When Crickets Cry (10 page)

"But, Mama," Emma said, "I don't really feel bad."

"I know, honey, it's just part of life."

Miss Nadine put her arm around Emma and walked her inside, only to reappear a few minutes later with a hand towel tossed over her shoulder. She sat down on the porch bench, called us over, and put her hands on our knees. "I want to tell you two something. . .

Charlie was shaking, sniffling, and looked worried.

"Emma's fine, but ..." She looked for the word. "She's ... a woman now."

That night, I dug into my books and spent hours reading about women's bodies and the way things worked. Sure, at first I was titillated by it, every young boy is. Emma didn't look like those pictures, but I knew that in order to fix her, in order for her to live, I had to get past all that. So I did. I read on and found out that her medication had brought on the early onset of her cycle-a common side effect in young girls.

It would not be my last such revelation.

uring the last several months, Charlie had learned how to use a hammer and nails and was putting them to good use. The O'Connors' backyard was covered by a huge live oak, which Charlie began filling with scrap lumber he had pulled from construction Dumpsters and neighbor's trash piles. For the last several months, it had become his all-encompassing obsession, and every afternoon he would remodel and expand his Swiss Family Robinson tree fort. It was three stories tall, not including the crow's nest, had several ladders and poles to climb up or slide down, and with his dad's help, working windows, two ceiling fans, lights, and running water.

It really was an entire world unto itself, and he was never finished with it. Finished wasn't a concept Charlie understood when it came to that fort.

EMMA HAD MISSED A LITTLE MORE THAN A WEEK OF SCHOOL, and I was starting to worry. I stopped in to see her one afternoon with Charlie and found Dr. Hayes and his nurse, Miss Lou, whispering with Emma's parents. When they finished, Miss Lou took Charlie into another room. Then Miss Nadine got on the phone with my mom, whispered some more, said, "Thanks," and hung up.

A few minutes later, the nurse called me to the back room where I saw Charlie holding a tissue over the end of his finger and looking confused. Miss Lou bent down and explained that she wanted to prick my finger to determine what type of blood I had.

"Type 0 negative," I told her.

She looked surprised. "You sure?"

"Positive, but"-I held up my finger-"suit yourself."

She nodded, looked askance at me, and gently pricked my finger.

Blood is an amazing thing. A fluid miracle. Like us, it's a living organism filled with living cells, and if you take it out of its carrying container-us-it dies. The average adult carries five liters in his or her body. There are four types of blood, but only one-type 0-that can be given to every other person on the planet. People with type 0 are called universal donors for obvious reasons. On the flip side, there's only one type that can receive from every other person on the planet: type AB positive, the universal receivers. As it turns out, Emma's blood type was AB positive, which was both good and bad. Good for Emma, but bad for Charlie and me.

I had never given blood before, but I had an idea of what was going on. So I stretched out in a chair and laid my arm up on the side, and sweet Miss Lou started the whole rubber-band-and-alcoholswab routine. Charlie wasn't too sure about all the needles and whispering, so he started to shake a good bit and ran out back to his fort.

Miss Nadine talked him out of the fort and back to the house, where she sat the two of us down to talk. Apparently, the added strain on Emma's body caused by the monthly loss of blood had been exponentially compounding Emma's problem. It weakened her, made her less able to fight infection, and started her on a downward spiral that she never really quite recovered from month to month. The doctors felt that if they could supplement Emma's blood supply with outside blood every couple of months, they could increase her chances of healing with less stress on her own body. Sort of like blood doping in reverse. But rather than taking a finely tuned athlete to the next level, it would just barely bring Emma up to normal. The theory was good, and it helped Emma-almost like a three-week caffeine hit-but even they knew then it was only a Band-Aid.

But Charlie didn't really get it. He understood forts and hammers much better than he did people and their blood.

Dr. Hayes had come back in while Miss Nadine was explaining, and he knelt down next to Charlie.

"Son," he said, "your sister is real sick. Your blood could help her live better. Especially right now when she needs it. See ..." He gently took Charlie's arm, patted it, and then pointed inside. "Your blood has these little dump trucks in it called red blood cells. They carry stuff your body needs all around your body like cars on a racetrack. Do you have a racetrack?"

Charlie smiled and nodded his head.

"When you lose blood," the doctor continued, "or don't have enough in your body, or have a weak heart that can't fill up those dump trucks with enough gas to make it around the track, then you get a sickness called anemia. Right now Emma has a pretty bad case. " He looked Charlie in the eye. "Will you give her some of your dump trucks?"

Charlie glanced toward the stairway that led to the second floor, and I knew he was picturing his sister, pale and weak, too tired each day even to climb up to his fort and see his latest improvements.

"Emma needs more dump trucks?" he asked.

The doctor nodded.

Charlie looked to his mom, and she nodded too as the tears drained through the deep, dark pits that had swelled beneath her eyes and where all the eye makeup now puddled. She looked like a raccoon.

Charlie rolled up his sleeve. "Can I just give her all of them?" he said.

Three days later, Miss Nadine was still crying.

nnie lay sleeping when I cracked the hospital door late Friday afternoon and walked into her room. Through the lone window I saw a cow pasture spotted with manure and dandelions and split by a small creek trickling down out of the hills. The cows had all huddled around the hay feeder except for one old bull who stood like a sentinel in the middle of the creek.

Cindy sat an arm's length from Annie, feet propped on the bed, head fallen to one side, still wearing yesterday's clothes, asleep with a book resting on her chest. The book had a plastic cover and was stamped with a library binding. It was titled How to Make Big Money in a Small Business. Scattered about the floor were five or six books and pamphlets, all wrapped in that same publiclibrary plastic and all to do with obtaining loans and money management. On the desk next to the bed sat a red folder. Scribbled across the top in a female's handwriting were the words Burton Bank and Trust, Loan Application.

On the air I smelled Sal's lime-scented aftershave, telling me he'd just been here. The two mints sitting next to the phone confirmed it. I set the green stuffed frog on the bed and turned to tiptoe out when Annie whispered, "Hey, Sh-sh-shakespeare." Her speech was slow, unsteady, her lips thick with medication.

Cindy sat upright, wiped the drool off her chin, and started toeing the books and folders into a pile beneath Annie's bed.

I turned and patted Annie's feet. "When you've known him as long as I have, it's Billy."

Annie's eyes were heavy and glassed over. Undoubtedly, her doctors, in both Clayton and Atlanta, knew she was high-strung and needed rest, so they had kept her pretty well sedated over the last couple of days. I would have.

I placed the volleyball-sized frog closer to her and took out a small box that the lady at Rovers Hardware had wrapped for me. Annie smiled a doped-up smile and with her one good hand pulled the bow while I held the box and untied the ribbon. She lifted the top and pulled out a large copper bell that looked as though it had once hung around the neck of a cow.

"Thought that might help business," I said. "Maybe get folk's attention."

She smiled, rang the bell once, and blinked slowly. "I think I already got that." She looked back up at me. "You got any more pretty words for me?"

I scratched my chin and looked out the window. Sitting down next to the bed, I picked up the bell and said, "Tell me where is fancy bred ... in the heart or in the head? How begot, how nourished? Reply, reply. It is engendered in the eyes, with gazing fed; and the fancy dies in the cradle where it lies. Let us all ring fancy's knell: I'll begin it-ding, dong, bell."

Cindy sat up and began studying me with new curiosity.

"Is that more Hammmmmlet?" Annie asked, trying hard to get her lips to sound the M.

"No. It comes from a little story called The Merchant of Venice."

She closed her eyes, fell silent for a few minutes, and faded off into the wonderful world of drug-induced sedation. Cindy watched with apprehension as Annie breathed.

"It's the medicine," I reassured her. I glanced at the machines above Annie's bed, all tracking her progress. "Pressure looks good, pulse is stronger than I had expected, and her oxygen saturation is not bad, given what she's had to deal with." I patted Annie's toes again. "She's tough."

Cindy nodded, but eyed me with more curiosity. I could see the questions beginning to swirl, and my Sheetrock disguise was crumbling.

Annie woke and, after two trips around the room, her eyes found me again. "Doc says I can leave in a few days."

"I heard. That's good. You probably miss your own bed."

"Tell me about it." She waved a shaky hand around the room. "You ought to see all the stuffed bears I've got."

I looked around the room, which was spilling over with flowers, Get Well balloons, and ten to fifteen stuffed animalsmostly bears.

"I see."

Cindy broke in. "Annie and I've been talking, and we'd like to have you for dinner." She covered her eyes with her hand and shook her head. "I mean, have you over for dinner."

"I got it." I smiled.

"It's the least we can do." She turned to Annie, who nodded slowly. "Annie's a pretty good cook and was just talking about fixing you some peach cobbler."

Annie nodded again. "No kidding," she said with her eyes closed, "I really can cook. Although"-she held up her left arm, thick with a plaster cast "I'm gonna have a hard time rolling the biscuits."

Annie sounded as if she'd just left the dentist after having four cavities filled.

It'd been a long time since I'd accepted an invitation to dinner. And even longer since it'd been with a female.

I nodded. "Then I'll only come if you'll let me roll out the biscuits. "

"You can cook?" Annie asked, surprised, her head bobbing to one side as if it had just fallen off its perch.

"No, but I learn quickly."

"Folks around here say you build a pretty mean boat," Cindy said. "That true?"

"I restore them more than I build them. I just improve on somebody else's design."

"From the way people gossip, you're pretty good at improving. Houses too. I thought you looked like you were in construction."

"Oh, it's like anything," I dodged, thankful that she had blanketed me with the construction tab. "Once you learn how, it's not all that complicated. The right teacher, good tools, a little patience, and you could do it."

"I doubt it," Cindy said. "I can barely change a lightbulb without help from Annie."

"Well, sometimes a good team can make all the difference."

Cindy sat upright and began tightening her ponytail with several loops from a second pink rubber band. Her curious eyes had become assertive; the hallway talk had given her little information and raised as many questions as it answered. "Sounds like you know what you're talking about." She was digging again.

Annie's eyelids were falling down, giving me an easy exit. I whispered to Annie, "You get some sleep, and I'll come see you next week for dinner."

Annie unconsciously reached up and clasped the sandal now hanging on a chain and resting just above the tip of the scar on her chest. Her thumb gently rubbed the back as she nodded off to sleep.

Cindy looked embarrassed, like she had pushed too hard and too fast. She walked me to the door, fiddled with her hair, and said, "I think she likes the frog. Thanks."