Some Kind of Normal (32 page)

I take a towel out of a drawer and dry the glasses as
she washes them. "It's good, actually, to get a break. I mean, I
want to be with her all the time, but it's so tiring. This feels
good: eating and talking and doing dishes. Even in a hotel. It
feels . . . normal. I miss that."

"I can't even begin to imagine," she says, handing me
a plate with suds still clinging to it.

~~~~

She stays with us for three more days. She fixes
breakfast and dinner for us every day, and Logan slaps together
sandwiches for us at noon. She washes Ashley's wispy hair and
braids it for her so it don't get tangled, and reads books to her
while I sneak out and do some laundry. Ashley seems to not be so
sick anymore when Dr. Van Der Campen gives her the medicine, but
she still sleeps more often than not.

Dr. Wong visits every day as well, taking more blood
to test. He announces on the last day of Donna Jean's visit that
Ashley must have super-marrow, because he got a very good sample of
stem cells which are thriving in the lab and should be good to
transplant as soon as Dr. Van Der Campen gives the word. Dr. Van
Der Campen, however, is less than eager to move forward as fast as
he predicted, although he don't say why. He uses his stethoscope to
listen to her lungs several times a day, frowning but saying
nothing. I suspect it might have something to do with the other two
trial patients and how they're doing, but he don't say. Sometimes
it's better not to know, so I don't ask.

It turns out that two of the boys Logan plays
basketball with each night are brothers of a girl about Ashley's
age going through a trial at Hopkins for cancer. They don't talk
about it much, I don't think, but there's comfort in knowing
they'll be there every night to hang out with.

We adjust. It amazes me how fast each new hotel
becomes our home, how fast the routines become routine. And when
Donna Jean says goodbye, the jolt in the new normal is
significant.

I'm not afraid to hug her. I am still not sure why
she came, but if she says God told her to, that's good enough for
me. Having another woman to talk to has been a blessing, and I hold
her tight a tad too long before letting her get in the car. I lean
over into the open window. "Thank you for everything again. I don't
know what we would have done without you."

"Starved," Logan shouts from behind me as he passes
to get our car for the drive to Hopkins.

When he's out of hearing distance, I reach in through
the window as though I want to touch her, but can't quite do it. "I
mean it. I'm not as strong as you think." I think about the bowed
head and the mouthing of the songs in church. "I'm not really the
person everyone thinks."

She reaches out and takes my hand. "You're not the
person you think."

I blink back tears. "When I said that wanting this
trial to work was the same thing as wanting God to answer my
prayers, you didn't agree."

"I never said that." She lets go of my hand. I feel
the cool of the AC on my face even as the sticky heat of the day
plasters my hair to my neck.

"I'm asking. What is it you think I want?"

"I can't answer that Babs. Only you know that. If it
were me, I'd be praying for God to save her."

"But?"

"But I think you want something else just as
much."

"What could I want just as much as saving
Ashley?"

She looks at me long, searching my eyes like she's
debating whether or not to tell me what it is I want. And then she
does.

"I think you want to believe God
can
save her."

Logan pulls in behind her and honks the horn. I'm
frozen in place. I want to say the things I know I should say. The
easy words. I do believe God
can
save her, I just don't know if he
will
save
her. But even as I open my mouth, I know this ain't true. All this
time that I've been fooling others, I've been fooling myself
too.

"What are you wrestling with, Babs? Whether God is
real, or whether he is good?" She reaches out and holds my hand
again, the sadness in her eyes too hard to look at. "He doesn't
need you to believe to heal her. He wants you to believe so he can
heal you."

"I've tried." I am not going to cry. I am not. I am
not.

She squeezes my hand. "I know. Maybe stop trying so
hard. It'll come."

I want to tell her I've been trying for so long, I
don't think it's going to happen for me.

Logan honks the horn and leans out the window. "She's
gonna miss her plane, Mom. Just let her go already."

"Why did you come all the way here?"

She lets go of my hand again, like it is too hot to
touch. She stares down at her own hands in her lap. "If God lets
Ashley die. . ." Tears suddenly spring to her eyes, and she
breathes in deep. "I don't want you to stop wanting to
believe."

I want to ask why this is so important to her. Why am
I so important to her? Why is it so important to her that I
believe? But Logan honks again and the moment is broken. "I'm
coming already!"

"I am going to miss my plane," she says, laughing out
of nervousness, wiping her eyes. "Everything will be all right,
Babs."

As she drives off I hold those words, though I know
they're a lie. She don't know. But just hearing them, I feel a
little better.

~~~~

When we arrive at the hospital, there's a flurry of
activity in the hall outside Ashley's room. Doctors and nurses are
flying in and out of the room, rolling carts in and out, frantic
but controlled. "What's wrong?" I grab a nurse's arm. "Is it
Ashley? What's going on?"

"She's got pneumonia," she says shortly, brushing me
off.

Logan and I dress quickly in the gown and gloves and
mask. By the time we get in the door, it's just Dr. Van Der Campen
and two attendants, and they are transferring her to one of those
beds with wheels.

"Where are you taking her?"

"Down to x-ray."

He pushes past me. Ashley's lips are tinged blue and
her eyes are dull. I grab her hands in my gloved one. "It's okay,
baby. They're going to take you to get some pictures of your lungs.
You'll be fine."

"I can't breathe," she says, struggling with every
breath. I hold her hand as the attendants roll her out of the room,
and then watch as she disappears around the corner.

"She's going to be okay, right?" I ask as Dr. Van Der
Campen brushes by.

"This is the one complication we were most worried
about," he says, with little feeling. "Even under the best
circumstances, pneumonia can be dangerous. With Ashley. . ."

He don't finish, and I don't need him to. She's got
no immune system. She's got no ability to fight off the terrible
disease that is squeezing her lungs. Her body's an open
invitation.

I'm suddenly sobbing. I sink to the floor, crying so
hard I can't breathe. I'm making a fool of myself, but I can't help
it. Since that first day in Children's Hospital, that day when the
nurse told me Ashley would be fine and live a very normal life,
I've known in my gut that this day was coming. Ashley is dying.

And from nowhere there are two hands lifting me up,
and I'm in Travis's arms. "It's okay. I'm here." Like I am a child,
he picks me up and carries me back into Ashley's room, untying the
mask so I can breath and stroking my hair with his fingers. "It's
going to be okay."

I cry harder, because I know he don't know this for
certain, but I want so hard to believe it. Travis, who has always
made everything right, can't control this.

He holds me until I stop crying, and then wipes the
tears from my face.

"How did you get here?" I ask, punctuating the
question with a hiccup.

"Dr. Van Der Campen called Dr. Benton last night, and
Dr. Benton called me. He said he was afraid Ashley might be taking
a turn for the worse, and he thought I should be here. I took the
red-eye out."

I don't even ask what a red-eye is, I'm just so
thankful he's here. Then I realize there were two pairs of hands
picking me up, and I look around. "Was that Dr. Benton?"

"He came out too. He thought we might need the
support and someone to talk to who understood the medical
lingo."

I laugh through the tears, because I can't think of
any other doctor who would care whether or not we understood.
"Where did he go?"

"I think he went with Ashley," Logan says. "He walked
that way, anyway."

I feel completely embarrassed now by my breakdown,
but Logan just says, "Sheesh, Mom, you shouldn't bottle stuff up
like that. When you explode, you really explode." He grins one of
his big, goofy grins, and it makes me laugh.

"Can you go get us some Cokes?" Travis fishes around
in his pocket. He finds a couple crumbled bills and hands them to
Logan.

When he's gone, Travis sits on the bed next to me.
"I'm sorry, Babs. About the baby thing. I didn't want to leave mad,
and the whole time I was gone I just wished I could come back and
make it right."

"You're right," I say, waving it off and then blowing
my nose. "I'm so busy looking at the next step, I stop living in
the moment we're in."

"This is gonna work. Dr. Benton says the stem cells
are multiplying really well, and they look strong."

"I don't want to replace Ashley with another
baby."

"I know that."

"And the baby wouldn't be just a donor. Watching them
grow up . . . they're almost gone already. In a few months Logan'll
be out of the house. Ashley's next. What will I do without babies
around?"

He takes my face in his hands, his skin warm against
mine. "We'll have each other."

It's such a cornball thing to say I almost laugh
again, except Travis don't usually talk like this, and I think he's
serious.

Dr. Benton knocks on the door. "Can I come in?"

Travis quickly drops his hands.

"Of course," I say, rubbing at the hollows below my
eyes to clear off the mascara I'm sure is smeared.

"They have her in X-ray. She'll be back soon. It
looks very mild. Dr. Van Der Campen was very much on top of it. He
called a few days ago and was afraid it might be coming on. He
upped the antibiotics in the drip."

"Is it clear now?" Logan says, peeking his head in,
too.

"Where are the Cokes?"

"Oh." Logan looks surprised. "Did you actually want
them? I thought you were just trying to get rid of me."

"I'm going back to x-ray to check on everything. The
nurses will be in to disinfect in a minute and you--" he points at
Travis, "need to find yourself some isolation clothes. No breathing
around Ashley when she comes back."

We go together to find the Coke machine, and Logan
runs into one of the boys from the hotel.

"Hey Caleb, what's up?"

"Becca's getting out tomorrow!" His round, pink face
is glowing as he rolls his cold can between his palms. "They think
she's in remission."

"Sweeeeet!" They bump hands in some macho new ritual,
and Caleb takes off down the hall.

"Is she in this trial?" asks Travis.

"No. She has cancer." I think about how the nurse at
Children's the first day said that it was better to have diabetes
than cancer. One could live a fairly normal life with diabetes,
she'd said. I look at us, clothed in scrubs, waiting to hear
whether Ashley is going to live or not, and think this is some kind
of warped normal.

When they wheel Ashley back in, she's inside a clear
plastic tent with tubes up her nose. Her lips aren't blue anymore,
but her eyelids are heavier than usual.

"Hey sweetheart," Travis says, holding her hand in
his gloved one.

"You all look like aliens," she says, a coughing
spasm following.

"You're the one in the plastic bubble," Logan says,
poking at her through the blankets.

She reaches out and holds my hands too, so that we
are all connected in some way. "I feel like I'm suffocating."

"You've got fluid on your lungs," Travis says,
sounding all doctory.

"Are there any other complications I should know
about?" Ashley asks. "I seem to get them all." She coughs again and
we wait for it to subside. "Just when I think it can't get worse. .
."

"Oh, it can get worse," Logan says, and we all look
at him in horror. He shrugs and pulls a folded paper out of his
pocket. "Brian Lee emailed to ask if you'd go to the fall dance
with him if you're home by then."

"How's that worse?" Travis demands.

"I don't think her hair will be grown in by
then."

~~~~

The pneumonia is a set-back, to say the least.
Everything slows down. They cut the drugs they're giving her for
the stem cells and her immune system, and they ramp up the
antibiotics and a few others drugs I can't name.

We're practically living at the hospital now, afraid
to leave. She's lethargic and only half-conscious during those few
times she opens her eyes. Every breath is a struggle, and sometimes
when I look around at us camped in her room, it seems we're all
just waiting around for her to die.

Finally today they come and take the oxygen off, and
she eats a tiny bit of chicken broth, and we begin to resume our
new normal. When I look around the room at our family, I think no
one in their right mind would want to be us, and yet I wouldn't
want to be anyone else, anywhere else. It's true that trials make
you stronger.

Travis is on the phone with the insurance company,
demanding they pay for the Medevac trip to Children's Hospital that
first day of our new lives. He's strong and intelligent sounding,
and when he looks up at me and winks, I blush. He looks ten years
younger, he's dropped so much weight in the last few months. I
can't help but think the diagnosis, while terrible for Ashley,
hasn't done us much physical harm.