Unto These Hills (27 page)

Chapter Fourteen

I gripped the storm-door knob, opening it and gesturing. “Come in. My heavens, when did you get in? Doretha didn’t tell —” Doretha, the incurable romantic, still, with everybody but herself. She’d wanted it to be a surprise.

Remarkably, my voice was steady. His gaze never left my face as he replied in a rich baritone (when had his voice deepened so)? “About an hour ago. What can I do to help?”

Help? I stared stupidly at him for a moment, then closed the door behind us. “About Muffin,” he softly clarified.

I shook my head. “I’m not all here, Daniel,” I said weakly, closing my eyes and pulling in a deep steadying breath.

“That’s okay. I understand.” I looked at him then and nearly gasped at the naked emotion on his face. The years melted away and I saw,
knew
that he felt my desolation and helplessness. My pain. It had always been so.

Another knock at the door. This time, it
was
the EMS team. I accompanied them upstairs, used a paper clip to unlock the bedroom door and stood back for them to collect a belligerent, near-incoherent Muffin and deposit her in the ambulance, where they proceeded to monitor her. Her boyfriend of the moment was leaving, saying he would call later to check on Muffin. I was glad he was gone. Things were complicated enough.

“Please…may I ride with her?” I asked, my heart flailing in my chest at the situation’s gravity.

“No one but paramedics are allowed to ride with the patient,” came the kind but firm reply. I still pushed my way into the unit to let Muffin know I was there.
I gazed into her chalky features. She watched me as if from a great distance, eyes glassy, lids heavy. I leaned to kiss her, then nuzzled her cool cheek. “Why, baby?” I whispered.

Tears filled her eyes and her lips trembled. Her answer was breathy and so low only I heard her. “I don’t want to live any more, Mama. You don’t know how often I gaze at my ceiling for something to hang from. There’s nothing there that would hold my weight.”

“You’ll have to leave, Mrs. Stone.” The paramedic pulled on a stethoscope and pressed it to Muffin’s chest.

I gave her one last kiss as the motor revved.

“We’ll follow in my car.” Daniel said, helping me from the unit.

I felt unnaturally grateful to have him there. “Thanks.”

~~~~~

Muffin’s face, half-buried in the ER pillow, was waxen. She curled on her side in fetal position. IVs and monitor chords snaked from her still, still form. The
beep…beep…beep
issuing from the screen splashed eerily over my senses, the heartbeat/pulse cadence a visceral blow to my own heart.

I’d never have dreamed today would end so.

Christmas Eve morn had started pseudo-normal, with the kids and I doing a wonderful brunch of pancakes, sausage, eggs, and orange juice. We’d just finished when Muffin, having slept near comatose for three days straight, descended the stairs. I was packing the dishwasher when we heard her uneven, muffled steps.

“Uh oh,” whispered Gracie, raising her eyebrows at Jared. They quickly scuttled to their Papa’s room, knowing Muffin rarely created a scene in his presence. I braced myself, hoping that this once she’d behave herself and allow me peace during what remained of the holidays.

“Mom?” she called sharply, more a summons to my ears. I nearly gasped at her ashen, puffy features. Her white, white fingers gripped the banister. She swayed and peered at me with glazed eyes.

“What is it, honey?” I went to wrap my arms around her but she pushed me away with amazing strength and staggered across the floor to a kitchen chair.

“Get outta my face,” she muttered, sagging heavily into the chair I quickly pulled out for her. “Why’d you take my car?”

So she’d already seen the vacancy in our drive. Her venom had lost much of its sting over the years. I suppose I’d simply grown an armadillo shell, one that had thickened and crystallized with each horrific calamity. “You’re in no condition to drive, Muffin.”

“
Where is it?”
she hissed, managing a totally malevolent scowl. “It’s
mine!”

Her white Porsche was tucked away in Tim’s garage but I’d not tell her until she was dried out.

“My name is on the title. I’m responsible if you get out here and hit someone while behind the wheel and —”

She stood, nearly knocking me over. “I-
want-my-car.”
She stumbled around the room and went on to call me quite a few choice names as I moved away and got my trembling hands busy at the sink. Some expletives were new. One in particular, blew me away. A four-letter word beginning with C.

I pivoted to stare at her. “That’s a new low. Have you forgotten I’m your mother?”

“Have
you?
Taking my car is a new low, too.” The face I peered into was as hostile as a stranger’s whose home I’d broken into and trashed. She was no less indignant.

A spoiled brat.

As usual, Muffin had the last word. I walked away in disgust.

Now, in the ER, with her so close to death, I pondered how I could have handled the situation differently.

A young, blonde lab worker in cheerful colored scrubs pushed aside the curtain and rolled her heart-monitoring pulley into the small cubicle. She roused Muffin, made her uncomfortable. “I’m hungry,” Muffin grumbled, groggily yet forceful. The technician promised to ask the desk nurse about food.

Her departure disturbed Muffin further. Her head lifted. I braced myself. Her glazed gaze searched, found mine. I watched her nostrils flare and, I swear, blue fire glimmer in those irises.

“Get me some food.
Now!”

An RN entered. “I need a urine sample,” she told Muffin. The thirtyish brunette nurse was pleasingly plump in her gay-pink scrubs as she stood at bedside, not nearly as hefty as me. For a split second, I wondered what Daniel thought of the heavier, matronly Sunny. For the first time in years, it mattered. “What’ll it be, bedpan or catheter-tube?” asked the nurse politely.

“Bedpan,” grouched my daughter, distinctly agitated at losing control. “Why can’t I get out of bed and pee?” This spilled out finely tuned belligerence.

“Because you’re hooked up,” I reminded her. My stomach knotted and roiled as I watched her momentum gain steam. A danged storm brewed as she settled her hips on the pink plastic urinal pan. My radar shrieked and careened off the nerve-screen. I felt a gush of pity for the poor, unsuspecting woman.

“Why do you need urine?” Muffin cut wary eyes at her.

“We need to see what drugs are in you,” replied the nurse evenly.
Uh oh.

“Guess what?” Muffin quipped airily, yanking the dry pan from beneath her, “I can’t pee.” With a flourish, she presented it to the nurse, who, by now, began to show signs of ruffling. Flushed, she wrote on her chart and headed for the door, glad, I was certain, to escape.

“You shouldn’t wake me up,” Muffin called after her. “I’m
ticked off
when I get woke up. Don’t wake me up again,
you fat b-----
!”

I flinched, mortified, appalled, ashamed this female was
mine
.

Muffin’s slitted gaze pinned me. I was numb. Dead. I felt pity for the medical staff and dread for what surely was to come. “Get me out of here.
Now!”

I rushed to stop her from ripping the IVs and monitor needles from her arms, tasting disaster as my chest vibrated with palpitations. Muffin’s strength, in the heat of anger, always astounds me but in that moment of struggle it shot to new summits.

“Please, Muffin.
Don’t.
They’re almost finished.” I backed away, more than overwhelmed by the sheer force of her.

Her eyes rolled back in her head and she flopped back against her pillow. I thought for a moment she’d passed out. Then her lids popped open and she spat, “Get the papers. I’ll sign myself out.” She jackknifed upright, startling me. Eyes blazing like an out of control forest fire. Muffin was again in charge.

“Get the f___ing Chief-of-Staff!” she yelled to the top of her lungs.

“Okay.” I said quietly, to placate her. “I’ll go see what I can do.”

She relaxed just a tad and lay back on her pillow. I felt her gaze stalk me as I left.

Outside the door, the entire ER team clustered around the desk. The doctor said, “Don’t they have a bed in the psyche section? We’ve got to do something.” A nurse injected, “She’s disturbing the other patients.” Another added, “She’s being
ugly.”

“Security’s on his way,” added another.

I could have sunk into the floor unnoticed because they were so traumatized by my daughter, they were oblivious to my presence. No. That wasn’t true. They simply lumped my daughter and me together, figuring that somehow, her nastiness was my fault.

I wouldn’t even touch that. I’d spent thirty years trying to teach Muffin love and forgiveness and how to help others along life’s way. I’d not done it by preaching but by example. No. I would not —
could not
take credit for her unkindness.

She was the most obnoxious person I’d ever known, bar none. And I was her mother.

Dear God.
I passed the security man on my way to the ER waiting room, where Daniel absently watched a wall-mounted television playing a Boston Pops Orchestra Christmas concert. I took the seat beside him, startling him with my sudden appearance.

“How is she?” His deep voice vibrated with concern.

I chortled wearily. “Driving ‘em all crazy. They’ve called security, Daniel. Even
they
don’t know what to do with her. I’m at the end of my rope. I don’t know what to do.”

He took my hand and squeezed it. My heart did a flip-flop at his touch, then settled into
safety.
I felt a jolt of
déjà vu,
reliving the days when Daniel’s presence always sent that cared-for feeling spiraling through me.

He stood. “You rest awhile. I’ll go see what’s going on.” I started to protest, knew I should, but all I could manage was a grateful, tired smile and a nod. I knew I was wimping out but had taken about all I could for one day. So I sat there in that uncomfortable, hard navy-blue seat and listened to
Winter Wonderland
and a dozen other holiday favorites by the Boston Pops, feeling as sad as I’d ever felt in my life.

I couldn’t even get a knot tied in the end of my rope. I’d asked the doctor, when I first arrived at the hospital, while Muffin was being pricked and prodded, “What should I do to have her committed? She needs help.”

He shook his head. “You can’t. Not without her being arrested first. She’s definitely old enough to sign herself in and out of drug rehab.”

So I felt my last hope slip away. Muffin didn’t need an arrest-record on top of everything else. She’d never make anything of her life. Somewhere, deep in my mind, I reserved the certainty that someday Muffin would miraculously wake up, see the light, and turn her life around. That hope was like a spring bubbling perpetually in the depth of my soul. It was what I waited for, that kept me going.

Finally, Daniel reappeared. “She’s calmed down. Sleeping mostly. I’d go back there with her if I were you. Regardless of all that junk pouring out of her mouth, she needs you, Sunny.”

I stood and he put his arms around me, pulling me against his firm chest. My face burrowed for a moment as I inhaled Aqua Velva and Daniel’s own clean scent. Then I grew aware of my bulk. I felt so ashamed.

“Daniel,” I whispered, then looked up at him as his hands slid to my arms, then on down to lace with my fingers. “I’m so fat. I’m truly ashamed to have —”

“You’re beautiful, Sunny.” I gazed into the sea-mist eyes, trying to read his real sentiments. Then, he said it again, “The most beautiful girl I’ve ever known.” His voice shimmered over my skin and raised the hair on my neck…my arms, all over.

Then I laughed, nervously. He looked a little puzzled. “I used to be so skinny, Daniel. Would you ever have believed I’d end up this f —”

“
Voluptuous,”
he insisted, looking as solemn as I’d ever seen him. “On you, it looks good.”

I gazed at him, my grin slowly dissolving. “
Liar
. But, thank you,” I managed to whisper. Then I cleared my throat and slipped from his touch, feeling instantly deprived, bereft. “I’ll go rescue the staff from Muffin.” I heard him chuckle as I spun away.

So I went back to sit with my daughter until the doctor came in with the blood test results. Muffin had already roused up to send me hunting more food. A nurse located small packs of soda crackers and peanut butter. Muffin attacked it, consuming it in moments. That girl could out-eat anybody I’d ever seen. I suspected it had to do with whatever drugs rampaged through her.

Dr. Hart handed Muffin the list of substances they’d found in her blood and urine samples. The list was long. Dr. Hart propped against the wall, clipboard tucked under his arm. “You’re going to have to face up to your addiction problem,” he said without preamble. “Coke is bad news. If you don’t get help, Muffin, you’ll end up dead. Someday you’re going to mix drugs that have lethal consequences. I’m not going to lecture you. You’re thirty years old and know what you have to do.”

Muffin seemed unaffected by his words. Impatient even, for him to depart. My heart sank lower.

An hour later, Daniel drove us home.

~~~~~

Getting Muffin settled into her bed should have been a simple matter. Then, I remembered that nothing Muffin-connected was ever
simple.
Having Daniel there helped, for a short spell. Then, just when I thought all was well, when her eyes closed, I motioned for Daniel to follow me out, her lids popped open and her nice-girl persona shattered.

“I want my
car!”
she demanded. Her white-hot eyes blazed from ashen features. Her fury struck like a poison arrow, paralyzing me.

I wet my lips and looked at Daniel, whose assessing gaze anchored to Muffin’s face. He was, I realized, coiled inside, ready to spring.

To defend me.
That hadn’t changed in all these years. The thought loosed me from the hypnotic fear that bound me before my daughter, like a bird before a stalking cat.