Forever Changes (13 page)

Another  month passed.   Brianna, Stephanie and Melissa all started hanging out at Melville’s after school, drinking coffee and doing their homework.  Brianna liked it because it felt way more collegiate than going to somebody’s house and having their mom bring them pie while they studied.  Even though Adam’s mom did make killer pie, and  Adam’s motormouthed tendencies were even worse when he was under the influence of cappuccino.

When she hassled him to do it, Dad was actually able to keep his own books for his side business.  Everything was fine.  Except.

Brianna could feel herself getting sicker.  After all these, she knew exactly what was happening.  It was getting a lot harder to breathe,  and her digestion was getting worse. She knew it wouldn’t be long until she spiked a fever and she’d have to go back to the hospital to get flushed out and take IV antibiotics to kill whatever was growing in the gunk in her lungs and guts.

She didn’t tell Dad, she didn’t call the doctor.  She tried to ignore the evidence her body was throwing at her every day.  Because she didn’t want to be poor, sick,  little Brianna, she wanted to be strong, competent, genius-going-to-MIT Brianna, the one who was more or less normal. Not the one who spent days or maybe even weeks lying in a hospital bed watching the homework she was too weak to do piling up and relying on everyone’s pity to carry her through.

Or maybe not ever doing the homework, she thought whenever she woke up before Dad, lying in the dark feeling lonely and freezing cold inside.  Maybe lying down in the hospital bed and knowing she’d never get up again, knowing that her small, frail body could only take so much.

She didn’t want to die, she wasn’t ready, she had too much to do. Sometimes she thought about what Eccles said, and she did feel good for a while.  Like maybe just being alive was its own justification, like the love she felt for Dad, for all her friends, all that made her life worthwhile.

But the comfort she got from this idea never lasted very long.

Still, she was grateful to Eccles.  Lots of people had helped her and supported her, but Eccles was the only one who had told her stuff that made her feel better, that helped her to see things in a different way, that changed  the way she thought about things.

She knew she couldn’t do any of that stuff for him, but maybe there was one thing she could do.

Later that week, she was sitting at Melvilles’ with Adam, Melissa and Stephanie.  She and Stephanie had just finished quizzing each other on the finer points of the Slab of Tedium, and she turned to Adam, who was typing yet another AP English paper on his laptop and said,  “Hey, can you look somebody up for me?”

“Yeah, sure,” Adam said, looking up.  “I need a break from  Hester Prynne anyway.  I mean, could she just leave town?”

Brianna looked at him blankly.  “Sorry,” he said, “Who is it?”

“Grace Eccles.  In California,” she said.

“Okay.  Is that …?”

“It’s his daughter.”  She watched as Adam tap-tap-tapped the name into his computer.

“Okay.  There is no Grace Eccles listed in California.  Let me just try G.” Brianna started to feel embarrassed.  This whole thing was dumb. If Grace was married, she would probably have a different last name, and she might have even ditched the last name of the dad she hated in any case.  But then Adam responded, “Okay.  There are two G. Eccles in California.  One in Palo Alto and one in Glendale.”

“I guess you’d better give me both of them.”  Adam read off the addresses, and Brianna copied them down.

“What are you doing, Bri?” Stephanie asked.

Brianna didn’t know how to answer without getting into infinitesimals, the beauty of mathematics, and the mysteries of prime numbers.

“Mr. Eccles told me that his daughter doesn’t speak to him, and I just feel kind of  bad for him, so I thought I would write her a letter.”  Adam, Melisssa, and Stephanie all stared at her without saying anything.  “Yeah, I guess it’s a little weird.”

“A little?” Melissa said.

“Do you have a crush on the fat guy?” Stephanie asked.

Brianna punched Stephanie.  “No, I do not have a— you know, it is possible to care about somebody without having a crush on them.”

Adam raised an eyebrow like this was a point of view that had never occurred to him.

That night after dinner, Brianna finished her homework and then got out a sheet of notebook paper.

Dear Grace Eccles,
she wrote,

First, I’m sorry if you aren’t Grace Eccles, of if you are Grace Eccles but not the one whose dad is John Eccles, a math teacher in Blackpool, Massachusetts.

            Anyway, I wanted to let you know that your dad is dying, or, anyway, has serious heart trouble. He is still working and everything, but his heart is pretty well shot, so it’s only a matter of time.

            I am one of his students.  He’s helped me a lot with two things.  One of them is math, which I guess isn’t that big of a deal, except that I really don’t think I’ve ever had a teacher as good as him in thirteen years of school.  The other thing he helped me with was  thinking about life.  And death.  Which probably sounds like I’m a dippy teenaged girl to you, but I also have Cystic Fibrosis, so I’ve had some friends die, and I know my odds of living to your age are pretty slim. 

            He told me some of the story of how he split up with your mom. If he was my dad, I’d still be mad at him too.  But I just wanted you to know that even though he was a horrible dad for you,  I think maybe he changed my life.

            I have a mom who let me down, who left because she couldn’t deal with me being sick.  I hate her for that.  My dad says I don’t owe her anything, and I guess you don’t owe your dad anything either, but I do just want you to know that if you wanted to tell him something nice, even if you didn’t really mean it, he might die a little bit less sad.

            I’m sorry for butting into your personal business, but, like I said, your dad helped me a lot, and I just wanted to try to do something nice for him and this was all I could think of. I’m sorry if I upset you.  I won’t bug you about this again.

            Thanks.

            Sincerely,

            Brianna Pelletier

Once she was done, she wrote it all out again, and she mailed a letter to each of the G. Eccles in California.  Now she was thinking about whether she ought to write to Mom.

She went and found Dad on the couch watching some show where he had a crush on the female detective.

“Hey,” he said.

“I don’t know why you like this show.  She’s kind of funny-looking.”

“I enjoy the mystery aspect, okay?” Dad said.  “Did you come out here just to make fun of Kyra Sedgwick?”

Brianna smiled.  “No.  I was wondering if I should write to Mom or something.”

Dad turned off the TV.  “Well, she would certainly appreciate it.  How would
you
feel about it?”

“I don’t know.  I was thinking that there might be some good stuff about her even though she’s a horrible mom.”

Dad thought about that for a second.  “Yeah, there’s some good stuff about her.  She was actually a lot of fun.”

“Eww, Dad, I don’t want to hear about my conception.”

Dad blushed. “That’s not what I meant.  I meant she’s you know how there are some people that are just fun to be around?  Maybe they’re not  very good friends, and they’re not reliable, but you always want them there when you go out, because they make it more fun?”

Brianna thought about it.  She knew a few people like that, but she’d stopped hanging out with them.

“Yeah, I know some people like that.”

“Well, your mom’s like that.”

Brianna chewed on that. “I don’t know what to say to her, because I feel like I should write and say I forgive her, but I’m not sure I do.”

Dad thought for a minute.  “Maybe you don’t have to forgive her.  I mean, I know this makes me a bad person, but I don’t think she’s earned your forgiveness.  But maybe you could just say, hi, I’m going to MIT—”

“Dad, I haven’t gotten in.  You need to stop saying that.”

“Okay. But seriously, I think anything from you would mean a lot to her, and you don’t have to get into anything deep.  Just say hi.”

Brianna thought it would be weird to just be like what’s up, here’s my life, but then again, if she waited until she forgave Mom for leaving, she’d never ever write to her.  And Brianna was starting to feel like hating Mom was taking more energy than she had.

“Well, maybe I will.  But not tonight.  I’ve gotta go to bed.  I’ll let you get back to your girlfriend.”

Dad got up and hugged her.  “Goodnight, sweetie.  You’re my favorite person on earth.”

Brianna hugged him back and went to bed.

Brianna didn’t write to Mom that day or the  next, or for a couple of weeks after that until one day she was talking to Ashley after school when her phone rang.  She looked and saw that it was Adam. “Fat envelope!” he said.

“Oh my God!  Congratulations!”

“Thanks! Is yours there?”

“I’m not home,” Brianna said, and she said good-bye and ran to the Sunfire.  When she got home, she too had a fat envelope from MIT, complete with a generous financial aid package.

Dad was so proud she thought he might literally explode.  ”This is your lucky day, Bri!  Your bike’s done too!”

Brianna’s heart leapt, and she ran to the garage.  She knew Dad was short on both time and money and was spending a lot of both on her bike, so she had decided not to hassle him about when it would be done.  But there it was, in the middle of the garage with its chrome pipes shining and gas-tank orca looking cool and menacing.  Just for a minute, it seemed like it was telling her to ride into the future.

Dad insisted on taking her out to dinner to celebrate.  They rode Brianna’s new motorcycle, and Dad let her take a few spins around the parking lot.  Of course, he would never let her ride it on the street until she had a license and insurance, and even then he probably wouldn’t let her on the bike if there was so much as a drop of rain on the pavement.

Eccles was happy for her.  He had dropped some weight and looked better than he had at his worst, but he still didn’t really look good.  “Ms. Pelletier,” he said, “I should congratulate the institution on the wisdom of their decision, but congratulations to you too.’

Now that she’d gotten into MIT, she felt like she could write to Mom.

Dear Mom,

Hi.  I just wanted to write you and let you know that I got in to MIT, so, if all goes well, that’s where I’ll be in the fall.  Otherwise, school is going well, although now that I’m in to college it’s going to be hard to stay motivated.  I hope you’re well.  I’m not so great right now—I’m  due for a tune-up.  Hopefully I’ll be all set for the fall, though. 

Take care,

Brianna.

She didn’t sign off with “love,” because she felt like that was exaggerating, and you couldn’t really sign off a letter with “absence of hate.” She mailed the letter, and after she’d dropped it into the mailbox, it felt like she’d just let go of something as heavy as she was.  Weird.

           
Weeks went by, and it got harder and harder to breathe.  Brianna wondered if anybody who didn’t have CF ever stopped to think about how great it was that they got to breathe without working at it, without thinking about it.  Probably not.  It wasn’t like she spent a lot of time thinking about how great it was that she could walk, except when she saw Keith Who Is In  a Wheelchair.

She toughed it out as much as she could, brushed off everybody’s questions about how was she feeling, she didn’t look so good, until one night she was lying on the couch and she started to feel feverish.

She wanted to get up, do some homework, maybe have a snack, do something that would show she was okay. She must have fallen asleep because she woke up with Dad in her face, pressing his forehead against hers.  “Jesus, you’re burning up,” he said, reaching for the phone.

“Dad, I’m fine, I was just tired.  Don’t call, I don’t wanna go in.  I don’t want to.”

Dad paused while dialing. “I know, sweetie.  I’m sorry.  I wish to God you didn’t have to.”

“Shit,” Brianna said, and fell back asleep.

Then Dad was lifting her into the car.  “I’m not ready,” she said.   “I want to go to college.” And, she thought, I want to ride my orca bike to my dorm.

“Shh …” Dad said.  “You will, Bri.  But tonight we’re going to the hospital.”

She slept again, and then just caught bits and pieces of whatever was happening:  the sound of the wipers as the rain fell;  a prick as an IV went into her arm; waking up afraid with the oxygen mask over her face and saying “Daddy?” and Dad waking up and saying, “It’s okay, pumpkin, go back to sleep” and brushing her hair with his hand.

At some point, she heard Dr. Patel talking to Dad.  Something about how she really wasn’t in good enough shape for a transplant, and if they’d put her on the list last year when she suggested … She faded out.

She woke up and it was dark, but gray light was just starting to peek under the window shades.  She saw Dad’s silhouette in the chair next to her bed.

She knew that her fever had broken, and she was happy to be clear-headed because she knew just as surely that she was never going to leave this room.

She’d lain awake so many early mornings, being afraid that she might die, and now that she knew it–really knew it in her bones–she was surprised to find that she wasn’t afraid.  She used to worry that she would die before graduation, that she would die before her senior prom, and then that she’d die before she got to attend any classes at MIT.  And now that it was certain that she’d die without a diploma, without a hideous prom dress in her closet, without ever getting the ugly MIT ring with the beaver on it, none of that stuff seemed important at all. She’d gotten less time than most people, but it had been pretty good time, and looking back at it now, she didn’t feel any regret.  She had good friends, she’d had a lot of fun, and having kids, growing up, all that stuff was like skydiving—she was going to die without ever getting to do it, but that fact didn’t particularly bother her.

She didn’t know what was coming next, but, finally, the thing Dad had always said was really comforting:  “Whatever happens, you won’t be sick anymore.”  She was tired of treatments, she was tired of medication, of percussion, and the hospital.  If she had a choice, she wouldn’t go, but there was definitely a part of her that was relieved.

“Dad,” she said.

Dad woke up instantly and reached for her hand.  “Hey, pumpkin.  It’s good to see you.”

“You, too.”  She sat there for just a second feeling Dad’s hand around hers and feeling really lucky that he’d been her dad.  “Dad, you have to call people.”

Dad smiled.  “Bri, your phone has been ringing off the hook for two days.  Everyone knows.”

Two days?  Wow.  She really would have thought it was the morning after she’d come to the hospital.  But two days would explain the stubble all over Dad’s face.  “Oh.  But, I mean, tell them I need to see them.  I need to say goodbye.”

Dad’s face looked pained. “Bri, stop that.  Dr. Patel said with enough treatment now, they can probably get you in shape for a lung transplant, I mean I got you on the list and—”

“Dad, I don’t want a transplant.  It’s done.  I’m done.  I can’t do this anymore.”

“I …” Dad said, but then he was crying and he couldn’t talk, and Brianna felt bad.

“I’m sorry,” she said.  “I’m sorry I’ve been such a burden to you. I’m sorry you didn’t get the life you wanted.”

Dad looked up.  “Bri, shut up,” he said through his tears. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.  You made me a much better person, and every single day … every day you’ve been in my life you’ve made me happier than I ever thought I would get to be.”

Brianna smiled and squeezed Dad’s hand.  Finally Dad sniffed and said, “Okay.  So who do you want me to call?”

“Melissa. Stephanie.  Adam.  And Eccles. Mr. Eccles, my math teacher.  I don’t have his number, but his first name is John.  He lives in Blackpool.”

Dad looked surprised.  “Anybody else?”

Brianna thought about it.  “Nah,” she replied.  “I don’t think so. Ashley, but she won’t be allowed to come anyway.  In fact, will you … will you just keep everybody else away?”

“Sure,” he said.  “I’ll do that.”

“Why don’t you go get some breakfast and call them.  I think I need to rest some more.”

Dad looked uncertain.  “Okay, pumpkin.  I love you.”

“I love you too, Daddy.”

Brianna went back to sleep.

She woke up and saw Adam sitting in a chair next to Dad.  She wondered for a minute how he’d gotten here before anybody else when he didn’t have a car.  She thought dimly that she was probably on morphine, and she felt weird and muddle-headed.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” Adam answered softly.

“Uh, Dad, can you give us a minute?” Dad looked like he really didn’t want to go.  “Dad, I promise I won’t croak while you’re out of the room.”

“Jeez, Bri,” he said.  Then he said, “Adam, you want something horrible to eat or drink from the cafeteria?  Some coffee?”

“Sure,” Adam said, “Some coffee would be good.  Black, please.” He was digging in his pockets for money, but Dad waved his hand and left.

“So,” Adam said when Dad had gone.

“So,” Brianna said, and there was so much she wanted to say, but talking required breathing, and that was just so hard right now.  “Thanks,” she managed.

“Yeah, well,” Adam said, “You’re my best friend, you know, and I love you.”

Brianna smiled.  She thought about how, even if he’d said that last week, she would have wondered if he meant
love
love, or just like friend love, and what that meant, and whether things were going to change between them, and whether she was attracted to him or anything.  But now, none of that seemed important at all.  “You too,” she responded, because she did.  Adam smiled.

There was so much more she wanted to say: When you graduate and get rich, maybe you can name something at MIT after me, don’t feel bad if you hook up with Stephanie or Melissa … too much talking, too much effort.

Adam filled the silence. “I … you’ve made this year so much fun for me, so much better than any other year of my whole life.” And he was crying again. “I’m so glad I got to know you.”

Brianna just nodded and pointed at him.

“Um …” Adam looked like he had something else he wanted to say.  Brianna wondered what it could possibly be—he’d already told her he loved her. “Is it … would it … can I kiss you?”

“Yes,” Brianna said.

Adam reached over and slowly, tenderly, lifted up her oxygen mask and gave her a soft, sweet kiss.  Then he leaned back and put the mask back on.

“Thanks.  That was nice,” she said, smiling and drifting away.

When she woke up again, Melissa and Stephanie were sitting there.  “Hi,” she said.

“Hey,” Melissa said, quietly.

“Ready to go home yet?” Stephanie said.

Brianna just looked at her.  “No.” That was all it took to start both of her friends crying.

Melissa finally said, “Bri, is there anything you want?  Is there anything you want us to do for you?”

“Don’t leave.  I love you.”

Suddenly they were both hugging her from either side of the bed.  “We love you too.”

Melissa and Stephanie sat back down.  They were all silent for a while.

“Talk about something,” Brianna said.

Melissa and Stephanie wiped their faces and took turns telling her about how Emma and Charles broke up, and then about how Emma had called Denise a backstabbing slut when she started making out with Charles, and at some point, Brianna fell asleep, feeling happy.

She had a hazy vision of Eccles standing there with Dad, but she was too weak to wake up all the way, and then she was asleep again.

When she woke up, Dad was back in the room with Melissa and Stephanie and Adam.  Melissa went down to the cafeteria to get them some dinner, and everybody but Brianna ate.  She wasn’t hungry.  She wondered kind of abstractly if she’d ever eat again.  She found she didn’t much care one way or the other.

Dad held her hand, and Brianna closed her eyes.  Now that she’d said all her goodbyes, she was ready to go, and as she drifted off to sleep, she felt happy that she’d had such a good life.

She was surprised when she woke up the next morning.  Well, she reflected, her body had never really done exactly what she thought it should, so there was probably no reason for it to start now.

She lay in bed the whole day, and Adam and Stephanie and Melissa came back, and it was so nice not to have to say goodbye, just to be with all of her favorite people, and Brianna wanted so much to tell them how much she loved them, how much she appreciated them, what a gift this extra day was, how there was no way she’d rather spend her last day alive than with them.  But it was too much, and every time she tried to say it, she just started to cough.  Finally Dad leaned over really close and said, “You don’t have to say it, Pumpkin.  We know.  And we all love you too.”

Day turned into night, and Adam and Stephanie and Melissa left, and only Dad remained, holding her hand and singing her songs he used to sing to her when she was a little kid.  It was perfect.