Breathing (6 page)

Dog and Dave run up. “She okay?” my brother asks.

“She will be,” Mama reassures.

Gina’s got all our plates towering in her hands. “I’ll keep Dog,” she calls out. “Y’all go on!”

Waving to Gina, Mama yells to Jackson, “Check her pockets!” And I can feel his hands moving across my thighs, which only makes my breathing worse. He doesn’t find what he’s looking for, and he just keeps tearing across the lot. And to my surprise I find myself in the back of Mama’s car, Jackson beside me, Mama up in front, and me wheezing like a geezer.

“Ma’am, you best step on it, she don’t look too good.” Mama screeches out of the parking lot and drives toward the hospital. “Ain’t you headed the wrong way?” Jackson asks, looking all worried.

Mama pulls the car over to the side of the road. “You don’t need to come along. It’s too late to go home for the inhaler. I’ma have to carry her down to Mercy Hospital. Your folks’ll be worried. You best go on home or back to the cookout, one. Thank you for your help.”

I can feel Jackson hesitating and much as I wish he’d stay beside me, I wish even more he’d hurry up and go ’cause I do not like the way I’m feeling and I just want somebody to fix it right quick.

“Drive,” he says. “I ain’t leaving her like this.”

Mama puts the car in gear and says, “Just met at the library, huh?”

And I am a stuck duck in a dry pond.

I
’m relieved to see the emergency room looks pretty quiet, just a couple of hoboes seeming drunk, a twenty-something young man with blood spilling down his head, and a stressed-out family with one baby asleep on the chair and another whimpering, holding her arm up against her chest. The nurse shows me in right away and sets me up with the nebulizer; that’s this thingamabob that sends mist into my lungs along with medicine, oxygen, all that type of stuff. I can tell you it is one big relief to feel that mist coming in, ’cause I know it means I’m going to be breathing right before long. No sooner does my panic begin to subside than they’re searching my arm for a vein to prick. That part I hate, when they stick that needle in there for the IV and then the steroids start to flow into me. Ugh, gives me a chill just thinking about it. It’s supposed to take down the swelling in my lungs so I can breathe easier, which is a good thing, but it makes me feel ill when they do it. Mama usually holds my hand, but that just ain’t enough.

She’s got her notebook out, marking down everybody’s names and what all they’re putting into me. They told Jackson he’d have to stay out in the waiting room. I feel bad for him, sitting out there, wondering if I’m okay. I wish Mama had said he was my brother so he might could come in. Seems downright rude to leave him out there after he done come all this way. I look to the door as I’m thinking about him, and law! He’s standing right at the window peeking in at me. I can’t help but smile. Out the corner of my eye I see Mama watching me, noting my smile, and following my eyes to see what’s cheered me up in this awful place.

Next thing I know, she’s opening the door and bringing Jackson over beside me. There’s some commotion with the nurses, but Mama takes care of it. And then Jackson is sitting by me, holding my hand, and I ain’t never minded an IV stick less in my whole life. His hand is warm and rough and safe. And he’s looking all worried about me. Ain’t that just the sweetest?

The doctor comes in, a big heft of a man with a fuzzy beard and mustache but not much of anything up top. He says I’m going to have to stay the night so they can keep an eye on me. Damn. I’m feeling so much better. I’d ruther go on home with Mama and Jackson. Sleeping in the hospital sucks, what with noise bothering you and nurses waking you up to take your vitals all night long and the smell of ammonia and alcohol so strong it could blind a person. Mama knows how I hate it, and she starts in on the doctor, asking can’t I just go and come back tomorrow? But old baldy shakes his head and says this here was a rough one and I best stay the night. I’m thinking he’s just needing a few more coins in his purse. Mama’s got me on a special insurance program with the state to help pay my medical bills, but I know it still worries her when we’ve got to stay over. I take her hand for a minute to let her know how sorry I am.

As the nurses are fixing to take me upstairs, Mama offers to call a cab for Jackson. He says he’d ruther stay awhile. But Mama gets stern with him.

“Young man, you have sure impressed me tonight, wanting to be here with Savannah through this, but it’s time you go on home. Your kin are probably wondering about you, and they ain’t gonn’ be too chipper ’bout you spending the night with the likes of us. It’s late. We’re all tired. I suggest you make tracks.” And I can hear in her voice how worn she is.

“Ms. Brown, I ain’t trying to be rude or nothing. I can call my aunt and uncle and tell ’em where I’m at. But they don’t decide who I spend my time with. She still don’t look right. If it’s all the same to you, I’d ruther stay awhile and see how she does.”

Shew! Ain’t he sweet? We hardly even known each other but a week or two, and here he goes making all this fuss! Mama must think we’ve been hiding this for months.

“Well it ain’t all the same to me,” she snaps. But I grab her hand and look at her with eyes that say
Please, Mama!
And she softens. The nurse starts to push my wheelchair out to the elevator and Mama doesn’t object when Jackson follows. “How old are you anyhow?” she asks him once the elevator doors close.

“Eighteen, ma’am,” he replies. I can’t help but flinch as I wonder how she’s going to react to that one.

She turns to face him. “Do you know how old she is?” she asks like I’m not even there.

“Yes, ma’am. She’s fifteen going on fifteen and a half,” he says with a smile.

Mama just shakes her head.

They get me all tucked into bed. Mama scribbles in her notebook and Jackson sits in a chair beside me, leaning over me like he’s scared I’m going to die.

I lift the nebulizer mask off my face. “You don’t gotta stay,” I whisper, not wanting Mama to hear. “I’ll be okay.”

He shakes his head and takes my hand. “You want me to go?” he whispers back.

Now I’m shaking my head. I just don’t want him to feel obliged is all. And much as I’d like to hang out and talk with him, I feel myself getting so sleepy I can’t keep my eyes open, and I know I’m drifting off.

I wake sometime later. The lights are dim and the TV’s on low. Mama and Jackson are sitting in chairs on opposite sides of the bed, staring up at the screen, talking at each other without looking.

“Alls I’m saying is you best not break her heart.”

“Why would I do that?”

Ppphhh
, Mama blows through her lips. “She told you about her asthma before?”

“She said it don’t happen too often.”

“That’s a bald-face lie. Trying not to run you off, I reckon.”

And I’m betting Jackson is sitting there thinking about the number of times he’s seen me and how many of them involved a sign of this damn sickness. I’m feeling mighty embarrassed. But I’m hoping Jackson ain’t the type to clear out when things get rough.

“Time is it?” I ask, trying to sit up, and well, change the subject.

“Eleven,” Mama says. “How you feeling?”

“Better.” Ain’t nobody ever stayed over in the hospital with me and Mama before, not even Dog.

She looks back and forth between us and says, “I’ma go get a cup of coffee. Y’all want anything?”

“I’m starved. We didn’t get much of a chance to eat at the picnic,” I say.

“I’ll see what I can scrounge up.” And then, she actually leaves us alone.

I smile at Jackson, wondering if I look like death warmed over. “So much for playing it cool.”

He laughs and hangs his head.

“She giving you a hard time?”

“Just watching out for her baby girl. Nut’n wrong with that. You okay?”

“Yeah. That was real nice of you to stay. Mama must think we been seeing each other a long time.”

“I kinda sorta told her ’bout the times we seen each other. I hope you don’t mind. I didn’t exactly have a choice. Once you went out, she was ready to send me packing if I didn’t tell all.”

“Figures,” I say, wondering how much exactly he said, not that there’s anything to hide. It’s just there’s some stuff you want to keep private. “Think she’ll lock me up the rest of the summer?”

He smiles. “I reckon so. I’ll just have to break you out every now and again so’s you don’t wither away.”

“Guess I ruined the picnic, huh?” I imagine all them folks talking about us after we left and likely making a fuss about me and Jackson.

“Ruined it? I believe you saved it from being a total washout.

Didn’t you say you wanted to give ’em sump’n to talk about?” he teases.

“Very funny,” I say. “What must they think?”

“Who cares,” he says, all somber.

“You don’t?” I ask.

“Not a lick,” he says.

“And you don’t care about my age?”

He looks as serious as a heart attack and he says, “Listen here, girl, alls I know is I came out here this summer feeling like my life was done finished. My daddy up and died without warning. My mama’s a mess. She’s carting me out here like she don’t wanna have to deal with looking at the spittin’ image of her dead husband all day. And I got to contend with my rich, snobby kin treatin’ me like crap. And then one day I see this cute girl with sump’n special goin’ on behind her eyes. In a matter a days, she goes and saves my life, in more ways’n one, and you want to know do I care that she’s two and a half years younger’n me? Would it matter if you was twenty and I was twenty-three?”

It’s a damn good thing they’re pumping those steroids into my veins or you can be sure I’d be in the depths of another attack. It’s just what I meant when I said he was real. I don’t believe I ever heard anybody talk like that before. And holy hell, Mama is standing in the doorway hearing it all, too, a tray full of food in her hands.

I can see Jackson’s embarrassed, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut. And all I want to do is take that away for him.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I say. “I’m sorry it took your daddy dying to bring you out this way, but I’m so happy you came.” Mama steps back out and closes the door. I lean towards him and we kiss, and it’s just as sweet as it was under the tree at the picnic. And Lordy I forgot where we’re at! The heart monitor starts to beeping, and Mama and the nurses come rushing in lickety-split. We’re caught red-handed. Jackson starts to blushing, and I’m turning near about purple. But then Mama busts out laughing, and I think I ain’t never seen a better day, happy as a clam at high tide.

1. Y’all are not to be alone in the house together under any circumstances. This goes for the Channings’ house, too.

2. When at either house, the bedroom door is to remain open at all times.

3. The back of the Channing boys’ truck is off-limits—period!

4. Y’all are not to be out at the beach after dark.

5. Savannah’s curfew is 10 o’clock during the week and 11 o’clock on weekends.
[Like it would even matter whether it’s the week or the weekend during summer vacation!]

6. Savannah may spend time with Jackson only after her chores are done.
[I knew that one was coming.]

7. Finally, y’all best mind your manners. I’ve got eyes watching for me just about everywhere. Don’t cross me.

 

Now if that ain’t the most humiliating manifesto you’ve ever seen, I don’t know what is. Can you imagine? Mama sat us down before we even left the hospital to go over this little document with her. I honest-to-God thought I might die of embarrassment! Jackson blushed something fierce but didn’t say a word against it. It must be awful. Here he is eighteen years old and more or less free to do as he pleases, and now he’s saddled with a list of rules as long as his arm. I’m surprised he didn’t up and hightail it out of there.

Just as Mama was finishing up her little tirade, the bald-headed doctor came in to tell me about the new medicine I’m supposed to start taking every day. I kept trying to tell him that the asthma doesn’t come every day. But he wouldn’t listen. He said since I ain’t managing it with my inhaler, I’ve got to try this. As if it’s my fault. As if it ain’t the damn asthma that’s managing me.

 

 

I’ll say one thing, that attack sure done brung everything out in the open. Now Mama, the preacher, all them church folk, and God himself know all about me and Jackson. Somehow, it turned us into an official couple. We just skipped right on past the rest of the getting-together phase of things. Not like with this one guy I had a crush on last year. It took about a century for him to notice me and another decade for us to get together. Then it was only a matter of days before he went and broke my heart, just moved on to the next girl. I reckon Mama’s aiming to protect me with all those rules. I sure was a mess after I got dumped. But damn, does she know how to complicate things.

For example, I don’t know if you ever tried it, but a hammock ain’t no place for a romantic encounter. Here me and Jackson are just a couple of days after I got out of the hospital, laying in the hammock, with the lightning bugs flashing their tails at us, the moon shining bright, stars starting to peek out from their hiding places. Sounds near about perfect, don’t it? I’m laying with my head on Jackson’s chest, just listening to the sure, steady beat of his heart. He tips my face up to his and we kiss and, damn, it’s sweet. But when he tries to turn towards me and the hammock starts to swinging and his feet get caught in the rope, it’s all I can do to keep us from tipping.

According to rule number one, we can’t be in the house alone together, and Mama’s still at work. But the mosquitoes are biting and so are the chiggers. The humidity is so high I feel like somebody done left the hot shower on all night long. Still, there ain’t nothing better on this earth than kissing Jackson Channing. And just as he starts running his hand over my shirt, I hear Mama’s car drive up. On the one hand it sucks real bad, ’cause now we can’t be alone, but on the other, at least we can go inside and escape the bugs and the heat.