Fly Away (45 page)

“That doesn’t help much,” she said miserably.

He said quietly, “I’ve thought about that day in your dorm room a thousand times.
I was wrong to blow such a gasket. I would do anything to have a do-over and to tell
you that I love you no matter what choice you make and that you can always count on
me to love you.”

“I needed that,” she said, wiping her eyes.

“And I would tell Tully I’m sorry, too. I was wrong to blame her.”

Marah nodded but said nothing.

Johnny thought of all the mistakes he’d made with this girl, the times he’d walked
away when he should have stayed; the times he’d remained silent when he should have
spoken. All the wrong turns a single father makes when he’s in over his head. “Can
you forgive me?”

She gazed at him steadily. “I love you, Dad,” she said.

“I love you, too, Munchkin.”

Marah’s smile was weak and a little sad. “What about Tully? She probably thinks—”

“What would you say to her right now?”

“I’d tell her how much I love her, but I won’t get a chance.”

“You’ll get a chance. You can tell her when she wakes up.”

“I have a little trouble believing in miracles these days.”

What he wanted to say was,
Don’t we all?
What he said was, “Your mom would hate to hear that. She would tell you that everything
works out the way it’s supposed to and not to give up hope until you have to, and—”

“Certainly not then,” Marah said quietly, her voice an echo of his.

For a beautiful second, he felt Katie beside him. The leaves rustled overhead.

“I want to see Dr. Bloom again, if that’s okay.”

Johnny looked up briefly, saw a movement of the shadowy Mason jar.
Thank you, Katie
. “I’ll make an appointment.”

Twenty-six

September 14, 2010
9:13
A.M.

On the day before Tully was to be brought home, the Ryans and Mularkeys descended
on the house on Firefly Lane like a professional cleaning crew. Dorothy had never
seen people work so hard or get along so well.

The back bedroom—Tully’s at fourteen and now again at fifty—had been stripped down
and scrubbed and painted a beautiful sky blue. The hospital bed had been delivered
and set up to face the room’s only window. From her place in bed, Tully would be able
to look through the open sash window, across the vegetable field, to her once-best-friend’s
old house. The new bedding—picked out by Marah—was pretty white matelassé with a raised
floral pattern, and the twin boys had chosen pictures to put on the dresser—there
were at least a dozen of them, all told; pictures of Kate and Tully throughout their
lives, of Tully holding a pink-faced infant, of Johnny and Tully accepting some award
onstage. Dorothy wished she had a picture of herself and Tully to add to the collection,
but there simply were none. In the middle of it all, a nurse showed up from the coma
care company and talked to Dorothy for at least two hours about how to handle Tully’s
daily care.

When everyone finally left, Dorothy walked from room to room, telling herself she
could do this. She read through the nurse’s handouts and materials twice, making notes
in the margins.

Twice, she’d almost gone for a drink, but in the end she’d made it through, and now
she was in the hospital again, walking down the bright corridor toward her daughter’s
room. Smiling at one of the floor nurses, she opened the door and went inside.

There was a man sitting by her daughter’s bed, reading. At Dorothy’s entrance, he
looked up. She noticed several things about him at once: he was young, probably not
more than forty-five, and there was an exotic, multicultural look to him. His hair
was drawn back into a ponytail and she was pretty sure that beneath his white doctor’s
coat would be worn, faded jeans and a T-shirt from some rock band. He wore the same
plastic clogs that were her favorite.

“I’m sorry,” he said, rising, setting the book aside. She saw it was something called
Shantaram.
It was a thick book and he was halfway through it.

“Are you reading to her?”

He nodded, coming forward, extending his hand. “I’m Desmond Grant, an ER doc.”

“Dorothy. I’m her mother.”

“Well. I should be getting back to work.”

“You visit her often?”

“I try to come in either before or after my shifts. I see her a lot in the middle
of the night.” He smiled. “I hear she’s going home today.”

“Yes. In about an hour.”

“It was nice to meet you.” He headed for the door.

“Desmond?”

He turned back. “Yes?”

“Seventeen Firefly Lane. In Snohomish. That’s where we’ll be. If you want to finish
reading her that book.”

“Thanks, Dorothy. I’d like that.”

She watched him leave and then walked over to the bed. In the eleven days since the
accident, Tully’s facial bruising had changed color, gone from a deep plum color to
a rotten-banana brown. The dozens of tiny lacerations had scabbed over; only a few
oozed yellow pus. Her full lips were cracked and dry.

Dorothy reached into her baggy smock pocket, pulling out a small jar of bee cream.
Using the pad of her forefinger, she glazed the soft mixture across Tully’s slack
lips. “That will make them feel better, I think. How did you sleep last night?

“Me? Not so good,” she went on, as if they were conversing. “I was nervous about your
homecoming. I don’t want to let you down. You don’t think I will? I’m glad of that.”

She placed a hand on her daughter’s dry, bald scalp. “You’ll wake up when you’re ready.
Healing takes time. Don’t I know that?”

Just as she finished the sentence, the door opened and Dr. Bevan and Johnny came into
the room.

“There you are, Dorothy,” the doctor said, stepping aside to allow several nurses
and two paramedics into the room.

She managed a smile. If it took all these people just to transport Tully, how in heaven
did Dorothy think she could care for her alone?

“Breathe, Dorothy,” Johnny said, coming up beside her.

She gave him a grateful look.

After that, everything moved quickly. Tully was transported from the bed to a gurney,
disconnected from the IV and machines, and wheeled away. At the front desk, Dorothy
signed a bunch of paperwork, collected some discharge papers and care procedure brochures
and a set of notes from Dr. Bevan. By the time she was in Johnny’s car, following
the ambulance, she felt sick with worry.

On Columbia, they drove downhill—and there was the rough gray stanchion Tully had
hit. Beneath it, on the pavement, a makeshift memorial had sprung up. Balloons and
dying flowers and candles created a little shrine of sorts. A sign read
WAKE UP, TULLY
. Another read
WE’RE PRAYING 4 U
.

“Do you think she knows how many people are praying for her?” she asked.

“I hope so.”

Dorothy fell silent after that. She sat back in the comfortable leather seat and watched
the scenery go from city to town to country, from high-rises to low fences, from bumper-to-bumper
traffic to slow, winding tree-lined roads with only a few other cars in sight. At
home, they pulled up behind the ambulance and parked.

Dorothy hustled ahead to open the front door and turn on the lights and led the paramedics
to Tully’s bedroom, where the Ryan kids had tacked up a huge
WELCOME HOME, TULLY
poster.

Dorothy shadowed the paramedics, asked them questions, and studiously wrote down their
answers.

All too quickly, it was done. Tully was in her room, apparently sleeping, and the
ambulance was gone.

“Do you want me to stay?” Johnny asked.

Dorothy had been so lost in her own thoughts that his voice surprised her. “Oh. No.
But thank you.”

“Marah will be here Thursday. She’s bringing food. And I’ll be here for the weekend
with the boys. Margie and Bud gave us the keys to the house across the street.”

Today was Monday.

“And Margie wanted me to remind you that she’s only a few hours away. If you change
your mind and need help, she’ll be on the next flight.”

Dorothy forced a smile. “I can do this,” she said, as much to herself as to him.

They walked to the door. There, Johnny paused and looked down at her.

“I wonder if you know how much this would mean to her.”

“I know how much it means to me. How often do second chances come around?”

“If you get overwhelmed—”

“I won’t drink. Don’t worry.”

“That wasn’t my worry. I want you to know that we’re all here for her. And for you.
That’s what I was going to say.”

She stared up at this gorgeous man and said, “I wonder if she knows how lucky she
is.”

“We didn’t,” he said quietly, and Dorothy saw regret etch itself into the lines of
his face.

Dorothy knew better than to say anything. Sometimes you simply made the wrong choice
and you had to live with it. You could only change the future. She walked him out
of the house and watched him drive away. Then she closed the door and went back to
stand by her daughter’s bedside.

An hour later, the nurse showed up and handed Dorothy a care list and said, “Come
with me.”

For the next three hours, Dorothy shadowed the woman’s every move; she learned step
by step what to do to care for her daughter. By the end of the visit, she had a notebook
full of notations and reminders.

“You’re ready,” the nurse said at last.

Dorothy swallowed hard. “I don’t know.”

The nurse smiled gently. “It’s just like when she was little,” she said. “Remember
how they constantly needed something—diaper changes, a little time in your arms, a
bedtime story—and you never knew what it was until they quieted? It’s like that. Just
go through your list. You’ll be fine.”

“I wasn’t much of a mother to her,” Dorothy said.

The nurse gave her a little pat. “We all think that, hon. You’ll be fine. And don’t
you forget. She can probably hear you. So talk, sing, tell jokes. Anything.”

That night, when she was alone with her daughter for the first time, Dorothy slipped
quietly into the bedroom and lit a gardenia-scented candle and turned on the bedside
lamp.

She hit the bed’s controls and elevated it to an exact angle of thirty-five degrees.
She paused it there and then lowered it. Then she raised it again. “I hope this isn’t
making you dizzy. I’m supposed to elevate and lower your head for fifteen minutes
every two hours.” When she was done with that, Dorothy gently peeled back the blankets
and began massaging Tully’s hands and forearms. All the while, as she massaged her
daughter’s limbs and gently put her through passive exercises, she talked.

Afterward, she had no idea what she’d even said. She just knew that when she touched
her daughter’s feet, smoothing lotion onto the dry, cracked skin, she started to cry.

*   *   *

Two weeks after Tully left the hospital, Marah had her first meeting with Dr. Bloom.
As she walked through the empty waiting room, she couldn’t help imagining Paxton there,
with his sad and soulful eyes, and the black hair that continually fell across his
face.

“Marah,” Dr. Bloom said, welcoming her with a smile. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Thanks.”

Marah sat down in the chair facing the polished wooden desk. The office seemed smaller
than she remembered, and more intimate. The view of Elliott Bay was beautiful, even
on this gray and rainy day.

Dr. Bloom sat down. “What would you like to talk about today?”

There were so many choices; so many mistakes to work through and things to figure
out and so much guilt and grief. She wanted to fidget and look away, or count the
leaves on the plant. Instead, she said, “I miss my mom and Tully’s in a coma and I’ve
screwed up my life so badly I just want to crawl in a hole somewhere and hide.”

“You’ve done that already,” Dr. Bloom said. Had her voice always been that gentle?
“With Paxton. And here you are.”

Marah felt a shock of recognition at the words; a new understanding muscled its way
in. Bloom was right. It had all been a way of hiding—the pink hair, the piercings,
the drugs, the sex. But she had loved Paxton. That, at least, had been real. Broken,
maybe, and unhealthy, and dangerous, but real.

“What were you hiding from?”

“Then? Missing my mom.”

“There is pain you can’t outrun, Marah. Maybe you know that now. Some pains you have
to look in the eye. What do you miss most about your mom?”

“Her voice,” she answered. And then, “The way she hugged me. The way she loved me.”

“You will always miss her. I know that from experience. There will be days—even years
from now—when the missing will be so sharp it takes your breath away. But there will
be good days, too; months and years of them. In one way or another, you’ll be searching
for her all your life. You’ll find her, too. As you grow up, you’ll understand her
more and more. I promise you that.”

“She would hate how I treated Tully,” she said softly.

“I think you’d be amazed at how easily a mother forgives. And a godmother, too. The
question is: Can you forgive yourself?”

Marah looked up sharply, her eyes stinging with tears. “I need to.”

“Okay, then. That’s where we will start.”

It helped, Marah learned, all that looking back, all that talking about her mom and
Tully and guilt and forgiveness. Sometimes she lay in bed at night, drawing her memories
close and trying to imagine her mother talking to her in the dark.

Because that’s what she missed most: her mother’s voice. And through it all, she knew
what she would someday have to do; she knew there was a place where she could find
her mother’s voice when she was strong enough to go looking.

But she needed Tully to be with her. That was the promise Marah had made to her mom.

*   *   *

For weeks afterward, Dorothy fell into bed at night exhausted and woke tired. The
to-do care list was never far from her grasp; she held it almost continuously and
reread it over and over, afraid always that she had missed something. The tasks ran
like a litany through her head. Elevate and lower, fifteen minutes every two hours;
check fluids and food, check nasogastric tube, massage her hands and feet; apply lotion;
brush her teeth; exercise her limbs through a gentle range of motion; keep bed dry
and sheets clean; turn her from side to side every few hours; check tracheobronchial
suction.