The Care and Handling of Roses With Thorns (19 page)

24

I
SHOULD BE RELAXING OR WORKING IN THE ROSE GARDEN,
cutting away all the dead English roses, but instead I am lying on my bed, my head under my pillow. From my stomach escape great big juicy sobs that I hope will be muffled by the comforter and fake goose down and the walls, not to mention the television.

It might have been hours or seconds before Riley knocks on my door. “Are you okay, Aunt Gal?”

I look at the clock’s green display. Six-thirty. I’ve missed dinner. I sniffle. I have worked myself into a hyperventilated state. When I get like this, I can barely talk, barely think.

“Aunt Gal?” Riley is insistent.

What do I tell her? I don’t want her to see me like this. She’ll be alarmed, call for help. “I need to be alone,” I call back.

She pauses. “All right.” I hear her footsteps shuffling into the kitchen, hear the phone being taken off the hook.

I blow my nose. What is Riley, if not alone? She was alone last night during dialysis, alone after school for the most part, alone with her mother. Alone with me. Always alone. It’s a shame for a kid to grow up that way.

I drink a bit of water. I’m having another Blues Day. The emotion must occasionally be released out of me like a too-inflated tire or I will pop. It’s been too much. Dr. O’Malley. Dara. Walters. Dr. Blankenship. Dialysis. I look ahead and all I can see is unfulfilling part-time work, losing roses, and endless machines hooked up to my body.

In short, this shit wears you down.

I take a deep breath and give myself a pep talk. This feeling will pass. It always does. My eyes dry. I sit all the way up. Riley’s voice comes through the wall. I wonder who she’s talking to, and then she knocks on my door. “Grandma wants to talk to you,” she says.

I pick up the extension.

“Gal?” Mom’s voice is tense. “Gal, are you all right?”

“Fine.”

“You’re not. You’re having a Blues Day.” She clucks softly, trying to soothe me through the digital phone lines as though she’s stroking my hair. I close my eyes. “Gal, Riley thinks you’re crying because of her.”

I focus on the wall. “I’m not.”

“I know that. But she ruined those roses, and she thinks you’re mad at her, honey.” She clucks again. “I can be up there tomorrow morning. You need help, don’t you?”

I inhale, thinking. Riley’s been here, what, only a little more than a month? It hasn’t been long. It seems like longer. A lot has happened.

“Gal?”

“Maybe Riley ought to live with you, Mom.” I exhale at last, light-headed.

“Maybe so,” my mother agrees, without missing a beat, as though she has expected and prepared for this call. “It is a lot to handle for you, isn’t it? It’s hard enough having a kid, but getting one that’s already a teenager . . .”

Tears start again. “I tried, Mom.”

“I know.”

“It’s the kidney and the roses and everything all together.” I lie back on the bed. “She’s not getting the attention she needs. She’s alone too much. I’m not enough for her.”

“You’re more than enough for anyone, Gal,” Mom says loyally and predictably.

“No. I’m not. I am not capable of taking care of her like she needs.” I wipe my nose. “Riley got a pretty bad deal, didn’t she? First her mom. Then her dad. Now me.”

“I’ll be there tomorrow, Galilee.” Mom hangs up gently.

I go out to the living room. Riley has her feet up on the coffee table, pink socks on. She is eating a microwaved carne asada burrito wrapped in a paper towel and watching
Wheel of Fortune
. She looks up at me expectantly.

I sit in the chair. “I’m not mad at you, Riley. Not at all.” Vanna White is wearing a gold gown with a Cinderella skirt. The contestants clap and all have wide, white smiles and a thousand teeth. “I’m going through a lot. It’s not you. In fact, it’s unfair to you.”

“What’s unfair to me?” Riley takes a bite of her burrito, holding her mouth open to let the steam escape.

I spread my arms apart. “This whole situation. Leaving you alone so I can go to dialysis. It’s too much to ask of you.”

Riley shakes her head. “It’s not. I told you, I’m fine.”

I lean toward her. “You say you’re fine, but you’re not. You need more people around you, Riley.”

She takes another bite, focuses on Pat Sajak. “Free market evaluation!” she says to the television.

“Focus, Riley. I’m trying to have a serious conversation here.” I tap her knee gently.

She glances at me. “I am focused. You want me to go.”

“No. I don’t. I like having you here.” I realize this is true. Having another person here is comforting. But what is comforting to me may not be what Riley needs. “It might not be best for you, Riley.”

She eats the last of her burrito with her fingers.

“Riley? Are you okay with that? Living with Grandma?” My eyes are trained on her face.

She nods carelessly, still trained on the television, as though it doesn’t matter one whit to her either way.

I sit awkwardly until my stomach rumbles. “Is that all you want to say?”

She swallows her final bite. “Yeah.”

I rub my hands with my fingertips. They’re still dry from the clay. “How about we go over the trebuchet some more? Make sure you know how to read the metric ruler, do the equations. What do you say?”

She nods, wadding her paper towel up and throwing it across the room into the open kitchen trash can.

I stand up. “Let me get something to eat. Then we’ll work.”

She nods again, stretching out on the couch like a big cat.

I go into the kitchen and stare into the cupboards for a full five minutes, transfixed by all there is and isn’t to eat, listening for Riley with one ear, wondering what I could have done differently.

My mother arrives alone in the morning. She brings only a small overnight bag plus a pillow, because she is particular about her pillows and needs a special one made of foam and contoured to fit her neck.

She has more trouble than usual getting out of the car. I gesture to Riley to lend Mom a hand. She rises with a hearty
oof
. “How are my girls?” She envelops us both. Mom smells of vanilla and something fruity, pear, perhaps, along with the linseed oil she uses in her painting and which is probably stuck on her clothing someplace. Her hair is a fat doughnut on top of her head.

“I like this perfume better.” I sound muffled, my cheek pressed by Mom’s hand.

Half of Riley’s face is smooshed into Mom’s shoulder. Her one open eye meets mine and we both giggle.

“Let me breathe, Grandma.” Riley steps back.

“You look so nice!” Grandma takes her by the hand and spins her around, ballroom dancer style. “I love your hair.”

“Thanks.” Riley touches it proudly. “My friend cut it for me.” At this mention of Samantha, Riley grows still. I know she’s thinking “former friend,” and I think of Dara.

Mom looks from me to Riley and back again. She grins. “Who wants ice cream?”

“It’s ten o’clock in the morning, Mother.” I pick up her bag. She takes it from me roughly.

“It’s ice cream time someplace in the world.” She hefts the bag, clutching the railing, moving with a slow limp into the house.

• • •

I
INSIST ON WAITING
until after lunch for ice cream. Riley makes herself the smallest meal possible: two frozen chicken nuggets and a handful of baby carrots. “That’s a toddler lunch,” I say. Riley downs the food before I can sit down at the table with my salad.

“I don’t want to get filled up.” She beams.

“Good idea,” Mom says, and ruffles Riley’s hair. “Gal, don’t you have any soda for Riley?”

“Of course not.” I have never bought soda. Expensive sugar water. Mom buys it by the case. I fear if Riley lives with Mom, she will gain two hundred pounds and her teeth will fall out. I’ll simply have to remind Mom that she won’t be able to spoil her grandchild like that when she lives with her.

Mom makes herself a small plain green salad, iceberg lettuce. “Rabbit food,” she says. “Doctor says losing weight will help my hip.”

“You need nutrition.” I scoop baby carrots on her plate. “And protein.”

She wrinkles her nose. “I’m saving my calories for ice cream.”

I sigh.

We go to the locally made ice cream shop in town, a place called Bub’s, next door to the movie theater in a strip mall. The walls and floors are covered in dark wood paneling, thick with yellow lacquer. Hanging yellow glass and wrought-iron chandeliers from the seventies complete the scene.

“What’ll it be?” Bub himself is working the counter today, a small older man known for contributing to local schools.

Riley salivates at the menu, which stretches all the way across the back wall and features customer-created concoctions as well as Bub’s own. “Get what you want,” Mom says.

Riley does a happy dance. “I’ll have the Dream Boat hot fudge sundae.” Two scoops of chocolate and raspberry cheesecake ice cream, followed by hot fudge and sliced strawberries on top, whipped cream and a cherry, too, of course.

Mom frowns. “Let’s see. May I get a child cone of vanilla?”

“All those calories saved up and you’re only going to get a vanilla?” I laugh. If I could get anything, I’d have what Riley is having.

“I like the pure flavor of vanilla. It’s very complex.”

“We use real vanilla bean. It’s delicious,” Bub agrees. He peers at me from under his baseball cap, green eyes bright in his sun-reddened face. “What will you have, ma’am?”

“Ma’am” makes Dara feel old. I feel respected. I smile. “Nothing, thank you.”

“I can give you a sample.” He holds up a tiny spoon. “Anything you like.”

I shake my head regretfully. My favorite flavor used to be butter pecan. Here Bub has a macadamia butter nut with caramel streaks, which appears to be a close approximation.

My mother squeezes my shoulder. “If I had your willpower, Gal, I’d weigh eighty pounds less.”

I nod, once.

“I’m sorry. I should have come here with Riley alone.”

“No. I don’t mind.” They get their treats and we sit in the sunshine at a black wrought-iron table on the front patio. It’s unusually quiet for a Saturday.

As I sit and watch them eat their ice cream for a few minutes, I think of what it will be like when Riley leaves with my mother. To sit alone again.

At least I won’t have to go to the ice cream parlor. I smile ruefully.

Mom senses what I’m pondering. “Have you talked to her?” She nods her head toward Riley.

“If I hadn’t, then it would be mighty awkward right now.” Mom is sometimes not very subtle.

Mom gets down to her sugar cone and begins crunching. “Riley. You’re coming home with me at the end of the weekend?”

“I am?” Riley wipes her face with a paper napkin.

“Aren’t you?” I shift my legs on the hard chair.

Mom holds up her hands. “Everyone stop answering questions with questions. Riley. Do you want to come back with me tomorrow night, or stay here until the end of the school year?”

Riley stirs her ice cream into soup. “I can’t decide. Whatever Aunt Gal wants.”

“That’s not an answer. Make a decision.”

“But I don’t know!” She lifts her head up. Her cheeks and nose are pink. “I thought you meant at the end of the year, but if you want me to go now, I will.”

“Riley. It’s not that I want you to go.” I put my hand over hers. “It’s that I don’t think I’m a very good guardian for you. I have dialysis every other night and I have those roses.” I take a deep breath that hurts my chest. “I just want you to be safe and comfortable.”

Mom watches us, her head moving back and forth as though watching a tennis match. “I think she should stay and finish the year,” Mom says at last. “It doesn’t make sense to go now. There’s only a month of school left.”

Riley brightens. “Okay.” She pours the melted ice cream into her mouth from the silver bowl.

Mom nods slowly at me. I nod back. “Why are we nodding?”

“I can stay with you until the end of the school year. Help out.” Mom smiles. “Would you like me to do that?”

I think of Mom on my pull-out couch for the next month. Not one, but two extra bodies. Dad alone down south. “I’ll be fine.”

A black Audi pulls into the parking spot in front of us. My heart speeds up. Sure enough, Dara exits, not waiting for Mr. Morton to come around and open her car door as he is trying to do. She swishes up in her circle skirt and sweater set, looking like an extra from
Grease
, except she’s got on strappy heels instead of saddle shoes.

“Mrs. Garner!” Dara bends and embraces Mom. Mr. Morton shakes her hand.

“Dara. So nice to see you.” Mom gestures to the table next to us. “Why don’t you join us?”

“Can’t. We’re seeing a movie.” She stands apart from Mr. Morton. I see that she is indeed quite a bit taller than he is, with her heels on. This gives me a measure of satisfaction, for some reason.

Dara nods at me. I nod back.

He checks his watch. Wearing a sports coat to a movie, over jeans. Dating Dara must be difficult. If you ever wore shorts and a T-shirt, you’d look hopelessly underdressed. “Come on, Dara. We’ll be late.”

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t approve of,” Mom calls after them.

They laugh, Dara waving her off.

Riley picks up her dish. “Guess that means they won’t be doing much of anything.”

“Hey, I have plenty of fun. Painting and traveling. You’d be surprised how much fun you can have, and how much you can get done, if you don’t fritter away your time watching trashy movies and the like.” Mom hands her napkin to Riley, who throws it away. She grins. “Now, how about a Costco trip for you?”

25

A
FTER THE
C
OSTCO TRIP,
I
INSIST AGAIN THAT
I
WILL BE
okay, that Mom can leave as scheduled on Sunday afternoon. She has bought me enough warehouse supplies for the next several months. I have toilet paper stored under my kitchen sink, in various crevices in the garage, as well as in the actual bathroom.

“Are you certain you can handle Riley?” Mom says to me as we unload the dishwasher.

I shrug, then nod. “Yeah.”

“Heard from Becky?”

“Not recently. Riley talks to her sometimes, but I don’t think she’s been able to contact her for a week. She hasn’t said when she’ll be back.”

“I’ll pin her down.” Mom closes the glass cupboard with some force. “It’s important for Riley to have stability.”

“I agree.”

“Becky should either let Riley spend the rest of high school with me, or come home and be a real mom.” Mom wipes away some excess water from a bowl.

“You mean, not take pills or drink?” I clank silverware into the drawer. “You might be asking too much.”

“I don’t think she does that anymore.” Mom begins work on the egg pan in the sink. “I know she still has a drink every once in a while, but it’s not as bad as it was.”

“You just can’t stop doing something like that, Mom.”

“At least she’s functional. Holds a job.” Mom hums a tuneless song, a furrow forming between her brows. She doesn’t like to hear anything bad about her kids, true or not.

“For now.”

“I know you’ve given up on your sister, but I think she’s improved. Give her a chance.” Mom dries her hands, reaches into her purse. “Before I forget. Here’s a check. Becky wired money into my account. I’m to give it to you.” She hands me the check. It’s for a pretty good amount, I have to admit. More than enough for Riley’s food and extra utilities and the like. “Or you could give her your account number, so she can transfer it directly to you.”

I pocket it. “There’s no way I’m giving Becky any access to my account.”

“Dad will wire the next one from our account into yours.” Mom finishes cleaning the pan, puts it on the drying rack.

“If it comes,” I mutter darkly.

“It will. It will.” Mom kisses me on the cheek. “Have a little faith, Gal.”

• • •

O
N
T
UESDAY AFTERNOON,
Dr. Blankenship wants to see me. We meet in her regular office, with her leather chairs and computer and desk, instead of the exam room. She never sees me in there unless she’s handing out news. I clutch my tote bag nervously.

Dr. Blankenship sits behind a great big cherrywood desk with an L-shaped return against a wall overlooking a parking lot. She has a Chinese money plant, lucky bamboo in a vase, and a miniature Zen sand garden with a tiny wooden rake all set up along the return. There’s a red lantern hanging in one corner of the room, and a mirror opposite her entry door. There are so many of these things I wonder for a second if she’s part Chinese.

She sees me looking at her collection. “Feng shui,” she says. “Good health and wealth. Helps energy flow.”

I purse my lips. She believes in energy flow, but she won’t believe in IVP dye allergy? She must see my surprise, because she shrugs. “Hey, I have a lucky rabbit’s foot I rub before surgery. I have some superstitions. Can’t hurt, can it?”

“I suppose not.” I regard her warily. Today she’s wearing a bit of makeup, blush to make her white skin glow a bit healthier, better concealer over the dark under-eye circles, mascara on her light-colored lashes.

“Mark Walters sent me something interesting.” She throws down a printout of the medical journal article. The pages fan out across the desk.

I gulp, bracing myself. “Let me guess. You read it. You disagree.”

“Nope. I read it and met with my surgery board, and now,” she takes a breath, “now I’m thinking all we need to do is put the stinking kidney on the right side instead of the left, and blood flow won’t be an issue.”

I swear at that moment all my bodily functions cease. I am suspended in the air. I hope it won’t hurt when I fall.

She continues as if this is an entirely normal and everyday conversation. “I’m not one who can’t admit that there are other ways of doing things, that she might be wrong. It’s all in there.”

I stare at her, uncomprehending.

She shuffles the report back together in a neater pile. “You’re back on the transplant list, Gal.”

Somehow my brain revives. “You’re serious?”

She nods, giving me what I think is the first genuine smile ever. “You have Mr. Walters to thank, Gal. And the review board.”

Of course. When you can no longer come up with reasons not to do something, you have to do it or get the pants sued off you. I don’t ask her why she wasn’t keeping up with the research, why she needed another patient, for heaven’s sake, to tell her. The only thing I have to hold on to is that Dr. Blankenship’s surgery skills are actually pretty damn good, with high survival rates. “Thank you. What’s my priority number?”

“Top ten. You know, we go down the list and whoever is the best match gets it.”

I nod. It’s been so long, I’ve forgotten how it works.

Dr. Blankenship stands. “The kidney transplant coordinator will be in touch with you later today. She’ll go over any questions you have and also make sure the match is right for you.” It sounds like she’s talking about a matchmaking operation, not a kidney surgery. I smile.

I hold out my hand. “Thank you.”

She hesitates before taking it. “Gal. You’re the most challenging patient I’ve ever had.”

I laugh drily, because what else can I do? “Thanks.”

“That can be bad. And good.” She takes a breath. “What I’m trying to say is, I’m going to do my best for you, no matter what. Okay?”

“I appreciate it.” I grin.

She waves me off. “Have a good session. Go call your mother.”

• • •

M
R.
W
ALTERS
is in the waiting room, alternating between humming and chatting up the various old and young ladies around him. He wears white shorts today, with a white long-sleeved button-down shirt and brown leather sandals. I walk right up to him.

“Thank you.” I extend my hand.

He takes it. “So she did agree.”

“You didn’t have to do that.” I sit down next to him. The awful truth is I’m not sure I would have done the same for him. “I could get a transplant before you.”

His chipper attitude is unabated. “It’s out of our hands. The best match gets it. You and I do not require the same kidney, Gal. It’s all up to fate now.”

“I hate fate.” I cross my arms.

“Fate’s a bitch.” He grins, then slaps me on my arm. “Tell you what. As long as we’ve got to be strapped to these machines, how about a game of Scrabble?”

Would the nurse move one of us out when it was time for sleep? “Can’t spell worth a darn.”

“Then it will be even more fun.” He grins.

I pat my tote bag. “I’ve got lessons to plan.” This is only partly true. I’ve had my lessons planned for weeks, because I decide on the plan at the beginning of the semester. It’s basically the one from last year. “Maybe next time.”

He nods. Do I detect a note of disappointment? Does he like me? He can’t. He’s old enough to be my father. But maybe he thinks I’m his age.

“I’m thirty-six, you know,” I blurt. Everyone in the room, young and old, snaps their attention to me.

Mark smiles slyly. “Congratulations. I’m fifty-nine.”

I sit straight up in my chair. “I just thought you might like to know that.”

“I will remember. Thirty-seven candles for your next birthday cake. When is that?” His eyes twinkle. They remind me of how I try to hold in my laughter when a student does something especially funny while they’re trying for utmost seriousness.

“January thirty-first.” I flush.

He bends his head in a nod. “And what is your favorite cake?”

“Depends on what I’m allowed to eat.”

“Let’s be optimistic. By your next birthday, you shall have a new kidney.” Walters crosses his legs. “Pick a cake, any cake at all.”

I consider, scrolling through all the cakes I’ve ever tried in my mind’s eye. I settle on one. A complicated concoction. “Baked Alaska. Over a chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream.”

One eyebrow shoots toward the ceiling. “Impressive. And shall it be a flaming baked Alaska?”

I nod. “Of course.”

“Had it before?” He actually takes out his BlackBerry and types something in.

“My mother made one for me after I got my first kidney, when I was twelve.” I smile. “Twelve egg whites for the meringue. She couldn’t bear to throw out the yolks, so she made a custard the next day. She put on five pounds from that event alone.” Worth every pound, Mom had said. Would have been worth twenty.

He laughs so hard he dissolves into a cough, a hacking, choking one, turning his face into the color of a beet, little white lines appearing around his eyes.

“Can you breathe?”

Walters holds up a hand, a wheezing noise emitting out of his mouth. Nurse Sonya rushes over with a Dixie cup of water. He gulps it. I see how skinny his neck looks as the water goes down. I wonder what he looked like when he was healthy.

He thanks the Sonya for the water, then continues talking to me as if he hadn’t just nearly choked to death. “I think the candles might sink into the meringue.”

“Use bigger candles.”

He laughs again. “You’re a problem-solver.”

Sonya calls my name. I get up. “See you in the morning, probably.”

“See you.” His BlackBerry is out again. I hesitate. Maybe I could play one game. I could suggest Sequence or cards instead of Scrabble. But now the nurse is calling my name, insistently, and I don’t want to make trouble by rearranging rooms and pushing around beds. I leave Mr. Walters, bent over his little black phone, his big lean fingers mashing down the keys.