19

IT’S NOT UNTIL I ARRIVE BACK AT HOME THAT I REMEMBER I left Riley there at school, when I am the one who drives her home. Well, she’s a big girl. She can figure out a way home. She has before.

Everyone else wants to make things too easy for the kids. No one has to work for anything, figure stuff out. Mr. Morton’s niceness will be the downfall of him as a teacher. He’ll probably let all his students take the final three times until they get the grade they want.

I push aside my feelings that I’m committing neglect, and get on the computer to check my e-mail.

One from Byron. Finally.

 

So sorry about your rose show. Terribly busy with the season now. Good luck to you.

 

And that was all, no signature, no chattiness. He’s had enough of this quasi-friendship, no time to give me a how-do-you-do. Or he is in fact busy, as he says.

First Dara, then Brad, then Riley and Mr. Morton, now Byron. Not to mention the kidney doctor and powers-that-be. Is there no one not conspiring against me? I let out a breath, a long one whooshing the dust off my keyboard. Then I sneeze.

I have to laugh at my own pitifulness. There’s nothing else to do. By this time next year, I promise myself, I will have:

 

1. A new kidney

2. A successful Hulthemia, with scent

3. A new couch

 

I write the list down on a piece of scrap paper emblazoned with a realtor’s picture. I pause. It seems like Riley ought to belong on this list someplace. But what do I want for her? Do I want her to leave or stay? I write:

 

4. Riley?

 

I put the list away.

My phone pings with a text. Mr. Morton, not Riley, because Riley knows better than to use the text feature. I am going to have to change to the unlimited text plan, unhappy as I am about that prospect.

Will give Riley a ride since you left, it reads. Jesus God.

That reminds me of overhearing him on the phone. Dara and I know next to nothing about Mr. Morton, except that he used to work at some chemical company. He and Dara have been out several times, but all they’ve done is see a movie, get coffee afterward, and talk about the movies. Hardly getting-to-know-you scenarios. That’s more like conversational avoidance.

I think about the morning I’d asked Dara if she liked Mr. Morton, when she dropped in to have her coffee with me. I’ve always hated coffee; tastes like bitter dishwater, but I’ve watched her drink gallons over the years.

“He’s a nice guy,” she said. Her mug was shaped like the face of a winking woman; it said BAILEY’S on one side.

“Does Dr. O’Malley know you’re advertising liquor on campus?” I said.

She blinked. “Come on. I got it in an antique store.”

“That makes it perfectly acceptable?” I settled back into my chair. I’d brought in some of my newly blooming roses off my nonbreeding bushes, the burnt red Hot Cocoa, and had them arranged in an old pasta jar in a big cloud. “I know he’s a nice guy. But what does he like to do?”

She took a sip of the coffee so light it had to be mostly cream. Dara never ate breakfast; said her coffee had more than enough calories and calcium to count for food. “Build things. Watch movies.”

“Heck, I know that much.” If it were me going out on dates, I would have the man’s mother’s maiden name, Social Security number, religion, and childhood dreams by the second one. I made a noise of disbelief, which sounded more like an unattractive snort. “Dara. Come on. Quit bringing me second-rate information.”

“I’m sorry!” Dara laughed, smoothed out her capris printed with large roses. “I prefer to let things take a natural course, not force them.”

“At that rate, you’re going to get married at about the same time the sun burns itself out.” I sharpened my jar of number two pencils, something I did every morning for the students who forgot theirs at home. For a while I told everyone that if they forgot a pencil, they were just going to be out of luck, but then half the students did no work for a solid week because they’d left their pencils at home. Dr. O’Malley was not so happy about this.

Dara took a rose out of the jar. “Can I take one?”

“Looks like you already did.” I kept sharpening as she stuck it behind her right ear.

“Not behind the left?” I indicated her other side. Left ear would mean her heart was taken.

“Nope.” She held her now-empty cup. “I’m still seeing Chad, too. It’s all still light.”

Any lighter and Mr. Morton would think she wasn’t interested at all. I stuck another pencil into the sharpener, raising my voice against the satisfying mechanical hum. “Whatever makes you happy, my dear.”

At home now, I open Google on my computer. If Dara is not going to find anything out about George Morton, I will. It’s so easy to find out stuff about people these days. Once, a man advertised a set of large pots on Craigslist. He’d e-mailed me back, told me it would be first come, first served, and then didn’t answer his phone. All I knew was his first name, his neighborhood, and his phone number, and I found his house and got in his driveway seconds before another woman. Yes, I got those pots.

I type “George Morton, San Luis Obispo” into the search engine.

Instantly (this still surprises me, after all these years of having the Internet; I still half expect to have to use a card catalog when doing research) a number of hits come up. Most of these are not his.

I look over the image search. On page four, one photo sticks out. George Morton with another woman and a baby girl.

“Acrimonious divorce pits Alchemy Tech founder Morton against his wife,” the caption reads. “Lara Stratton-Morton, a former lab technician at Alchemy Tech, has filed for sole custody of their two-year-old daughter.”

My fingers feel frozen. I rub them together. A baby girl? An ex-wife? Why did they split up? An image of Riley’s father flashes into my head, a man now so distant I honestly have to look up his name or ask my mother if I want to know it.

Now that I know his company’s name, it’s easier to find another article. Most are his research papers; he deals with synthetic polymer chemistry, it seems. This encompasses non-natural rubbers, plastics, and fabrics like neoprene and nylon and, of course, polyester. Because many polymers use petroleum as a starting point, and we’re running out of oil, companies are trying to develop new ways to produce these materials. I find myself impressed at his body of work. Why would he leave something like this to teach at our nothing school?

Then I come across this nugget. Nugget, nothing. More like a piece of coal that I must swallow.

 

Shares of Alchemy Tech plummeted today at the news that CEO and founder George Morton is stepping down. Amid rumors of a takeover, Morton sold his majority shares last week and has no plans to remain in operations. “I have every confidence that our teams will continue to produce the best work and fulfill all our contracts,” he said in a statement. The company primarily deals with developing new synthetics for the polymer industry.

 

Dara should know about this. I’d want to know. I reach for the phone.

The door slams. Riley pauses dramatically near the entrance, holding aloft the chrome Craftsman tape measure my father left here. “I learned how to read it. Want me to show you?”

I have the phone in my hand. What should I say, good job for learning how to do something everyone else learned in sixth grade? Is she going to learn how to skip rope next? The mean thoughts make me flush. I’m still angry at her for joining the science team behind my back, though the fault really lies with Mr. Morton. I decide I won’t bring up the science team at all. “Not right now, Riley. I have to make a phone call.”

Disappointment crosses her face. I was supposed to want to see her read a tape measure? I suppose a real teacher would. I put the phone down. “Measure the couch. Show me.” The couch would be easy; I know it’s exactly eight feet, two and a half inches.

“Maybe later.” She tosses her tape measure unceremoniously on the couch, where it bounces off and crashes into the TV remote on the coffee table, knocking it off. “Oops.”

“There better not be a ding in my table.” I get up and inspect its white paint. It’s what Dara calls a Shabby Chic table, one with curlicued sides. I found it by the side of the road. Dara painted it pink, then white, scratching away part of the top to reveal the color underneath. It reminds me of some of my pink and white roses.

“It’s made to look old, Aunt Gal.” Riley flops down in the chair, sending small clouds of dust into the shafting sunlight, where they hang glittering in the air. “Sorry.”

I run my hand over the table. Smooth. I check a sigh, pointing instead to the dust. “You used to call those ‘dust fairies’ when you were little.” I smile at the memory, of little Riley sitting at my parents’ house, absorbed by watching the “fairies” that sprung up from the dust my mother could not be bothered to clean up. My mother had jumped up, got wet paper towels, and wiped down all her furniture.

“I did?” Riley smiles.

I nod.

“Do you remember any other stories from when I was little?” She leans forward, her elbows on her knees.

I honestly can’t think of any at the moment. My head is still wrapped around George Morton and Dara, the image of him with his wife burning behind my eyes. The fairies were incidental, a result of seeing the dust motes. “You were a terror,” I say finally, thinking of something general, things my mother related. “Never wanted to nap, or put away your toys. You climbed high up on my parents’ bookshelf when you were not even two, and gave my mother a heart attack.”

“Anything else?” Riley, so hungry for stories of her childhood, continues to watch me with her large eyes. No matter how I try to fill her up, she will always be empty of these, which I cannot provide.

I have no words to express it to her.

Instead, I pick up the remote from the floor, and the phone, trying to be gentle when I tell her. I am not the one who should be telling her these memories. I have too few, and most are hearsay. “I can’t remember anything else at the moment.” I put the remote back on the coffee table and leave Riley sitting there, still staring at the spot where I’d been sitting moments before.

• • •

DARA ISN’T HOME, it turns out, so I put her dilemma out of my mind and instead head over to dialysis a bit early, leaving Riley alone with a can of chicken chili and the TV.

I hesitate, keys in hand, seeing Riley at the table solo, glad to see she has actually bothered to pour the chili into an ancient melamine bowl. Before I can say anything, she raises a hand. “Don’t worry,” she says, her eyes on an open textbook. “I’ve got a biology test tomorrow I must study for, oddly enough.” She smirks at me.

“Remember your flash cards.”

She nods, spooning another bite into her mouth.

I point to a lined list I’ve tacked to the well-used bulletin board on the wall. Her chore list. If I give her enough to do, then she won’t have time to get into trouble. “And this.”

She squints up. “Chores?”

“Wipe down the bathroom with the Clorox wipes, vacuum the living room carpet, use the Swiffer on the hardwood, start your laundry, and empty the dishwasher.” I tap each item with my index finger.

“No problem.”

I wish I could tell her to go next door if there’s trouble, but of course that neighbor cannot be trusted in particular, and I don’t know the others. Instead, I tell her to call Dara, who’s agreed to be the designated go-to emergency person. For a moment I consider texting her the important George Morton info, springing it on her unavoidably, but I decide it can wait until the next day. I am not a coward like some when it comes to relaying information in person.

On my street, the neighbors are courteous, but not social. We wave to each other in our yards and watch for burglars. On Halloween, I hand out pencils instead of candies because I don’t want their soft young teeth to fall out of their heads. They probably don’t like me that much, those kids. One picked a rose on her way to school, as I sat at the window having my tea. I popped out in my robe, explaining that I certainly did not mind her picking a rose, as long as she asked first, because otherwise it was stealing, which was wrong. She threw it at my feet and never returned.

I plan to be back extra early in the morning to rinse my roses. Once more I give a little mourning cry for Brad and his punctuality. I might have to scale back my operations, if I am thinking realistically, maybe grow roses only in the greenhouse, but I avoid considering this seriously. Because if I scale back, there’s no way I’m ever going to be more than a simple rose hobbyist, and that would be unacceptable.

The dialysis clinic is quiet this night, so silent I can hear the buzz of the energy-efficient lights on the ceiling, the nurses clicking the keyboards from behind their partition. I almost don’t want to go in. The entire operation seems pointless, endless, if I have no chance of getting a kidney. For the rest of my life, however long it is, I will be coming here every other day. I can’t think about it. I think about fungus instead, the Hulthemia, how I need to call Byron. These are the only items keeping me sane.

Nurse Sonya looks up from her computer screen. “Gal. How are you holding up?” Her face, for some reason, is sympathetic. She lowers her voice and leans forward. I lean in, so close I can see the stray hairs under her eyebrows. “Dr. Blankenship can be a real hard-ass.”

Warmth spreads in my chest. I smile. “Tell me about it.”

She straightens and gives me a wink that tells me she’s pulling for me. “Have a seat. I’ll call you back in a minute.”

I turn to the waiting area. The only other patient in the whole place, surprise, is Mark Walters.

I want to avoid him, but then I decide I will not. He does not hold that much power over me. I sit down not on the other side of the room, but on a chair opposite and to his left.

This time he has an electronic reading device instead of a newspaper, with a rich-looking leather cover on it. He grins. “Ever use one of these?” He hands it over, spanning the aisle with a long arm.

It feels impossibly light to contain so many books. I squint at the screen. “There’s glare from the overhead light.”

He repositions it in my hands, his arms brushing mine. I see that he, too, has a fistula in his arm, the plastic heaving under the skin like a long-forgotten parasite. “You’re imagining that. There’s no backlighting.” He adjusts the reader.

“I like paper books.” I hand it back to him, freeing myself of it.

He wags his finger at me. “Don’t be afraid of change, Gal.”

“I’m not. I simply have a preference. Is that a crime?” I consider telling him about all the ways I’m not afraid of change. Having Riley with me, for one. For another, breeding a whole new rose. I’m certainly not opposed to change there, am I?

He looks expectantly at me, as if he can see these thoughts forming on my tongue and is waiting to hear them in the air.

I bite them back. I leaf through a magazine, but don’t see the words.

He passes his hand over his mustache. “Gal,” he says finally. “There’s an article I found you might be interested in.”

“About what?” I expect him to say roses.

“About kidney transplants.” He touches his screen and hands the device over to me.

I take it from him with a frown, not knowing what he’s talking about. The New England Journal of Medicine. The article tells me that a kidney transplant can be done even if there is limited blood flow on one side; you simply transplant the kidney on the opposite side. So my problems are on my left, and the doctor needs to put the new kidney on the right.

A million thoughts rush through me and I say the first one, the most important one, the only one that will affect my outcome. “Dr. Blankenship won’t care.”

“She has to care.” He closes the screen. “Even she can’t ignore all the research.”

His emphasis on the word “all” makes me smile. “Tries her best though, doesn’t she?”

He folds the cover over his device. “I e-mailed this to her. Told her to take another look at your case.”

I pause, surprised. Why would he do that, after I’ve been so, well, rude to him all this time?

“You’re right. Me being on the list higher than you is unfair.” He shoots me a half smile, crooked and tired. “All of it’s unfair.”

I have no response. My throat tightens.

Walters lowers his voice to a whisper. “The chief of surgery here is an old friend of mine, Gal. We went to elementary school together.”

“No wonder everyone likes you,” I breathe.

He guffaws, slapping his knees. “That’s not why. They like me because I’m a nice guy.”

I grin.

He looks around, apparently content to do the talking for the both of us. “The people here are nice, your company no exception, but boy, I can’t wait until I never have to see this place again.”

I put my chin on my hand. I had never thought about it. “What do you think it will be like, when we don’t have to come here anymore?” I say so softly he has to lean forward. “When we don’t have to worry about who we leave at home and we can eat what we want?”

He moves across the aisle next to me. “Don’t you remember?”

“It’s been,” I squeeze my temples with my thumbs, “a very long time.” I move my head back. “How long has it been for you?”

He holds up six fingers.

“Six years? Nearly as long as me.” I am impressed for a second.

“Months.” He gives me an apologetic smile.

“Months?” I shake my head.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life, Gal, it’s that you need patience.” He crosses his legs. “If you have patience and faith, good things will come. Back when I was a young man—”

I snort, interrupting him. I’ve had enough. Is this why he showed me the article, so he could have permission to lord his knowledge and pomp over me as I sit, a captive audience, in a waiting room? I don’t care if his patience story involves a war, or the Great Depression, or the gas crisis of the 1970s. I simply don’t give a damn. “Who are you to tell me about patience? I’ve got more patience in my . . .” I cast about for something small, “my earlobe than you have in your whole body. I’ve been on dialysis eight years, Mr. Walters. Eight years. Sick my whole life. Who are you,” I am standing now without realizing it, “to tell me?” I’m sobbing now, these tears coming more often, unbidden and uncontrollable.

He looks at me, shocked, as the nurse rushes in and takes me by the arm and leads me away.

I have to get in one more thought. “You don’t know a thing,” I say to him, my acrimony hanging in the air, visible as a shroud.