Two Sisters Times Two Read online

5

  On returning that evening after another good daytime sleep (and no haunting dream this time) and a brief phone update to Whitfield and voicemail to Jasper (he seemed less and less available to her calls), Leah sat with the family that now included Brent and Garrett for the resident’s daily report. He was all smiles, in sharp contrast to the gloom and foreboding of twenty-four hours earlier. He explained that the night before they had added an anti-fungal agent to the mix of intravenous antibiotics they were giving Brooke. The suggestion had originated with Randall, Penni’s husband, in one of his calls to get the latest medical update on his mother-in-law. Apparently Randall had recently treated a similar case—a young alcoholic with pancreatitis that had morphed into sepsis—and had lost the patient only to learn, post-mortem, that the source of the infection was fungal, not bacterial. The anti-fungal drug had worked almost immediately on Brooke’s infection. All of her critical data was improving. Even her kidneys were showing signs of “coming back online.” If the readings continued to improve, they might remove the breathing tube as early as tomorrow and raise Brooke back to consciousness. “The sooner we wake her up, the less rehab will be required.” The pessimistic doctor was suddenly talking about a future for their mother-sister-wife.

  The family’s relief was palpable, in hugs and smiles and joyful phone calls home. Dave called Penni, who was wait-listed to fly down tomorrow, with the hopeful news, suggesting she delay her flight till her mother was conscious and the boys had left (their house was currently full!). “And thank Randall for saving Brooke’s life,” he managed to get out before emotion clogged his throat. Penni laughed and said, “Grandma Brooke.” Dave lost it then, in tears of joy; so Davey took the phone from his father and finished talking with his younger sister.

  After he ended that call, he looked to Leah and whispered, “Jodie?”

  Leah said, “She already knows.”

  Davey tilted his head.

  “I’ve been texting her overnight.”

  “This good news?”

  “I knew last night—I mean, this morning.”

  “How?”

  How indeed. She couldn’t begin to explain. So she shrugged and said, “Sisterly intuition.”

  Davey smiled as he shook his head in wonder.

  After all “the boys” (that’s how Leah thought of them because that’s how Brooke referred to them—including Dave) had taken their turns sitting with Brooke then left for the night, Leah settled into her now familiar seat beside the bed, her right hand cradling her sister’s left.

  Sheila came in all smiles. “I’ll miss not seeing Mrs. Redmond awake.”

  “Why?”

  “Tonight’s my last shift before three days off.”

  “She’ll be here when you get back?” Leah said, more question than assumption.

  “Probably not. At this rate of improvement, they’ll step her down fast.”

  “You need to see her after she’s better, a reward for all your care.” She was thinking but didn’t add—small adjustment for the inevitable losses on this floor.

  “I’ve already received my reward.”

  Leah’s eyes made their old unspoken question.

  Sheila said, “In you.”

  After the nurse left, Leah discovered the subject of what she assumed would be her final monologue. Maybe it came about as a result of her brief exchange with Davey earlier, or maybe it had been ordained long before that, days ago or decades.

  “I was home the summer between my sophomore and junior years. You were there too, along with Jodie—permanently separated from Onion while you awaited the final divorce. You were watching Jodie during the day and taking nighttime classes to try to finish your degree. Those classes were your excuse for leaving Jodie with me almost every night. But those classes weren’t on weekends and didn’t last till midnight or one in the morning when you’d sneak into my room and untangle Jodie from my arms and sheets. You’d either forgotten about my acute sense of smell or didn’t care. I could smell the cigarettes and alcohol and scent of different guys on your clothes and skin. When I called you on it, you said something like ‘A girl has to study.’ And I asked In a bar? And you responded ‘Depends on what you’re studying.’

  “I didn’t object to your late-night carousing. I’d long since grown used to it from your days in junior high and high school and college. But in light of your failed marriage, I thought it showed a serious lack of self-control and maturation. Most of all I felt bad for Jodie. I know you spent your days with her, and I know you loved her. But at night it was like she ceased to exist. When I asked if you told your new guy friends about your daughter, you said, ‘Are you crazy?’ I felt like you were two people, and Jodie had fallen into the chasm between those identities.

  “I also resented your presumption that I was always available in the evenings. It’s true I didn’t have many friends in town, and my summer job shelving books at the library hardly put me in touch with lots of new and interesting people. But how was I going to meet anyone if I was playing patty-cake with Jodie every night? I should have just told you no—that you would have to find another babysitter at least some nights or, Heaven forbid, spend a night or two at home with your two-year-old daughter.

  “But I didn’t tell you that, for two reasons. First of all, I loved Jodie. That summer I came to think of her as my daughter. I’d always wondered if I would ever have children. There weren’t exactly a lot of guys lining up to marry me and father a child with me. And even if I could find a husband and potential father years hence, could I be a good or satisfactory mother if I couldn’t hear my child cry out or talk back when spoken to? Are children with deaf mothers verbally stunted for life? I came to see in Jodie the only child I might ever have, and I feared that if I protested your behavior, you might react by withholding her from me. And I couldn’t risk that loss.

  “But beneath that concern was a more fundamental impasse—I couldn’t tell you no. All my life I’d dutifully followed you, living through you. I became quite proficient at covering for you and cleaning up after your mistakes. And sometimes I could anticipate your worst choices and nudge you toward some better (in my mind at least) compromise. But I could never say—or sign, back then—Stop! or Don’t do that! or simply No. Would you have listened if I had?

  “So with very little protest, I dutifully watched over your quick-as-a-whip and lively daughter. She was fun, if at times demanding—like the time she decided I was going to be her pet dog and put a collar on me using your rhinestone belt and made me crawl around on four legs and lap water out of a bowl on the floor! I enjoyed being with Jodie but still resented your presumption and absence.

  “Those feelings only grew as the summer wore on and I became more possessive of Jodie. At some point we started getting out of the house, after Father complained that we were making too much noise—but how would I know? The funny thing is, I could ‘talk’ to Jodie, and she would ‘talk’ back. I would move my lips and tongue and make what must have been odd animal-like noises and Jodie would respond in kind, exactly mimicking my lips’ movement and, I assumed, whatever sounds I was making. I’d always refused to take speech therapy when growing up because I didn’t want to sound foolish and be judged as slow or retarded. But with Jodie I had no such fears, and we’d babble away for hours on end. Maybe that’s what Father found objectionable—my gibberish and its confirmation of the deafness he tried so hard to deny.

  “Whatever the reason, we started spending more time outside the house. At first it was playing in the yard or walking to the park for a turn on the swings (Jodie loved pushing me as much as she liked being pushed) or that foot-powered merry-go-round where we’d race to get it going fast as we could then count to see how long it kept spinning. We got up to one hundred thirty-five seconds, but I believe that was with Jodie sneaking in a few little pushes to keep it going as it slowed toward a stop. She’d point to something in the distance, and I would look then feel the merry-go-round speed up a bit.

 
“To extend our playtime till after dark—even then, Jodie hated going to bed (but how would you have known?)—I’d strap her into the car seat in the back of the old station wagon and we’d take a little drive. Our first stop was always at the Dairy Queen for a cone and lots of napkins to mop up the sticky mess. Then we’d ride around town or sometimes out into the country to watch for shooting stars at the recreation area by the lake. I remember trying to explain what we were doing lying on our backs looking up at the night sky. At first I used, or tried to use, our babble language, but to no effect (and Lord knows what I sounded like, to the odd passing deer or raccoon). I tried to use sign language then finally miming—all unsuccessful. But as I was talking, Jodie suddenly pointed to the sky behind my head and drew a short straight line across her hand. I turned quickly, but the shooting star I’m sure she saw (understanding all along what I was trying to convey) had by then disappeared. So I stopped trying to explain what we were looking for and simply lay down on the blanket beside her, our adjacent hands palm to palm. Not two minutes later, a bright meteor crossed above leaving a trail of sparkles. I’m sure we both made a sound of exclamation with our mouths, but all I remember is her finger making a quick streak across my palm. I gave her that one, so now she was ahead two to nothing. Over the next hour or so, we stared at the sky; and I would feel her finger cross my palm every so often, or I would cross hers. Most times I would see the meteors she claimed, but less and less so as the watch wore on and my eyes grew heavy. I always wondered if her eyesight was keener than mine, or if she was making up those ones I didn’t see. It never occurred to me that the truth might have been somewhere in between, that her imagination—like mine throughout childhood—was creating something that was real to her—flashes across the heavens—but not to the rest of the world. If so, where was the truth of those moments? And who would define it?

  “One night late in the summer, with my return to school only days away, I got on the interstate headed for a new ice cream parlor that was on a dairy far out in the county. Maybe I missed the exit by accident or maybe by subconscious desire. Whatever the reason, what I recall is singing—that is, moving my lips and feeling vibrations in my throat—non-stop out into the hot August night rushing past the open window. It was the nearest thing to uninhibited freedom I’d ever felt—to that point and, I now realize, since: singing out into the dark, and the dark welcoming me in, no questions asked.

  “I don’t know what brought me back to reality; but by the time I realized what I was doing, we were nearly halfway to the beach, as marked by the signs that were familiar from our regular summer trips but somehow strange and dreamlike in the dark. My first reaction wasn’t How did I get there? or Oh my god, I’ve driven way too far! No, I clearly recall my first reaction as being Let’s go to the beach. I was, in effect, kidnapping Jodie—for her benefit and mine. I knew I had a little cash in my wallet, enough for those ice cream cones we were supposed to be getting, and the credit card Father had given me for college expenses. So I figured we could make it to the beach and get a motel room and I’d figure it out from there. It was the strangest feeling, Brooke. I was like an actor in the dream of parallel life, one that I might have had if I’d been born with hearing, been born a little bolder—like you.

  “But that dream of a parallel, assertive life only lasted a few minutes—until the gas gauge flashed empty, and us miles from nowhere on a deserted interstate deep into rural countryside. I nearly panicked then, as all my thoughts of escape quite literally went out that open window and into the night. I knew nothing to do except keep on driving and pray for an exit with an open gas station. And my prayers were answered, by a glow on the horizon that turned into a gas station at the end of the next exit ramp. They were closing up; but the attendant, a white-haired old man who turned out to be the owner, saw me and saw my desperate, pleading look. He smiled reassuringly and unlocked the pump.

  “Then he gestured toward the back seat. I looked back quickly and with a new panic. I’d totally forgotten about Jodie! Normally when I drove, I kept an eye on her with frequent glances in the rearview mirror. But between the darkness on the highway and my self-absorption, I’d not checked her in who knows how long. She was a mess. I don’t know how long she’d been crying, but her face was wet with tears and her nose was running and long strings of drool ran down her chin. And she was still screaming, a fact confirmed by the old man’s alarm and her wide-open mouth. I lifted her out of her baby seat and tried to calm her and promptly discovered, in odor and feel, the cause of her agitation (or perhaps a symptom)—she’d pooped in her shorts. And I hadn’t brought a spare diaper, didn’t think we would need one for the short trip to the creamery. Now what was I going to do?

  “I shuffled off to the door marked Women at the dark end of the garage, only to find it locked. I almost lost it then, surrendering to the stress and guilt and fears. But someone’s hand lightly touched my shoulder and I turned to see a kind-faced old woman smiling and holding out a key that she used to unlock the door. She switched on the light to the small but clean bathroom, and I stepped inside and gave her a nod of thanks before closing the door. I did my best to clean up Jodie using the available toilet paper and hand towels soaked in water. I started with her face then worked my way to the nether regions, with her sitting patiently on the toilet seat. She’d stopped crying by then and was actually smiling and giggling as I played our clean-up game that included little tickles behind her ear and at the back of her neck and interspersed butterfly kisses of her eyes and face.

  “Over the summer I’d grown quite proficient at cleaning up her poops, and wasn’t bothered by the mess or smell. But I hadn’t figured out what to do about the lack of a clean diaper. I’d just about resigned us to using no diaper and risking an accident in the car when I saw Jodie look up toward the door. I followed her signal and opened the door to discover the old woman standing outside with a two fresh diapers in her hand—one to use and one for a spare. She looked a little frustrated, presumably from knocking on the door or calling out for some time. I gave my standard I’m deaf! sign—pointing toward my ears then shaking my head. I accepted the diapers with a nod of thanks then closed the door to get Jodie put back together and presentable.

  “When I came out, the man and his wife were standing beside the station wagon. She had a pad with a gas company’s logo at the top and wrote as I approached Can we call someone for you? and handed me the pad.

  “I nodded thanks but shook my head.

  “She mouthed, forgetting my condition for a moment, ‘You’re sure?’

  “I nodded and wrote I am O.K. Thank you for your kindness. I loaded Jodie back into her seat. By then the smell had pretty well dissipated—and there were no stains on the seat’s cover, thank God! When I stood back up, I found the couple still standing there, attentively watching. Then I remembered the gas and looked at the pump. The total was considerably more than I had in cash, so I took out Father’s credit card. But the old man waved it off. And the diapers? I signed, making a loincloth gesture across my midsection. The woman shook her head—no payment required. I wished I could’ve have spoken my thanks and verbalized my relief, but realized my smiles and nods would have to somehow suffice. Then I stood there for an awkward moment, not wanting to leave their oasis of safety and light but knowing I had to get home before Momma and Father started to worry.

  “The woman somehow understood and wrote: May God bless and keep you and your daughter, this night and always. She handed me the pad.

  “I cried then, first time in all that summer’s craziness. But they were tears of thanksgiving. When my eyes had cleared enough to see, I tore off her message (and kept it—I have it still) and wrote one of my own: He has. He will. I handed the pad back to her.

  “I returned to school. You met Dave later that fall, married him the next year, and began turning out playmates for Jodie, though by then she was in school and already beyond your reach in some ways. I’ve rarely thought about that night, and then alw
ays in the negative—How could I have been so foolish and irresponsible? But just now I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t run low on gas, if I’d had a full tank and kept on to the beach and made good on our escape? What would have happened if I’d met your impulsive and selfish actions with one of my own? I suppose Jodie would have been caught in the middle. But she would have been my only purpose and care. No matter what, she never would have gone to sleep without me there to tuck her in. That’s not a claim you can make.” Leah thought of Jasper, knowing that she tucked him in every night from his second day on earth (the first the nursery attendants at the hospital tucked him in while she slept in exhaustion from the long labor and grogginess from the pain medication given for the episiotomy) until he went to summer camp when he was eight years old, and every night he was home until he reached puberty and gently suggested maybe he could put himself to bed and sleep with the door closed.

  She looked now on the sleeping Brooke. There’s no doubt she’d heard what Leah had said—sound waves striking the eardrum and vibrating through the cochlea and triggering impulses transmitted by the auditory nerve to her brain. But had she comprehended any of those words? Would she recall the confession, and accusation, on waking? And if she did, what would she say? There was no telling with Brooke. She always shot from the hip, even now in her middle age, even more so. She might berate Leah for her accusation of neglect, or berate her for the tardiness of the claim—Why didn’t you tell me then, when it could have made a difference?—or acquiesce with a quiet Why didn’t you steal Jodie? It would have done all three of us good—most of all you, forcing you to make a stand. Or, in the wake of her cancer diagnosis and this recent near-death struggle, she might open her eyes with a fatalist’s resignation and speak simply the truth—You’ve been linked to Jodie since her conception, in ways we’ve always known but never understood. If Brooke said that, would the antecedent of the pronoun be two or three people? How much of this common past did Jodie know?

  Leah looked at her phone. It was past the hour when Jodie had contacted her the last two nights. She typed out a text—I’m missing our late night girl talk!—and sent it without pausing to reflect on its propriety or potential implications. “Are you happy now?” she said to Brooke.

  Jodie’s response was swift and prescient. Mom will be jealous.

  I already asked her. She said it’s O.K.

  You get her permission on everything?

  Caught, Leah backed up. Brooke is still unconscious. Your secrets are safe with me, always have been.

  I know. Why do you think I’m talking to you?

  Thanks for the trust.

  Been there forever.

  Can you come here this weekend and stay a few days? Brooke should be awake and the boys gone or on their way out.

  A few days?

  I’d hoped we could take a short trip after you saw your mom. Just the two of us.

  Where?

  Ever been to Richmond? It was a spontaneous suggestion. (What had Brooke, or these overnights, done to her caution?) She’d been there only once, years ago during Jasper’s junior-high fascination with the Confederacy. She remembered a fine old hotel in the center of town and lots of historic sights and charming small restaurants within walking distance.

  No.

  Then let’s go.

  There was a pregnant pause of perhaps a minute that felt like days. Toward the end of that wait, she made another confession to Brooke. “I don’t know if I will be able to bear it if she says no.” She heard Brooke’s response in her head if not in her electronic ears—Then don’t let her.

  Work is jammed. A few days will be tough.

  Please.

  There was a shorter pause then, I’ll see what I can do.

  Thanks.

  Remember what I said.

  What?

  I trust you.

  Now it was Leah’s turn to pause. She typed out several conditional responses and erased each before settling on this last—I won’t let you fall. She looked up at Brooke and added, “I hope.”

  I know. That’s why I’m coming.

  Good. I love you.

  Love you back.