Cross Roads (12 page)

“Bleeding like that is indicative of…?” queried Dr. Franklin.

“Battle sign for a basilar skull fracture,” responded the resident. She continued, “The patient almost coded while first responders were attempting to stabilize, was transported immediately here, where imaging confirmed subarachnoid brain hemorrhaging and also revealed a subfascial meningioma tumor located in the frontal lobe, midline beneath the falx cerebri.”

“So what do we have here?” the doctor asked.

“A highly unusual concurrence of three processes. Trauma, aneurysm, and tumor.”

“What side of the brain is the tumor?”

“Uh, we don’t know, but he was wearing his watch on his right.”

“Significance?” She turned to another of the students.

“Uh, he’s left-handed?”

“And that is important because?”

While the questions and responses in room 17 continued for a short time before the doctor and her entourage exited to the next room and next medical situation,
another more heated interaction was taking place in the adjoining building on the tenth floor of Doernbecher Children’s Hospital.

Molly Perkins was angry and tired. The life of a single mom was routinely difficult, but on days like today seemed impossible. God wasn’t supposed to give you more than you could handle, but she felt at the last-straw point of the load. Did God include the baggage that she herself had added to the weight of what she was supposed to handle? Did God take into account what others brought and dumped on her? She hoped so.

Molly and the doctor on call were engaged in a conversation similar to others she had been having for almost four months. She knew that this particular man was not the cause of her pain, but in this moment it simply didn’t matter. The unlucky recipient of her frustration, he kindly and patiently let her emotions spill in his direction. Her precious fourteen-year-old, Lindsay, lay dying only a stone’s throw from where they stood, her physique ravaged not only by the spreading leukemia but also by the drugs that had been commissioned to take up combat inside this tiny, trembling, and weakening island of humanity. She was well aware that the hospital was filled with others like her Lindsay who were locked in war with their own bodies, but at the moment she was too exhausted to care for more than her one.

Compassionate people, like the doctor Molly was verbally castigating, were among the dedicated many in the trenches, and while these might later weep their losses into pillows in secure homes, on duty they held it together. They, too, knew the haunting guilt of continuing to live, laugh, play, and love while others, often young and innocent, slipped from their best attempts at rescue.

Parents like Molly Perkins needed answers and reassurances
on which to hang the myriad of uncertainties, even when there simply weren’t any. The doctors could provide only more facts and charts and attempts at explanations that might soften the potentials or the inevitabilities. Thankfully there were wins, but the losses seemed to carry much greater weight, especially when they ran in a series.

“We’re going to run the set of tests again tomorrow, Ms. Perkins, and that will let us know how close we are to nadir, the point that the white blood count reaches zero. I know you’ve heard all this many times already, so I apologize if it feels condescending in any way. Are you going to be able to be here? It’s easier for Lindsay when you are.”

“Yeah, I’ll be here.” She tugged on the wisp of blond hair that always seemed to escape her best attempts at control. What was her boss going to say this time? At some point his patience would end. He couldn’t keep asking the others to fill in for her. Although she was hourly, not paid unless she punched in, it still upset the schedules; and while most seemed to understand and bend with the wind that was so turbulent in her world, they had their own lives to live, their own families and children waiting.

She glanced over to a nearby chair to check on Cabby, sixteen years old and busy looking through the friends and extended family photo album that he often brought to occupy the wait, rocking back and forth gently to some invisible breeze or rhythm. He was engaged and that was good. Had to keep an eye on this one.

Cabby sensed her attention and looked up, beamed his gorgeous smile, and waved his affection. She blew him a kiss, this firstborn child, the offspring of what she thought had been true love. Ted was there faithfully, right up to the moment he first saw their newborn’s rounded face, almond-shaped eyes, and small chin. Suddenly the romantic idealism
that had fired her boyfriend’s infatuation lost its orbit and crashed onto the realities of everyday commitments.

Both of them healthy, with the naive optimism of youth and the world their common enemy, they had ignored the advantages of prenatal visits or checkups offered freely through their state medical plan. Not that she would have made any other choice had she known. After the initial shock of her son’s cognitive disability, she found within the rising of a ferocious love for her baby boy. It was the look of bitter disappointment on Ted’s face that she would never forget, and just as she was falling in love with their challenged little man, he fell out of love with her. She refused to become weak or run, while he did both.

Some men, when confronted by their own mortality or the embarrassment, unwanted attention, and intrusion brought into their lives by a child beneath their expectations, justify their cowardice with noble language and slip out the back door. Ted didn’t even bother to say good-bye. Three days after Cabby was born, she returned to the tiny three-room apartment above the bar she tended and found no trace that Ted had ever been present, and in all the years since, she had neither seen nor even heard from him.

The arrival of the unforeseen reveals the depths of one’s heart. A small ambiguity, the exposure of a tiny lie, an extra bit of the twenty-first chromosome, the replacement of the imagination or ideal by the real, almost anything unexpected can cause life’s wheels to lock up and the facade of control to reveal its inherent arrogance.

Thankfully, most women do not see escape as the option that some men do, and Molly responded to her losses by pouring her heart and soul into her son. She named him Carsten, after her great-grandfather, for no reason except she had always liked the name and had heard good stories
about the man. Cabby was the name he had given himself, a name he found easier to say.
Better
, she thought,
than Taxi!

About a year after bringing Cabby home, she had let herself be sweet-talked by a pub rat in heat and on the prowl, with a face of kind consideration and a touch that lingered. She knew better, but the daily weights of existence dulled the warnings and her heart’s longings drowned out the flashing sirens. For him, she was another soulless conquest, a way to love himself through another’s body for a night. For her, their liaison became a catalyst for change. With the help of social services, some friends, and a church whose rock walls held living hearts, she had relocated, found new work, and nine months later brought Lindsay Anne-Marie Perkins, seven pounds, eight ounces of dark-haired health, into a community eager for her arrival. Now, fourteen years later, it was her daughter who lay deathly ill while Cabby, her Down syndrome son, sixteen and with the mind of an eight-year-old, was vibrant and healthy.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized, and the doctor nodded, understanding. “What time did you say the tests were going to be run?”

“We’d like to start as close to 2:00 p.m. as possible, and it will take the better part of the rest of the day. Would that work for you?”

He waited for her assent while she mentally calculated what it was going to take to alter her schedule. When she nodded, he continued, “How about if we take a quick look at her last results.” He motioned to an office adjacent to where they were standing and added, “I can bring them up on the screen here, it will only take a couple minutes, and then I’ll have you give me a few signatures that we need, answer any questions you might have, and get you on your way.”

She glanced once more at Cabby, but he was still busy,
focused on the photos. He seemed oblivious to anything that was happening, humming to himself while making exaggerated motions with his arms and hands as if conducting an orchestra visible to only the most prescient. Usually one of the many young hospital volunteers would help keep an eye on him, but none had arrived yet.

The charts, signatures, questions, and explanations took longer than Molly anticipated, and time passed quickly. She finally allowed herself to ask the most difficult question, steeling herself in anticipation of the answer.

“Can you tell me what Lindsay’s real chances are? I mean, thank you for taking the time to explain all of this to me… again, but what are her chances?”

He reached out and touched her arm. “I’m sorry, Ms. Perkins, but we simply don’t know. Realistically, without a bone marrow transplant, the chances are less than 50 percent. Lindsay has responded to the chemo, but, as you know, it’s been arduous and extremely wearing on her. She’s a fighter and sometimes that makes all the difference. We will continue to run the tests and regroup.”

It was in that moment that Molly remembered how long it had been since she had checked on Cabby. She glanced at the wall clock. Almost twenty minutes, which was too long.
Oh no
, she thought as she quickly excused herself, hurriedly promising the doctor that she’d be there the next day.

As she feared, Cabby had disappeared, taking with him his album of photographs but leaving behind an empty bag that had contained goldfish-shaped crackers, a snack they had not brought to the hospital. She glanced at the clock. If only Maggie was working, but her shift had ended and she was probably already at home. Maggie was a seasoned registered nurse who worked on-call shifts in Doernbecher’s
Oncology/Hematology Department. They shared a house together and she was Molly’s best friend.

First stop, down the hallway and into the ward in the direction of room 9, Lindsay’s room. Her daughter was fast asleep and there was no sign of Cabby. After a couple of brief conversations she established that he had not come this direction, so back she exited to the main hall. Two choices at this point: back toward the clinic or in the other direction, toward the elevators. Knowing how his mind worked, she headed for the elevators. He was always pushing buttons, hers mostly, she thought to herself and couldn’t help a weak but worried grin.

Hide-and-seek was his all-time favorite game, and because of it Molly and Cabby were on a first-name basis with the local law enforcement, which she occasionally called to help track him down. On more than one occasion he had slipped out of their house and returned without her noticing. Weeks and sometimes months later Molly would discover an unfamiliar artifact or piece of equipment not belonging to either of them stashed in his room. He loved cameras and taking pictures, even though he was shy and avoided being in the photos himself. On one of his escapades he found an unlocked door at a neighbor’s home, entered, removed a camera, returned home, and hid it under his bed. Two months later she found it concealed in his room, and when confronted, Cabby without hesitation took her to the neighbor’s house where it was reunited with its proper owner, a man who simply thought he had misplaced it. She hoped Cabby wouldn’t find the Radiology Department.

The trail of sightings led her across the skyway from the children’s hospital and into the main building, where she
found the family picture album, and finally into the elevators leading to ICU, the last place she wanted to look for him. Cabby had no sense of protocol or social boundaries. It was his goal in life to make a friend of every person, be they awake or unconscious, and with his love of lights and buttons, ICU was the perfect storm. Finally, with the help of more than a few nurses, volunteers, and staff, she narrowed the search to Neurological Sciences ICU and specifically to room 17. Somehow he had gotten past all the security precautions, probably tagging along on the heels of a visitor during a busy moment. Molly approached quietly. She didn’t want to startle him or potentially disturb room 17’s occupant or visitors.

Cabby had been inside the room for almost five minutes by the time Molly found him. It was dimly lit and quiet, and much to his joy gadgets were everywhere, each making a distinct beeping or whirring noise, oscillating to different rhythms and beats. He liked it in here. It was cooler than out there. After a few minutes of exploration, he was surprised to discover that he wasn’t alone, that a man was asleep in the bed.

“Wake!” Cabby commanded and pushed the man’s arm, with no response.

“Shhhhhh,” whispered Cabby, as if others were in the room with him.

The man was sound asleep and Cabby noticed he had uncomfortable-looking tubes sticking out of his mouth. He tried to pull one out, but it was wedged in pretty tightly so he gave up, turning his attention instead to the array of machines connected to him. He watched the lights, fascinated by the alternating colors and waves of green that some produced, while others simply blinked on and off, off and on.

“Kikmahass!” He muttered his favorite epithet. There were lots of buttons and switches, and Cabby knew what to do with those. He was about to turn one of the big knobs when, on impulse, he leaned down and kissed the sleeping man on his forehead.

A loud voice exclaimed, “What the…?!”

Cabby froze, motionless except for his eyes, his hand hovering inches from the knob. He glanced down at the man, who was still unmoving in his sleep. There was someone else in here, but even though his eyes had adjusted, he couldn’t see anyone. Slowly he brought his finger to his mouth and whispered as loud as he could, “Shhhh!”

At that moment the door opened.

“Cabby!”

She had found him. The game was over for now, and he was in her arms in a flash. He smiled broadly while Molly quietly apologized to those with her who had assisted in the search and rescue.