Kindred (23 page)

“So the Asacol isn’t working,” he says.

“No,” I say softly.

“Bowel movements?”

I squirm, talking about this. I hate it. It’s private; it should stay that way. But instead I try to match his matter-of-fact tone.

“I’ve lost count how many times I go a day. And I have a low-grade fever, off and on.”

He nods.

“Well, Miriam, we have several options.” He begins to explain that there’s a pyramid of medication. I’ve been on the lowest rung, but I’m about to be promoted. As one climbs this pyramid, the medication grows more powerful, which means there’s a greater likelihood that it’ll suppress the disease but also a greater likelihood that my body will reject it or that I will experience serious side effects. Chronic nausea. Shingles. Cancer.

Should climbing this pyramid fail to help, either because the medication doesn’t suppress the disease or because the side effects are too strong, then we’re left with surgery.

“It’s not the end of the world,” he says, noting that I look pale. “Here, let me show you.” On the thin, crinkly paper that covers the examination table, Dr. Messa begins to sketch a rough model of the colon.

“The most drastic option is a complete removal of the diseased colon.” Drawing an
X
, he says, “This is where the surgeon cuts the colon and removes it. Then he pulls the ileum though the abdominal wall.” He continues sketching quickly, the drawing crude but very illustrative. He keeps talking, and
my face grows hot and then prickly with clammy heat. I feel woozy, and his voice grows distant. My sight shrinks to a narrow tunnel and then … winks out.

I come to on the examination table, lying right on top of the horrid sketch.

“Are you okay, dear?” the nurse asks. I don’t remember her coming in, but I suppose Dr. Messa called for help when he realized his audience had just passed out.

I blink a couple of times and then try to sit up. The nurse puts a hand on my shoulder, pressing me down.

“Just stay there a bit, until everything settles.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, for some reason humiliated.

“It’s okay; you’ve been through a lot. I hate it when we see patients your age going through this. Hard enough when you’re thirty. But in a young girl like you, it breaks my heart.”

Her feelings are sincere, but her pity makes me feel even worse.

I turn my head away from her and close my eyes. She takes the hint and shuts up. I really don’t enjoy hearing that my situation is pathetic. After the staff scrounges up an orange soda, which they insist I drink, I’m allowed to get off the examination table. I keep my eyes averted so as not to see Dr. Messa’s illustration.

When I check out, I see him. He looks sheepish and comes over to me. As he stands by my side, I realize we’re basically the same height, and I’m not a tall girl. I never noticed how short he was. Maybe being the bearer of bad news makes you seem taller. I wonder about his personal life,
about his childhood. He must have been teased in high school. He became a doctor, and now he helps people. Why do some people shrug off teenage misery while others don’t?

Dr. Messa doesn’t meet my eyes; he just pats me on the back a couple of times and says, “Don’t worry, Miriam. It might not come to that. We’ll take care of you. We’ll lick this thing.”

He means to be kind, so I just nod and don’t say anything.

I return to the office, working mechanically. I write words I don’t understand, have conversations I don’t remember. I wait until I get back to my apartment before I start crying. But this time, the crying doesn’t last long. My eyes are sore from crying so much, my soul tired.

Is this God’s work? Another kick in the pants for always failing? I think back on Hank’s musings on the nature of disease. Is it the devil trying to slow me down? If it is the devil, then why isn’t God stopping him?

I log on to an online Bible, looking for answers, hoping for comfort. Random clicking leads me to Psalms, my favorite book of the Bible. I mean to click on Psalm 23, which seems appropriate, given the situation, but end up reading Psalm 51, my mother’s favorite:

This has me shuddering. I feel even lower than I did. Was I sinful at birth? Is God justified in His judgment of me, judgment of my failure? Perhaps He has given up on His attempts to teach me wisdom. I click to Psalm 91, which my father and I had discussed in the past. It is a bit more comforting:

I laugh hollowly at the irony of those last lines. Spare me the guardianship of angels. The air-conditioning clicks on and a cold wind blows down my neck. I shiver but don’t rise. I reread the entire passage. There is something so compelling about the thought that God protects His beloved. Of course my mind wanders back to the dream at the ruins. The impossible voice promising shelter and safety. Is there any way that
it could be real? Let’s assume that His angels have been guarding me. That would mean that this whole intervention was for my benefit. At first the thought seems preposterous. This whole ordeal has been nothing but trouble for me, from the terrifying, blinding beginning to this current situation of illness and frustration. But as I continue to sit in front of the glowing screen, struggling with my thoughts, the simple, ancient verses fill my vision; they sink into my brain and I start to see things in a different light.

If I take the events of the past few months and filter them through the lens that I am not a victim, that no celestial being bears me ill will and that in fact this has all been for my well-being, then suddenly everything sharpens in focus and the picture before me bears little resemblance to the way I’ve seen things until now. Because suddenly I see that showing me people in need and granting me the opportunity to make a difference in someone’s life is a gift, not an injury. I still think angels aren’t my biggest fans, but perhaps the motive behind the cruelty was pure.

Because without a visit, would I ever have believed my brother’s encounter? Would I even realize he needed a champion, that he needed me?

No. Of course the answer is no. I never would have believed he needed me, and when he confessed his encounters with the devil, I wouldn’t have believed what he said.

It’s a mind-altering epiphany.

Raphael’s visit, the dream, the vision—these were a boon granted to me, and in my selfish, self-involved pity, I failed to see them for what they really were.

I sit back in my chair, stunned by the thought. A gift. Not a punishment. Not an unfair task, but rather a chance to achieve something truly important in life. I close my eyes and rest my head on the heels of my hands. How could I have misunderstood so badly? The late morning sun streams in between the blinds, casting lines across the carpet, the desk and my arms.

I realize something else. My disease can help me. It could be just the thing I need to get through to Mo. Whether God-given, devil-cursed or a biological fluke, without it I don’t stand a chance.

In a daze, I scroll up to the passage I logged on for, meaning to read.

I have always found Psalm 23 beautiful. But now, as I walk through my own valley, my own shadow—if not of death, then at least of what seems like a desecration of my body—it’s been hard to feel anything but abandoned, discarded, betrayed. As Psalm 23 appears and my face is bathed by the eerie blue glow of the screen, I read it again. Maybe a promise that no harm will befall me, that no disaster will come near me, is not a literal promise of good health. It’s a state I can reach if my heart and my soul are ensconced in the shelter of faith. And knowing that I am not being punished, believing that I am loved, goes a long way toward that.

M
O IS AVOIDING ME
, but now that I know what I have to do, that’s easy to fix. I log off and text him to meet me at the Civil War ruins. I’d told him about it, and as far as I know, he hasn’t made it there yet. I put a sketch of the hike on the kitchen table and then head off, leaving my cell phone conspicuously behind.

If he has no way to weasel out of it, he’ll come. I’ll give him until an hour before dark before calling it quits.

But I know my brother. He won’t be able to resist checking out an off-the-beaten-track Civil War site. If he knows I’m there waiting for him, if he can’t tell me no, he’ll come.

The walk to the ruins is even more difficult than it was the last time. It’s a hot, humid day, for one, and the moisture in the air seems to suck the breath right out of my chest. And I’ve grown weaker. My legs feel rubbery and my breath catches
as my heart flutters, trying hard to keep up. My fever is back, making the day feel like both a blazing scorcher and too cold. I stop to rest frequently, cursing under my breath as I do.

I make it to the site and sit down, leaning back against a mound in the shade. I could be leaning against a ruined barracks, a storage room or maybe even the latrines, though probably those would be farther away from the living quarters. I close my eyes and try to bring my racing heartbeat down to a more sustainable level.

It is two hours before Mo finds me. I’m tired, but calm. I’ve had enough time to arm myself for this battle. It’s my last chance. And I know what’s going to happen to me, to Mo, to Jason, if I fail. It’s ironic that Mo himself gave me the weapons. Misdirection, charm, familial loyalty. I’ve had time to think about how to approach this situation, and I’m taking a page from his book, treading that fine line between cleverness and manipulation. After nineteen years, I know what makes him tick and I don’t hesitate to use it.

Mo flashes a crooked smile my way.

“You tricky little bitch,” he says. He is partly enchanted by the ruins, partly pissed off that I got him to come, and partly admiring that I cornered him. Mo has always had a healthy respect for a worthy adversary.

“If it makes you feel better,” I say, because he’s never called me a bitch before and because things are already going badly, “this is the last time I’m going to talk to you about this.”

“About time,” he says, his back to me as he sizes up the place. I give him a moment to admire it. He explores it,
clambering over the mounds, walking the perimeter, poking around its nooks and crannies. I wait until he circles back to me, antsy and ready to go.

“I wanted to give you the rest of the story before you make your decision.” I can tell by the set of his shoulders that he thinks this is all bullshit. That I’m about to spin some sort of guilt trip, some human-interest story to sway him.

“Will you just settle down for a second?” I ask.

“Miriam, you have been fucking with me and wasting my time—”

I stop the tirade. “You know the weight loss that started before I left school?”

He stops kicking at one of the mounds near me but doesn’t say anything. His hands are buried deep in his pockets, his shoulders hunched forward. I notice absently that we’re wearing the same colors today, something that hasn’t happened since Mo came to Hamilton.

“And all the times I run to the bathroom? The fact that I always look like crap? The fact that I have no energy?”

“You’re bulimic?” he asks jeeringly, kicking at a loose rock.

“No.” I say it quietly but it gets through to him. He can tell from my voice I have bad news, and he tenses, waiting. I take a deep breath. “I have a disease. It took the doctors a while to diagnose me, but it’s an autoimmune disease that has my own body attacking itself, cannibalizing my intestines and shredding them into a horrible bloody mess.”

“God damn it, Miriam,” Mo says. “If you’re fucking with me again and this is some sort of trick …” His hand is out and curled into a fist, the muscles bunched tight in his arm.
His whole body is coiled, ready to attack. He looks like he wants to hit me.

“It’s not a trick,” I say, fighting a sudden urge to cry. “I have Crohn’s disease.” His fist uncurls, and some of the tension seeps out of his body. “I don’t know if you know much about it. I’d never heard of it until I was diagnosed. Because it’s an autoimmune disease and my own body for some reason has decided to attack my colon, the only thing to do is try and shut down part of my immune system.” I pause. “That’s a difficult thing to do. So far, it’s not working.”

“Shit, Miriam,” he says. “Are you serious?” He rubs a hand across his face like he’s trying to wake up.

“I haven’t been dieting. The pounds just fall off. I’m scared if I keep losing weight like this, I’ll disappear.” I cover my face.

He squats down next to me and pulls my hands from my face. “Tell me,” he says urgently. Mo holds my hand and we automatically clasp our hands in our secret hold, where our middle fingers curl inside both our palms, sharing the warm space we make. I hold on to that contact, take comfort from it, before going on.

“I know you’re wondering what that has to do with anything, but think about it,” I say, meeting his eyes, his pained expression. “It started after I botched my first mission. This is a disease that can be genetic, but we don’t have anyone in the family with it. I’m not doing a great job with Jason. And in the meantime, I just get sicker. I’ve already lost fifteen pounds in two months; my joints ache; I have a constant low-grade fever. I can’t sleep because of the cramping and the urgency. I’m tired all the time because my body is falling apart. And
the thing is, if I can’t get this flare-up under control soon”—my voice rises alarmingly—“they’ll need to take out my colon.” My throat closes; I can’t get those ugly words out. “I’ll be a nineteen-year-old with a colostomy bag. I—”