Matters of Faith (15 page)

If they liked me, if I treated them well, was patient, then they would make sure Meghan was receiving the care she needed, they would check on her more frequently, would give me tidbits of information the doctors wouldn't share, would see that our needs were attended to first.

And it was useless, I knew that. But I couldn't help ingratiating myself with them. Anything could make a difference. And so I was ashamed of them catching us having words in front of Meghan, as if my stock might go down.

“Why is he moving her?” Cal asked.

“She's stable enough to leave ICU, and it's a much more private room, away from the elevators. It's better set up for . . . a longer-term visit.”

The only noise in the room was from the machines keeping Meghan alive. It sounded like progress until she said “longer-term visit.”

“Will she be okay?” I asked. “You know, on the move?”

The other nurse, one I didn't recognize, nodded. “She'll be fine. Everything is on a battery backup. If y'all could gather up any personal items and maybe give us a little room, you can meet us up in room four eighteen in about twenty minutes?”

It took me a second to realize that they wanted us to leave. “Oh, okay,” I said, and awkwardly gathered up my purse and Cal's duffel bag while he grabbed his newspaper and magazines. Delia held the door open for us and patted my arm when I hesitated.

“She'll be okay,” she said. “Promise.”

Cal and I straggled down the hallway feet away from each other and stood waiting for the elevator, not looking at each other.

“Where do you want to go?” he asked.

“There's a little chapel downstairs,” I suggested. “It was empty last time I looked.”

He looked at me askance. I shrugged, and we got on the elevator. He followed me into the chapel, which was, again, empty, and I sat in the pew in front of the one he chose, piling the empty space beside me with my bags.

I turned in the pew and eyed him in this new, softer light. He still looked exhausted, the circles under his eyes even more pronounced. I didn't imagine my own countenance had improved any either.

“So,” I said. “The doctor.”

“She wants to talk to you,” he said, digging in his wallet and pulling out a business card. I examined it. Dr. Camille Kimball.

“Wasn't Camille a hurricane?” I murmured.

“Sixty-nine,” Cal replied.

“Why does she want to talk to me?” I asked.

“I guess she wants to explain why she did it.”

“Oh, she has some specific reason?” I asked. “Besides trying to hurt us more than we already were?”

“Her son died after eating peanut butter her mother-in-law gave him. He was three years old.”

And all the air disappeared from the room. I could feel my head shaking. My grandmother, my mother's mother, had had Parkinson's disease. She died when I was nine, and I didn't remember much about her, except she had a wonderful laugh and her head shook on the top of her neck as though it were a gyroscope, but with no pattern, and no illusion of control. This was how my head felt.

I couldn't cry for my own child, not now, not yet, but cry for another's I could, and I did. I cried for that three-year-old little boy, and for his mother, and even for the mother-in-law. Cal, to his credit, did not seem to be going through the same detached examination of our marriage as I was, or if he was, he put it on hold long enough to lean over the pew and hold as much of me as he could.

But he remained dry-eyed, and I had to wonder at it a little. Just the sight of tears in his eyes had been enough to make me cry in the past. How did he hold me, sobbing, and remain steadfast? How did he tell me that our daughter was going to die and our son should be in jail with such belief, his own version of faith, and not explode with the enormity of it?

I pulled away from him and took some deep breaths, before inspecting Dr. Kimball's card again, its heavy stock dry as dust against my fingers, and felt a resentment well up in me.

“So, because her son died we're supposed to be . . . what?
Grateful
she pressed charges against our son?”

“Chloe, just talk to her, okay? She's the one who saved Meghan's life. I think she at least deserves a conversation.”

I couldn't speak for a moment. I froze in place, certain that I could not have just heard what I just heard. “She deserves a conversation? Since when are you concerned with what someone deserves, Cal? What about what our son deserves? Don't you think that perhaps your
son
deserves a conversation? Doesn't your son deserve some benefit of the doubt? Some support from you? You don't seem too concerned about what he deserves. But this doctor you've never met before, this woman deserves your consideration?”

Cal's face darkened and his eyes narrowed. I knew what that meant. What woman, married for more than six months, doesn't know every expression, every warning eye narrow, every irritated mouth tightening, every drawn down eyebrow?

It went both ways, of course. In our daily life, I expected him to take note of my head tilt, my raised eyebrow, my crossed arms. I always responded more quickly than he did to these unspoken cues, and I rarely ignored them. But this time I did not acquiesce.

“No, you don't get to look at me like that. I'm the one who had to do it all alone today. You didn't see him there, you didn't get to learn about bail, and you didn't have to drive home with him. So don't act like I've somehow gotten off easy on this one.”

“You spoiled him—”

“Spoiled him? What the hell are you talking about? The kid never asked for anything. It was your idea to buy him a car, and as soon as he could he got a job.”

“Not materially. You spoiled him by letting him think he was adult enough to make decisions on his own. You think that if he were afraid of what we, you, thought that he'd have let this happen? If she dies—”

“Stop that,” I said, surprised at my own vehemence. “You stop saying that right now. She's not going to die. Do you
want
her to die? It seems to me like you've just decided she's going to. How can you do that? What is wrong with you?”

He looked anguished, and I wanted to hit him and wrap my arms around him at the same time, but my overwhelming feeling was exhaustion, and when he finally spoke I listened with my eyes closed.

“I can't do this the way you do, Chloe. I can't just—take it all at the same time. I feel like if I prepare myself, you know, if I let myself touch on the worst, then maybe if it happens I won't just die. Because I have to tell you something, you should know, right now, that if she does, if she does die, I won't survive. And if I don't die on the spot, then I will blame Marshall and that fucking nut-case he brought home and I will hate them both. And if I hate my son, well, that's going to kill me anyway.”

“No,” I murmured, shaking my head, unwilling to open my eyes and see his haggard face. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse and pained.

“And I will be sorry to leave you with all of it, but I will have to. I won't make it, Chloe, I just won't make it. And I'm convinced that all of this is going to happen because I should have known. I did know, maybe not this, but I knew that something would happen if you kept letting him just think whatever he wanted, but I didn't do anything about it. And for that, I hate myself.”

“Cal—”

“No. I hate myself, and . . . I hate you a little too.”

Had he punched me in the face I couldn't have been more shocked and filled with pain. Marshall and Meghan had both told me that they hated me when they didn't get their way over some petty thing or another. Childish, whiny little stones thrown to hurt me. And it had stung a little, but just a little, because I had understood that they were children, and they didn't hate me, and they didn't yet understand the power of such words.

But I had always been so sure that Cal would never use that power, not like this, not at a time like now. I turned forward again, and stared at the stained glass set high in the otherwise unadorned wall. A dove on a blue background, wings spread, paused forever in mid-flight, olive branch streaming from its beak. I suppose it was meant to represent peace, God's promise to mankind.

But I felt as frozen as it was, and there was no peace in me. Cal touched my shoulder, and I did not move. It was a stranger's hand, and it meant nothing. I stood and grabbed my purse, leaving Cal's bag on the pew, and left. I heard him come after me, and we rode up in the elevator in silence.

Meghan's move was successful, and she looked exactly the same as she had two floors down. The room was larger, and the nurse showed us how the recliner could turn into a bed, filled the water pitcher for us, and left, and neither of us said a word. I took the chair next to the bed, Cal took the recliner, and that was how Dr. Kimball found us almost an hour later.

She looked nothing like I had imagined, and yet I knew immediately who she was. She was older, much older, than I had imagined, and her gaze was direct and calm. I had expected her to be nervous, but she trained her bright blue eyes on me and walked over to my chair without hesitation.

She nodded to Cal once. “Mr. Tobias,” she said.

“Hello, Doctor,” he replied, maneuvering the recliner upright and straightening his clothing.

“Mrs. Tobias, I'm Dr. Camille Kimball,” she said, holding her hand out. I would like to be able to say that I simply stared coldly at her and ignored the hand, but I have never been able to do that. If someone holds out a hand to me, I grasp it before I can stop myself. It is the same with friendship, and reconciliations, and when I was younger, with romance. I did not often make the first move, but once one was made I responded eagerly, and then often did the heavy lifting of the thing.

But I reminded myself, even as my hand slid into her cool, powdery grasp, that this was the woman responsible for my son going to jail, and I cut the handshake off before I would have in any other circumstance.

“I would very much like to speak with you,” she said, shooting a glance at Meghan, “if you have the time. Perhaps I could buy you a cup of coffee?”

“I'm fine here,” I said, proud of myself for the flat tone of my voice.

She nodded. “Yes, I was just thinking of Meghan,” she said softly. “I think this is an adult conversation.”

And I was again ashamed at the fact that I still considered Meghan nothing more than asleep. All of her hives were gone, all the swelling had receded, and aside from the tubes and wires, she looked like Meghan . . . asleep. The difference had been explained to us, the MRI and CAT scans and nerve tests had all been done, explained. There was nothing unusual about Meghan's coma as comas of this nature went, and nothing unusual about her treatment.

And so, to me, we were merely watching over her while she slept, while she rested from her ordeal, while her body and mind reknit themselves from the temporary unraveling. Cal might have been on a deathwatch, I was just waiting for her to wake up, to open her eyes and see me sitting there, just as I always had been when she was sick at home and woke from fevered dreams.

I immediately rose and shot Cal a look. He shrugged and said, “I'll stay here.”

I allowed Kimball to take the lead and followed her down the hall. We didn't speak in the elevator, which she seemed perfectly comfortable with, sliding her hands into the pockets of her immaculate white coat, her shoulders relaxed, hip resting against the stainless rail, calmly watching the digital floor countdown.

I watched her. Her age was a surprise; I pegged her as approaching her mid-sixties, but I could see the hard, younger woman I'd originally imagined under the slackening skin. She wore her gray hair clipped short in back and longer in front so it swung forward, partially obscuring the side of her face.

We headed for the cafeteria and got our coffees in silence. She took hers black, I liberally dosed mine with milk and sugar, then followed her to a small table in the back corner. Those in scrubs and white coats ignored us as we walked by, but the others, the ones like me who were here looking for a miracle, followed her hungrily with their eyes, looking for something in every medical professional they saw, some extra piece of information, some sparkling shard of hope.

She sighed as she sat down and then clasped her hands around the foam cup as if they were cold. Having so recently grasped one, I knew they weren't. I took a sip and waited for her to start.

“I've already spoken to your husband,” she said.

I nodded. “Yes, he told me.”

“I feel that I should explain why I did what I did. I understand that it must have placed you under a great deal of additional stress.”

“I can't imagine that you would understand.”

“I understand more than you realize.”

“I'm sure you think you do. And I am sorry for your loss, but that doesn't give you any right to send my son to jail.”

“I didn't send your son to jail. I merely—”

“You didn't
merely
do anything. You decided you knew what the situation was—”

“Which was what, Mrs. Tobias? Do I have the story wrong? Did two young adults, well old enough to know better, not purposely feed your daughter something that had the potential, no, was nearly
guaranteed
, to kill her? You're damn lucky she isn't dead right now. And if she had died, I'd be pushing for murder charges,” she said, nearly hissing, jamming her index finger so hard into the laminate tabletop that I winced. She took a deep breath and leaned back in her seat, folding her hands around her coffee again as if in prayer. “And if she does, I will.”