Some Kind of Normal (33 page)

Logan is in the bathroom looking in the mirror and
fingering the turquoise that tinges the ends of his Mohawk. I can't
tell if he's admiring the recent change or deciding on a new color.
He, too, seems more comfortable in his skin. When he glances over
and sees me, he grins, and I find myself smiling back at him.

Ashley is asleep, like usual, in her hospital bed,
her skin as pale as the sheets around her. Tubing runs out from the
IV drip and disappears in her hand. Max the pump lays on top of the
blankets and his tubing slithers under the covers and disappears
beneath her nightgown. A blood pressure monitor is hooked up to her
arm and makes a funny, whirring noise every few minutes as it
squeezes her and then releases with a slight whoosh. Underneath all
of this, Ashley barely moves. The briefest glimpse and you'd think
she was dead.

And yet, here we are.

I remember Pastor Joel saying in a sermon once that
spider silk was stronger than steel. I had leaned over and
whispered in Travis's ear, "Then I must be Wonder Woman cause I'm
brushing them off the porch railings every day."

He snickered, but at lunch Logan said, "That's true.
I learned it in science. If you had spider silk and threads of
steel the same width, spider silk is five times stronger. It's more
elastic and harder to break than plastic."

"That so?" I couldn't tell if Travis was more
surprised by the facts or that Logan was actually paying attention
in class.

Now, I look at my family and think about that spider
web. Alone, we look frail and easy to beat. But we've been steel.
Against diabetes. Against the reporters and protesters. Against the
school.

I thought for awhile I might lose it all. Ashley and
Travis and Logan. But against all odds we're still here.

~~~~

On the day they transplant the stem cells, we all
arrive early. There are no reporters and only two protesters who
half-heartedly wave their signs as we pass.

I wash Ashley's hair, what is left of it anyway, and
dry it and put it back in a head band. Logan sits at the foot of
the bed and paints her toenails, which is about the silliest thing
I've seen in a long time and makes us all giggle.

A nurse comes in around eight and ups the saline
drip. "The doctor will be in about noon to inject the cells," she
says, looking around at our motley little group. "I'm not sure the
fumes from the nail polish are good for her," she adds.

"They're toxic, not bacterial," Logan says, using a
q-tip dipped in polish remover to clean up the edges. She scowls
and leaves.

The plastic bubble is gone, but Ashley still has
oxygen tubes in her nose and several IV's and machines hooked up to
her, making it difficult for her to move around much. Not that she
would, since she don't have energy to do much other than breathe,
which we find good enough.

When Dr. Van Der Campen comes in at noon he has a
large syringe. "Should we give a drum roll?" I ask. He's amused by
this and waits while we all pat our hands furiously on the closest
hard substance.

"Ready?"

We nod, and he sticks the needle into part of the
tubing and pushes the plunger.

"That's it?"

"That's it. Were you expecting fireworks?"

"It's so--"

"Anti-climactic," Logan fills in for me.

"Climactic isn't all it's cracked up to be," he says,
pulling the syringe out and capping it. He attaches two more bags
of clear fluid to the IV lines and opens the valves so they can
drip into Ashley as well. "These will help the stem cells multiply
and do their job on the beta cells. And one will bind the toxins in
the stem cell solution."

"There are toxins?" All I can think is more poison.
Lord almighty, how much can one person take?

"She'll be fine, Mrs. Babcock. We're almost out of
the woods now."

Out of the woods for what I'm not sure, seeing as how
she still has diabetes and is still allergic to insulin. As far as
I can see, she's in the Black Forest.

So Travis can spend time alone with Ashley, Logan and
I have been getting lunch out all week, but today he insists the
boys go. It is the first time in several days I've been alone with
her, and the excitement of the transplant has her more alert than
in several weeks.

"Do you think I'll be home in time for the fall
dance?" She unconsciously smoothes her hair.

After all of this I can't believe the dance is the
thing on her mind, but I'm glad it is. I'm glad she's looking
forward to something other than transplants and sponge baths.

"If we do get home in time, we'll have to go dress
shopping. I'll bet you've grown five inches in the last four
months."

"Yeah. My other dresses would look like sacks on me
now, too. I've lost weight, don't you think? I feel skinnier."

"Quite a bit."

She picks up the brush I left on the nightstand and
absentmindedly begins to brush her hair. I watch long strands come
out with each stroke, and I put my hand up to stop her. "It's real
pretty already."

She reaches out and touches my mask. "Why do you have
to wear that all the time?"

"So I don't breathe germs on you."

"Because your germs would make me more sick?" I nod,
wondering why this is the first time she's asked this, and wonder
if today she's more awake and aware of what is going on around her.
She's been so groggy since we got here, living in a fog, accepting
everything around her without question because questioning takes
too much energy.

She fingers the IV line where it enters her hand. "Do
you know anything about the other kids? The ones in the trial?" I
shake my head. "I wonder if they got their transplants too. Do you
think? Do you think they're well now? If they didn't get pneumonia
they should be ahead of me."

"Maybe. We don't know that they didn't get sick, too,
though."

"Do you think Dr. Jack would tell us? Could we ask if
they are making their own insulin yet?"

"I think that's private." She looks so devastated I
add, "I can ask, though. Or, better yet, we can check the message
board. We haven't even done that yet."

She brightens a bit. "When I get out, you know what I
want?"

"To go to the dance with Brian Lee?"

She blushes. "Besides that. I want a steak. A really
big one, with a baked potato on the side with sour cream and butter
and bacon, just like they serve at the steakhouse."

"Not a cake?"

She squinches her nose. "No. I don't really feel like
anything sweet."

"Okay. Steak it is."

She settles back, and I think for a moment she might
be going to sleep, until she talks again. "What if I don't?"

"Get a steak?"

"Get out."

"Oh, Baby, I think you're getting out. They don't
want you living here. They got other people they need to put in
this bed. And I'm pretty sure they're tired of seeing my mug here."
I smile my cheesy smile, but she don't bite.

"What happens if this doesn't work?"

I stop smiling. "You can't think like that. It will
work."

"I've had dreams a lot lately."

"Oh yeah? What about?"

"About going to heaven. I drift off on a cloud and
Jesus is there, and angels singing the most beautiful music you
ever heard. And grandpa is there. And it doesn't hurt anymore. And
I'm really, really happy."

"It's just a dream, Baby."

She stares out the window, complete peace on her
face. "But I like it. That's the thing. I'm not scared anymore that
I might die. Sometimes I dream I'm there, and it's so nice, and
then I wake up and I'm here, and I can't breathe, and my head hurts
all the time and my mouth feels like sandpaper. And I just wish I
could go back to sleep and dream again."

My own mouth is parched suddenly. I don't know what
to say. I take her hand in mine. Her skin feels dry and fragile,
like onion paper, and I'm afraid I'll hurt her holding it. "It'll
get better, Ash. This time next year you'll forget how bad all this
was. You'll be back at school, playing in the band, fighting with
Logan, eating anything you want, and this whole thing'll be a bad
dream."

"But if I'm not. . ."

"You will be."

She squeezes my hand and lets go. "I'm really tired.
I think I'll sleep a little."

"Okay."

I watch her sleep, see the moment when the tightness
of her face eases, when her eyelids stop quivering and her body
relaxes into itself. I'm selfish to want her here. To want her to
keep fighting through all this. Maybe if I were her, I'd just want
to let go too.

I slip out and go to the restroom to cry. I wash my
face before meeting Travis and Logan, and I don't tell them about
the conversation. I pretend to be excited about the transplant and
tell them Ashley is curious about the others and that I think she's
back to her competitive self because she wants to be the first to
have it work. We talk about her name being in medical journals and
all the others who will be cured after her. I don't mention her
dream. I don't mention death, because today is all about life. I
want to hold on to that as long as possible. As Travis and Logan
shove down sandwiches and chips, I watch the animation on their
faces, their hopes wrapped up in possibility, and I stay quiet.

~~~~

The sun is barely set by nine o'clock, and we say
goodnight to Ashley, although she's already asleep again. Logan's
invited to go to a celebration dinner with one of his basketball
friends, and so Travis and I walk around the Johns Hopkins campus.
He holds my hand, and I feel closer to him than I have ever felt.
The trees haven't started to change yet, but the air feels like
fall already.

I want to ask Travis something, but I can't bring
myself to do it. Words have never been easy for me. I open my
mouth, and then close it and pretend to find something fascinating
about the squirrels running across the path.

Travis, though, feels it.

"All this time, Babs, you were right. This was the
right thing to do."

"It hasn't worked out yet," I answer, measuring my
words and tempering my hope.

"It will though," he says. "One way or another, it'll
be okay."

He squeezes my hand; I squeeze back. "How can you
have such faith in God?" There. I've said it. I wait for his
avalanche of self-righteousness, but it doesn't come. Travis, it
seems, is measuring his words too.

"I think sometimes you mistake me trusting God to
answer, for liking what he has to say." He says this slowly,
weighing the thought as though maybe this is a new revelation for
him, too. "I trust that God will do what is best, because that's
what the Bible says. I trust that he hears my prayers, because that
is what the Bible says. It also says he always answers, but it
doesn't say he answers the way we want him to. Just that the way he
chooses will be the best way. In the long run."

He stops walking and stares up into the darkening
sky. I wonder if he's looking to see if God is there, or if God
will strike him down for thinking what he's thinking. "I believe he
can save Ashley's life, but maybe if she dies, something greater
will happen. Something good in us, or in someone else." There are
tears on his cheeks now, and he turns to look me in the eye. He is
more fiery now. "But I don't like that. If he takes Ashley, I may
trust that he's going to make something good come out of it, but
I'm still going to hate the answer with a passion for awhile."

This is the first time it's seemed possible Travis
could be mad at God.

"So how can you trust that he's good, then?" I
ask.

"Because the Bible says. Because everything in nature
and history shows us that he can make good come of bad. Because,"
he shrugs. "Because he loves me."

I suddenly have a flashback to a dinner table
argument with Logan and Ashley when they were little, about eating
broccoli. They wanted nothing to do with the green vegetable. Why
couldn't they have candy instead?
I don't like it
, Ashley had whined.
It tastes
yucky
.

But
it's good for you,
I'd said.
You may not like it, but you have to eat it
because it will make you healthier.

Was that like God? Were we just like children who
couldn't see for the life of us how something so bad could be good
for us?

Travis and I begin to walk again, our fingers still
intertwined.

"I don't always feel like God is there," I say.

He nods. "Sometimes it's that way. But he's
there."

"How do I know?"

He strokes my palm with his thumb, his fingers
running over mine. "Because he promises he will be." It seems like
too simple an answer, but then I think of Brenda and Yolanda and
Donna Jean and Janise. I think of all the food they made and the
laptop that brought us here, to this very place, this very hope.
And I suddenly realize God was there, in all of that. He loved me
through the people around me.

"I want to believe," I say, stopping again. "I want
to trust that God will take care of us, the way you believe
it."

He raises his eyebrows at me. "Even if Ashley doesn't
get better?"

I suck in my breath. Tears spring to my eyes, but I
nod. "I want to trust him even if he don't answer the way I want
him too." I hold both his hands in mine and look into his face,
wanting desperately the peace he has. "I think, if Ashley doesn't
get better, I'm going to need to trust him even more than if she
does."

He wraps his arms around me, and I melt into them.
He's saying words in my ear, and it takes a minute to realize he is
crying and praying. I cling to him under the oaks trees, along some
dark and foreign path, and pray with him.

~~~~