The Waiting (5 page)

Rain lashed against the window panes and Alice caught brief glimpses of the dark clouds bustling through the night sky between lightning bursts. She hated storms; had since she was a little girl. Her father used to tell her it was just God letting off some steam. That scared her even more.
 

There was a soft knock on the door.
 

“Come in.”

Brian walked in wearing his Reds jersey and baggy sweatpants. She called it his
staying home uniform.
 

“Can we talk for just a sec?” he asked.
 

“Yeah, sure.” Alice shifted in the chair and he motioned for her to stay.
 

“Look, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your coming here and helping take care of Cassandra. If it wasn’t for you, I’d never have been able to bring her home.”

“I told you, you don’t have to thank me.”

He held up a hand. “
And
, I’m especially thankful that you’ve put the house together with the little bit I’ve brought over. If it was just me here, this place would be a disaster. That being said, I think we need to set up some rules about moving my things.”

“Is it the iPod thingy again?”

He’d made such a fuss searching for it the other day. Even furniture was turned upside down in his hunt. She was the one who found it, sitting in the flatware drawer, when she was making dinner.
 

Brian had a lot on his plate, and she tried to explain that he was bound to forget things, to do stuff out of his normal routine. It was a miracle he remembered to put on pants every morning.
 

“No, that’s where it should be, or at least it was last time I checked,” he said. “I’d just appreciate it if when you see my stuff around the house, you leave it there.”

“Honey, you have to help me out here. What stuff are you talking about?”

He sighed and leaned against the door. Thunder rumbled.
 

“I had a clipped pile of insurance forms that have to be in the mail tomorrow. I know they looked like a mess, but I was planning on going through all of them tonight. Please don’t tell me you threw them away.”

Alice knew she had to choose her words carefully. He was being polite, but she could see and even feel the anger stirring just below the surface. Brian was always happy, outgoing, the loudest in any group. Lately, she’d noticed a big change. Sure, since the wedding, he’d been somber, distraught, stressed to the max, but his kindness and humor were always present.
 

Since going back to work, he’d been quiet, moody. He hadn’t blown up yet, but she could see it would happen soon.
 

“I know what you’re talking about. They were on your dresser and I knew to leave them alone. In fact, I saw them there about an hour ago when I went to give Cassie a sponge bath.”

Brian rolled his neck until it cracked and he flexed his fingers, balling them into tight fists. “Shit. If I don’t get them done, I could be hit with a ten-thousand-dollar bill that’ll take months for the reimbursement. And I don’t have ten grand in my account.”

Alice rose from her seat, dropping her Bible on the bed. “Come on, I’ll help you look.”

“I’ll find them. Sorry I bothered you.” He turned away before she could respond and ran down the stairs.
 

She stood in her doorway, listening to him grumble and curse as he stormed throughout the house. Multiple shards of lightning lit up the room. Strange, unfamiliar shadows leapt onto the walls and in that brief moment, she thought she saw a small, dark shape dart across the hall. It had happened so fast, she couldn’t be sure what it exactly was that sprang to life in the flicker of a lightning bolt.
 

Alice closed the door. She didn’t want to be able to see into the hallway.
 

It was irrational, downright silly.
 

But something about that imagined shadow startled her, and no amount of rationalization would make her open that door.
 

Chapter Ten

Alice woke up the next day to a quiet house. The storm had passed and Brian had left for work. She put on her slippers and padded down to Cassie’s room. To her surprise, she was awake. Cassie’s eyes moved from the ceiling to her.
 

“Good morning, baby. Mom’s here.” She stroked her cheeks in light brushes with the back of her fingers.
 

Her heart melted when she saw the recognition in her daughter’s eyes. They looked around the room, settling on the infusion pump.
 

“That’s your breakfast, lunch and dinner,” Alice said, smiling. “You can’t believe how great Brian is handling it. I’m still a nervous mess. I worry so much about hurting you.”

Cassandra tried to move her hand. It shook at first, and she was able to raise it an inch off the bed. Alice scooped it into her own.
 

Thank you God!
Alice reveled. This was the first time Cassie had been so aware, had even tried to move without it being something she did in her sleep. She tried to fight back tears but it was a losing battle.
 

Like her daughter, words escaped her. They dove into one another’s eyes, saying a million words between each blink of their lashes.
 

Then Cassie’s gaze drifted to someplace just over her shoulder. Her eyes widened and her lips pulled into a tight line.
 

“Honey, what’s wrong? There’s nothing to be scared of.”
 

Alice turned her head but only saw the dresser beside the window.
 

Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding!

Every alarm went off on the life support machine at once.
 

Brian ran into the house, breathless. Since Alice’s frantic call to his cell, he’d sprinted from the school, leaving third period gym class without supervision. He broke every traffic law on the books driving home and twice almost rear-ended the car in front of him. His heart fluttered like the blades of a weather vane in a hurricane.
 

“What’s wrong?” he shouted.
 

Alice sat on the bed holding Cassandra’s hand. “I don’t know.” The infusion pump whined and screeched. “She was awake and coherent, and then the alarms came on. I didn’t know what to do. I called Louisa, too.”

Brian looked at the machine, saw that it had stopped. Something must be wrong with the line. He clicked the latch and removed the cover, unwound the tubing. There were air bubbles everywhere.
 

“Hold this,” he said, handing a section of the IV tube to Alice.
 

He pulled out a pair of latex gloves from the box by the bed and put them on. Then he lifted Cassandra’s shirt until he could see where it connected to the port by her chest. He placed his fingers on the metal ring just below the surface of her skin and pulled the needle free from the short tube with his other hand.
 

Then he filled a small syringe with heparin, swabbed everything down with alcohol and flushed out the port. People connected to hyperal were at high risk of infection and he could leave nothing to chance.
 

When he was done, his legs gave out and he collapsed into the chair he kept by the bed.
 

Cassandra had been unconscious during the whole ordeal.
 

“If it wasn’t for the warning systems in that machine, she’d be gone,” he said, his voice an octave above a whisper. He brought Cass’s hand to his mouth and kissed it. Alice stood at the foot of the bed, silent, stunned.
 

Louisa came five minutes later and double checked the machine, IV line and bag. When she was sure everything was fine, she reconnected it and cleaned the drains from Cassandra’s stomach.
 

“She’ll be okay,” Louisa said. “Sometimes this happens. You did the right thing, Brian.” She placed a reassuring hand on his upper arm. Her jet black hair was pulled in a ponytail and her almond eyes glimmered with pride.

Brian smiled, but inside, he wanted to scream.

Chapter Eleven

There hadn’t been a repeat of Cassandra’s lucid moment in over a week. In fact, she had gotten worse. She was running a temperature, and a second IV bag, this one loaded with antibiotics, had to be hooked up each day to hold off whatever infection was raging in her body.
 

Louisa had told Brian that the ports inevitably had to be removed because of infection every six months or more. It might be time to take this one out and move it to the other side of her chest. The scars would be far from minimal, but he knew Cass would look at them as a good thing when she pulled out of this.
 

If she pulled out.
 

Brian was supposed to take a physical for work but he’d been putting it off because he knew his blood pressure would be off the charts. He felt like an overfilled water balloon most of the time. The strain was reaching new heights, but he had to keep his shit together.
 

Cassandra came first, and he had to be there for her. But there was so much other crap to do. He hadn’t even looked for the carpets yet and he was in hot water with the principal for leaving the school without telling anyone. And then there were the bills, insurance forms, calls from doctors.

Tony had suggested he join one of those boxing gyms to help relieve the tension. Somehow, he knew punching a speed bag wouldn’t quite cut it. This stress had to be cut down from within, and he wasn’t sure how to do that until his wife got better.
 

He was sitting at the kitchen table when Alice jarred him from his private misery party.
 

“I’m going to the book store. I need to restock. You need anything while I’m out?” She buttoned her fall coat and pulled her hair out from under the collar with her fingers.
 

“If they have one of those miracle cures, you can pick one up for me.” He tried to sound casual, but the crinkling of her eyes told him he failed. They locked in a brief stare-down. He wasn’t about to have his bluff called. Building walls had become his latest expertise. At this rate, he’d be a master in a month.
 

Alice broke first. “Trust me, if that existed, I would have bought it long ago. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

He made a meatloaf and mashed potatoes so he’d have leftovers for the next few days. Money was getting tighter than a violin string and he couldn’t afford to buy lunch every day. The act of cooking, then cleaning, helped to take his mind off things. It was all very zen, losing yourself in the mundane motions of everyday tasks.
 

While scrubbing the meatloaf pan with a wire brush, he decided he’d move the TV into the bedroom tonight and put on Cass’s favorite movie,
Blithe Spirit
. She loved old movies. Maybe that would help the healing process.
 

As he was putting the last of the pans in the cupboard, he heard a sharp crack in the hallway.
 

It sounded as if something heavy had leaned on the old wood flooring.
 

He thought,
That’s not the house settling. That was way too loud
.
 

Brian froze, still bent at the waist, his hand in the cupboard, afraid to drop the pot in its place and mask any follow-up sounds.
 

Crick.
 

That was much softer, like the ticking of the roof when the chill of night set into the old house.
 

Tiny beads of sweat broke out along his hairline.
 

What the hell am I afraid of?

“This is ridiculous,” he said, dropping the pot on the shelf with a loud clang. He pulled the dishtowel off his shoulder and tossed it over the back of a chair.
 

Anything to delay the joy of untangling the wires behind the TV,
he kidded himself.
 

Two steps out of the kitchen, he looked down the hallway and stopped.
 

Who is that?

A small boy stood in the center of the hall.
 

He looked to be about eight or nine, with crew-cut brown hair and small, green eyes. The boy wore a heavy, blue sweater and tan corduroy pants. He stared at Brian, and Brian back at him.
 

Neither spoke.
 

Neither moved.
 

The boy’s face was expressionless. It was as if he were wearing a mask, and a damn good one at that.
 

Brian looked back at the front door to see if it was open. Maybe the kid had wandered in. He didn’t want to scare him.
 

“Hey,” Brian said. “I didn’t hear you come in. You startled me. Do you live around here?”

The boy stared back, silent. Brian realized the kid hadn’t even blinked. Was he in some kind of shock?

“My name’s Brian. What’s yours?”