Fifteen Shades of Gay (For Pay) (28 page)

“Besides.” Connie maintained grim, almost robotic calm. “According to the MRI, the spots on Marie’s liver are bigger. Until she’s strong enough to restart chemo, we can’t expect a major improvement.”

“So Dr. Czarnecki’s given up on the study drug?” Andrew asked.

“It was all bullshit anyway.” Jake sounded bitter. “Waste of time. I found an article on vegan healing that proves cruciferous vegetables are the answer.”

“Yeah, Dad.” Andrew had finally learned passive agreement was the best way to get what he needed from Jake. “Listen. You guys need a break. Why don’t you let me take over for an hour or so?”

Andrew expected denial from Connie and an angry dismissal from Jake. Instead, to his amazement, his parents exchanged a meaningful glance. It was almost as if they’d each been hoping for something, something neither believed possible.

“I could use a hot dinner.” Locating her workbag, Connie shoved her knitting inside, needles still attached.

“Same here. Besides. We should catch up.” Jake crossed the room to Connie. “Can you handle that? Dinner, coffee and… whatever else?”

Connie nodded. Sliding her purse over her shoulder, she smoothed her hair and gave Jake a weak smile. “How do I look?”

“Like hell,” Jake said. Making their goodbyes to Andrew, they exited, closing the room door behind them.

“Our parents are freaks,” Andrew told the sleeping Marie. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think they were getting back together. Which would be the seventh sign of the apocalypse. The sixth sign, at the very least.”

Releasing her bed’s guardrail, Andrew climbed in beside his sister again. As a little boy he’d often fled to her room, preferring her embrace to his mother’s, especially when their parents fought. During the blackest months of his life, teenage Andrew had often wished he could still seek Marie out that way, not for secretive, backwoods-style sibling incest, but simply for the comfort of being held by someone who truly loved him.

“You look good,” he said sincerely. Yesterday’s unquiet slumber had been replaced by deep sleep and slow, regular breathing. Someone had switched Marie to an oxygen mask, but she wasn’t intubated. Andrew could handle anything but intubation. With the mask on and eyes closed, she looked younger, more like pre-cancer Marie. If Andrew squinted, he could almost believe she was healthy again.

Outside the room, someone shouted with laughter or screamed in pain. Before he'd begun spending so much time in hospitals, Andrew would have scoffed at the notion anyone could confuse the two sounds. But nurses and resident doctors were always laughing, gathering around the vending machines or computers to share wicked, sometimes black humor. And several times a day, someone screamed: patients suffering, visitors breaking down, loved ones facing the worst. As an RN had explained to Andrew, the most common response to death was, quite simply, a scream. Not the rehearsed scream of a horror movie ingénue, but a primal sound—raw, edged with hysteria, easily mistaken for laughter.

“I hate that sound,” Andrew admitted, touching Marie’s cheek. “I never know if I should be happy or sad. But listen. You said some things yesterday. Things I can’t let stand.” Reaching in his pocket, Andrew withdrew the fortune he’d saved from last month’s Chinese takeout. “Have you heard this quote? Confucius say, he who saves one life saves the world entire.

“Now, I’ll admit, at first glance, I thought it was bullshit,” Andrew said. “But… well. You’re not going to believe this, but I saved someone’s life. Sort of. He was in over his head, mixing drugs with bondage, and his heart stopped. You know that CPR course I took after your diagnosis? I didn’t do so well with that, but I remembered how to use the AED. I hooked up the AED, another guy did CPR, and the kid lived.

“Of course.” Andrew placed the crumpled slip on Marie’s pillow, just beside her ear. “You know me, I had to overanalyze it. I thought, I saved one kid. How does that mean I saved the whole world? It wasn’t till last night that I understood.

“The thing is, we can’t save everyone. Even Mother Teresa couldn’t save more than half of Calcutta, and she spent her whole life trying. You can devote every second to other people, but it’s like emptying the ocean with a bucket. You’ll never even make a dent. All we can do is find someone—one person—and throw everything into saving them. If we succeed, if we save that life, maybe that person will do the same. It’s like paying it forward. Starting a chain reaction to save the world.” Andrew’s vision smeared. He hadn’t realized he was crying until that moment, when everything went blurry and he had to sniff twice to continue speaking aloud. “That’s what you’ve done for me, Marie. Protected me from the day I was born. Been my best friend, my confidante. Kept me alive when I wanted to die. I love you. Don’t ever say you never accomplished anything. Your life matters. It matters to me.”

* * *

Andrew stayed with Marie until almost ten o’clock. She never awakened, never stirred, peaceful beneath the oxygen mask, eyes still beneath the thin membrane of her lids. By the time Connie and Jake returned, Andrew had shifted from the bed to a chair, going through the mementos his father had brought. He’d forgotten how many softball trophies Marie had won; somehow the sight of all those golden girls buoyed his spirit.

“She’s getting stronger,” Andrew told his parents.

Nodding, Connie took up her knitting. Jake, a brand new issue of
Prevention
magazine in hand, didn’t seem to hear. Resuming his post, he started reading about super fruits like blueberries and acai.

“I’m tired.” Andrew yawned.

“Go home, sweetheart,” Connie said. “Come back in the morning.”

Glancing at Marie, Andrew gave a mighty stretch. “Maybe just a nap. Marie’s sure to wake up when the nurse comes to stick her at two a.m.”

“There’s an extra seat here.” Jake indicated the straight-backed chair beside him.

Unimpressed, Andrew wandered into the pod’s waiting room to check the lay of the land. Many visitors slept there, prompting the hospital staff to accommodate them as much as possible. As he'd hoped, the overhead lights had been dimmed and the sectional sofa was free. Borrowing a sheet from an LPN, Andrew kicked off his shoes and stretched out, pulling the sheet up to his chin and closing his eyes.

* * *

“Mr. Reynolds? Are you Mr. Reynolds?”

Andrew came back to himself with a start. For a second he thought the face staring at him belonged to Paresh; the man was young with dark skin and thick black hair. But no. Blinking, Andrew realized this man was Asian, and someone he’d never met.

“I’m Andrew Reynolds,” he muttered.

“Is Marie your sister?”

“Yes.”

The Asian man—a nurse, Andrew realized dimly—didn’t reply. He only continued to look at Andrew, face impossible to read.

“Is Marie awake?” Sitting up, Andrew pushed the thin sheet, stenciled with SLOAN-KETTERING, to one side. “Is she asking for me?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I said, is she asking for me?”

The man took a deep breath. “I heard you. I just meant, I’m sorry for your loss. She’s gone. I’m sorry.”

Someone screamed. The sound was inhuman—hate and denial, mixed with fear. Somebody, Andrew thought dimly, was laughing at the blackest of cancer-ward humor. That, or crying out for someone they couldn’t bear to lose, someone that should never be taken away.

“It’s not true,” he rasped. He knew it was impossible. Why was he crying again?

The nurse took Andrew’s hand. “Come with me. It’ll be okay. It was peaceful, I promise. Come with me.”

Waiting to awaken, for confirmation this was all a dream, Andrew let himself be pulled back to Marie’s room. Connie and Jake were there, holding one another as they had when Andrew was a small child, rocking with shared emotion.

“That’s not her,” Andrew burst out, pointing at the bloated, deathly white figure in the bed. “I don’t know who that is. That’s not Marie!”

“Andy!”

The nurse released Andrew as Connie Reynolds hurried over, throwing her arms around him. “It’s okay. She was ready. We all knew you were in denial. But it’s okay. It’s over now. She’s not in pain anymore.”

“It’s not Marie,” Andrew insisted, breaking away to look at the still figure again.

Corpse
, the merciless section of his mind supplied.
That’s what you call a dead body. A cadaver. A corpse.

Truly, any resemblance to Marie was slight at best. Her features were coarse, mouth open, lips purple. Marie had always been pleasingly plump, a gal with full breasts and a little junk in the trunk. This corpse was emaciated except for those steroid-puffed cheeks, chest flat and legs slender.

“It’s not her,” Andrew said again. His voice quavered so much, he hardly understood himself.

“She’s gone.” Jake was sobbing, letting himself go as Connie could only do in private. “Marie’s in a better place. We have to believe that. She’s in a better place, Andy.”

“Why would she leave me?” Andrew heard himself demand. It was the weakest, most selfish thing a human being could ask, and he meant it with all his heart.

“Because she had to, sweetheart.” Connie held Andrew tight. “Because she had to.”

* * *

Andrew didn’t go back to work the next day, or the following day, or the day after that. In a surprising burst of delicacy, Huey Wasserman sent a bouquet of lilies with a card that read,
“There is no death. Only a change of worlds.”—Chief Seattle.

Connie and Jake made Marie’s final arrangements. After cremation, her ashes would be shipped to Fort Scott, Kansas. There, Connie planned a memorial ceremonial to be held on March 10, which would have been Marie’s twenty-seventh birthday.

“It’s maudlin,” Andrew said.

“It’s a celebration of her life,” Connie corrected. And for once, her ex-husband agreed with her.

“You know what I think?” Jake whispered, prodding Andrew as Connie went off to catalog Marie’s leftover possessions.

“There’s no telling,” Andrew said.

“I think when we die, we achieve a higher state. The longer we need to get there, the longer we stay alive,” Jake said earnestly. “Most people have to hit age sixty or seventy to get there. Marie was ahead of the curve. Just like she was in softball, always ahead of the curve.”

For the first time since seeing Marie’s body in the hospital bed, Andrew felt himself smile. “I love you, Daddy.”

“Oh. Well. I love you, too, son.” Jake patted him awkwardly. “I wish I’d been a better father. Less… difficult.”

“Did I ever tell you the gay thing was okay with me?” Andrew really wasn’t sure. “Did I ever say I was sorry for being an uptight little bitch all those years?”

Jake touched Andrew’s cheek. “You never had to apologize. Never.”

“But, Dad. I had a crush on Hugh. It took me years to realize it. To accept the fact I’m bisexual.”

Jake kissed Andrew on the forehead, an unfamiliar motion both awkward and exquisite. “My sweet boy. You can be anything and I’ll love you. Remember that. No matter who you are, I’ll love you.”

* * *

Two weeks after Marie’s death, Andrew’s mobile rang while he was making dinner—chili, one of four dishes he could prepare without consulting a recipe. It was Cormac.

“Thanks for answering. I just… wanted to try and talk to you,” Cormac said.

“So talk.” Andrew dumped a can of kidney beans atop the browned hamburger meat.

“Are you okay? I mean….”

Andrew reached for the other can, piercing it with a handheld can opener. “What did Wasserman tell you?”

“Nothing. Just that you aren’t working now. That you might never come back.”

“That’s accurate.” Andrew dumped the second can.

“I’d like to see you again. To apologize in person. To see Marie again, at the very least. I’ve been wondering how she was doing.”

For a moment, Andrew was surprised. Then he remembered Huey Wasserman’s watchword was discretion. The man never told tales out of school; it was anathema to him.

“Marie’s dead.”

Cormac made a choked sound.

“Sorry. I’m getting used to it now. Saying it out loud, I mean.” Andrew glanced at his recycle bin, where five out of six aluminum cans already rested. “She was stage four. The cancer on her liver was growing and she came down with MRSA in the lungs. Next thing I knew, she was gone.”

“Oh. Andrew. I’m so sorry.” Cormac made another ragged sound. “I realize I only met her once. But I know how much she meant to you.”

“Yep.” Going to his refrigerator, Andrew cracked open his last beer, hardly caring if he fell asleep before the chili was done. “How are things on your end? Gonna get that seat in Washington?”

“Probably.” Cormac paused. “Andrew. Is there any chance for us? Something I can say or do?”

Andrew knocked back a slug of beer before answering. A tiny part of him felt sad, remembering the Cormac who had embraced him in the haunted house, who’d gasped out “I love you” after that first shared orgasm. The rest of Andrew could only see Marie, lifeless in a hospital bed a few months shy of twenty-seven. “Nope. It’s dead, Cormac. Dead.”

Pleasantly drunk, Andrew disconnected before either of them could weep. Thoughts on Marie, Andrew shook chili powder over the beans and hamburger meat, wondering if she would have cheered his resolve or called him a damned fool.

Chapter 17