Drowning in You (12 page)

“
That’s a
phone problem I can fix.” I type in my number and prank call my
cell.

He needs to be able to contact
me again if we’re going to chat more. I give him my number because
I figure who cares? Dex doesn’t. He has Raych and has made it clear
he doesn’t want me.

Elliot scans
the restaurant again and he sets his hands on the table, slipping
out of the seat. He bends down and kisses my cheek. That’s two
kisses in two weeks. The most I’ve received from someone other than
family since my ex-boyfriend dumped me, but that was so long ago
I’ve forgotten how
long it’s
been.

“
Thanks,” I
say.

He walks away blushing. I’m
happy I can make someone feel that way. Granted, I’m still waiting
for the wave of euphoria, but the rest of the drink at The Crooked
Shelf is much better than it was before.

I text
Elliot,
Glad to fix your phone for you.
Chat soon.

When I get to
my car parked across the street, he’s replied with,
Loved seeing you today. And yes, my phone should
have a better week.

For the five or so minutes it
takes to drive to Darcy’s school, I replay Elliot’s face when he
pulled out his phone, my growing embarrassment each time I remember
thinking his phone was literally broken, and that, although cheesy,
he’s the type of guy I’ve been looking for. Right?

I smile all the way up to
Darcy’s classroom, where he’s huddled in the middle of a group of
boys from his class. Seeing him like this eases my guilt that my
personality of a wet sock doesn’t affect my little brother here
where he can forget our issues.

As I approach they’re making
weird sounds. What are they laughing at? One boy yells, “That’s so
mean!” and another slaps his back and says, “It’s just a
picture.”

“
Hey,
Darce.”

Darcy jumps, and I can feel his
body shaking through my hand on his shoulder. “Charlee!” He
snatches the drawing away and scrunches it in his pocket.

A mother calls to the group and
one boy throws his school bag over his shoulder, waves and drags
his feet over to her. The rest disappear, leaving Darcy with his
hands behind his back and the scrunched drawing in his pocket.

For something his friends and
he were so proud of, it seems like a source of embarrassment now,
with Darcy speechless and walking back to his car wearing his own
bag, not complaining how heavy it is or about homework. Not even
about how boring class was. He’s silent and compliant, which is
worse.

We buckle our seat belts. “So
what was that thing you were showing your friends?”

“
No, you’ll
get mad.”

“
How do you
know that? You haven’t shown it to—”

“
No, Charlee.
You
will
get mad.
You’re mad a lot and this drawing will make you mad.”

I start the car and take off.
Gee, I thought I never got mad, actually. For the little boy I
picture needing help with homework, reaching the top shelf in our
pantry, and playing Warcraft games on the internet, he’s more
mature than I give him credit for at times.

That and he can probably read
my face as well as I can read his.

I reach for his pocket, but he
grabs my wrist. I turn to him for a split-second and we both erupt
in goofy grins. We fumble for a full minute, my one hand on the
wheel, my other grabbing and tearing at Darcy’s pocket, his hands
everywhere in my peripheral vision. The car darts over the center
line and someone beeps me back into position. We slow down and
Darcy’s laugh diminishes to silence eventually.

“
Give me that
ugly drawing, you little thief.” I blindly grab again but he
cackles and darts out of the way.

“
Never!”

We drive in silence again down
a main road until we stop at a set of lights.

Darcy says, “You really think
you can handle it?”

“
Sure I can.
I’ve been putting up with you for weeks in the damn house alone, so
I bet I can handle an ugly picture.”

“
It’s not
ugly!” He thumps his hand on the passenger side dashboard. “It’s
better than your ugly face!” At that he bends over in laughter at
his own joke.

I snatch up the picture and
hold it to the opposite corner of my driver’s side. When he lashes
at my arm, I tease, “Get back or we’ll have a car crash and you’ll
die.”

He doesn’t laugh as I expect. I
need him to laugh because between Elliot and this banter, today has
been a happy day.

I start wondering why he’s
cowering in the seat and refusing to look anywhere other than out
of the window.

Until I unscrunch his
drawing.

There’s a pair of kidneys,
linked together by a vein of sorts, dripping with blood. The
kidneys have black crosses on them and eyes and limbs. The outer
hands of the kidneys hold a sword each and growl with a speech
bubble saying “I will fight!” They say this to the creature on the
opposite side of the page. Its body is hidden behind a full-body
black cloak, the hood exaggerated and gaping over its bony head. He
holds a big scythe that towers over his skeleton-like body.

My face is hot, my underarms
sticky with a swirl of heat, so my face must be red by now. The
drawing doesn’t stop there. There are shadows behind it, which
aren’t from the car or anything else.

Please let this be normal.

On the other side of the page
is the same pair of kidneys, but this time they don’t have black
crosses littered over them. They’re a browny-red color and spooning
over a type of bed or mattress. The vein that links them is just
red, not bloody, and the caption under says: “We’re too lazy to
work properly!”

Even in my head I don’t cuss,
but I swerve onto the shoulder of the road and have pulled to a
stop in seconds. “What the hell were you thinking, Darcy!?”

Head hanging to his chest, he
mumbles, “I thought—”

“
You thought
you could make fun of our dying father?”

He shakes his head quickly,
still not meeting my glare.

“
Are you proud
of this? Is that it?”

“
I-I was going
to show Daddy when we—”

“
Hold up.” I
press the drawing into a cup holder and hold out my hands,
wondering why my fingers hurt when I flex them. Then I shake my
head and tell myself to think, think, think. “You were going to
show our father this drawing making fun of him dying and making fun
of his kidneys not working?”

“
Well my
friends thought it was funny.”

“
Your friends
aren’t in our situation, Darcy! How could you be so hurtful?
Darcy…” His face is pale and full of fear. “I know you have no idea
how serious this is but Dad’s very, very sick. So sick he might be
in hospital for a long time. And we don’t know when he’ll get
better. Making fun of the accident is never acceptable. I need to
you apologize to me, to Dad, and promise you’ll never do something
like this again.”

“
I swear it,
Charlee. I’m so, so sorry. I swear it. I’m sorry…” He continues
like this alternating between sorrys and promises.

Guilt wracks
me and I feel like a cranky, annoying mother. Exactly what I’ve
never wanted to be to him. What I’ve been conscious my whole life
not to do. To be his equal, not his dominator. I’m still trying to
be his sister. I don’t
want
to be his mom. Gosh, I can’t handle
this
! How am I meant to
be responsible enough for the rest of his life, let alone my own? I
can’t do it.

“
Oh, Darce.
I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have been that mean. Come
here.”

I pull him into a hug and he
heaves continually into my chest, gasping for air and
sniffling.

When he calms, he says, “I
didn’t know Dad would be in hospital for very long. I thought…”

“
Oh,” I say,
sighing. I should tell him Dad won’t make it, but I can’t say he’ll
die. As his sister I can’t hurt him like that. I don’t know what
our mom would do because she’s gone, too, so I sit like this, with
my hands fidgeting in my lap and wondering how I could go from
“fixing” Elliot’s phone and smiling at his lips on my cheek to
this—feeling like I’m drowning in all this.

“
I thought he
was going to die,” Darcy says. My head pops up and I look at him as
he explains, “Dad told me his kidneys were too lazy to work and
that it probably meant he would have to fight death. I didn’t know
what he meant so I drew it for my friends.”

Speechless, I
start the car again and drive home. I can’t go to the hospital like
this. Skipping one day can’t hurt. Elliot and I exchanged numbers,
conversation and even a kiss today but Dex is back in my
thoughts.
What matters is that he’s
willing to fight despite his chances, rather than
sooking.

One boy, ten; one guy,
twenty-one. Both are accepting the fact my dad will die. This is so
wrong. My dad can’t die. He can’t die until I’m ready for him to
die and those plans extend at least another quarter century.

When my cell rings through the
Bluetooth in the car, I know it can’t be Elliot, no matter how
excited he might be about speaking to me. This feels too much like
bad news to be Elliot.

I’m right.

“
Ms. May?” an
official-sounding voice says.

“
Um, yes? Is
everything…” but I also can’t make myself say “okay” because that
would validate everything must not be okay. Maybe if I wish enough.
Are you listening, God? I won’t mock you and ask if he’s okay but
please don’t say…

“
I think you
better come down to the hospital right now.”

* * *

I tell Darcy he better have
everything he wants in his hands or pockets because I’m locking the
car the moment I jump out, whether or not he’s with me. He
obliges.

Is Dad dying? No.

Will he be okay? Don’t
know.

What happened? Don’t know.

As expected the parking lot is
full. It’s peak visiting hour after school. We find a spot a row
from the end. I don’t have time to pick up my handbag in my rush;
both of us bring just our bodies. Luckily, our swimming training
means we’re both fit, so we have no problem physically with running
the length of the parking lot, snaking through never-ending paths
inside the hospital and zig-zagging around slow people in
wheelchairs and those chained to IV drips.

Forever running. That’s what
this feels like. Despite our fitness, we’re pretty out of breath by
the time we reach the elevator. It’s emotional exhaustion. Darcy
recovers with his hands on his knees, and I grab my bra between the
two cups and pull it away from my chest, letting my lung capacity
increase by nearly double.

One, two,
four, seven seconds. The elevator will never, ever come.
We don’t have the time for petty
elevators.
The other people can wait—at
least that’s all it feels like while Dad recovers since the
emergency call I received.

“
Darce, we
don’t have time. C’mon,” I say simultaneously indicating to the
stairs and running. I throw open the door and skip every other
step. Darcy’s steps are pretty close, only distancing from me at
two or so steps a flight. We run the four floors from the ground
up. My thighs are tight and burning. I’ve run much farther than
this when altering my training sessions for swimming, but this
sprint—about half a mile, I’m sure—has worn out my body. I can’t
imagine poor little Darcy at only ten.

My legs have already begun to
feel like jelly, but my mind hasn’t so I’m dragging my body up,
through the door that leads to the third-floor hospital wing
(Darcy, though ten, was the one to point out Ground is first, then
floor one—not me). I look left, right, gauging if anything looks
different. Maybe answers will miraculously be written on the walls
or make sense now that I’m so close to Dad.

Darcy flies through the door
and I remember what we’re doing. We sprint to Dad’s room.

I yank at the closed door but
it doesn’t open and Darcy and I pummel head-first into the metal
before we can stop ourselves.

It’s locked? Darcy and I share
a look. Lisa is power walking to us from the nurses station.

“
Charlee,
Darcy,” she says. She points to beige plastic seats screwed to the
wall. “Let’s sit here.”

“
Your father
has had acute liver failure. Tests are still underway but some of
his vital organs aren’t functioning as well as we’d hoped, partly
due to the fact he’s had an infection, which causes sudden changes
in his pancreas, liver, and heart function. He hasn’t been eating
very much, so his body hasn’t had the opportunity to strengthen and
repair as it should be.”

“
Miss Nurse,”
Darcy interrupts. “I really want to know if my daddy is going to
live.”

I pull Darcy into my side,
noticing two brilliant streaks down his cheeks and tears pooling in
his eyes. His skin is so dirty from playing, highlighting the grief
pouring out of him. This makes my heart hammer against my ribs,
which are too small. This entire body is too small for the pain
folded and squished inside me. It hurts beyond words seeing my
brother sniffling in ragged breaths.

Tears pool in
my eyes but I will not let them fall. I will not cry.
I will not cry
. “Don’t
you dare cry,” I mutter too low for either Lisa or Darcy to hear
me.

“
Please. Don’t
say these things in front of my little brother.”