Don't Fail Me Now (19 page)

Saturday Night

Flagstaff Medical Center, Flagstaff, AZ

The ICU waiting area is a little three-walled enclave with one couch, twelve chairs, and two loveseats arranged back-to-back so that we don't have to see anyone else's grief up close. Not that I could think about anyone else right now. There's a flat-screen TV playing sitcom reruns on TBS and a spread of magazines, and I wonder who could sit here and watch
Seinfeld
or read about Selena Gomez's new eyebrow shape without wanting to break shit and start wailing. The nurse at the desk looks like she's seen it all; she looks like that Munch painting,
The Scream
, only with bangs.

We've been here an hour. Cass has been here an hour and forty-five minutes. Her doctor, Dr. Chowdhury, who wears
green scrubs and has a handsome, angular face with a prominent forehead vein, told me I can't see her until she stabilizes. She seized for twenty minutes, they're guessing, from the time she fell to the time she responded to the dextrose solution they gave her in the ambulance. They don't know how long her brain was without oxygen—probably not long, they think, but combined with the overactivity from the seizure (“like an electrical storm”) and the mild concussion, it could cause lasting side effects. She's still intubated and has been given barbiturates to keep her nervous system suppressed, so she's still unconscious—not coma-unconscious, but heavily drugged. Her body will live, but her brain is anyone's guess.

“We've been able to pick up activity in many of the major areas of concern,” Dr. Chowdhury said when we got there. “I'll keep you updated.”

Many of them. Meaning not all of them. I think for the thousandth time of Cass on the verge of tears and me turning up the radio. Cass sitting down on that bench and putting on her sunglasses, turning her face away. How I'd thought she was just freezing me out like usual . . . how relieved I was that I could get away from her for a few minutes. Not knowing that they were the last few minutes she was planning on living.

A flood of tears sends me down the hall to a cavernous, antiseptic bathroom, which is lined floor to ceiling with gray tile, to double as a shower. I crouch on the toilet in the corner and weep into my knees, turning the sink water on full blast to drown out my primal, hiccupping sobs. In the car, I managed to hold it together for Denny, but now that I'm actually here at the hospital, the numbness is gone and my nerves are raw and bloody. How many mistakes have led up to this moment? How
many were my fault? Mom's? Buck's? I know it's useless now, but I desperately backtrack, looking for the point of no return that I missed. If I hadn't pushed Cass aside so much lately—if I hadn't invited Leah and Tim—if Aunt Sam hadn't been such a cold bitch to us—if Mom hadn't gotten arrested—if she hadn't relapsed in the first place—if she had been happy—if any of us had been happy—if Buck hadn't left—if, if, if.

I finally pull myself back together and scrub my face under the ice-cold water, knowing that my red-rimmed eyes and swollen features will give me away in a heartbeat anyway. But at least maybe it'll get me some sympathy with the nurses. They treated Cass because it was a life-or-death emergency, but when I filled out her intake forms they told me parental consent is required for moving her to the pediatric psych ward, which is protocol for suicide attempts once she recovers.
If
she recovers.

I plop back down on a chair across from Leah and Denny, who are coloring with the pen he stole from Child Protective Services. Amazingly, the MVP of this disaster is turning out to be Leah, who has been calmly distracting Denny for hours now, discreetly showing him YouTube clips on her phone, walking him back and forth to the water fountain, and even making a DIY bowling alley with upside-down Dixie cups and a crumpled page of
Prevention
magazine. All this time I assumed Tim was the strong one, but now I'm not so sure. Because right now he's freaked out and pacing, making things even more tense, while she's quietly and unassumingly locking shit down. I've always assumed that's what I do in my family—hold it together, balance out the crazy. But maybe I'm not the strong one. I certainly don't feel strong right now. I feel like I'm unraveling.

“Hey,” Tim says, grabbing my hand and pulling me into the corner, next to a potted palm. “Are you okay? You look . . .” He pauses to consider his options before making a save with “upset.”

“I
am
upset. My sister tried to kill herself.” I look past his face to a pastel painting of a sunset hanging on the opposite wall. Or maybe it's a sunrise. That would be less of a metaphor for imminent death, at least.

“I'm sorry, that was a stupid thing to say.” He takes my other hand, but I still can't look at him. We're standing a foot apart now, making an inverted drawbridge. “Is there anything I can do?”

Leave
, I think. I tried to get him and Leah to stay in the car—I don't know how far the Harpers' witch hunt has spread, and I don't want to find out while Cass is being kept alive by machines—but they wouldn't.

“I don't think so,” I say. I catch Leah looking at us in my peripheral vision and snatch my hands back.

“Oh.” He clears his throat, takes a step back. “Well, I was thinking maybe I should call my dad.”

“Don't do that,” I say. “It'll just complicate things.”

“We have to tell
someone
,” he says. “And your mom is, uh, hard to reach, so . . .”

“Parents aren't just interchangeable,” I snap. “Your dad doesn't know us. He wouldn't care. Plus, what could he even do?”

“He would care,” Tim says, sounding hurt. “And he could get us a hotel room, buy us some real food. He could make sure they take care of her here—people listen to him.”

“Of course they do, he's a white man.”

“That's not what I meant.”

“You don't have to mean something for it to be true.”

“Fine, well, I just think . . . we can't do this on our own anymore,” he says.

I look him straight in the eyes. “Maybe you can't.”

“What?”

“
I
could do it,” I say, anger suddenly filling the emptiness in my chest. “We were doing fine before you.”

“I don't—” Tim frowns, wounded and confused. “You're the one who brought us.”

“I didn't know what I was doing,” I say. “I didn't know it would make everything worse.” That's my fault, I know it is. I should have seen the second Cass ran out of the car at the Family Dollar that taking Leah was a bad idea. We should have left her where she was, on Facebook, smiling and abusing exclamation points in her white picket life. But it's Tim's fault I got curious. He was the one who barged in on us, who made me care in the first place. He was the one who knocked me off my feet when I should have been standing guard. “If I hadn't had to babysit you and her all week,” I seethe, gesturing to Leah, who's now full-on eavesdropping, “I could have paid attention to my
real
sister.”

“Wow, okay,” he says, his cornflower eyes turning steely. “Because it seemed like you were pretty happy with the distraction.” He's talking about the kiss. I can't
believe
he's bringing that up now.

“That didn't mean
anything
,” I whisper.

“Got it,” he says, his jaw hardening. “Then I'll get out of your way.”

“Great,” I say. “I could use some peace.”

“Good luck with that,” he says. “Leah, let's go take a walk.”

“Why did you make them leave?” Denny asks, scowling, once they disappear around the corner.

“Don't worry, they'll be back later. They've got nowhere to go.” I sink down into one of the loveseats, the thick imitation leather squeaking under my weight, and close my eyes. I want to tell him the truth, that it's for our own good and that I'm just preparing him for the inevitable, but I don't think he'd understand.

He'll have to learn for himself, like I did: Whether you push them or not, everyone leaves, eventually.

Early Sunday Morning, Part 1

Flagstaff, AZ

I can't sleep—big surprise. But the thing about hospitals is that the lights never go out, and while the cast of doctors might rotate, they never stop moving, even when the big round clock above the nurse's station reads three fifteen
A.M.
, like it does now. The bitter irony is that after four days, we've finally found a free, twenty-four-hour shelter. Denny is stretched out on one of the loveseats with Mom's purple sweatpants covering his face. Leah's on the other one, wrapped in one of the Walmart blankets. Tim is slumped in a chair across the room, head bobbing against his chest. He's frowning while he sleeps, making me feel guilty even while he's unconscious.
That didn't mean anything.
Of course it did. Of course he does.
But I can't think about that right now. Until I see Cass's eyes open, I won't be able to think about anything else.

The latest news from Dr. Chowdhury is that she's breathing on her own (good) but still on seizure watch (bad). They've been slowly easing up on the barbiturates and expect her to wake up fully in the morning, which everyone acts like is great, jump-on-Oprah's-couch news. But a part of me is dreading the moment when she realizes she's still alive. Will she be relieved, or will it feel like one more failure? All I know is that I have to be there.

I feel a vibration against my leg and dig my phone out of my pocket. But it's off, and when I turn it on there's nothing new, no texts or voicemail. Who would be texting me anyway? Yvonne's given up since I ignored her last text on Thursday—
Thought any more about that asst mgr gig?
—Mom can only make calls from eight
A.M.
to ten
P.M.
, and I don't think anyone else even has my number, except for Cass. But then something vibrates again, and I realize it's coming from Cass's bag. It's
her
phone, not mine. I didn't even think she'd turned it on since we left Maryland. I open the backpack and dig through her laundry until I find it, a slim black rectangle housed in an unmatched sock. I smile down at my sister's DIY phone case and then, feeling more than a little bit guilty, take it out and look.

The voicemail is from a restricted number, which instantly raises my blood pressure. On the same day my sister decides to end her own life, she gets a shady, anonymous call in the middle of the night? I try to access the message but get prompted for a password, and after various combinations of the numbers of Cass's birthday fail, I give up and scroll through her texts instead.

Other than one-word missives to Mom and me, her only
texts are to Erica. There's an endless string of short, boring back-and-forth, mostly
“Where u?” “My house today?” “There soon,”
that kind of thing. But then the pattern breaks abruptly. On April 2nd—three and a half weeks ago—Cass writes:

Hey

?

U around?

Need 2 talk

On April 3rd:

I'm sorry

Don't ignore me

Fine

On April 10th:

Who did u tell??????

Fucking bitch

April 13th:

I hate you

April 14th:

No I don't

You hate me tho

Right

??

Thought so

And then Wednesday, the day we left:

Leaving 4 a few days

Can u talk now?

Please???

Thursday:

Might not be back

Last chance

And then Friday, finally, a response from Erica, two words long:

Good riddence

While I'm somewhat gratified that the bitch can't spell, my heart breaks. I don't know exactly what happened, but clearly Cass said or did something that made Erica turn on her. And while Erica barely spoke, and Cass rarely talked about her, I know what their friendship meant. That was her safety net. Lord knows we don't have one—we Devereaux stumble across high wires like the down-market Flying Wallendas (of course, we're falling, not flying, but the wind's moving fast enough we can't tell the difference). I try to imagine what my sister must have felt getting that text on Friday, on the heels of seeing Mom dragged off, finding out about Buck, and Leah, all of her life's rejection getting thrown back in her face at once. And not having anyone she could talk to about it. Not even me.

I turn off the phone and shove it back in her bag. It's three twenty-five now, and the hall is quiet, except for the distant beeps of monitors. The nurse at the desk—not the Munch painting, a new one who looks like Mrs. Mastino's good-witch twin—is on the phone, turned away from me. I can see the double doors that Dr. Chowdhury comes in and out of just
fifty feet down the corridor. There's a button on the wall he pushes to make them open. As far as I can tell, he doesn't have to swipe an ID.

I stand and start walking to the water fountain; Nurse Mastino doesn't flinch. So I don't waste any time. I walk quickly and keep my head down, punching the red button and slipping through the doors to the ICU just as she hangs up.

• • •

I first see her through a thick wall of glass, like she's a diorama in a museum, lined up with a bunch of other, equally static and depressing scenes. And it's easier to think of her as a wax figure, lying there motionless, hooked up to so many machines. Her normally coffee-colored complexion has an ashen pallor, and her closed eyelids are dark, like she's wearing shadow for the first time. There's a thin tube emerging from her nose, and the tape used to secure it gives her the look of a boxer after a bad KO. Not my sister but a stand-in, an actress—one of our childhood fantasy scenes come to life. The deathly ill “orphan” princess waiting for a kiss from her long-lost father to bring her back. (That was a real one; sometimes they got weird.)

There's a nurse attending to one of the patients at the end of the hall, so I tiptoe around the glass partition and sit in the empty chair next to Cass's bed. The room feels like the set of a play: Everything's on wheels; nothing seems permanent. Someone else must have been in here yesterday, with different equipment, different injuries. Either they moved on to another floor, or . . . my shoulders sag as the tears start up again. My sister isn't going to die this time, but if she tried once, what's stopping her from doing it again? No. I can't think like that. I have to keep it together.

“Hi,” I whisper, needing to talk but not sure what to say. Cass's heart rate monitor climbs and falls, a range of tiny mountains. The electrodes taped to her forehead and scalp feed data into a computer. The IV bag drips steadily and silently. “It's me,” I say. I lay my left hand on her right, the one not attached to a needle. I splay my fingers out and cover hers. Mine are half an inch longer and a shade lighter but otherwise nearly identical, thin and tapered, with nails chewed down to ragged nubs, spots of dried blood at the cuticles—nails that defy manicures but wouldn't cut your fist if you had to throw a punch.

We've been fighting for so long, though. We've done it because we've had to, but if where we are is any indication, it's time to stop. I thought we'd hit rock bottom back at Aunt Sam's, but I was wrong. I thought leaving town would buy us time, but instead it's just made things crumble faster. Nothing I can do—no amount of work, or vigilance, or prayer, or clever roadside tricks—can fix what's been broken inside my sister. Inside me. It's time to give up, go home, and face our demons. At the very least, our mother.

“I'm sorry,” I say, weaving my fingers in hers. “I'm sorry I kept putting you off. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you when you needed me.” I wipe my nose with the sleeve of my free arm. Cass's face remains motionless, serene. Even with the cracked lips and gray tint to her skin, she's stupidly beautiful. I lean over and kiss her on the forehead.

“Excuse me!” A sharp voice behind me: the nurse. “You can't be in here until nine
A.M.
And don't touch her wires!” I turn to see good old Munch glaring at me from the door, her eyes little slits in her long, tired face. “Do you need me to show you back to the waiting area?”

I shake my head. Reluctantly, I let go of my sister's cool, limp hand.

“See you tomorrow,” I say to Cass. Her monitor beeps noncommittally.

Back in the waiting room, the sweatpants have fallen off of Denny and onto the floor. I replace them and kiss his cheek, burying my nose in the soft, warm skin that doesn't smell half-bad, actually, for the time he's gone without a proper cleaning.

“Mmmmmph,” Denny sleep-groans, rolling over, his elbow smacking me in the chin. “You're squishing Max.”

Fantastic. The return of Max. I hope Denny doesn't talk about him around the doctors too much, or we'll be looking at two psych evaluations. Three, if I can manage to wake up paralyzed. I wonder if they offer family packs.

I slink back to my preferred crying bathroom and gargle with plain water, wiping the surface of my teeth with a paper towel, washing my face with abrasive, Pepto-Bismol-colored soap. It's only as I'm making a move to leave that I see the
OUT OF ORDER
sign dangling from the shower rack. I briefly weigh my options—the waiting room with my little brother, his imaginary adult cowboy, the estranged sister I recently insulted to her face, and the good-hearted crush I brutally rejected; the backseat of a smelly old car parked in a dark hospital garage; the sidewalk—before hanging the sign on the doorknob, locking it from the inside, shutting off the lights, and lying down on the hard tile. I settle in with my arms behind my head, stretching my aching legs out across the floor, the bleach-scented air stinging my nostrils, when I feel my phone start to buzz against my hip.

The light of the screen reflects off the glossy walls, casting
the whole room in an eerie blue glow. A restricted caller. At four in the morning. That can't be good news. I'm about to let it go to voicemail when curiosity gets the better of me. Could it be the same person who was trying to reach Cass? I click the talk button, biting hard on my tongue.

“Hello?”

“An inmate at the Baltimore City Detention Center is attempting to contact you,” a cheerful robotic voice says. “Please press one to accept the charges.”

Mom
. But how could she be getting phone privileges in the middle of the night? Don't they have wardens who lock down that kind of thing? I hold my breath and look up at the industrial showerhead bolted into the ceiling. If I'm sleeping at eye level with a toilet, I don't have much left to lose. And every instinct I've had so far has led us further and further astray, so maybe it's time to stop running.

I press one and wait for the telltale click of connection.

“Hi, Mom,” I say into the darkness.