Some Kind of Normal (7 page)

As if it would be for anyone else.

~~~~

The sky behind the shaded window is dark. We survived
our first day. Travis and Logan are with Ashley, who is asleep, and
I send the hospitality brigade home. I barely touched their pulled
pork and potato salad. All I can think of as I look at it is Dr.
Benton telling Ashley, "Everything you eat is poison to your body."
I try to remember what he said about fats and proteins and
carbohydrates, but it all blurs together and all I remember is
poison.

When I was a teenager, a girl I babysat got leukemia.
Blood cancer. They gave her chemo and all her hair fell out, and
she threw up all the time and couldn't hardly walk she was so weak.
I asked my mom why she was so much sicker when they were treating
her than before, and she said it was because they were treating her
with poison. "It takes poison to kill the poison that's killin'
her," she said.

I wonder if insulin is poison. I wonder if Ashley
will get worse before she gets better. I remember how casual the
doctor sounded, and the nurse, and how all normal it seemed to
them. But something in my stomach tells me different. A mother
listens to these instincts. We trust them more than science.
Sometimes more than God. Something tells me it's going to get way
worse before it gets better.

~~~~

I step out onto the balcony where the helicopter
landed with Ashley several hours ago and look across the skyline of
Austin, blazing with lights of people and businesses that are going
about their lives as if everything is ordinary.

The door opens again behind me, and I turn to see
Logan, his hair looking like a flame under the red exit sign. He
hesitates and then walks towards me. He don't look at me but leans
against the railing next to me and pulls a pack of cigarettes out
of his pocket, tapping it until one slides out. He offers it to
me.

"Logan T. Babcock, what in the name of all that's
holy are you doing with cigarettes?"

"They're yours," he says without blinking, without
looking at me. "I thought you might want them." He kept his eyes on
the city lights. "I took them from your sock drawer before we left
the house. I figured if we ended up staying overnight you'd need
them."

If I ever thought my son could shock me, I didn't
imagine it'd be like this. I stare at him, but he don't look at me,
or withdraw the cigarettes. I take it slowly, and he pulls a
lighter from his pocket and offers me a light. I take a long drag
and exhale the puff into the night air. "How long you known?"

"A while." He says nothing more.

"Do you smoke, too?" I try not to say it accusingly,
but it's hard to reign in the motherly tone.

"God, no. Those things will kill you."

"Don't take the Lord's name in vain," I say, then
immediately regret it. I'm glad he don't smoke. "I only have one a
day," I say, as if this makes it okay. "At night. Since I was about
your age."

Logan don't act surprised, but he don't say nothing
else either.

"I gave up a lot of stuff when we joined the church,"
I say, as if I can justify it. "I stopped drinking and cussing. I
gave up immoral TV. Shoot, your dad and I even gave up going out to
lunch on Sundays. But the cigarette. . ." I can't finish, because I
know there is no reason. I just didn't want to give it up.

We stand next to each other until the cigarette is
gone. I drop it and crush it with my shoe. He makes no motion to
leave, so I stay too.

"Is Ashley really going to be okay?"

"Of course," I lie.

"But you don't know that."

"I know Dr. Benton says she'll be fine. And so did
the nurse."

"But he also said she could die. She has to give
herself insulin, and too much could kill her."

I think about asking for another cigarette, but I'm
not sure I want to tick off God at this point.

"They also say millions of people live with this. If
people were kicking the bucket the way they are with boobie cancer,
we'd hear about it on the news. There'd be fundraising walks and
ribbons on car bumpers," I say.

"Maybe it's like gang fights in LA. It's so common it
doesn't make the news anymore."

"If it were that common, we'd know someone with it.
You know any kids with diabetes?"

"No. You know any adults?"

"No." I'm dying for another puff. I find a rubber
band in my pocket and twist it around my fingers for something to
do. "Well, maybe a few. But I think they all have the second kind.
They don't shoot up; they take pills. And they're all fat."

"Stop it, Mom."

"What?"

"The fat thing. You know how many times today you've
talked about fat like it's some defect?"

"I don't talk like that. It's just a fact. If you
can't see your toes and none of the clothes at Wal-Mart fit you,
you're fat. Like saying Mr. Rodriguez is Spanish or Mr. Ruben is
bald."

"Mexican, Mom."

"What?"

"The Rodriguezes are Mexican."

"Isn't that what I said?"

"No."

"Well, anyway, all the people I know who have
diabetes can't see their toes, and they still eat whatever they
want, and they don't worry about how many carbohydrates are in the
food, and I've never seen any of them pass out." I stop, because
all I can see now is Ashley bent over on the driveway, falling,
falling. I pull so hard at the rubber band that it breaks and snaps
my fingers.

"In a couple days we all get to go home, and they
wouldn't let us go home if Ashley isn't going to be okay." I want
to believe this as much as I need him to believe it.

"Okay."

"Okay what?" I'm expecting some backtalk, some
sarcasm, but he just shrugs.

"Okay, if you say she'll be fine, I believe you." He
hands me the pack of cigarettes. "I'm not going to be your
supplier. If Dad caught me, he'd kill me."

He starts back to the door but stops short. "You know
Ms. Brenda told me the church was praying that God will cure
Ashley. She thinks she doesn't need any insulin or any special
diet."

This makes me angry enough to spit nails, but I bite
my cheek. "God is using the insulin to cure Ashley. Sometimes he
does that--using drugs instead of healing outright."

"She says we just need faith."

"Next time she says that, you tell her we have plenty
of faith. We have faith that God sent us Dr. Benton and the miracle
of insulin, because without them she'd be dead."

I think he's going to talk back, but instead he takes
the lighter out of his pocket and tosses it to me. "Only one a
night, Mom." I nod and watch the pink Mohawk disappear behind the
sliding doors.

~~~~

The Ronald McDonald house is right across the parking
lot, and they have one empty room all of us will have to crowd
into. I don't know what I expected, but this ain't it. It's like a
cross between a hotel and a house. There's a kitchen and a family
room on the first floor, and when we walk in several parents are
sitting around drinking coffee. One man comes over and shakes our
hand and introduces himself all proper-like to us, and then
introduces the others in the room.

"This is Jim and Amanda; they have a sixteen year old
son that was in a car accident. That's Torren; her baby was born
with hydrocephalus-- water on the brain. And Dina has a
two-year-old daughter who is having her third heart surgery." We
awkwardly shake all their hands. "I'm Hank. My daughter has
leukemia," he adds, like it's an afterthought. I'm uncomfortable
with how we are all defined by our diseases.

"Our daughter has diabetes," Travis says.

"Oh," Hank says. "That's not too bad then. I don't
guess you'll be here very long. It's just really an education
thing, right?"

Travis feels me stiffen and lays his hand on my back.
"It's our first day," he says evenly. "I'm not sure what all will
happen, but since she went into a coma, I think it's a little more
than just educational." He's being nicer than I would be. I can
feel my teeth grinding. "I think we'll just get to bed. Long day,
you know?" He presses my back with his hand and fairly pushes me
out of the room before I can open my big mouth. Logan mutters
goodnight and trudges behind us. I'm sure as sugar we've
embarrassed him beyond belief but I don't care much.

Thankfully, upstairs our room is self-sufficient,
with its own bathroom and necessities. I shut the door behind us
with a distinct satisfaction hearing the bolt click shut.

"I'm not staying with these people here. There's no
privacy. And can you believe how they looked down on us 'cause
Ashley don't need a heart transplant?"

"I'm sure it just came out wrong," Travis says. "And
anyway, we aren't going to be here long. I'll have to take Logan
back to school in a day or two--he can't miss the whole week--and
then you can stay in the room with Ashley."

"I'm not going to sit around with those pompous folks
all week listening to how their kids are all worse off than ours,
that's for sure."

"Wow, Mom. Pompous. That's a pretty big word."

"Oh, shush!" I throw my bag on the bed and rifle
through it to find my nightgown. "It's past midnight. Can we all
just go to sleep?"

Travis and Logan exchange looks that I pretend to
ignore. Looking for my toothbrush, I pull every crumpled item out
of my bag and throw it on the bed.

Travis takes his shaving kit out of his bag and hands
it to me. "The toothbrushes are in there."

I grab it out of his hands without thanking him and
slam the bathroom door behind me. I hear them talking through the
door, their voices so low I can't make them out. I drop my
nightgown on the floor and screw the cap off the toothpaste and
proceed to scrub the enamel clean off my teeth.

~~~~

We take up just one room because in a day or two
Travis will have to head back for work and Logan will have to go
back to school, but even for one night it feels crowded in the
room. Logan points out that we're living in a home sponsored by a
restaurant whose food we are no longer supposed to eat. He calls it
irony. There's a lot of iron in the burgers, but I think that's
supposed to be a good thing, if I remember yesterday's lesson in
nutrition right, so I'm not sure why Logan thinks this is bad. I
checked the nutrition book for McDonald's for the fries and nearly
apoplected over the carbs. Apoplexy is in Logan's vocabulary book:
SAT list, week 3.

Ashley is asleep when we arrive back at the hospital,
and the nurse tells us it may be days before she is back to her
self. I don't know which self that is because I don't know anymore
if she seemed different than usual because of puberty, or because
of the diabetes.

We eat breakfast in the cafeteria. I notice smugly
they serve bagels and orange juice and cereal and eggs. I'm not the
only one killing people.

Afterwards, Travis gets a paper and disappears behind
the sports section, and Logan sees a pretty girl he slyly follows
into an arcade room. I spread out the pamphlets and charts we were
given across the table and go through them again. I shuffle the
papers mindlessly, the words on the pages confusing and without
meaning. Words like glycated hemoglobin, basals and boluses,
hypoglycemia, ultralene, and neuropathy. There are lists. Lists of
possible complications. Lists of tests and medications. Lists of
foods with numbers after them. And graphs and math way past the
algebra I struggled through in high school before I dropped
out.

I'm stupid about school things. I know this. And now
I'm afraid it's going to kill my daughter.

I put my head in my hands, blocking out the quiet
commotion of the cafeteria, and try to pray. I think I might've
fallen asleep because when a warm hand falls on my shoulder, I look
up, expecting Travis to be there, but he's gone. The woman standing
over me is Betsy, the nurse on duty when Ashley was admitted. She's
dressed in cheerful pink scrubs with Betty Boop bee-bopping around
them, but her face is drawn and serious.

"Mrs. Babcock, you need to come with me."

"Is Ashley all right?"

"She's fine now. She had a bit of an episode, though,
and I think she'd like to see you."

"What kind of an episode?" I'm shoveling the
pamphlets into a canvas bag without bothering to fold or stack
them.

"She's fine now," she repeats, and I feel the hairs
on my neck grow hot.

"What's wrong with her?" I say this slightly too
loudly and several people near us turn. Others pointedly don't,
bless them. I imagine most in this room have said these words in
the last three days.

"Her blood sugar dropped inexplicably. I'll explain
as we walk."

I follow her to the elevator bank and then up a floor
before she says anything else.

In the room Travis is already beside Ashley, helping
her into a chair as two orderlies strip the linens off the bed.

"What the Sam Hill is going on?" I stare at Travis as
though this is his fault.

"I just came up to see if she was awake," he says,
his face white as rice. "She was shaking all over and sweating like
a hog in heat, mumbling all kinds of stuff that made no sense."

"Often when a patient becomes hypoglycemic they are
unable to talk, or are confused."

"She told me the orange juice was making too much
noise."

"It made sense at the time," Ashley finally speaks, a
meek whisper.

"How can that make sense?" I say.

Betsy shrugs and moves the tray away from the bed as
the orderlies put new sheets on. "When the brain doesn't have
enough glucose it does funny things. It makes it hard to
communicate. Sometimes a patient can't speak at all, and sometimes
it comes out all gobbledy-gook. The nerves are misfiring, and the
brain wants to just shut down."