THIRTEEN
June, Continued
Four days after her disastrous ballgame, on Mom’s forty-eighth birthday, Dad slipped into another coma. It hardly seemed appropriate to wish Mom a happy birthday, so neither Josh nor Abby did.
At noon the doorbell rang, and Abby stepped in front of the window on the front door to motion to the visitor to enter through the garage. There was a white van in the driveway with the logo for Lawry’s Florist printed on the side. The deliveryman did as he was told, waiting by the kitchen door until Abby opened it.
“Helen North?” the man said dully. He was holding a cone-shaped sleeve of violet paper.
“No. That’s my mom.”
“Is she here?”
“Yes, but she’s busy. Can I take this for her?”
The man shrugged and handed it over, then left without a word.
Abby shut the door and carried her load to the living room, peeking inside to find a bouquet of daisies in a dainty glass vase. Abby almost dropped them. Dad knew Mom had a weakness for daisies; the garden was full of them. Mom said that daisies portrayed innocence and purity and loyal love, things the world had too little of. When they were first married Dad had sent Mom roses a few times, but he had long since learned that nothing brightened her day more than daisies, and had given them to her on every subsequent birthday and anniversary. “Who was that?” Mom asked as Abby stepped into the living room. When she saw the stillwrapped flowers she grabbed the bedsheet that lay over Dad’s lap and tightened her fist, crumpling it. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her knuckles white, and Mom bit her bottom lip so hard Abby thought it might bleed.
“Here,” Abby said, unwrapping the vase and placing the daisies on the coffee table beside Dad before tiptoeing away.
This wasn’t a moment she was part of.
Josh was downstairs playing a video game. Abby told him about the flowers, and he said he knew all about them. Dad had asked him to order them weeks before, just in case. In case of what they both knew.
Mom spent the remainder of the day in stunned silence on the couch, staring at her daisies, while Josh feverishly read the Far Side book at Dad’s bedside. Josh feigned laughs as he read the one-liners under the cartoons and then turned the book toward Dad. When Dad showed no sign of having heard, Josh would read more urgently, laughing louder, explaining what was happening in the sketches. Abby leaned against the piano, giving him nods of encouragement when it looked like he was about to call it quits.
Don’t give up. He’ll be back again. Just like before.
Aunt Fran came with her suitcase. Abby wanted to pack hers and hightail it out of there.
Now not only did the Norths have that know-it-all Mary barging in day and night, they also had Abby’s aunt moving in. She took over Abby’s room, and Abby was told she’d bunk with Mom until Aunt Fran went home. When that would be wasn’t clear, and Abby didn’t ask.
While having Aunt Fran stay at the house wasn’t exactly at the top of Abby’s wish list, she didn’t mind sleeping in her parents’ bed. Mom had been sleeping on the couch beside Dad since he’d become living room furniture, but at night she would lie down with Abby while Aunt Fran watched over Dad in the living room. Mom and Abby would lie back-toback on the king-size bed, both of them curled into the fetal position. Abby’s stomach didn’t hurt so badly when Mom snuggled in bed with her, and she fell asleep more quickly. When she awakened, Mom would be gone, sleeping with one eye open beside Dad downstairs, but her warmth would remain on the sheets. Her smell was there.
It turned out that having Aunt Fran stay wasn’t nearly as horrid as Abby had anticipated. Aunt Fran was decent to Josh and Abby, helpful and kind to Mom, and distraught over Dad. She’d seen him deteriorate into this unconscious state before, but she hadn’t seen him bounce back. She didn’t know that’s just what happens with cancer. She had no experience. She wasn’t part of the team. Poor Aunt Fran.
One night, Abby couldn’t go to sleep. Her stomach hurt something awful, and she was worried. Mom was slipping further into her own world, and Abby feared that she might awaken the next morning to find both of her parents comatose in the living room. Abby wanted Mom in bed with her so that she could keep watch over her.
As always, though, Darth’s drone eventually lulled Abby to sleep.
Her eyes opened wide soon after. Abby wasn’t normally one to wake during the night unless she had to pee, and even then her eyes would remain glued shut as she begged her bladder to cool it until morning. But it wasn’t physical necessity that woke her that night. In fact, she felt nothing at all.
Abby felt no fear, no sadness, no worry, no loneliness. Her stomach didn’t hurt. Her soul seemed detached from her body. Abby could not feel the mattress below her, or the pillow under her head. It was as if she were floating in a bubble, safe and warm.
The bedroom window above the bed was open, and though Abby felt no breeze, a chorus of rustling leaves and chirping crickets and belching bullfrogs drifted through the screen and filled the room. The Stovers’ porch light projected through the window and onto the ceiling. The limbs of a shade tree between the houses swayed back and forth, the shadows of its leaves dancing in this soft light.
“Go to sleep,” coaxed a voice in her head.
And Abby did, experiencing God’s ballet in complete peace as she drifted into dreamless sleep.
THE SUN SHONE BRIGHTLY INTO ABBY’S PARENTS’ BEDROOM the next morning, and already, sounds of life drifted in through the open window. Motorboats whirred around on the lake, lawn mowers buzzed, someone was chopping away at a tree, or hammering something, it was hard to tell. Abby rolled over to look at the alarm clock on the nightstand and was surprised to find that it was already ten o’clock.
Abby had stayed in bed way past ten in the previous months, but never before had she slept that long or that soundly. Being completely rested felt great and made her realize that she, too, had been living in a fog.
She hopped out of bed, and as she reached for the bedroom door she heard Deanna’s voice. She pulled her hand away from the doorknob as if it had given her a shock. Abby hadn’t gotten word of any plans for Deanna to come home; she must have flown in overnight. Deanna wouldn’t wake for anything before dawn, much less get on an airplane. Not unless . . .
Shh-bmp. Crackle. Shh-bmp.
Abby opened the door and stepped into the hallway. From there she could see half of the kitchen and living room. Deanna sat in Dad’s recliner. The curtains had apparently been opened, for the house was brightly lit.
The shadow was gone.
Darth continued its suck-swoosh, but Abby didn’t buy it for a second.
“Good morning!” Deanna shouted too loudly when she spotted Abby. It wasn’t a greeting; it was an announcement.
Skipping a hello, Abby ducked into the bathroom, bracing herself with her hands on the counter. Staring at her reflection in the mirror she thought to herself: this is it.
Abby hadn’t bothered shutting the bathroom door, knowing that Mom would come knocking within seconds.
Sure enough, there she was.
“I need to talk to you,” Mom said, and Abby silently followed her back to the master bedroom. Mom shut the bedroom door, sat on the bed, and patted the mattress beside her. Abby obediently sat down.
Mom opened her mouth to speak but shut it again before the words could come out. Mom looked like a glass figurine. She was so white she was almost transparent.
She placed her hand on Abby’s knee, opening her mouth to speak again, but only one word came out.
“Dad . . .”
Abby didn’t make her finish.
“I know, Mom,” Abby said, placing her hand over her mother’s. “I know.”
Mom didn’t have to tell Abby that Dad had passed. He’d told her himself on his way out of her world.
Abby held Mom as her tiny body quaked for what seemed like an eternity. Abby wasn’t about to let go of her until Mom was ready. Abby couldn’t cry; a gallon of tears were stuck in her throat but wouldn’t come out. She was sad, but a bigger part of her felt something more horrible.
Relief.
Dad wouldn’t hurt anymore. There was nothing else It could do to him.
Abby could not tell her mother how she felt, nor could she tell her that she’d felt Dad leave. Mom wouldn’t believe what Abby had experienced unless she’d felt it herself. What if she hadn’t? Mom needed to feel Dad’s peace more than anyone. The sobs that jolted her mother’s frame as it pressed tightly against Abby’s told Abby that she hadn’t.
When Mom finally released Abby, she dabbed her bloodshot eyes with a soggy Kleenex.
“Let’s go downstairs and call Coach Skip.”
Her softball game—Abby had forgotten all about it. Abby almost wished she could go, so that she could pretend that none of this was happening. She didn’t want to go downstairs, yet she followed Mom down into surreality.
The hospital bed was still there, the sheets and blanket pulled up and tucked in neatly, and in place of Dad a single red rose lay with its petals resting on the fluffed pillow. Atop the piano, amid the standing cards from well-wishers, a votive candle burned, its flickering flame unnecessary in the bright, sunny room.
It was as if Dad had simply vanished.
Mary was there, standing beside the piano. Abby assumed she’d done the decorating. Mary smiled at Abby sympathetically and turned to Mom. “Are you ready, Helen?”
Mom closed her eyes and nodded.
“We didn’t want to wake you,” Mom half whispered as Mary ceremoniously reached down beside the bed and switched off the oxygen machine. Now Darth was dead, too.
The room was eerily quiet, aside from the shh-bmp of the 45. Until Mom wailed.
“Oh, God!”
Mom filled the silence with her grief, sobbing uncontrollably. Deanna rushed in from the kitchen and wrapped her arms around Mom, whispering and shushing and trying to soothe her. It didn’t much help when Deanna started bawling, too, making the sadness in the room chaotic and overwhelming. Abby backed into the kitchen and bumped into the counter. “Hey,” Josh said. Abby turned to find him hunched over the kitchen table.
Josh and Abby looked at each other with unspoken confusion and disbelief. Their eyes held the same question:
So now what?
It was then that Abby realized that her brother was as ignorant as she was. He’d been there all along, he’d known it was coming, but had never really believed it would happen.
They had never thought Dad would really die.
Abby did what she’d come into the kitchen to do. Coach Skip’s line was busy, so Abby called Foley and told her why she wouldn’t be at the game. Foley cried. Abby apologized. She didn’t know why she did that.
After hanging up, Abby tried to imagine what a person would normally do next. Mary was preparing to leave in the next room, and Abby did not plan to see her off. As much as Abby had abhorred Mary’s visits, her pending absence seemed so final. Mary would move on to another disintegrating family; she was done with the Norths.
Breakfast. People have breakfast in the morning.
Abby pulled a box of cornflakes from the kitchen cabinet and found a gallon of milk in the fridge. She poured some of both into a cereal bowl and put the carton and box away. She took a bite, but the cereal tasted like cardboard so she dumped the rest in the trash, forgetting that you can’t dump milk into a trash bag. It leaks and gets all over.
As Abby started to clean up the mess, Mom came into the kitchen.
“I’ll get that,” she said.
“No, Mom, I’ll get it. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. Leave it. I’ll get it.”
Abby got the feeling that Mom truly wanted to clean it up. Cleaning would keep her busy. She needed to be busy. Deanna walked into the kitchen and opened the cereal cabinet, finding the gallon of milk there. The cornflakes box was in the fridge. Deanna relocated them and Abby laughed nervously.
“Oops.”
I’m okay, Abby told herself. Everything will be okay.
Everything has to be okay.