Heft (16 page)

When I am nervous before a game I have a trick that I do. It involves turning off my brain. It involves not letting myself be nervous by simply not thinking about what I’m nervous about. I do this now. I turn off the pain by not letting myself give in to it. I drive toward the Saw Mill. And go up it. As if I am going to school.

Just let me think a minute.

Do not come in. Call police.

The horrible wrongness. The wrongness of doing something like that to me.

I put on 1050 AM and listen to Charlie Rasco.

Lawrence Tynes kicked an overtime field goal to lift the Giants over the Falcons yesterday. After the clock ran out on the first quarter, the Knicks’ Nate Robinson jokingly shot a three-pointer for the Nets which his coach was not happy about. And callers are not happy about.

When I get to school I pull into the parking lot. It is a comfort to me to see the building, which really looks like a castle at night. They light it with spotlights and the stone glows beneath them. At school I am generally happy and relaxed. At school I have friends and I am respected. I have friends.

Charlie Rasco says Eli Manning is maturing as a leader.

I take out my phone and call the radio station which I used to do at night when I was a boy but have not done in years. When I was a boy I loved Charlie Rasco.

Someone who isn’t Charlie answers the phone and says ESPN Radio.

I’m calling to talk to Charlie, I say.

About what, says the operator, who’s eating. I can hear him eating something.

—Well, I’d like to talk to him about Eli Manning.

What about, he says again.

I have to disagree with him, I say. About Eli. I think if his last name wasn’t Manning he’d be a backup in San Diego right now.

—What’s your name?

Kel, I say.

—Cal?

—Yeah.

OK, says the operator. Hold please.

The radio is still on. Charlie is still talking but I can’t really understand him anymore. I’m having trouble paying attention. Then a voice in my ear and a voice on the radio says, Cal’s on the line with us now. Cal, what’s up?

But my voice is gone again.

Cal? says Charlie. Looks like we lost him.

•

It’s only now that I remember that I still have my mother’s letter folded into my back pocket. I take it out and look at it.

There is her handwriting.
Kelly,
she wrote.

A trembling inside me. A rush. I put it down on the seat next to me. I can’t read it yet, because of what it will mean if I do.

I sit perfectly still for a long time. I do not turn the radio off. When I start to get very cold I think of the places I could go, ruling out my house because it’s not my house anymore. It’s no one’s house.

I think of driving to Dee Marshall’s. He probably saw my call. But he hasn’t called me back.

I think of driving to Lindsay Harper’s, but the embarrassment of that, of waking her family, her two baby sisters, is too much for me.

Finally I decide on Trevor’s house, because his parents already know me very well, and I have always had this feeling that they pride themselves on Trevor’s friendship with someone like me, and that they feel that having me in their house makes them well and truly part of the world.

• • •

O
n Tuesday morning I wake up in the Cohens’ house, in one
of their dozen beds, in one of their many rooms. I know where I am right away. There is no moment of recalling: I know everything. I have been dreaming about it.

Last night I got to Trevor’s house and I sat in the car in their circular driveway for about ten minutes. There was Mr. Cohen’s Audi and there was Mrs. Cohen’s BMW. I got scared to go up to their door. It was after midnight. I tried calling Trevor’s phone but he did not answer. Finally I summoned all of my courage and walked up to the door and before I could ring the bell the motion detector light went on. I started shaking actually shaking and I stood there for a minute deciding whether I was going to leave.

Before I could the door flew open. Mr. Cohen stood there in his bathrobe squinting at me. He is a stocky man with a lot of gray hair and round glasses. I could tell he didn’t recognize me at first. Then from behind him I heard his wife say
Kel!

Hi, I said. I didn’t know what to say so I said hi.

Are you OK, sweetheart? asked Mrs. Cohen. She came forward into the light and I could see she was wearing a fancy silk robe that looked like it was from Japan or China. Pink with birds on it. She is very very thin and I could see all the bones in her chest and all the veins in her bare feet.

Fine! I said.

—Are you . . . here to see Trevor?

I heard in her voice the fear that Trevor had turned into a bad kid overnight. That I had turned him into a bad kid who got visitors at midnight.

Well, I said. OK. My mom’s in the hospital.

Oh no, said Mrs. Cohen. Oh, no. Come in, darling.

Trevor came downstairs then and kind of looked at me blankly. We were all still standing in their hallway.

Hey Trev, I said.

What are you doing here? he asked.

—Honey, Kel’s mom is in the hospital. What happened, Kel? Do you want something to eat?

I felt Trevor looking at me. I had never felt lower in my life. I felt him staring at me.

Well, I said, I’ve never told you this. But she has lupus. She took a bad turn.

Trevor’s father made a low humming noise. His mother put both hands on her face and went
Ohhhhh.
Like,
Ohhhhh, I’ve always wondered why people said your mom was so fucked up
.

What’s lupus, said Trevor, and his mother whirled around to frown at him. It’s very serious, Trevor, she said. It’s a very serious disease. I mean—she looked back at me—isn’t it?

Um, I said. I guess it can be.

Honey, said Mrs. Cohen, do you have family? Was anyone with you at the hospital?

I could tell this was a question she had always wanted to ask me.

His dad’s dead, said Trevor.

Yeah, I have a big family, actually, I said, but they’re all from California. Most of them live in California.

Say no more, said Mr. Cohen. What this boy needs is a bed!

Walt, said Mrs. Cohen, don’t you think he might want something to
eat?
And she looked at me and rolled her eyes. He’s probably been in the hospital for
hours.

I’m OK, I said, and she said Don’t be silly.

We all went into the kitchen. The Cohens have two refrigerators. That’s something. Two refrigerators in one kitchen.

Mrs. Cohen opened one of them and said Let’s see what Maxine put in here. Is there anything in particular you want?

Trevor had pulled a stool up to the island in the center of the room at this point and he was still gazing at me, kind of like he was annoyed. He was wearing pajama pants with rockets on them. If I’d been in a better place I would have made fun of him. His father was sitting next to him. I was hovering behind Mrs. Cohen as she went through her own refrigerator as if she’d never looked in it before.

Ham, she said. Turkey. Cheese. Sandwich? Fruit. Here’s a roast chicken, she said. Then she opened the freezer. Ooh, ice cream, she said, and I said yes to that because it seemed the simplest to me.

I’ll have some too,
she whispered, and held a finger to her lips as if she were doing something very naughty. Guys?

Trevor and Mr. Cohen both shook their heads.

Mr. Cohen asked me what she was in the hospital for, exactly, and I said she had passed out which was the truth.

They’re just keeping her there to do tests on her for a while, I said, which was partially the truth and partially a lie.

Mrs. Cohen and I ate vanilla ice cream together and then we all went upstairs. Trevor’s little sister April who is a freshman at Pells was sleeping in her room but Mr. Cohen said I could take any of the other rooms. There were five to choose from. I chose the one next to Trevor’s. Blue walls with a bright white bed.

Trevor gave me clothes to sleep in and after I changed and got into bed Mrs. Cohen knocked softly on my door.

If you need anything, honey, she said, and pointed down the hall at their room.

You know you’re welcome to stay here anytime, she said.

I nodded.

They’re nice to me. The Cohens.

Today, waking up in the Cohens’ bright white bed, I must make the decision of whether or not to go to school. It is not a hard one: I’m going. If I missed school I’d have to miss practice and if I missed practice I’d have to miss the Thanksgiving Day game on Thursday and these are the only things right now that make me glad to be alive.

I get out of bed and take a shower in the bright white bathroom and put on the same clothes I wore yesterday except for a shirt I have borrowed from Trevor. I pick up my cell phone and call the number that Dr. Moscot gave me, as he instructed me to do, but the woman who answers my call tells me that he is not in yet. It is 6:50 a.m. Why would he be.

At midday I get a phone call from a Westchester number and the caller leaves a message. I sneak into the bathroom to listen to it: Dr. Moscot, asking me to please call him. I do, from the bathroom stall I am in.

Dr. Moscot says she had made a noise and that she has opened and closed her eyes. But please know, Kel, he says, that this doesn’t necessarily mean she’s recovering. It could mean she’s entering a permanent vegetative state.

On top of this: her organs, many of them, are failing her.

The outlook is still not good, says the doctor.

I say nothing.

But there’s still a chance, the doctor says. A little chance of anything.

He says, Do you want to come see her again?

And I say I do, I will.

During practice I miss a phone call from an unavailable number. Again. Again the caller does not leave a message.

At five I drive to the hospital and when I walk into her room she looks better than she did last night. She looks asleep and alive. She looks cleaner than she has in years. Somebody has washed her. And she moves a couple of times on her own and it seems so natural that I get kind of hopeful. I tell myself not to but I do. She looks peaceful.

On the way back to Trevor’s I go into our house just to get some of my things and it feels like a ghost house. I run from it fast as I can.

Tonight, as I am waiting for sleep to come, I try to imagine my mother asleep as well, resting and happy. Then the next second I imagine her having terrible nightmares from which she cannot wake up.

• • •

W
ednesday is the worst day so far. At school, in computer
class, I Google
lupus
. It is a mistake. Believe it or not I have never done this before, which is something I’m now ashamed of. And as it turns out I’ve been a bad son, because the things I hated her for were not her fault. Not entirely.

I’m sorry for leaving her all alone every day. I should have found her friends. I should have come home after school. What did she do all day? What did she do in the house all day?

My mother. There were times when I loved her so thoroughly. I can remember things about her. The smell of her skin, the humanness of her skin, the secret that only babies know about their mothers. The smell of it especially in summer. The mother smell. Beneath everything else I could smell it on her still when I found her in her bed.

Trevor’s house is so beautiful and so full of delicate things that I have to stop myself from breaking them one by one every night before bed. The antiques and the clocks and the little statues. The little paintings on the wall. The wallpaper itself is asking for ripping. The sheets for tearing. The vases full of enormous flowers for spilling.

I have gotten used to my very white bed. It’s high off the ground and it feels like there are pillows underneath me when I sleep. My mother would love it and it would be good for her back and her joints. I would like to buy her a bed like this someday. Trevor’s family maid Maxine makes it up for me while I am at school. I have a feeling she washes the sheets every day. Every day. I did not realize she would do this. That Trevor is used to this frightens me and makes me doubt him as a friend. Before school, I have started making my bed up very carefully the way she makes it up. With the comforter turned down one-third of its length. With the pillows plumped and organized in rows of blue and white and purple.

I have not spoken to Lindsay Harper since Monday. I don’t know if I can go to her house after Thanksgiving dinner. I’m having dinner with the Cohens. How will I leave.

I don’t know what to say to her. I’m sure she has heard something because Trevor has a humongous mouth and has probably told everyone what happened. She’s probably heard. She called me once and did not leave a message. In history class today I did not meet her eye and at the end of it I left without stopping.

Recently a thousand questions have occurred to me that I would like to ask my mother. What were you like when you married Dad? Did you laugh more? Did you drink less? Did he think you were pretty? Did he treat you well at first?

I used to have this fantasy. I used to dream about going back in time to when she was a kid and being her friend and protector. I think I know what she was like when she was little and I think other kids wouldn’t have been nice to her. When I too was little this used to upset me, the idea of this. I wanted to go back in time to be there whenever any little boy was too rough with her in sports, whenever any little girl whispered a mean word behind her back. I wanted to be there to guide her into acceptance and popularity which are gifts I have been given without knowing why or from where.

I still haven’t read her note. In the hopes that she will come back.

Come back.

• • •

T
hursday morning is Thanksgiving. When I wake up I start
to plan what I will get for my mother to eat before I even open my eyes and then I remember. There is a bathroom between my room and Trevor’s room and I can hear him in the shower. He sings when he’s happy which he is on game days.