The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus (20 page)

Behind that closed door—

a lightning storm is crashing

through my mother's skull.

When they wheel my mother out

and I rush to her side,

her eyes widen and fill with tears.

“Holly?!” she cries. “Why didn't you tell me

you were coming to Cleveland?

Is it really
you?”

“Yes, Mom,” I say,

gathering her into a hug.

“Is it really
you?”

I bury my face in her soft neck,

and we hold each other for a moment.

Then she pulls back, and sniffs the air.

“Oh, my…” she says,

a hopeful grin spreading across her face.

“Do I smell…butterscotch?”

I reach into my purse

and pull out one of Samantha's brownies.

She plucks it from my hand and wolfs it down.

“I have died and gone to brownie heaven,” she sighs.

“Do you have any more of those?

I feel as if I haven't eaten in days.”

I hand my mother another brownie.

And she's so busy scarfing it down

that she doesn't even notice

when Dr. Gold and I exchange a high five.

When she wakes up,

and sees me sitting next to her bed,

her eyes widen and fill with tears.

“Holly!” she cries. “How wonderful

to see you! Why didn't you
tell
me

you were coming to Cleveland?”

I lean in,

giving her a squeeze, and say,

“I…I wanted to surprise you, Mom.”

A few minutes later, I step out of the room

so that I can see what happens

when I come back in.

Sure enough—

my mother's just as stunned and delighted

when she sees me walk through the door.

And for the next few hours,

I keep finding excuses to leave the room,

so that I can delight my mother upon my return.

I guess

every shock treatment

has a silver lining.

While
I
paint

my mother's fingernails and toes.

Then, out of the blue, she says,

“That Dr. Hack was a real hunk.

But he had the most god-awful chuckle,

didn't he?”

It takes me

a few minutes

to stop laughing.

Then my mother says,

“Did you bring any photos of…of…”

She pauses, trying to remember.

“Of…Sabrina?” she finally says.

“You mean Samantha?” I say.

“That's what I said,” she murmurs.

So I pull out my recent favorite shot—

taken in the backyard

just before Sam left for college.

“Look at those eyes!” she says.

“I swear—one glance from that child

could turn winter into spring…”

But then she peers more closely at the picture,

furrows her brows, and asks,

“Why does your pepper tree look so bare?”

My pepper tree…?

A jolting emptiness fills my chest.

“Oh, Mom…” I say, my voice cracking.

“What is it, dear? What's the matter?”

She reaches over to circle me with her frail arms.

“It got sick, Mom. We had to cut it down…”

Tears well up in my eyes.

“That must have been hard for you,” she says.

“It was,” I say. “It was so hard…”

My mother pats my back,

rocks me,

lets me cry.

When I finally quiet, she says,

“You need to go home now, Holly.

Go home to Michael and plant a new tree.”

And, of course,

she is exactly

right.

I stop in to see Dr. Gold, before

heading down the hall to see my mother.

He sits behind his desk—

his eyes as merry as Christmas.

He tells me that after just one shock treatment

not only has my mother's appetite returned,

but the physical therapist says she was finally

willing to participate in rehab this morning.

He says he's confident

that with just a half dozen more treatments

and maybe a month or two of rehab,

he'll be able to send my mother home.

“How can I ever thank you?” I say.

Dr. Gold smiles at me and says,

“Just send me a batch

of Samantha's brownies.”

And, as if on cue,

my cell phone rings,

and Samantha's name

appears on the screen.

I hold up the phone to show the doctor.

He raises an eyebrow and says,

“I hope it was her
ears
that were burning.

Not her brownies!”

And when he begins chuckling

at his own little joke,

I'm struck by the lovely, quiet sound of it—

like water flowing over smooth stones.

Samantha says

she's walking though the quad

looking up at the bell tower,

and that it looks

exactly like a postcard

of how a college
should
look.

And just then,

the bells begin to ring—

great booming, echoing, peals of them.

She laughs and says,

“And it
sounds
exactly like

a college should
sound!”

She says the leaves are falling.

She says the air is frosty.

She says, “Thank you, thank you,
thank
you!”

She tells me

she can't believe

how lucky she is.

And I tell her

I can't believe

how lucky
I
am.

My phone rings again.

I check the number

and see that—
shit!
—it's Roxie.

I let it go to voice mail.

But a second later,

it rings again.

And this time it's Alice,

sounding oddly breathless.

“Oh, Holly,” she says,

“I'm so glad you picked up.”

And right away, I know

that something is very wrong.

“Alice,” I say. “What's the matter?”

“It's…it's Michael. I'm sure he's

going to be totally fine, but Noah and I

just drove him to the emergency room.”

An orderly brushes past me,

pushing someone lying on a table—

someone entirely covered with a sheet…

My knees begin to quake.

“Oh my God, Alice. What's wrong with him?”

She tells me that they aren't sure yet,

but that Michael called her a half hour ago

and said he was in a lot of pain.

He said that it came on fast.

That at first he thought maybe it was his appendix.

“But then,” Alice says, “he went to the bathroom

and…and…”

“And
what?”
I say.

“Well…” she says. “There was a teeny bit…

a teeny bit of blood in his pee.”

My heart skids to a stop.

“Is he there? Can I talk to him?”

“Not right now. They're running some tests.

But he asked me to call you

and tell you he loves you.”

“Tell him I love him, too,” I say.

“Tell him I'll catch the next plane out.”

And when Alice doesn't say,

“Don't be silly. You don't need to fly home.”

a tsunami of terror engulfs me.

It isn't until a couple of harrowing hours later,

when the flight

that I somehow managed to get a seat on

is zooming me home to California,

that I find myself

thinking about

how dangerously close

I came

to doing

what I almost did

when I was stuck in the elevator

with He Who Shall Not Be Named.

And my stomach lurches so violently

that I pull the airsickness bag

out of the seat pocket in front of me.

Just to play it safe.

When your husband's

in the hospital

due to the mystery pains

knifing through his abdomen

and he sends you home to feed the cat

and pick up a few things for him

while you're waiting

to hear the test results

and you happen to notice

his scruffy bedroom slippers,

the ones you're always tripping over

because he forgets to put them in the closet,

those same aggravatingly old-mannish slippers of his,

whose presence there on any other day

would have irritated

the living daylights out of you,

isn't it strange

to find yourself fighting a sudden urge

to reach down and scoop them up

into an embrace,

those tattered old mutts

standing guard so faithfully

next to the empty

unmade bed?

And, braving the morass of Michael's studio,

I somehow manage to locate the sketchbook

and the charcoal pencils he asked me to retrieve.

Then I head outside to pick some roses for him.

I'm snipping a bouquet of Double Delights,

when I glance next door

and see Duncan and Jane

rocking on their covered swing.

Madison and Pinkie

are curled up next to them,

both of them

deep in dreams.

Suddenly, Jane takes hold

of her husband's hand

and places it on her full moon belly.

“Did you feel
that?!”
she says.

“Wow…” Duncan says.

“Our baby's gonna be a drummer!”

“Just like her daddy,” Jane says.

And a proud-papa grin spreads across his face.

Then, very lightly,

he starts drumming on her stomach

and Jane joins in—

singing “God Only Knows.”

Geez.

I better get out of here

before I start

blubbering…

Michael has dozed off.

That Percocet the nurse gave him

must have knocked him out.

Alice and Noah are snoring away, too.

I gaze at my cousin, drooling on Noah's shoulder,

and my heart nearly cracks with tenderness.

Then I ease down onto the edge of Michael's bed

and reach for his hand—so warm and solid,

so familiar and comforting.

I watch my husband sleep,

moved beyond words by each line on his face—

his “etchings,” he likes me to call them.

I lean down

and gently press my lips

to his.

The

hands

on

the

face

of

the

big

round

clock

on

the

puke

green

wall

move

so

slowly

that

between

each

tick

I

age

ten

years.

But

 

 

this

 

 

is

 

 

ridiculous…

It turns out

it's only kidney stones.

Nothing life threatening.

So Michael's doctor sends us home.

But just as we exit the hospital,

we see Duncan racing in with a groaning Jane—

she's dripping with sweat, her cheeks flushed,

her bangs plastered to her forehead.

“The baby's coming!” Duncan shouts gleefully.

“Good luck!” Michael and I call out

as they dash past us

and disappear into the maternity ward.

A second later, we hear Jane let loose

with a gut-wrenching scream.

“You know something…” Michael muses,

clutching his midsection.

“I think I know just how she feels…”