The Saints of the Cross (26 page)

“I’m sorry. I thought you said you’ve been searching for our mother,” she states, and the rosy color drains from her cheeks and lips.

“I did say that, Emma.”

“But—I don’t understand. Mom’s dead.” She says this as if she’s a parent telling her child something for the umpteenth time and the kid’s just not getting it.

“It’s a very long story, but our mother is alive. She was sent back to Indiana ten years ago to be treated for a very serious illness called schizophrenia.”

“Sent?” Her face is twisted up in anger. “By who?”

“Dad had to send her,” I say. Emma’s face turns bright red, the way Dad’s does when he becomes irate. “Don’t be angry, Emma. He had to do it for our safety. Mom was very sick. She had horrible ideas about us. She was too dangerous for us to be around, especially considering how young we were.”

“She needed us. She needed someone to help her. Plus he robbed Ethan and me of our mother. You remember her, but we don’t. We never knew her, and that’s not fair,” she says and bursts into tears. I pull her in close to me and hold her tight. I’m silent for a few moments. All I can do is try to comfort her with my touch, as she did for me earlier.

“Emma,” I say after she quiets down, “I can’t argue that fact with you, but you have to know that Dad did what he thought was best for us. It wasn’t an easy decision for him to send away the mother of his children and the love of his life. It was heartbreaking for him, but he had to do it. If he hadn’t made that choice, I can’t say for sure that we’d even be alive today. Her delusions were that dangerous.”

“What do you mean?”

“She thought we had superpowers and that someone was trying to kidnap us or kill us. She did some really strange things with us, because she thought she was protecting her kids. The final straw was when she was trying to escape with us in the car, and she ran it off the road. We could have been killed. That’s when Dad decided to send her back to America for treatment, which was the Navy doctors’ recommendation because she wasn’t following the medicine regimen they put her on.”

Emma’s gaze drifts over to the water formations, where a small girl is teetering close to the edge. Emma’s eyes are distant, and I can tell she’s hashing over everything in her mind. We watch as the toddler’s mom swoops in and gathers her up in her arms, spinning her around in laughter. I wonder what Emma is thinking right now. Is she wishing she’d had her mother in the tough times to sweep her up in her arms? Is she wishing she had known the sound of her mother’s laughter? The feel of her mother’s lips on her cheek? Or the comforting sensation of their fingers laced together? How about the warmth of the unconditional love that only a mother can give? Emma and Ethan never had the opportunity to experience these things and I am incredibly saddened by this realization.

Finally, Emma turns to me and says, “I need time to think about this and figure out how I feel.”

“Of course you do,” I say and hug her tight. “And I’m here for you if you need to talk or to answer your questions. Whatever I can do.”

“Thank you,” she says, and a small smile crosses her face.

My cell phone starts buzzing in my pocket. I take it out and see it’s a text message from Dad.

Come home asap. I got a reliable lead on your mother.
 

Although my hands are trembling, I quickly gather up my purse and Emma’s dance gear. I grab Emma by the elbow and raise her from the stony seat.

“Come on. We need to get home,” I say, trying to remain calm, but inside I’m hopeful. I lead the way toward the metro station at the National Mall and text Xander to meet us there.

“Is everything okay?” Emma asks, her face full of worry.

“Yes, I hope so,” I say, and leave it at that for now.

CHAPTER 20

Honestly, I never thought this day would come. I know I’ve dreamt of it almost nightly since I discovered my mother is alive. These happier dreams have replaced the horrible nightmares I’d been having about her. In the new recurring dream, I’m reunited with my mother, and she’s just as she was before the disease overtook her. She’s young, vibrant, and beautiful. She’s everything I think she should have been, and nothing that she actually was. When we are reunited for the first time, she holds me and tells me she loves me, and I feel like everything is okay again. But then I wake up, and I know it is not. My life is the exact opposite of okay.

Dad received a call yesterday from Maryland’s state police saying that mom’s description matches a Jane Doe who is currently in a coma in a Baltimore extended-care facility after being hit by a car five years ago. She had no ID on her, and no one has come forward to claim her. Police hypothesized that the woman is schizophrenic by witness accounts of how she was acting before she walked into rush-hour traffic in downtown Baltimore. Dad decided we would drive to Baltimore today to investigate whether the woman is my mother.

Xander, Emma, and I are sitting in the Land Rover in the gated parking lot, waiting for Dad, Grandma Winnie, and Ethan to arrive. When they do, we go into the building together. It’s a state-of-the-art, single-level structure, with an elaborate security system. We walk through two sets of glass doors before stopping at a locked steel set with a video camera mounted to the side. The receptionist at the front desk buzzes us in after we give her our names and the purpose for our visit over the intercom. Standing by the front desk is a slender, middle-aged lady wearing prim dress clothes and sporting an equally prim smile. Over the desk hangs a sign: Meadowlark Extended Living. The lady informs us that her name is Helen, and that she is the social worker for the facility. After brief introductions, she leads us down a dimly lit hallway and stops abruptly outside a closed door. She turns to Nash and gives what is probably a routine speech in this place.

“I want to warn you,” she informs us, “if this is your loved one, she won’t look the same even taking into consideration the aging process. She has been on and off a respirator that inserts through the front of her neck, called a trach, and she has been tube fed for the last five years. She’s receiving medications and hydration via intravenous lines. Her body is bloated because of the artificial nutrition, and she looks years older than she actually is. She is completely unresponsive. She does have occasional nonpurposeful movements, such as her eyes opening; but these movements are nothing more than reflexes. She’s in what is commonly known as a persistent vegetative state.”

“Why don’t we go in and see her? We want to see if we think it is her, before we go any further in discussing her condition,” Dad says, throwing a nervous glance toward Ethan and Emma. He’s right; this sort of thing could give them nightmares for the rest of their lives.

“Fair enough,” Helen answers and opens the door. The unpleasant sounds, sights, and smells hit me immediately. Apparently, they hit all of us. I look from face to face, and see how disturbed the others are by what we’ve walked into here. All of us, that is, except for Emma. She is the most stoic of us all. Her expression is completely neutral—there’s absolutely no hint of what she’s thinking or feeling on her face. As my senses come back to me, I realize Xander has grabbed my hand. I look up at him, and he’s staring down at me, concerned.

“You don’t have to stay in here,” I whisper to him.

“I want to,” he whispers back, and I nod at him. I glance over to his left and see that he’s holding Emma’s hand as well. I smile up at him, and he winks down at me, but there’s nothing playful in his expression.

The social worker begins to explain what we are seeing. I look over toward the hospital bed and everything comes into focus again. Machine pumps perch on poles. They make strange clicking sounds as they supply hydration and medications through clear, plastic tubes that are inserted into the veins in her arms. There’s a small monitor on a bedside table that beeps in time with her heartbeat, and reports on her heart rhythm and oxygen level. If the saturation number becomes too low, the social worker explains, then the nurses have to hook her back up to the respirator for a time. Hellen tells us that this usually happens when she gets pneumonia, which is common in people who are bedridden. She points to another machine. On this one hangs a bottle of what looks like chocolate milk. This liquid runs through a tube that disappears under the blankets. Helen says it’s her artificial nutrition, which is administered through a tube that is inserted into her small intestine. Apparently, the rancid chemical smell permeating the room is the tube feeding. It’s an odor that’s difficult to get rid of, and it doesn’t smell so great after it’s been digested. When she says this, there’s a sob-slash-gag, and I turn around as Ethan heads toward the door, hand over his mouth and shoulders heaving. Grandma Winnie hooks an arm around him and mumbles something about how this is no place for children and they disappear through the door.

Emma’s eyes flick to mine for just a split second, and then focus back on the bed. There’s no doubt in my mind that she was checking to make sure that I’m handling this okay, that
I
didn’t need
her
. I release Xander’s hand and step forward until I’m standing directly next to the bed. Dad moves around to the other side. Emma comes up next to me and wraps an arm around my waist, and together we stare down at what was once a woman. She is so incredibly bloated as to almost be unrecognizable as a human being. She’s propped on her side with pillows tucked behind her back. Helen informs us that repositioning the patient at least every two hours is a method employed to prevent skin breakdown and bed sores, although no matter how diligent the nurses are with turning her, she does still get them. Because of her poor nutritional intake and oxygenation, the sores are increasingly difficult to heal.
Wow
. This woman’s life, if that’s what you want to call it, is incredibly bleak.

Helen removes the pillows from behind the woman. She’s flat on her back, so I get a better look at her face. But she is so swollen that her eyes and mouth are nothing more than tiny slits, barely visible between mounds of flesh. Her short, black hair is matted against her head. Thick masses of fluid-filled flesh hang from her neck, and her hands are puffy. Dad bends down and peers closer at her as if he’s looking for something. He stands up straight and turns to Helen.

“May I touch her?” he asks. Hellen hands him a pair of medical gloves as Xander crosses around to the same side of the bed. Dad leans down and moves his face closer to the woman’s neck. He places a gentle hand to her neck and presses some of the abundant flesh taut. He stands up straight again and looks to each of us. He inhales a deep breath and says to Helen, “It’s not her.”

I’m blinking at him, and Emma says, “How can you be sure?”

“Your mother has a heart-shaped birthmark on the base of her neck. This woman’s neck has no birthmark.” He removes the gloves and tosses them in a nearby trash can.

“Do you mind if we take a cheek swab from one of the kids, just to make sure?” Helen says to Dad. He shakes his head.

“That won’t be necessary.”

“I think we should, Dad,” I say, and Emma nods in agreement. “I feel like we should be certain, and it’s the only way to accomplish that.”

“Fine.”

Hellen leads me back to a clinical room with stainless steel tables, where she swabs the inside of my cheek. It takes me a few minutes, but I realize we’re in the facility’s morgue, where bodies are held until they can be taken to the appropriate mortuary. Back in the reception area, she tells Dad that she’ll have the results within two weeks.

Emma rides home with the family, while Xander and I drive back to McLean together. He holds my hand in silence the entire drive, and I think about all the reasons I should be happy that this poor woman is not my mother. But I can’t help also thinking about all the reasons I wish she were—for the knowing, for the closure, so I could finally move on with my life. We go to Xander’s house, to his bedroom, where he holds me in his arms as I cry myself to sleep.

Two weeks later, the letter arrives informing us that my DNA does not match the woman’s in Baltimore, and I steel my heart to start all over again.

CHAPTER 21

It’s been weeks since we made the trip to Baltimore. Christmas came and went. None of us were feeling particularly festive, although we went through the motions of being a happy family complete with presents, caroling, and Christmas Eve Mass. Xander stayed with us for the holiday break instead of going home to Italy with his grandfather. He said he couldn’t leave me when I needed his help to find mom. I needed him for more than that. Every night I’d sneak into the guestroom and curl up in bed with him. We’d stare at each other until one of us fell asleep. I love watching Xander sleep. He always looks so peaceful, like he doesn’t have a care in the world. I know I don’t sleep like that. My dreams won’t let me.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been dreaming about Javier. In these dreams, we’re together, we were never apart, and we’re happy. When I awake, I feel stressed, angry, and vulnerable. I don’t have room enough in my heart to feel these things. I’m completely happy with Xander. We
are
a couple—I know this, everyone knows this—but we’ve not yet defined our relationship. It’s as if we’re too afraid of being hurt again, and if we were to make the relationship official, that’s exactly what would happen.

I’ve been suffering through the school days at Holy Cross, trudging from class to class. I yearn for May to come, for the warmth of summer, and to finally be finished with this hell on Earth that is high school. I find my solace in Xander. I spend almost every waking minute outside of school with him, researching schizophrenia and searching for my mother. He insists that we take breaks to see ridiculous teen movies and go to his favorite video arcade. It’s in these times that I get a glimpse of the real Xander—the fun-loving, care-free guy—a hint of the many layers of the man I’m falling for.

I’m trying to shove my organic chemistry book into my tiny locker when I feel someone standing behind me. I spin around and am face to face with the modern-day version of Helen of Troy, or Cleopatra, or whichever historical femme fatale you’d want to compare her to. She’s smirking at me, probably because she recognizes how incredibly jumpy I am. I turn back to my task. You’d think a school as expensive as Holy Cross would have some decent-sized lockers!

“So are you and Xander going to the inaugural youth ball together?” Camilla asks nonchalantly. But there’s a strange quality to her voice. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she’s jealous.

“Actually, yes. He asked, and I said yes.” I cringe and turn to her, awaiting her response.

Camilla is quiet for a moment. I know she’s not happy about it, no matter what she might say.

“Well, that’s good,” she says, pursing her lips together and averting her eyes. “It’s time for Xander to move on after what happened with that little bitch cheerleader. You know she broke his heart, right?”

I know it wasn’t Emily who broke his heart; it was Camilla. But I nod anyway.

“I think he’s pretty much over it,” I say, hoping that she realizes that I’m really talking about her. I don’t know how much Xander has told her about our relationship, but I’m feeling awkward talking to her about this. I haven’t figured out if she knows that Xander confided in me about their past.