Some Kind of Normal (27 page)

There are other things being said, but I miss them
for a minute because I'm thinking about Dave's comments. His
complete and unswerving faith in Logan and his honesty. Can I even
say that about myself? Did I know these things about Logan, his
sportsmanship and dedication and ability to ace tests without ever
studying for them?

"Mrs. Babcock?" I look up and realize the tiny lady
is speaking to me.

"Yes?"

"Do you have anything to add?"

I tell my children to tell the truth, no matter what.
But I know Logan hid that test in his locker, and I don't know what
they will think if I admit that, even with the fact that Logan
didn't use it, even if it wasn't even the test they gave his class.
I look from Dave to the chemistry teacher and wonder how strangers
can have more faith in my son than me.

"He's a good kid," I say, and I mean it. My entire
being fills with admiration and love for this kid I've never quite
known what to do with. And suddenly I know. I fight for him.

And I do. And everything the principal throws at me I
argue with, and every question the board asks, I answer with
passion. I've spent the last few months pouring out my energy on
Ashley. Logan is every bit as deserving.

Before they rule, they kick the others out and ask me
a few private questions, about Ashley and the time Logan spent away
from school and how he's handling this crisis in the house, and I
realize he's the glue holding our family together, and I tell them
this. They excuse me for a few minutes to talk amongst themselves,
and when they bring me back in, they take a vote and unanimously
choose to dismiss his case as well.

I don't know if it's a pity vote, but I'm willing to
take that over expulsion any day. I thank them and leave before
they can change their minds.

~~~~

When Logan gets home from the music store, he stands
around the kitchen pretending he's looking for food when I know
what he wants is the result.

I hand him a tub of rocky road ice cream and a spoon.
"You kicked butt," I say.

"I'm off the hook?"

"Yeah." I turn my back on him to wash off the lunch
dishes, and he throws his arms around me.

"Thanks."

I can feel the relief flooding from him and can't
believe I didn't notice that he was actually worried about
this.

"I didn't do anything," I say, patting his arm and
leaving soapy bubbles on him. "You pretty much speak for
yourself."

He squeezes me a smidge and leaves the room humming.
The feeling in the house is different now, subtle shiftings of the
space between us, and I vow that I will never again be the least of
his supporters in a room.

~~~~

Wednesday evening I drop Ashley off at youth group
and Logan off at band practice. Before I can get out of the parking
lot, Brenda comes running down the stairs waving at me. I sigh and
roll the window down.

"Can I get in?"

I unlock the doors, and she climbs in the passenger
side. "You need a ride?" I ask.

"No. I just want to talk. We ain't talked since you
got home. How are things?"

I study her face, trying to figure out why she's
here. "You need your casserole dish? I can bring it by tomorrow if
you need it."

"I don't need it. I just want to know how you
are."

"We're fine."

She fiddles with her purse, latching and unlatching
the clasp, and I want to tell her to just get out and go on home. I
got my own share of things to do and no time for this.

"I heard about the hate mail."

I raise my eyebrows at her 'cause I ain't told no
one.

"Ashley told Savannah and Savannah told Joe and Joe
told me."

It's our own church version of telephone. I want to
tell her it didn't work this time: the info is wrong. But since
it's not, I keep quiet, wondering how Ashley found out.

"I don't know what you think about us, Babs, but
you're wrong. We're not against you."

"Did you see us at church Sunday?" I ask. "You'd have
thought we had leprosy. Hardly anyone looked at us. Do you really
want to get into this?"

She stops playing with the purse and lays her hands
in her lap. "I'm not the enemy here."

"I got so many enemies, Brenda, I can't keep them all
straight. I got people bashing in our mailbox every other day, and
throwing rocks through windows and digging fake graves in the front
yard, but the only enemy I care about is the one killin'
Ashley."

She looks surprised. "I thought Ashley was doing so
much better. I looked up diabetes, and I thought people could live
a long time with it. Like arthritis or something."

She takes me a little off guard here. It strikes me
as so out of place that she would look it up. I don't know whether
to be suspicious or thankful. I size her up and decide I'm either
gonna spend my time fighting people's perceptions or fighting for
Ashley. I ain't got the energy for both.

"She's not well," I say, and suddenly tears are
rushing to my eyes, but I'm not going to cry here in this car with
this overbearing lady. I blink them back and grit my teeth while I
take in her astonished look. She reaches out for my hand and
squeezes it, tears springing to her own eyes suddenly. I stop my
jaw clenching and let out a long sigh. "She's really sick,
actually."

"She don't look that sick," she says, not letting go
of my hand. It's not an accusation but an observation that I admit
is pretty true. "I seen her in the hospital, and she looks real
good now."

"What do you know about diabetes?" I ask.

"She's not making insulin, and so she has to take
shots of it. It's got something to do with eating, right?"

I think of the long days in the hospital, the nurses
and the nutritionists and all the medical pamphlets I pored over,
and here Brenda pretty much sums it all up in two sentences.

"That's pretty much it. Except, on top of that, she
can't take insulin either. She's allergic to it."

I see the information registering on her face, the
confusion and then the dawning of what that means. "So she can't
eat? 'Cause she can't take the insulin?"

It means so much more than this. At this point,
eating is not the biggest of our worries. Whether Ashley eats or
not, her blood sugar is going up, but this seems unimportant to
explain. It's enough for Brenda that Ashley can't eat. In fact, for
Brenda, this is probably the most awful thing that could
happen.

"So what are you going to do?"

And there it is. The question everyone wants to know.
Are we the stem cell family? Months ago I didn't like Brenda much.
She wears too much lipstick, and it always sticks to her front
teeth. She has damp patches on her shirt under her armpits, and she
smells of too much perfume. She is loud and almost always happy.
For some reason this really bugs me.

But here she is, in my car, asking about Ashley. What
stands out to me above all these other things is how many times she
drove down to Austin to be with us. How many meals she cooked for
Travis and Logan, and I wonder how many suppers she missed with her
own family 'cause she was ministering to mine. And it all spills
out. The days watching Ashley waste away to practically nothing.
The hours and hours on websites looking for something that would
take the place of the insulin that isn't working. The desperation
that there is nothing left, no stone unturned. And then Jack Van
Der Campen. And possibility.

"It's not what everyone thinks," I say, maybe a
little too defensively. "It don't have anything to do with babies.
There aren't any abortions or anything involved. It's a whole other
kind of stem cell thing."

She takes in everything I say, real quiet and not
talking. Not even asking questions. When I finish, she just nods.
"What do you think of Jack Van Der Campen?"

"Well, he ain't the devil like everyone wants to
think." She don't say nothing so I keep going. "He's good folk,
Brenda. Not what the papers say about him and what the protestors
make him out to be. He's like all the rest of us, trying to do the
best with what life gives us." I think about the newspaper article
and his wife and kid. "If he made some mistakes in the past, he did
it with a good heart." I stare at my own hands in my lap. "This is
our last chance, Brenda. He's our last hope."

The quiet is so loud I can hear it. I almost stop
breathing, waiting to see if I'd gone too far, but when she finally
meets my eyes there's only good stuff there. "You think he likes
cookies? I make a mean chocolate chip I could send with you when
you go."

~~~~

When I get home the house is empty and there ain't no
signs of meanness. No paint or shattered glass. No letters in the
mailbox.

I don't fool myself in believin' that now the church
will be behind us all the way. I figure it's a little like
everything else in life: there will be some on both sides of the
divide. I count the people for us: Logan and Travis, by far the two
most important, and not necessarily the easiest to get; Dr. Benton,
whose experience and expertise make his support a hundred times
more significant than any cowardly bullies; Pastor Joel and his
wife, who gave us not a moment of wavering, even though they mighta
felt it at home; Janise, who would stand behind me no matter what;
and now Donna Jean and Brenda, two women I barely spoke to before
this mess. All in all, it's a pretty good list.

As I start to fix us dinner, I find myself
humming.

~~~~

"Can we go to the beach?" Ashley's been staring out
the window for a good minute or more before she drops this bomb at
the dinner table.

Everyone's finally home and we're picking over
chicken, along with the green beans and tomatoes Janise brought
from her garden. Thank goodness salt isn't off the menu yet.

"Why?" Travis asks, reaching for the Tabasco.

"I just want to. It's been a long time since we've
gone."

"The youth group went last summer," I say.

"Yeah, but that wasn't the family."

"You want to go with the family?" Logan asks, his
mouth full of tomatoes. "Why?" I kick him under the table.

"I just want to." She pushes the food around the
plate but don't eat anything.

"You need to eat, Ash. You took insulin already.
You'll go low if you don't."

She wrinkles her nose. "I don't see that happening,
Mom."

She's probably right. Her sugars are eeking up again,
and it's been hard to keep it under a hundred, even without
eating.

"How about we plan to go when we get back from
Baltimore?" Travis suggests.

"I want to go now. Before we leave."

"Why?" Travis asks again.

"Because," she says stubbornly.

"Because she's afraid she's not coming back," Logan
says, tomato juice dripping down his chin.

We all freeze, forks in the air, not believing what
Logan just said.

"What? It's true, isn't it?" He looks at Ashley, who
scoots out her chair and runs out of the room.

"What?" Logan says, looking at Travis and me. "We all
know that's why. We can't say it?"

I give him my best look of disgust and leave him to
Travis, who is giving him an earful as I make my way to Ashley's
room.

I knock on the door and walk in when she don't
answer. "Ash?" She's sprawled out across her bed, her headphones
plugging her ears and her eyes closed. I tap her and she don't
move. I take the earphones out. "Ashley?" Finally, she looks up. I
sit next to her. She rolls over and stares at the ceiling.

"It's true. If that's what you want to know. Logan's
right."

"Jeez, Ashley, you think if this thing don't work
we're going to leave you there?"

"No. I think if it doesn't work, I'm going to
die."

"Don't be melodramatic," I say, sounding much more
confident than I feel. It's not that I don't want to admit it's
possible. I don't want
her
to admit it's possible. Every motherly instinct
is telling me to lie, lie, lie.

"I know what's going on, Mom. I've been sick, not
dumb. I don't make insulin. I can't take insulin. It's pretty
simple."

I think how casually she tosses out the word insulin,
like everyone knows what it is and does, like she's saying
I got a heart and it
don't beat.

"So going to Corpus Christi and watching the oil
refineries belch their smoke over the gulf is your dying wish?"
Even she can't resist smiling at this.

"Yeah. Camping at the beach. Just like we used
to."

I stand to go. "I'll see what I can do."

Travis isn't too thrilled with this idea. "What
happens if she gets sicker when we're out there?"

"We bring her home."

"It's so dirty. Maybe we should stay in a hotel."

"She has diabetes. A little dirt isn't going to raise
her blood sugar."

"What do we eat?"

"I can cook chicken and green beans just as well over
a campfire."

"How will she go swimming with the pump?"

"I don't know. Maybe we don't go swimming. Maybe we
just walk on the shore with our feet in the water."

"I don't know where the camping stuff is."

"It's in the garage." This is Logan, who's come into
the kitchen to grab a handful of cookies now that Ashley is gone.
"So we're going?"

I look at Travis, who looks back at me and shrugs. "I
guess we are."

~~~~

We're all actually excited as we pile in the truck
the next morning. I've banned the I-Pods and the cell phones in the
spirit of making this a family trip. Ashley's blood sugar continues
to rise, and the itching's getting worse, but she's insistent and
our plane trip to Baltimore is still a few days off. She could itch
at home or on the road, so we throw in the tent and the sleeping
bags and the camp stove and take off.