Tell Me Something Real Read online

  “Worse. It’s getting harder.”

  He pauses and turns around. “I see this.”

  Steam rises from the stove and Roberto flips the tortillas. He pulls three plates from the high shelves and scoops rice and beans onto them. Quickly, he moves the tortillas from the griddle, deposits them onto the plates, and piles onions and pico de gallo on top of carnitas. “I carry.”

  “Gracias.”

  “Almuerzo,” he announces when he sees Adrienne and Marie.

  Marie hops off of the chair and runs to Roberto. “Eat with us!”

  “I make sopa for your mama. Next time. Mañana.” He rests the plates on the metal patio table and produces forks and napkins from his apron pocket. “Mis hijos are coming soon.”

  Marie beams. “Soccer!” The game is the only thing that distracts her from her saints.

  “Thanks, Roberto.” Adrienne accepts a plate. “Come on, Marie. Eat.”

  I linger next to him. “Thanks again.”

  He looks down and smiles. He places a hand on my shoulder. “De nada, mija.”

  Roberto and Lupe bring such comfort. As I watch his heavy steps, I can’t imagine life without either of them, two people I didn’t know last year in a country I barely visited.

  Marie quietly dips her tortilla in her beans. It’s unclear if she understands the ritual of saying grace. Lately, she eats her meals in complete silence, explaining that she is praying.

  I pick up my taco. The food tastes good, and who knows when we’ll eat again. The kitchen is overwhelmed with patient lunches; then staff will get their break. Roberto’s shift ends after supper. Later, we will fend for ourselves, piecemealing together leftovers. During our first weeks at the clinic, I read a good portion of the Boxcar Children series. Inspired by the multitude of survival techniques applied by the orphans in the books, I rummaged regularly through the closed kitchen. It was easy compared to hunting for berries in the woods while living in an abandoned train car. A welcome distraction.

  When we finish eating, I stack the plates to return to Roberto. Marie kicks her soccer ball across the lawn. Leaving her sketchbook on the ground, Adrienne stretches out on her belly and absorbs the sun. I wander into the kitchen, but Roberto isn’t there. It’s too hot to go back outside, so I decide to check on Mom. Maybe I can even dodge the hovering nurses and sneak into Caleb’s room.

  The infusion rooms are on the third floor, dedicated to those who require the most nursing. I wander upstairs and look away from any room with a door ajar, passing the private rooms with beds full of cancer. I follow the noise down the hall, listening for Mom’s voice. A scowling doctor rushes past me. I hear unexpected crying and am surprised when I turn the corner to find that it belongs to her.

  Mom reclines in a gurney with Guadalupe next to her. Her hospital gown is wrapped around her in a style that looks more like a kimono. A needle pierces the inside of her elbow, linking to a full bag of clear liquid, which drips from the sack, through the tube, into Mom at the same speed that my heart is beating. The heat leaves my body. Goose bumps run up and down my skin, and I feel light-headed.

  “Mija, you should go back downstairs,” Lupe says.

  “What’s wrong, Mom?”

  “Nothing for you to worry about.” She wipes tears from her cheeks, but the IV tugs her skin, causing her to wince. “I just need to rest, sweetheart. Are you settled in?” I can see her veins through her cellophane skin. I imagine the Laetrile working its way through her blood, attacking the abnormal cells.

  I shake my head. “Not yet.”

  Lupe stands and gestures toward the door. “Come, mija,” she says. “Let your mamasita talk to the doctor. Let’s find you a place to sleep.”

  I look back at Mom.

  “You heard Lupe. Go now, Nessie. Scoot.”

  We walk down the tile stairs and stop at a door near the kitchen. The clinic must be close to capacity, because we rarely stay in staff quarters. The room is simple, a large white square with two sets of bunk beds, a painting of a dark blue dove against a pale blue sky, and a crucifix. Lupe gives me a tense smile before returning to Mom.

  I sit down on one of the lower bunks and examine the underside of my arms, tracing my veins. I’ve seen Mom receive countless infusions, but each time is growing increasingly difficult to witness. I’ve never seen Mom cry from the pain, though.

  I evaluate the room, relieved that we aren’t placed in a patient room filled with the odor of illness and rubbing alcohol, with steel trays and IV tubes.

  Cheers and giggles come from outside, and when I return to the courtyard, I see Marie playing soccer with Roberto’s boys. Two of the sick kids, a boy and a girl, join in, an easy game. Low impact. Nothing to tire them out. They run in slow motion, their legs moving cautiously. Marie is the fastest, but she doesn’t show off her natural athletic abilities to the cancer kids. Marie understands disadvantage. She slows down and resists the opportunity to score over and over again.

  Adrienne, who has resumed her sketching, looks up. “How is she?”

  “Something’s going on. She was crying.”

  “Why?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me. Lupe said Mom was talking to her doctor.”

  Adrienne’s brow furrows. “Mom didn’t say he’d be here today. I thought she had an appointment with him next week. Dad is taking her. He made a big deal about it.”

  I shrug. “All I know is that she’s up there crying and I don’t know what to do.”

  Adrienne meets my eyes. “There’s nothing you can do. If she needs us, Lupe will come.”

  I nod and press my fingertips on Adrienne’s arm, into her warm skin, and release my hand, leaving a white handprint. “You’re getting burned.”

  “Whatever,” Adrienne says. “It’ll turn into a tan tomorrow.”

  I hop onto the board and follow the curving path around the courtyard, trying my best to take a sharp turn without falling. Finally, bending my knees and crouching down, I zigzag the board just like I’ve seen Caleb do dozens of times. I pump up the path, the wheels slowly thumping, calming me down.

  It takes a second for me to figure out who is screaming, a familiar voice yelling, “No! You don’t have my consent!”

  A frantic wail.

  Mom.

  I don’t remember falling off the board—the actual moment is completely erased from memory. My eyes fixate on my leg, which looks twisted and disgusting. Blood trickles down both knees, but my foot is bent in the most grotesque way. I can’t breathe.

  Adrienne hovers over me. I try to sit up, but she puts her hand on my chest. “Don’t move,” she says, her eyes on me for just a second before searching the courtyard. I spot the soccer ball in the flowers.

  “Marie! You need to go get help. Get Barb or Lupe! GO! NOW!” Adrienne shouts.

  Pain pulses up and down my leg. I want to move, to stand up, to straighten my bones into their natural position, but Adrienne holds me in place. “I mean it. Don’t move. You’ll make it worse.”

  Tears wet my cheeks and my whole body shakes from the pain. Marie rushes to me with Barb close behind.

  “I’m here, dear one. The doctor is coming.” Barb says. She looks up. “How’d she fall?”

  “She crashed on the skateboard and went flying.” Adrienne is more out of breath than Marie. “This is the perfect place to break a bone. There are what, three or four doctors on duty?”

  A doctor, a man whom I’ve seen but doesn’t treat Mom, appears and, without a word, touches my leg. I can’t help but whimper. “Inside,” he says.

  They carry me into a large open room and ease me onto a gurney. My good leg dangles off the edge, and the other rests in a straight line, a miracle. I can’t concentrate on their words, just the deep pain. Something is wrong, torn or broken, where the muscle meets the bone.

  Barb clutches my hand. The doctor holds a syringe between his fingers like a cigar. A pile of gauze and a tub of white paste rest on a metal tray. I focus on breathing, inhaling through my nose and e
xhaling through my mouth, a calming trick Mom taught me.

  I remember the screaming, not mine, but Mom’s. “Where’s my mom?” I ask Barb.

  All of the muscles in her face tighten, and she frowns. “Don’t worry, dear one.”

  “You’re going to feel some burning,” the doctor says in perfect English. His accent is as slight as his build. He is barely an inch taller than Adrienne, who stands in the background. He grasps my arm and inserts the needle into my skin. I gasp at the pain.

  “That will help,” the doctor says. He pulls a strip of gauze from the pile and unravels it like a rattlesnake unknots itself before an attack. He focuses on my leg. “I am Dr. Alvarez. I work with the children. The pain will be gone in a moment.”

  Dr. Alvarez is right. I feel my eyelids droop as I listen to Barb’s reassuring voice. I know Adrienne and Marie are in the room, but I’m not sure where. It’s hard to focus. The doctor dips the gauze into the cool plaster, wraps it around my ankle, and smoothes out each strip. I try to concentrate on his seamless motions and guess he is someone who can peel an orange in one long ribbon. Slowly, the pile disappears and he pours the remaining plaster up and down my shin.

  “She will sleep now,” I hear him say. “Stay with her and make sure she doesn’t move her foot. She cannot walk on it. No weight. Understand?”

  I hear footsteps and voices as people leave the room. Someone cradles my hand, someone smaller than me. Marie. When I wake up, she’s gone.

  Dad’s voice fills my ear and I feel his sturdy hand on my shoulder. “Vanessa, Vanessa, wake up.”

  I try to adjust my eyes, to see if he is there or if I’m dreaming. There he is, still in his suit but without his tie. “Hey, kiddo, I’m going to take you home.”

  Pressure radiates up and down my leg, but I barely feel the pain—it still throbs, but from somewhere strange and distant. I barely feel my body. I look around the room. Kitten and rainbow posters line the walls. “Where’s everyone?” I ask.

  “Your sisters are waiting in the lobby.” Carefully, he slides his arms under me. “I’m going to carry you now, okay?”

  I nod. “She was screaming,” I say. “Something’s wrong with Mom.”

  “You were dreaming, honey. Let’s get you into the car.”

  He lifts me off the gurney, holding me with great care, and I close my eyes again, wanting nothing more than to believe him.

  Eight

  I didn’t begin with the piano. Vivaldi introduced me to classical music, with his urgent melodies and passionate arrangements. Everything deep inside me, everything I was scared to feel, much less express, exploded in his music. The Four Seasons. Winter. I’d never seen snow, but if a blizzard felt like his violin, I would have welcomed frostbite and exposure.

  When I started violin lessons, the bow felt long and awkward in my hand, and when I moved it across the strings, I made a keening sound, high and screeching, the sound of something wild and close to death.

  As the painkillers loosen their hold, my leg, from knee to ankle, embodies that sound. Long, taut, and completely dissonant. I clench my jaw and fists. Adrienne strokes my hair. We are in the backseat of the car. She senses pain—Mom taught us that.

  “We’re almost home,” she says.

  Dad talks over his shoulder. “I’m dropping off you and Marie. I’ll take Vanessa to the emergency room before I go back to the clinic.”

  Marie snores in the front seat. She rests her head against the window, and her breath creates a circle of fog on the glass.

  “But she has a cast,” Adrienne says. “Why do you need to go to the hospital?”

  “Did they take an X-ray?” Dad looks at her in the rearview mirror.

  Adrienne shakes her head.

  “Did they even examine her?”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “Kind of.”

  “That’s why we’re going to the emergency room.”

  I stay in the car as Dad carries in Marie, who can sleep through anything. I can’t move from the backseat, can’t block out the searing pain. I want to curl up, to hide from it, but I’m not that strong. Dad speeds through the neighborhood, taking shortcuts and blowing through stop signs.

  The hospital seems quiet and organized, nothing like the clinic. Dad fills out a thick stack of forms and hands them to a woman sitting at the desk.

  The nurse takes one look at me and says, “Let’s bring you back.”

  Dad helps me through the giant double doors to an exam room with a bed. I notice the shiny equipment and realize how outdated the clinic’s rooms are in comparison. Both share the same sterile odors, but this hospital has machines with blinking lights, an intercom paging doctors, and posters about poison and choking hazards.

  A doctor enters, bald, grandfatherly, somewhat stern. He flips through the chart and assesses my cast. He extends his hand to Dad. “Dr. Sato.”

  “Tell him what happened,” Dad says.

  Complete sentences elude me. I do my best to describe the skateboard and the way my contortionist’s leg bent in the wrong direction. I tell him about Dr. Alvarez and the shot as powerful as a horse tranquilizer.

  “Where did this happen?”

  “Enfermería de Paz y Salud in Ensenada,” Dad says.

  “You can’t be serious. Are you sick?” The doctor examines our faces.

  “No, my wife. Leukemia.”

  Dr. Sato turns away and reaches for tools lined on a tray. He selects a pair of pliers and a small saw. He looks at me. “I’m going to remove the cast. It’ll be loud, but it won’t hurt. Tell me if you need me to stop.”

  I nod and turn my head, attempting to ignore the high-pitched buzzing sound. The doctor cuts a straight line down the inside of my thigh, bisecting the cast. When he liberates my leg, it’s swollen twice its normal size, and the skin is blue and purple. He squeezes my leg and instructs me to wiggle my toes, praising me when I do, as if this is an accomplishment.

  “Now,” he says, “move your ankle back and forth.”

  But I can’t.

  He turns to Dad. “We’re going to get some film of that leg.”

  An older man with pale skin enters the room. I guess he’s worked the graveyard shift for at least a decade.

  “Are you ready for the X-ray?”

  I nod and he pushes the gurney into a small room. After bashfully asking if there is a possibility I could be pregnant, he drapes a metal apron over my virgin body and instructs me to stay still.

  He asks too many questions: Does that hurt? Are you okay? Can you turn your leg to the left? Can you turn it more? I wish he would stop talking. Just take the X-ray and let me rest. Please. I’m not sick like Mom.

  If I squint and examine the wall closely, I suspect I’ll see something disgusting. Some small fleck of something human. But the paint looks new and smells of disinfectant, a pungent scent of something pretending to be clean. I rest for a while, sometimes closing my eyes, sometimes examining the wall.

  Just as I nod off, he returns me to Dad.

  Not long after my hazy journey to the X-ray room, the doctor turns on the light box and places the X-rays on the surface, smoothing the edges like he’s hanging new wallpaper. He traces the image of my leg, following the tibia bone. My leg is fine—not broken—a straightforward ankle sprain and a pulled ligament. The majority of the pain came from the irresponsible casting, which was compressing the nerve. Entrapment neuropathy. If Dad hadn’t brought me in, I probably would have needed surgery. I may have had a limp for the rest of my life. Dr. Sato explains my simple recovery. I’ll be spared a cast and crutches. Just a few days of ice packs and elevation. A thick Ace bandage. A blessing.

  “I’d like to speak to you about your wife,” he says to Dad. “I’m sure you’re aware of the controversy surrounding Laetrile.”

  The doctor closes the curtain, shielding me from their conversation. I try to listen to their low and hushed voices, but I can’t make out their words. The curtain gapes open, leaving a view of the other patients. A young
boy, maybe five or six, cries as his skin is stitched. The nurse with the sewing kit coos at him, pausing to wipe away his tears. An older man, bloated from grease or alcohol, rubs his stomach. Careful of my ankle, I turn away from the door.

  They take a few steps closer. I hear the rustle of paper and the quick sound of a pen.

  “She said it was too late for chemo and now we’re at the end,” Dad says.

  “It’s a mistake to pursue this course,” Dr. Sato says. “I can’t emphasize that enough. Does she have nausea, vomiting, headaches, dizziness, difficulty walking?”

  “Yes, everything.”

  “Those are the symptoms of cyanide poisoning,” the doctor says. He enunciates each word, stressing the severity. “These people offer false hope, and they profit from patients and families when they’re most vulnerable. There’s a reason why it’s illegal here. Here’s the name of an oncologist. Tell him I referred you and you need an appointment immediately.” I hear the rip of paper. “He’ll be able to give you a realistic prognosis. They can’t treat your wife at that clinic. Those are not legitimate hospitals. There are plenty of capable physicians in Mexico, but not the Laetrile peddlers.”

  “She’s dying.” I haven’t heard that much anguish in Dad’s voice since the diagnosis. “We’re at the end. I’m going to get her as soon as we’re done here.”

  “Let the oncologist run some tests,” Dr. Sato says.

  The doctor’s words, clearer by the second, flood my mind. Dad said it is over—we are at the end.

  Yet Mom can sit up and hold a conversation.

  She isn’t unconscious.

  And she can scream.

  I know some people think Laetrile is too experimental, but a hoax? This doctor has to be wrong.

  They leave me cocooned until Dad signs the remaining forms. He wheels me to the car in silence. The morning air is crisp and clear; wisps of clouds streak the sky. It is five-thirty and the city is quiet, the freeway empty before the morning commute.

  We drive west, away from the sun, which fills the sky by the time we reach home.

  He clings to my hand the entire way.