Waiting for Unicorns (7 page)

“Tal,” he agreed.

And that was that.

I WOKE UP THE NEXT
morning with a terrible cold. My throat ached, I could hardly breathe, and every part of me hurt. I felt as if a polar bear had tried to snack on me during the night. Groaning, I pulled the covers over my head and rolled over, trying to fall back asleep.

Under the covers in the muffled darkness, I tried thinking about cool, calm waters, hoping they might lull me back to sleep. Then Sura knocked and opened the door.

“Are you all right, Tal? It's almost eleven o'clock.”

“I'm sick,” I said, poking my head out from under the covers. My voice was funny, like it was stuck in my head.

Sura came in and sat on the edge of my bed, pressed a cool hand to my forehead. A rush of memory washed over me, and the room heaved like the deck of a wave-tossed ship.

My mom had always been quick to press her hands against my face—when I was sick; when my cheeks were cold and rosy from being out in the wind; when they were warm and her hands cold; when she wanted me to know I was loved.

I jerked away from Sura's hands and she pulled back, standing up awkwardly.

My small room seemed to shrink even smaller and I wanted to pull myself back under the covers like a turtle.

I knew Sura was just trying to be nice, but it only reminded me that Mom was gone all over again. Homemade pancakes for breakfast. Hot chocolate on a cold afternoon. A cool hand against my hot forehead. And what if Mom was watching? What if she knew?

“I'll bring you some tea and toast,” Sura said. But I just nodded and didn't look at her.

Sura was the perfect sort of mom person, even though she wasn't anyone's mom. She wasn't even anyone's wife. I'd never thought about that before, and it suddenly made me a bit uncomfortable. Because, what if she wanted to be? Maybe she would have liked to be someone's wife? Someone's mom? She was already pretty good at taking care of other people, though I knew from experience that you didn't have to be a mom to learn how to do that.

I was only eleven when Dad and I started taking care of Mom. I knew then that she wasn't going to get better. The three of us never talked about it, at least, not like we talked about other things. And we never talked about the future at all—about what we'd do
after.

The truth was, I was terrified. I didn't know how we would ever be okay without her.
Everyone is afraid of what they're unable to control,
Mom had told me.
All fears can eventually be traced back to that.
It made sense, what she said. But it didn't make me feel any better.

I knew Mom loved me, but she and Dad weren't the sort of people who went around saying so all the time. Instead, they showed it in hundreds of little ways. It never really bothered me, until the cancer. Once Mom was diagnosed, it would've been nice to have those three little words inside me somewhere, so I could anchor myself to them when the waves really rolled.

The day I realized things had flipped—that Mom was no longer taking care of me—wasn't anything I could have prepared for. And it wasn't just because of the cancer; it was the drugs, too. There would be no more chemotherapy. No more radiation. There would be just Dad, and me, and Mom. And morphine.

Dad told me that morphine is a pretty wild breed of painkiller, and toward the end, when she came home from the hospital, Mom was hooked up to an IV that fed her a constant drip of that particular wild breed.

“It helps with the pain,” Dad said. But it didn't help mine at all.

It was a late October afternoon, and Mom was propped up by pillows next to the big picture window in the library. She liked the sunshine, so we turned our story room into her bedroom.

I was doing homework at the desk beside her bed, and I had a terrible cold. I remember the balled-up tissues on the floor and how my nose hurt from blowing. Dad had gone into work to wrap up a report after I got home from school. He had arranged for a nurse to come and check on Mom every afternoon—but she wouldn't be there for a couple more hours. So it was just Mom and me, cozied up like a couple of cats in the warm autumn sunshine that poured through the library window.

Out of the blue, Mom asked me a question I knew I would never forget.

“Have I been a good mom, Tal?”

I glanced up from my homework, a little confused by her question. At first I thought it was the morphine talking. Mom wasn't the sort of person ever to be uncertain about things, at least, not to me. Before cancer she never would've asked me that sort of question. I put down my pencil.

“The best,” I said. I didn't even have to think about it. “You're the best.” I said it again because I didn't want her to have to think about it, either. Why hadn't I ever told her this before? I guess sometimes you overlook things because they seem so obvious.

I got up from my desk and went to lie beside Mom, trying my best not to hurt her. I traced the bright blue veins in her thin hands. They looked like the twisting lines on a road map, and I wished that we could all just drive away and leave the whole broken and sick world behind.

I don't know how long we lay there together, but when I looked over, Mom had fallen asleep. The morphine made her do that—fall asleep really fast. I didn't want to wake her, but I needed her to know, so I whispered, “I love you.”

Dad found us there in the library when he got home later that night. Mom and I were both asleep. And when she woke up, she didn't seem to remember any of our conversation. Or if she did, she never said anything.

She died a week later, while I was at school.

The school secretary called me out of class to the principal's office. He didn't need words to tell me what had happened; his face told me the truth I didn't want to know. I remember slowly packing up my books as the class watched, my hands shaking.

It's funny the things you remember. I knew I wouldn't finish my math homework that night, and I remember wondering if I should talk to my teacher about it before I left. But I didn't. I just slid my pre-algebra book into my backpack and zipped it up, the noise filling the silent classroom. Then I made my way down the long hall to where my dad waited, red-eyed and broken.

He pulled me into his arms and held me so tight I could barely breathe. And then he cried, right there in the principal's office—big gasping sobs. I remember how the principal looked down at his shoes, scuffed across the toes, and rubbed his forehead. I felt sorry for him, and embarrassed for us. Sometimes it's hard to know how to help people who are all broken up, right there in front of you.

I wanted to cry, too. I knew exactly what was happening. Mom was gone, and all the things I loved most about her were suddenly just memories. No one would ever get to know her like I knew her. I'd never be able to say, “You have
got
to meet my mom. She's super cool,” because she was dead. I tried to cry because it seemed wrong, cruel almost, to let Dad stand there and do it alone. But I couldn't. I couldn't cry because I was too angry.

They had made me go to school that day, even though the nurse said she could go at any time. Mom and Dad had made me go, and now Mom had died without giving me a chance to say good-bye. The tears were there, drowning me from the inside out. But the weight of my silent good-bye kept getting in the way, keeping my eyes dry. It was like a wall.

I didn't get to say good-bye. I didn't get to say good-bye. I didn't get to say good-bye.

Those words kept repeating in my head, over and over, and no matter how hard my tears crashed against my insides, they couldn't get out. I couldn't manage a single tear, not even at Mom's funeral, which I barely remember.

After it was all over, my heart finally caught up with my head, squeezed around that absent good-bye, and down inside where I was most real, I knew she was truly gone. Then Niagara opened up in me.

I cried at the breakfast table when Dad tried to make oatmeal for us, because he didn't really know how to do it. I cried getting dressed for school because Mom wasn't there to tell me how nice I looked or to make sure my socks matched. I cried in the lunchroom at school and didn't care who saw me because it didn't matter what people thought anymore. I cried doing my homework because Mom wasn't there to help, and I cried myself to sleep at night because she wasn't there to tuck me in. Mom wasn't there, and she never would be again.

And then, as fast as it had started, it stopped. Like a faucet finally turning off. I didn't stop on purpose, the tears just quit coming, and I was relieved.

I haven't cried since.

Not when we sold our house in town and moved to an apartment close to the institution.

Not when my cat got hit by a car right after Christmas.

Not when I didn't get asked to the middle school dance.

I just couldn't imagine a reason to cry over anything else. And even if I could, I wouldn't let myself. I refused.
Nothing
could ever be that bad again.

I must have fallen asleep, because a while later I woke up to the sound of creaking floors. Sura pushed my bedroom door open with her shoulder, and it whined on its hinges. She carried a tray of tea and warm toast, and though I didn't want to admit it, it smelled
perfect.
Sitting up in bed, I pulled my pillow up behind me, and Sura set the tray on my lap.

“You may find the tea different than what you're used to, but it will help,” she said. “I added honey, to sweeten it up.”

I peered down into the cup of golden liquid. “What is it?”

“
Chaithluk
tea.”

“Chaithluk?” I asked.

She nodded. “Stinkweed. A bit like chamomile, but the plant grows here on the tundra. It will help your throat and fever.” She rubbed her arms to demonstrate. “Take the ache away.”

I nodded, nervous, and took a tentative sip. It was bitter. But only at first. And it did make my throat feel a little better.

Sura stood beside the bed, watching. But she didn't touch me and she didn't sit down. As she turned to go, I caught her sleeve.

“Thanks,” I said. “This is nice.”