“Good,” she whispers, sniffing against the icy near midnight wind. Her jaw works, side to side, as she eyes me, and I swear it’s a million things left unsaid lodged in the back of her gaze.
Nodding, I walk past her, desperate for the right thing to say but coming up short. Like the years I’ve spent playing everything on the surface have created this deficit in me, and I’m incapable of reaching her because of it,incapable of dismantling this performance of herself she’s so committed to. And she plays it so well, could trick almost anyone into believing that she’s mastered carelessness, that she’s a free spirit and not a broken one.
It feels wrong to see that and keep walking. But it’s what she wants; it would take an act of fate to change her mind.
24
Sloane
“Less sad,” Bob tells me as he passes by, his first critical input in weeks. “It’s icy, whimsical holiday not…despair?”
I step back and see it: the frosty window panes, with the sheer silver gauzy curtains, give off a stormier vibe than I’d hoped. Rummaging through the boxes of curtains, I find pure white ones and hand them off to the tech’s manning the stage cranes. When they’ve been affixed to the top of the backdrop, the hopefulness in their brightness is assaulting.
“This better?” I shout into the auditorium, only for Bob to muster a brief, distracted thumbs up. My neck, stiff as it is, cracks when I roll it, as I march down the center aisle and out into the lobby. The space teems with conservatory volunteers, rushing about with dustpans and jackets, tablets and ticket rolls, parking lot signage—all the things that should’ve been set up at least a day ago for tonight’s opening performance.
The company did a final full run last night, has been sipping teas and meditating, but Gen more than the others. When she isn’t dancing, she’s lost in thought. When she is, I’mscared she’s going to throw a limb out. The intensity she usually embodies has been sharpened since she fell out with my brother, like all that love’s got no where to go, is just coursing through her like a rabid thing that might take aim at any moment.
I disappear down the corridor that leads to the restrooms, dimply lit with brass sconces, and notice, for the first time, the bulletin board tacked full of announcements. What draws my attention most is the art competition, slated for this coming spring.
Open to painters of all mediums.
Nothing, lately, has felt divine. Or cosmic. Everything’s felt like sleet, pummeling me from the sky, indifferent to me standing here justtryingto do the next best thing. I’m not even sure if I could paint something of substance in time, given my slow to return ability, but I rip the notice down anyway. Fold it up and tuck it into my back pocket, just as my phone rings with a call from the hospital. I pick it up, my heart suddenly balled high in my throat.
“Ms. Fielder? I’m sorry, but your mother’s had a cardiac event. We’re currently?—”
“I’m on my way,” I say in a jumble, my vision blurring as I run out of the hallway and through the theater to grab my keys.
Everything around me whirs, spins ferociously and I can’t stop moving because of it, afraid of the force when I finally stop. I cut into traffic, ignoring the righteous blare of a horn, and taking deep breaths to staunch the bile threatening to spill. And then my breath turns jagged, the reality of what I might walk into at the hospital snowballing into a panic that seizes allrationality. I park in a fire lane, I speed past security, I take the elevator to oncology only for them to tell me she’s been transferred to the PICU. And all the while, I wish, more than anything, that I wasn’t doing this alone.
I can just hear Clementine, reminding me that I don’t have to, as I pull my phone out and dial my brother. By the time he picks up, my voice has warbled into one continuous sob.
“Grant…Grant, I’m so sorry—” I choke on the tears, pressing the floor number over and over like it’ll make this thing move faster. “Can you come to the hospital?”
The sound of tires burning against icy asphalt plays over the phone. “I’m on my way.”
And then, even though I know how important this night is to her, I call Gen.
By the time I get to Connie’s room, she’s sitting up awake.
Alive, and smiling.
“Oh, you didn’t need to come all this way just to?—”
I cut her off with the wrapping of my limbs around her warm body, shutting my eyes so I can feel her existence right up against mine. I breathe her in, the sick and medicine and her powdery laundry detergent, and her vanilla body spray, and the clean stench of medical tubing attached to her crepey skin. All of it, I inhale so I can commit it to memory.
“Sweetheart,” my mom says, her voice breaking, and when I look into her eyes she’s crying.
“I thought you died.” The muscles around my eyes strain from all the tears, but still they come, salty and hot, down my cheeks.
“Between you and I,” she says, leaning even closer andlowering her voice, “I could’ve swore I did. Turns out one of the nurses just looks like Jesus.” She cackles, wheezing at her joke, and my watery laugh vibrates through me, helps the panic recede.
“Don’t do that to me again.”
“Have a heart attack? Well darlin’, it wasn’t the plan, but?—”
“Ms. Tucker? We’ve gotta wheel you back for the angiogram.”
“He’s not the Jesus one,” Mom whispers, eyes haggard but sparking with amusement.
