Stealing Heaven (23 page)

The nurse tells me everything she knows. My mother was found in
Heaven, outside a house, by a boy walking his dog. She was lying on the ground.
No one saw her fall. She couldn't catch her breath, couldn't talk to the boy,
and then she couldn't breathe. An ambulance was called. The paramedics who
picked her up heard the fluid in her lungs. There was so much of it the
emergency clinic sent her straight here.

"She'll be all right," the nurse says, and pats my arm.
I think I want to hug her.

Then she makes me go to the waiting room, and I change my mind
about wanting to hug her because I end up sitting next to a man holding a
screaming baby. The man seems too tired or too stunned to do anything about it,
just stares blankly in front of him. After an hour of this--me sitting, the man
staring, and the baby screaming--the man and the baby are finally called back
to see a doctor. I watch a television with no sound after that, stop looking at
the clock once another hour has passed. I don't want to think about what all
this time means.

Finally I'm called back. The doctor is waiting for

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me. He takes me inside one of the little cubicles they use for
patients and closes the green curtain partway. It rattles as it slides into
place.

"We removed the fluid from your mother's lungs," he
says. "It doesn't look good. We're running more tests now. Do you have
insurance?"

"What doesn't look good?"

"The fluid."

"It was in her lungs. How could it possibly look good?"

The doctor sighs, rubs the bridge of his nose with two fingers.
"Fluid in the lungs can be caused by many things. But your mother's lungs
contained the kind of fluid that we normally only see in cancer patients."

"Cancer?"

"We won't know anything till we run more tests. In the
meantime, your mother was in no shape to fill out forms when she came in but...
"The doctor trails off and gives me a look. When I don't say anything, he
nods like everything is settled, like everything is fine, and walks off.

"Cancer?" I say again, but he doesn't hear me. I say it
again, not a question this time. "Cancer." It can't be. It can't.

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It could be. After staring blindly at the forms I'm given when I'm
taken back to the waiting room, I realize I have to do something. This isn't a
job gone bad, this isn't us having to lay low for a while. This is different. I
have to make plans. I have to take care of things. Mom isn't going to come
along and fix everything this time.

I go outside and notice it's dark, the stars shining dimly
overhead, burned out by the glow of the parking lot lights, and get the cell
out of the car before I realize I don't know who to call.

I don't know what to do. I walk around the car on rubbery legs,
thinking.

We don't have insurance. I don't have any money, and I doubt what
Mom has in the house will cover anything.

We need money.

I shove my hands in my pockets. My hands brush against a piece of
paper. A card. Dennis's card.

I remember what the cop said about Mom and me and money. I pull
out the card. I call the number on it.

I talk to what seems like four hundred people before someone,
finally, takes my number and says they'll call me right back.

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Fifteen minutes, no call. I go back inside the waiting room. I
wish I could rip all the no cell phones! signs off the wall. The nurse I speak
to says she doesn't know anything about Mom. I wish I could rip her head off.

I go back outside. Thirty minutes. No phone call, and there's
still no word on my mother.

Dennis calls after fifty-three minutes. He says he's in the middle
of a very important business dinner. I hear music in the background. I hear a
woman laughing.

"Well?" Dennis says. He sounds annoyed. I tell him
what's happened. There is silence for a moment and then he says, "Oh
no," in a cracking voice and, "Hold on" to whomever he's with.
The next time he speaks, all I hear is his voice.

"Cancer? It could be cancer? It can't be. Not--"

"I know," I say, and wonder if every man Mom has met has
fallen in love with her. Stupid of me to even wonder. Of course they have.
"I need money to pay for everything. What do I do?"

He starts talking. I listen. I even take notes, jotting them down
on the last map Mom stuck in the glove compartment. I write all over New
England and am

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dipping down into North Carolina by the time Dennis is done. I
hang up and my legs still feel rubbery and Mom--I wish they'd tell me
something. I wish they'd let me see her.

But I have money now. Or will. Dennis said he'd take care of
everything with the hospital and that there'd be a package waiting for me at
the house when I--Dennis had paused then and hastily added, "When you both
get home."

"Right," I said, and wondered if I sounded as fake as he
did.

I go back into the hospital, stay in the waiting room staring at
the silent television until a nurse comes out and tells me I should go home.

"Shower, get some sleep, eat something," she says.
"We'll know more when you get back, I promise."

I don't believe her but I leave, am surprised the sun is up, that
it's day again. I drive back to the house. It still looks the same. I feel
cheated by this. It should look different.

There are two things by the front door. One is a piece of paper
folded in half and taped to the door. The second is an envelope, one of those
thin special delivery ones. I pull the paper off the door and

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open it. Written on it is a phone number. Below it is a name.
Greg. I stare at it for a moment and then fold it back in half.

I pick up the envelope, which is stamped RUSH and has a return
address in New York. It seems too soon for it to be here, but the fact the sun
is shining in my eyes tells me hours have passed since I talked to Dennis. All
this time, and Mom--I lean against the door, close my burning eyes. They still
hurt when I open them.

Inside the envelope is a note. Dennis's handwriting is large, his
letters all slanted sharp. He's had Lucy take care of everything with the
hospital. I wonder if I should wonder who Lucy is. I decide I just don't care.

The only other thing in the envelope is a checkbook. The checks
have my name on them. There's other stuff too, but I can't get past seeing
that. What the cop said is true. Mom put everything in my name. I flip through
the thing where you're supposed to write your checks down. It must be called
something, but I don't know what it is. Dennis has written a figure at the very
beginning, at the top of the first page. I stare at it.

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I close the checkbook. I open it again. The figure doesn't change.
It can't be right. I fumble for my phone, for Dennis's card.

Dennis says it's right. He says Mom is a "very shrewd
investor." He says he's glad the package arrived. He says this in such a
way I know I'm supposed to be impressed with how fast he got it here and say
so. I'm silent. Dennis clears his throat and asks if I need anything else.

"No," I say, and end the call. We never had to come
here. We never had to--we could have stopped somewhere, stayed. We could have
found a place and made it our home, a real home.

Mom would never want that.

No. Not would. Not in the past. Will. She will never want that.

I unlock the door and go inside. I should take a shower, eat
something, do something, but I don't. I just stand there for a while, a pile of
money in one hand and a cop's phone number in the other. It should be funny,
shouldn't it? It doesn't feel funny. I let them both go. The checkbook falls
straight to the floor. The paper takes a while longer to get there, but I wait,
watch it flutter down.

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I take a shower and make coffee. I gag with every sip but manage
to drink a cup. I pick up the checkbook. I look at the piece of paper on the
floor. I pick it up too. I crumple it. It rests in my hand, ready to be thrown
away.

I take it out to the car with me, shove it under the seat. At the
traffic light I'm forced to sit through before I can turn in to the hospital
parking lot, I pick it up and smooth it out. The light is still red. I fold it
in half, carefully, and slide it into my pocket.

The light turns green.

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31

I'm finally allowed to see Mom. She's still in the emergency room
and when I walk into the little green-curtained cubicle that's hers, it's clear
what she's expecting. She's ready to leave, is dressed and flipping through a
ratty-looking magazine with one hand, the fingers of the other tapping
impatiently against her knee.

"You should go start the car," she tells me when she
hugs me, a whisper in my ear right after she says "Baby!" and pulls
me into her arms. When I don't reply, she moves away and looks at me.

"I want to talk to the doctor," I tell her.

She sighs. "I don't know what they told you, but it's
nothing. I'm fine now. Don't I sound fine?"

"You sound terrible."

"I mean aside from sounding like I had a tube

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shoved down my throat. Come here, listen." I do, and she
breathes slow and deep, easily. Normally. "See? I'm fine."

"So you didn't pass out and have a bunch of fluid pumped out
of your lungs?"

"I fainted, probably because I hadn't eaten anything. And the
fluid--baby, you know I had that awful cough. And yes, you were right, I should
have listened to you and taken more of that medicine." She smiles at me. I
fold my arms across my chest. She sighs again.

"I'd think you'd be happy. I'm finally ready to leave. We'll
go somewhere new and all you have to do is-"

"They said something about cancer."

"Of course they did. That's how doctors are, baby. If they
said everything was fine, how on earth would they stay in business?"

"He said they were going to run some other tests. What were
they?"

She leans in toward me. "If we stay here much longer,"
she whispers, "they're going to figure out we don't have insurance. And
that is not--"

"They already know."

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"They know?"

"Don't worry. It's taken care of. I called Dennis."

"What?" Her voice rises, becomes sharp. "Why did
you do that? What on earth were you thinking? Danielle, you know better than
to--"

"Am I interrupting?" The doctor has arrived, and his
question isn't really a question, is just a way for him to announce that he's
here and ready to talk to us.

"Of course not," my mother says. She smiles at the
doctor, but her eyes stay sharp and disappointed, focused on me.

The doctor starts talking. At first it's okay because he repeats
what I already know. The passing out, which my mother sighs through. The fluid
in the lungs, and how it looked a little odd. That's what the doctor says.
"A little odd."

I wait for Mom to say something, but she's staring at the awful
green curtain the doctor has pulled all the way closed, a strange pinched look
on her face.

That's when I know she has cancer. Before the doctor even says
it's "a possibility," I know. And worse, I know Mom knows too. I sit
down, stumble back onto a hard orange plastic chair.

The doctor keeps talking. He shows us pictures

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of Mom's lungs. He shows us a dark spot, a shadow. He says,
"We need to run more tests, find out exactly what we're dealing with.
We're going to admit you." He's talking to Mom but she isn't looking at
him, is still staring at the curtain. The doctor doesn't seem surprised, just
turns and starts talking to me.

"It's best to be as aggressive as possible when it comes to
this sort of thing," he says, and points at the picture of Mom's lungs
again, tapping two fingers against the shadow as if I've somehow forgotten it's
there. "We won't know anything for sure until we've done more tests, but
this, along with the results of the blood work we've run, indicates that
time--"

"Thank you," Mom says,, and her smile is radiant,
beautiful enough to convince anyone of anything. "But is all this necessary
for a little spot? I mean, really."

The doctor just looks at her.

Mom's smile fades. "It's not just a spot." She picks up
a magazine and starts reading. The doctor looks at her for a moment more and
then turns back to me.

"We're going to do the very best we can. We'll send someone
down to move your mother up to a room shortly."

***

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It's cancer. After two days that word becomes my whole world. Two
days, Mom sitting silent in a hospital room and looking at me like I've let her
down. Two days, and I sleep in uncomfortable chairs, go home when I'm told to,
and come back as soon as I can. Two days, and the doctor says a lot of words I
don't know and that Mom doesn't ask any questions about. Two days, and at the
end of them someone says something to me as I stumble down the hall trying to
remember where the vending machines are and wondering what metastasized means.