Everything, Everything (29 page)

I’m laughing and the cold invades my lungs.

I’m not sick. I’ve never been sick.

All the emotions I’ve held in check over the past twenty-four hours crash over me. Hope and despair, anticipation and regret, joy and anger. How is it possible to have an emotion and its opposite at the same time? I’m struggling in a black ocean, a life jacket across my chest, an anchor on my leg.

My mom catches up to me. Her face is a ruin of fear. “What are you doing? What are you doing? You have to get inside.”

My vision tunnels and I hold her in my sights. “Why, Mom? Why do I have to go inside?”

“Because you’re sick. Bad things could happen to you out here.”

She reaches out to me to pull me toward her, but I jerk away from her.

“No. I’m not going back in.”

“Please,” she begs. “I can’t lose you, too. Not after everything.”

Her eyes are on me, but I know without a doubt that she’s not seeing me at all.

“I lost them. I lost your dad and I lost your brother. I couldn’t lose you, too. I just couldn’t.”

Her face crumbles, falls completely apart. Whatever structures were holding it up give way in a sudden and catastrophic failure.

She’s broken. She’s been broken for a long time. Carla was right. She never recovered from their deaths.

I say something. I don’t know what, but she keeps talking.

“Right after they died you got so, so sick. You wouldn’t breathe right and I drove you to the emergency room and we had to stay there for three days. And they didn’t know what was wrong. They said it was probably an allergy. They gave me a list of things to stay away from, but I knew it was more than that.”

She nods her head. “I knew it was more than that. I had to
protect
you. Anything can happen to you out here.”

She looks around. “Anything can happen to you out here. In the world.”

I should feel compassion. But that’s not what I feel. Anger rises in me and crowds everything else out.

“I’m not sick,” I scream. “I’ve never been sick. You’re the one.” I stab the air in front of her face. I watch as she shrinks into herself and disappears.

“Come inside,” she whispers. “I’ll protect you. Stay with me. You’re all I have.”

Her pain is endless. It falls off the ends of the world.

Her pain is a dead sea.

Her pain is for me, but I cannot bear it anymore.

FAIRY TALES

ONCE UPON A
time there was a girl whose entire life was a lie.

THE VOID

A UNIVERSE THAT
can wink into existence can wink out again.

BEGINNINGS AND ENDS

FOUR DAYS PASS.
I eat. I do homework. I don’t read. My mom walks around in a fugue state. I don’t think she understands what’s happened. She seems to realize that she has something to atone for, but she’s not sure exactly what it is. Sometimes she tries to talk to me, but I ignore her. I barely even look at her.

The morning after I realized the truth, Carla took samples of my blood to the SCID specialist, Dr. Chase. We’re in his office now, waiting to be called. And even though I know what he’ll say, I’m dreading the actual medical confirmation.

Who will I be if I’m not sick?

A nurse calls my name and I ask Carla to stay in the waiting room. For whatever reason, I want to hear this news alone.

Dr. Chase stands when I walk in. He looks just like the photos of him on the web—older white man with graying hair and bright black eyes.

He looks at me with a mixture of sympathy and curiosity.

He gestures for me to sit, and waits until I do to sit himself.

“Your case,” he begins, and then stops.

He’s nervous.

“It’s OK,” I say. “I already know.”

He opens a file on his desk, shakes his head like he’s still puzzled at the results. “I’ve gone over these results time and again. I had my colleagues check to be absolutely certain. You’re not sick, Ms. Whittier.”

He stops and waits for me to react.

I shake my head at him. “I already know,” I say again.

“Carla—Nurse Flores—filled me in on your background.” He studiously flips through a few more pages, trying to avoid saying what he says next. “As a doctor, your mother would’ve known that. Granted, SCID is a very rare disease and it comes in many forms, but you have none, absolutely none, of the telltale signs of the disease. If she did any research, any tests at all, she would’ve known that.”

The room falls away and I’m in a featureless white landscape dotted with open doors that lead nowhere.

He’s looking at me expectantly when I finally come back to my body. “I’m sorry, did you say something?” I ask.

“Yes. You must have some questions for me.”

“Why did I get sick in Hawaii?

“People get sick, Madeline. Normal healthy people get sick all the time.”

“But my heart stopped.”

“Yes. I suspect myocarditis. I spoke with the attending in Hawaii as well. She suspected the same thing. Basically at some point in your past you probably had a viral infection that weakened your heart. Had you been experiencing any chest pain or shortness of breath when you were in Hawaii?”

“Yes,” I say slowly, remembering the squeezing of my heart that I’d willfully ignored.

“Well, myocarditis seems like a likely candidate.”

I don’t have any other questions, not for him anyway. I stand. “Well, thank you very much, Dr. Chase.”

He stands, too, agitated and seeming even more nervous than before. “Before you go there’s one more thing.”

I sit back down. “Because of the circumstance of your upbringing, we’re not sure about the state of your immune system.”

“What does that mean?”

“We think it’s possible that it’s underdeveloped, like an infant’s.”

“An infant?”

“Your immune system hasn’t been exposed to a lifetime of common viruses and bacterial infections. It hasn’t had time to get experience with fighting these infections. It hasn’t had time to get strong.”

“So I’m still sick?”

He leans back in his chair. “I don’t have a good answer for you. We’re in uncharted territory here. I’ve never heard of a case like this. It may mean that you’ll get sick more often than people with healthy immune systems. Or it may mean that when you do get sick, you’ll get very severely sick.”

“How will I know?”

“I don’t think there’s any way to know. I recommend caution.”

We schedule weekly follow-up visits. He tells me that I should take it slowly as I start to see the world—no big crowds, no unfamiliar foods, no exhaustive physical activity.

“The world isn’t going anywhere,” he says as I leave.

AFTER THE DEATH OF

I SPEND THE
next few days searching for more information, for anything that will explain what happened to me and what happened to my mother. I want a diary with her thoughts laid out in legible ink. I want her madness clearly delineated so that I can trace its history and my own. I want details and explanations. I want to know why and why and why. I need to know what happened, but she can’t tell me. She’s too damaged. And if she could? Would it make a difference? Would I
understand
? Would I understand the depth of grief and fear that could’ve led her to take my entire life away from me?

Dr. Chase tells me that he thinks she needs a therapist. He thinks it might be a long time before she’s able to tell me exactly what happened, if ever. He guesses that she suffered some sort of a breakdown after my dad and brother died.

Carla uses all her persuasive powers trying to convince me not to leave home. Not just for my mom’s sake, but for my own. My health is still an unknown.

I consider e-mailing Olly, but so much time has passed. I lied to him. He’s probably moved on. He’s probably found someone else. I’m not sure I can endure any more heartbreak. And what would I say? I’m almost not sick?

In the end Carla convinces me to stay with my mom. She says I am a better person than that. I’m not so sure. Whoever I was before I found out the truth has died.

ONE WEEK A.D.

I HAVE MY
first weekly visit with Dr. Chase. He urges caution.

I install a lock on my bedroom door.

TWO WEEKS A.D.

THREE WEEKS A.D.

MY MOM TRIES
to enter my room, but the door is locked with me in it.

She goes away.

I draft more e-mails to Olly that I don’t send.

Dr. Chase continues to urge caution.

FOUR WEEKS A.D.

I PAINT EACH
wall in my room a different color. The one by the window is a pale butter yellow. The shelves are sunset orange against a peacock-blue wall. The wall by my headboard is lavender, and the final one is black with chalkboard paint.

My mom knocks on my door, but I pretend not to hear her.

She goes away.

FIVE WEEKS A.D.

I ORDER REAL
plants for the sunroom. I deprogram the air filters and open the windows. I buy five goldfish and name them all Olly and let them loose in the fountain.

SIX WEEKS A.D.

DR. CHASE INSISTS
that it’s too soon for me to attempt enrolling in high school. Too many kids with too many illnesses. Carla and I persuade him to let some of my tutors visit in person as long as they’re well. He is reluctant, but he agrees.

MADELINE’S MOM

FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON

A WEEK LATER
Carla and I watch as Mr. Waterman makes his way across the lawn and to his car to leave. I hugged him before he left. He was surprised, but didn’t question it, just hugged me back like it was perfectly natural.

I stay outside for a few minutes after he’s left and Carla waits with me. She’s trying to find a way to gently break my already broken heart.

“So—” she begins.

I know what she’s going to say. She’s been gearing up to say it all day. “Please don’t leave me, Carla. I still need you.”

Her eyes are on me but I can’t bear to look at her.

She doesn’t deny what I’ve said, just takes my hand in hers.

“If you really, truly need me to stay, I’ll stay.” She squeezes my fingers. “But you don’t need me.”

“I’ll always need you.” I don’t try to stop the tears from coming.

“But not like before,” she says gently.

Of course she’s right. I don’t need her to be here with me for eight hours a day. I don’t need constant care. But what will I do without her?

My tears turn into enormous sobs and she holds me in her arms and lets me cry until I reach the end of them.

“What will you do?”

She wipes at my face with the sides of her hands. “I might go back to working in a hospital.”