Five Minutes More (14 page)

Brendan chugs the last of his beer. Then he lifts me to my feet and stands up himself. “Let's go,” he says. “There's no one at my place.”

“Where are your mom and dad?”

Brendan grins and gives me a little leer. “Some party thing at the hotel. I don't know what for. But they got a room—they're staying the night. So the house is empty.” He hangs his arm around my shoulders and we start moving toward the door.

Crap. How am I going to get out of this? Is there any way I could puke? I try concentrating on it as we cross the deck of the cottage. Nothing. And I can't shove my finger down my throat. Gross.

I can't say I'm on my period. I've used that one twice. I wish I could just tell Brendan that I'm tired and I want to go home, but he'd take it the wrong way.

I'm still holding a bottle of orange pop. It's what I always drink at these parties. Except this time my orange pop is a little bit of orange and a lot of a wine cooler called Tropical Fiesta. I found it out on the deck and emptied it into my pop
bottle. It tastes better than regular wine. I take a quick drink and then a second one.

Brendan drives with one hand on my leg all the way back into town, talking about basketball and a bunch of other stuff I don't really hear. I say “uh-huh” every once in a while between drinks, and that seems to be enough. And then we're at the house, we're in Brendan's bedroom—cleaned up, which means he's been planning this. I pop three orange-flavored Tic Tacs so he won't taste the wine. His mouth's on mine and his hands are up under my sweater. I can feel him breathing faster.

“I love you. I love you so much,” he whispers.

I kiss him hard and use my tongue so he'll stop talking, and I hope he won't notice that I didn't say anything back.

A sound wakes me. I sit up in bed listening. Waiting. There it is again. Soft. Low. The hairs rise on the back of my neck. What is it? A cat? A raccoon? What else could it be? I'll get up. I'll look and it'll be nothing, just two cats on the lawn trying to date each other.

The living room light is still on. I step into the room and Mom is there, doubled over on the sofa. Her whole body is shaking, trembling uncontrollably as if she's having some kind of seizure.

I sway dizzily for a second, then get my balance and run to her, crouching at her feet. I put my arms around her. “What? Mom, what is it? What's the matter? What's wrong? Tell me what's wrong.”

She makes a gagging sound and clutches her stomach. She is going to be sick. She is going to heave and there's no bathroom down here.

“Don't throw up here,” I tell her. “Mom, don't puke!”

I pull her upright, start toward the stairs. She's still shaking. She makes another retching noise. “
Not here
,” I beg as I half drag her up the steps. There are too many. She's so heavy. Her feet slip on the treads and fall over themselves.

I can't let her fall. Another step. Another. Another. Another.

The top.

I pull her into the bathroom and lean her against the toilet, wedged between the bowl and the bathtub. I squat on the floor beside her, holding her shoulders. She retches over and over. The sound curdles my own stomach. Nothing comes up. It's just the dry heaves.

“Won't...come...up,” she chokes out between gags.

What do I do? Should I make her throw up? Was this in first aid? I don't remember. I don't remember.

And then she vomits. I hold her head over the toilet and breathe through my mouth, looking away.

Oh God! Oh God, don't let me be sick, God, please don't let me be sick
, I say over and over in my head.

Mom vomits again. I try to shut out the sound, the smell. I just hold on to her as hard as I can.

Finally there is nothing but empty retching. I reach up and flush the toilet.

I shift around so that I can hold her with just one arm across the front of her body, pull a towel down into the tub
and douse it with cold water. I squeeze out as much as I can with one hand and fold it over into a lumpy roll. I hold the towel to Mom's forehead and then against the back of her neck. Water drips from one end down along my arm and seeps into the neck of Mom's sweatshirt. Slowly the retching eases and the trembling begins to lessen. I wipe her face and throw the towel into the tub. Her body suddenly slumps against mine, knocking me onto my knees.

She's crying. No sound, only tears, soaking her face. I hold her with both arms as tightly as I can.

I don't know what to do next. I don't know what to do now. I can't think five minutes ahead. I can't think five seconds ahead.

We can't stay here like this. Her body is a dead weight against me. “We've got to get into the bedroom,” I say. I try to get her upright, but even though she is thin, she is still too heavy for me. I struggle into a crouch and move around so that most of her weight is against my left shoulder. “Help me,” I whisper as I lift her, pushing with my legs.

Somehow I manage to get us both up and down the hall into the bedroom. I sit Mom on the bed. Her face is blotchy, her eyes are red and swollen, brimming with tears that spill over, slide down her face and drip off her chin. Her arms are pressed tight to her stomach. There are bits of vomit on her sweatshirt.

“Sit here for a minute,” I tell her. “I'm going to call an ambulance.”

“No.” It comes out more of a moan than a word. She reaches for me with one hand. “No.”

“You're sick. You need to go to a hospital.”

“No.” She rocks back and forth, eyes closed.

What do I do? What do I do? I want to run. I want someone else to do this. But there's only me. “All right,” I say. “All right.”

I pull off her clothes and dress her in a warm nightgown. I can see the outline of her ribs and her almost nonexistent breasts.

I get Mom into bed, turn on the electric blanket and roll her on her left side, wedging her in place with a couple of pillows so that she can't roll on her back, maybe vomit again and choke. That much I do remember from first aid.

I sit on the floor by her head. Eventually I hear her breathing change, and I know that she's asleep. I've been taking every breath with her. Now I lean against the side of the bed and stretch my legs across the carpet. Closing my eyes, I let my breathing find its own pattern. I stay there for a while longer, listening, watching, but she stays asleep.

There's a nearly full bottle of some kind of disinfectant cleaner in the cupboard under the bathroom sink. I pour half of it into the toilet bowl. Then I throw Mom's clothes into the tub with the wet towel and add water and the rest of the bottle.

Suddenly I can barely stand up. My legs feel like plastic bags of water. My mouth is dry, my upper lip sticks to my teeth. I look at my hands. They're moving as though they are being controlled by someone else. I sag against the sink, close my eyes.

No. C'mon, c'mon
, I tell myself.
Get up. Move
.

I can't but somehow I do.

Downstairs I check everything twice—doors, windows, the stove. I can take care of us.

I get my robe and take the chair from my desk into my mom's room. She's still sleeping. Her forehead is cool. Her breathing is steady. I drag the big chair by the window close to the bed and settle myself in it, wrapped in a blanket, with my feet on the desk chair. It's not a bad bed. I know there are much worse ways to sleep in the world.

I've brought the broom upstairs with me. It leans against my knee. I wrap my hand around the wooden handle. It makes me feel better to hold something solid.

I sit there listening to the night sounds and the house's own rhythms and noises. I try not to think about anything at all, so I won't be afraid. Tomorrow this will all be over. I close my eyes for just a minute.

I wake up with a start. For a moment I don't know where I am, even as I have the sense that I'm not in my own bed. My head has flopped back and off to the side. Slowly I roll it down and around to the other side. Some of the knots release and the stiffness loosens.

I look over at the bed. Mom's moving in her sleep. She shifts and twitches, making small, hurt sounds. The blankets have slipped down off her shoulders. I get up, unwinding myself from my own blanket, and cover her, tucking the sheet against her neck.

Her sleep is still agitated. I kneel next to the bed and gently stroke her temple. Suddenly a memory is there in my mind: My mother is doing the same thing for me. I'm very little, sick
with the measles or chicken pox. I'm hot and itchy. Mom's singing something about a dancing bear. The words aren't part of the memory, but the tune is there. I hum it, very softly. Mom's face relaxes, and she settles back into a quiet sleep.

It's cold the next time I wake up. Light's peeking in around the curtains, so it's morning. The quilt's slipped onto the floor. My skin puckers into goose bumps. I glance over at the bed.

Mom is gone.

I scramble out of the chair and run down the hall to the bathroom. The door is open.

No one.

I take the stairs two, three at a time, half falling. I have two hearts, pounding, pounding, one in each ear. And in my head I'm begging,
Pleasegodpleasegodpleasegod
.

She's in the kitchen, slumped against the counter.

“Mom, are you all right?” I ask, grabbing both sides of the doorframe for support.

“Yes.” Her voice is raspy. Her robe is belted crookedly over her nightgown, one side hanging longer than the other. Hair sticks out in wisps all around her face, which is waxy pale. I can see the fine blue veins under her skin like rivers seen from the sky. In one hand she holds a cup of something. Tea? Water?

My legs go wobbly with relief, and I keep one hand on the wall for balance. “Go back to bed. I'll get you anything you want,” I say.

“I am going. This is fine. It's all I want right now.” She straightens up, pulling at her disheveled housecoat. “I'm okay.” She clears her throat. Coughs. Swallows. “Thank you.
For taking care of me last night.” She stares at me for a long moment. “You get that from your father,” she says softly. “It's what he would have done. You're so much like him.”

I blink away the tears that have come out of nowhere. “You...uh...you should see a doctor or somebody,” I say.

She shakes her head. “I'm not going to bother a doctor. It was probably just something I ate.”

“How could it be? We ate the same things and I'm okay.”

“I had a sandwich last night. The tuna salad.” She shrugs. “I guess it didn't agree with me.”

“What tuna salad?” I cross the kitchen, open the refrigerator and root inside.

“Just what was in there. D'Arcy, leave it. It doesn't matter.” She waves one hand at me.

I find a container and pull the lid off. The smell is rank and sour, worse than cat food that's been left in the sun.

I jerk my head back. Gag. “God! How could you eat this? It smells awful. Oh lord, and there's blue fur on the top.” I throw the dish into the sink.

“I wasn't thinking.” She pulls at her bathrobe again. “I was tired. I didn't pay attention. It was just a little food poisoning. You took good care of me, and I'm all right.”

“I just don't know how...” I stop and swallow down the roiling in my stomach. “How could you have eaten that?”

“I was distracted. It's not a big deal. It's over now.”

“People die from food poisoning.” The words get out even though I don't really mean them to.

“Don't”—the word comes out sharp and angry. She closes her eyes for a second—”fuss. It's over. I'm all right.” She doesn't look at me. “I'm going back to bed for a while.”

I grab the end of the counter so hard my fingernails hurt. I have to keep holding on. I just have to keep holding on.

Seth isn't in math again. And I can't get past the first equation on the sheet Mr. Kelly handed out. I keep looking over at the door, hoping Seth will walk in late, and then I lose my place in the calculation and have to start again.

Mr. Kelly stops at my desk and smiles at me. Marissa says he's a hunk. Actually, what she said was, “You know, I could almost stand to take dork math with a hunk like that for a teacher.”

Mr. Kelly is tall with blue eyes and dark hair and dimples when he smiles. It isn't until he starts talking about derivatives and integrals and the Newton-Raphson Method that you can tell he's a math nerd. “Having problems, D'Arcy?” he asks.

“A little,” I say. “Do you know where Seth is today?”

The smile disappears and his eyes shift away from me for a second. “Seth has some personal things to take care of. He'll probably be back tomorrow.”

“Is he all right?”

Mr. Kelly nods. “He's okay.” He turns to the sheet of problems on my desk. “Show me where you're stuck,” he says. His way of saying, I guess, that if he knows anything else about Seth, he's not going to tell me.