Have You Found Her (30 page)

“Uh-oh,” I said as I came around the bed to hug her. “What’re you rotting your brain with today?”

She grinned—she was having a good day, a better day than she’d had all week. She’d worked her way up to ecru on the Pantone chart of sickly skin colors, and her face was lively, even if her eyes were dim. “I was just reading about Coney Island. That place was awesome.”

I dropped into the visitor’s chair, grinning back. “Except for when the Cyclone stopped, and I was across the street, like, ‘Oh my god, they’re gonna die!’”

Sam looked happy. “I was reading the Disney book again last night after you left. But my eye’s getting real bad, ’cause of all the bacteria floating around. They’re taking me down to the eye clinic soon, they gotta give me an injection.”

An eyeball injection—I tried not to make a nauseated face. “Oh, wow. They can’t do that here?” Every time they moved her for a test, she came back significantly weakened. I’d taken to riding along with her to X-rays and sonograms, when I could, just so I could noodge everybody to hurry up, get her back into bed ASAP, not make her sit up in the wheelchair too long or she’d start dry heaving, or going cold. Now they were planning to put a
needle in her eyeball
—and they couldn’t take the elevator up here to do it?

“Naw,” said Sam, and I stole a look at the eye in question, which was definitely lagging behind the other one when she shifted her gaze. “I wish they could do it here. I mean, I wish they didn’t have to do it at all.”

“I bet.” If you told me that someone was going to put a needle anywhere near my eyeball, I’d be sobbing and begging to be knocked unconscious. Sam contented herself with a resigned chuckle.

“Oh, well. Won’t be the worst thing I been through.”

Maybe not, but it was one of the worst things I’d been through in a while—standing next to her wheelchair in the darkened room in the eye clinic while the optometrist forced her into a gruesome face mask with
Clockwork Orange
–style eye props. She squeezed my hand, and I squeezed back, just as scared as she was. “Okay,” said the doctor, and I closed my eyes tight, felt the jerk of her hand as the needle went in—“Ah!”—felt myself swoon a little, sickened, then caught myself.
Okay.
It was over. I could look again.

“It hurts,” she complained in a small voice. “It feels…swollen.”

Nope, couldn’t look. Her left eye was bulging, just noticeably larger than her right. It gave her a demented expression. My knees wanted to buckle, but I locked them. “How long will she experience the swelling?” I asked the doctor.

“Well, it’s going to be a little uncomfortable for a while, but we’ll drain some of the fluid out of it in a few days, and hopefully we won’t need another injection.”

I took deep breaths, standing beside her, trying to concentrate on breathing from my diaphragm and not the image of them sucking eyeball juice out of her head with a needle. Sam looked up at me hopefully from her wheelchair. “Does it look weird?”

“Not so bad,” I told her. “Hardly noticeable at all.”

I left that evening, crossing paths quickly in the lobby with Maria (“How is she today?” “Well, her mood’s pretty good, considering the
eyeball injection
they gave her”), my stomach crawling up into my throat, heart burning with acid reflux. Got home about ten minutes before Bill was due. There was nothing to eat in the house, and the place was a mess.

I heard the key in the lock, and Bill came in.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” He gave me a peck and went into the bedroom to take off his work clothes.

Bill was in a shitty mood, I could tell—working too many late nights, too many six-day weeks, so he could save up time off for the honeymoon—and I immediately felt defensive, resentful.
I
was the one in a shitty mood; whatever his day had been like,
mine
had been worse. I followed him into the bedroom.

“We don’t really have anything for dinner,” I informed him. “How was your day?”

“Long. How about yours?”

“Awful. She was feeling a little bit better today, but they had to give her an injection in her eyeball. And I was there for it. I thought I was going to collapse.”

“Sounds pretty lame.” He passed me, going for the kitchen. “So there’s nothing to make?”

“Sorry,” I said, following. My turn to get the groceries, and I’d missed it again. “How about takeout?”

Bill opened and shut the cabinets and fridge. His mouth was a flat line. “It’s getting expensive, all the takeout every night. And I want to fit into my suit.”

“Sorry. I meant to go yesterday, but I was wiped out.”

He grabbed the take-out menus from their drawer. “So, what do you want?”

Um, I want you not to be mad at me.
“I don’t know,” I said sweetly. “Whatever you want is good with me.”

He sighed. He wanted a home-cooked meal, the way we used to make together. He wanted a conversation that wasn’t “her T cells, her fungemia, her impending death.” He wanted his partner back. “Oh, did you make the final arrangements with the florist?”

Shit.
“Yeah,” I lied. “I’m going over there, uh, Monday at lunch to approve everything. I still gotta call Sylvia, though. I’ll do that after dinner.”

“Please.” He pushed the menu for macrobiotic food across the counter at me, not meeting my eye.

“I
will,
” I said.

“All
right
.”

I could tell he wanted to retreat to his computer, to avoid me, avoid the fight that was brewing—the fight
he
was starting, by being so pissy and abrupt. But now I was all engaged—I mean, was he really going to step to me for not doing the grocery shopping when my adoptive daughter was dying? I was in just as shitty a mood as he was; if he wanted to take his mood out on me, I’d be delighted to reciprocate.

I blocked his exit from the kitchen, frowning. “Is everything okay, honey?”

Bill let his breath go, and his shoulders slumped. “I’m just…this whole thing with Sam has just been really hard for everybody. Especially right now. I just wish it wasn’t happening. That’s all.”

“Hard for everybody.” I nodded seriously, frowning deeper. “You mean this has been hard for you?”

“Yes,” he admitted, tense. “This has been hard for me.”

I knew it was true. This was incredibly hard for Bill—he was watching this kid die, and he was losing a piece of me at the same time. And he couldn’t complain; how could he say anything? Like,
Gee, honey, I sure wish we were just getting married like a normal couple, without the specter of death breathing down our necks.
This was a no-win situation for him, as much as it was for anybody else, and it was all my fault. I’d dragged us into this thing with Sam; our lives would have been so much easier if I hadn’t. Knowing that I’d hurt Bill just made me angrier—strangely, at him.

“Hard for you?” I laughed a little, bitter. “What about for me? What about for
her
? She’s fucking dying, Bill! Can you even imagine what that’s like? She’s lying up there with all of her organs failing, going blind in one eye, waiting to die, okay? And I’m holding her hand, trying to tell her, ‘Go toward the light, Sam, we’ll see you on the other side!’ I’m telling her, ‘Maria’s right, Sam, you should get right with Jesus!’ That’s how bad this is! I’m telling her to embrace Jesus! Because she’s
dying,
she is
facing imminent death
! And you think this is hard for
you
?”

His voice came back at me as loud as mine was, his hands flexing in frustration. “I know she’s dying! Trust me, I know. There’s nothing I can do about it, either. I wish she wasn’t. We all wish she wasn’t. I’m just saying, it sucks.”

I burst into tears. “I know! I’m sorry. I’m fucking sorry, okay? I’m sorry I ever met her. I’m sorry we took her to Coney. I’m sorry she’s not up there dying by herself right now, just like the twelve million other people who are fucking dying right now that we don’t know anything about, okay? I wish it wasn’t our problem. I’m sorry.” I sobbed and heaved, covering my face with my hands.

Bill crossed his arms and sighed deeply. “Babe, calm down. I’m not blaming you for this. I’m not blaming anyone.”

I kept crying. Maybe he wasn’t blaming me for it, but I was—blaming myself, blaming Sam.
Damn you, Sam, why did you have to find me? I was fine before you came along. Now I’m going to have to mourn you for the rest of my life.
There was nobody to be angry with, and it was killing me. “It’s my fault,” I cried. “I’m ruining everything. I don’t know why I signed up for this. You didn’t ask for any of this. It’s not fair to you.”

He observed me as I wept, obviously beyond the point of reason, and sighed again. “You’re not ruining everything. And you didn’t ask for this, either. Come here.” He opened his arms to me, and I wrapped myself around him, snuffling, hiding my guilty face. I’d somehow turned this from Bill airing a legitimate grievance to Bill comforting me. “It’s okay.”

I burrowed into him. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, honey. I don’t know what to do.”

“I know. I know.” His voice was resigned; I could feel it through the ear pressed against his chest. “There’s nothing we can do. That’s what sucks so much.”

I continued to cry for a while, because it was so hopeless, and he rocked me gently back and forth and said, “Shhhhh, it’s okay.” And I kept on crying, because we both knew that it wasn’t, and that it wouldn’t be—not until she died, and not even then. It was one thing that was never going to be okay again.

It was two days later, just after Bill had left for work, that Maria called with the news. “I just heard from one of the nurses. She’s bad. She was bad last night, and she’s worse now. The fever is really high, and they can’t bring it down. I can’t get there until this evening. I don’t know, Janice, this might be it.”

It.
I started to memorize everything around me—
this is the rug I am standing on, this is the weight of the phone against my ear
—so I could describe it later.
I was in the living room when I got the call; the air was cooler than it had been in weeks, the sky was autumn blue.
I showered, dressed, got on the train.
The train was crowded, the newspapers spoke of terror.
I kept poking the idea like a bad tooth—
I’m on my way to see my dying friend; she’s probably going to die today
. What was that going to be like? Impossible, that she would close her eyes and they wouldn’t open, that I would come into her room and she would not be there anymore. The other riders stared at the subway ads, listened to their headphones; three teenage girls in tight acid-washed jeans pushed one another and giggled. They had no idea what I was riding uptown to do.

Sam was alone in her bed when I entered, her eyes shut, her color ghostly, her chest barely moving with each breath. Her eyes fluttered as I slid into my seat, took her hand, so thin and weak, with its familiar pink scar from the surgery nine months before. “I’m here,” I told her, and her head lolled toward me, slumped on her spindly neck.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m here, and it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” She went limp again, her chest still. She wasn’t breathing. The orange line on her breathing monitor went flat. “Sam.” I jostled her, and the line started moving again. Her hand felt so hot in mine. I squeezed, and she did not squeeze back.

The breathing line went flat again.
Beeeeeep,
said the machine. I jostled her, more urgent. “Sam.” The line moved again. I looked around helplessly for a nurse, the call button out of reach unless I dropped Sam’s hand. The monitor beeped, the line flattened. “Sam.”

The heart-rate monitor was beeping, too, the line there becoming more erratic. A gray-haired nurse hurried into the room, grabbed Sam’s wrist, ripped open the hospital gown, and pushed hard on the electrodes on Sam’s bony chest. Sam’s head lolled again, and the lines on the monitors resumed their spikes and waves. The nurse frowned, checking the lines going into her arms, the antibiotics flowing into one side, the pain meds into the other.

“She’s bad today,” I said. My voice was surprisingly quiet and calm. I felt like I was hearing myself through a telephone.

“She’s not feeling so good, no.” The nurse stepped back and watched the lines on the monitors, moving in choppy waves. “If that beeps again, you call for me.”

She exited the room.
Wait, come back. Help.
Sam’s head lolled again, and her eyes fluttered open. “Hey,” she managed to croak at me.

“Hey.” I tried to smile. “Don’t say anything. Just rest. I’m here.”

“Thanks.” She closed her eyes again.

This was how I spent the next few hours, sitting at her side, waiting for the lines on her monitors to fail. I picked up the book I’d been reading to her,
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
, stopping every few lines to look at her face. Was she struggling? Was she at peace? The waves of her breath, the spikes of her heartbeat—they were erratic, but they were still there.

And I prayed.
Don’t fight anymore, Sam. It’s going to be okay. You know what you told me about those photons, how they disappear, and when they come back they’ve aged years in a millisecond? And how that’s proof of alternate dimensions? Well, I really believe that. I really believe there’s a dimension out there, one where you never got HIV, and we’re all there with you—me, and Maria, and Jodi, and Evan, and Bill, and your sister, Eileen, she’s there, too. And your dead dog, Max. He’s alive, and he’s right there at your feet. And it’s Christmas, and we’re all at Jodi’s house together, and we’re opening our gifts. Look what you made for me, Sam; it’s a drawing. It’s a picture of us at Coney Island. There’s you and me and Bill, and the water and the sand, and the Wonder Wheel, and the Cyclone. Your lips are blue from the candy. Look, Sam, look.

Her lips were blue and purple. I could see the artery throbbing in the side of her neck. Her hands were as the nurse had left them, palms-up on the sheet next to her like they were waiting for nails.

Sam shifted her weight and blinked a few times. One eye opened slightly. “Hey,” she croaked at me.