the hospital I realize why I didn't. In the
clear glass of the sliding doors that girl's face looks back at me. The girl on
the coyer of that book was frightened. She'd seen something happen, something
that had scared her, and all she could do was wait for what came next.

The doors slide open and I walk inside.

There's fluid in Mom's lungs. A lot of fluid. So much fluid that
the emergency clinic she was first taken to had to send her here. This is all
I'm told, first by a nurse and then by a doctor. The doctor asks me a bunch of
questions, though. Has Mom been coughing? How long has she been coughing? Has
she fainted? Had any dizzy spells? Shortness of breath? Stomach problems? Any
irregular bleeding? He nods after everything I say, even when I say, "I
don't know." The only time he doesn't nod is when I tell him I want to see
her.

That gets me an actual reply. A "No, not at this time."

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I can't see Mom because the fluid in her lungs is being removed.
The doctor doesn't tell me this. He's already gone. The nurse tells me. It's
this same nurse who tells me what happened, steering me toward the waiting room
as she explains that my mother collapsed while walking down a street and ended
up here.

I stare at the nurse. That's not the whole story. I want to know
everything. Where exactly was Mom? Did she stop and sink slowly to the ground?
Or did it happen suddenly, her whole body giving way like something inside her
was broken? Did she say anything when she was found? What does "difficulty
breathing" mean? Why does she have to undergo an emergency procedure? But
the nurse is already turning away.

If Mom were here she'd tell me not to call attention to myself.
She'd tell me to wait, just like she did this morning.

I follow the nurse. I tell her I want to ask a few questions. She
smiles at me tiredly. She says she has other patients. I say, "I'll
wait." She says someone will be with me soon. I say, "I just want to
know what happened to her."

The nurse frowns. I don't move. I say, "Please," I

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say, "She's my mother." I say, "I'm scared."