I shrug. “Sit here with you.”
He smiles at me. And I see so much of Logan in him that it hurts. He rolls to the edge of the bed and lifts himself up to sit. “Let’s go watch a movie.”
I nod, taking his hand in mine to help him to his feet. He lets me, but he groans as he gets up. “You sure you can do this?” I ask.
“Remember when I told you I was going to suck every minute out of life that I could?” He stares at me. I am a little worried that he’s trying to gather enough energy to walk into the living room.
“Let’s go suck at life,” I say. “Do you want some popcorn?” I ask over my shoulder. He’s following me.
“Why not?” he asks flippantly. “Popcorn and I’m going to snuggle with Logan’s girl.” His voice is farther behind me. But he’s coming, so I start the popcorn. The steady pop, pop, pop has started when I realize he hasn’t followed me into the kitchen.
There’s a thud in the hallway, and I jump. “Matt?” I ask, walking back in that direction. But Matt’s lying on the floor. He’s drooling, and his body is convulsing. “Oh, shit,” I say. “Matt!” I yell. I roll him onto his side, because I heard that’s what you do when someone convulses. Or maybe it’s that you’re supposed to roll him onto his back. Shit, shit, shit. I don’t know. “Pete!” I yell.
Pete opens his door, he’s in a pair of boxers and he drags his shirt over his head. “What?” he asks. Then he sees Matt lying on the floor. “What the fuck?” he says, and he drops down beside Matt.
“Go call 911,” I say calmly. When he sits there and doesn’t move, I shove him and yell in his face. “Go call 911!”
He shakes out of his fear induced stupidity and runs to the phone.
He gives them the address and stays on the phone with them until the ambulance arrives. He gets dressed while he talks to them, stepping into his jeans in front of me, but I don’t care. His girlfriend leaves. She’s not worth the air she’s breathing, apparently.
Matt calms and I lift his head into my lap. I wipe the spittle from his face with my sleeve and brush his hair back from his forehead. He’s still. Too still. I hadn’t realized how much hair he’d lost with the chemo. It’s thinner than I thought it was. I brush across his face. “Not yet. It’s too soon,” I whisper to him.
I follow the paramedics as they carry him downstairs. “One of you can ride along,” the paramedic says.
Pete looks at me and says, “I need to get my brothers.” He runs a heavy hand through his buzz cut.
He knows where they are and I don’t know how to get there. None of them carry cell phones because it’s not in their budget.
“Go get some shoes,” I say. He looks down at his nak*d feet and nods.
He shoves me into the ambulance and they close the door behind us. The rest of the world falls away, and I can no longer hear the sounds of the street or the blaring horns. All I can hear is the unsteady beat of Matt’s heart on the monitor. Every time it stutters, mine flips in my chest, my breath leaving me. I lean over and take Matt’s hand.
“It would be better if you don’t touch him,” they say.
I nod and sit back, buckling the seat belt in the jump seat they pointed me toward.
My hands are shaking and I don’t know what to do with myself. They start IV’s and look into his eyes and do a lot of things I don’t understand.
He doesn’t wake up. I worry that he never will.
Paul gets to the hospital first, and he’s carrying Hayley on his hip. She’s frantic, and she wants to know why they can’t finish their date. I hold out my hands and she comes to me, settling against my chest. “What happened?” Paul asked.
“He just fell down in the hallway and started to shake,” I try to explain. But I’m trying to be strong since I’m holding Hayley.
“Can we see him?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Not yet. They took him back and they’re working on him.”
Paul goes to the payphone and drops in some change. He turns his back to me and talks for a minute. Then he comes and takes Hayley back from my arms. “Now we wait,” he says.
Hayley pats his cheek, and I see tears well up in his eyes. “Where’s Matt?” Hayley asks.
“Matt’s with the doctors,” he explains, blinking hard.
“Dey gonna make him all betta?” she asks. She’s following his gaze with hers, not letting him off the hook. She frowns when he doesn’t answer.
“They’re going to work hard to make him better,” I tell her.
“Thank you,” Paul chokes out. I nod. I can’t say more than that. Hayley holds out her arms to me again, and I take her to sit down. We read upside down books until a woman comes rushing through the doors. She runs to Paul. Her hair is up in a ponytail and she’s almost as tall as he is. But she’s stunning. Hayley has Paul’s hair color and eyes, but everything else about her is her mother.
She leans into Paul to her and he hugs her tightly. I hear them murmuring to one another but I can’t hear what they’re saying. She comes to me and takes Hayley in her arms. “Thank you,” she says.
I look into her eyes. She’s kind. I can tell. And I can also see that she’s head over heels in love with Paul. She walks over to him, whispers something in his ear, and he nods. She kisses him on the lips, and he kisses her back. “I’ll call you when I find out what’s going on,” he says.
She leaves with Hayley. Paul takes a deep breath and sits down beside me, his elbows on his knees. “He wasn’t in a lot of pain, was he?” he asks.
“Not that I could tell.” He was convulsing. But not in pain. I doubt he was feeling much.
“That’s my biggest fear. That he’ll be in a lot of pain when it happens. It scares me to death.”
“So you’ve thought about it,” I blurt out. I want to take it back immediately. But it’s too late.
“Thought about it.” He snorts. “It’s all I ever f**king think about. Ever.” His voice cracks on the last word. “I’m his big brother. I’m supposed to be able to save him from anything that could hurt him. But I can’t save him from this.”
I just listen, because there’s nothing I can say to comfort him.
A tear drop rolls down his cheek and he brushes it away with a hurried swipe. “He knows how much you care,” I say. It’s probably the wrong thing to tell him.
“The f**ker better know how I feel about him. I’d die for every last one of them. I wish it was me instead of him. I’d trade places with him in a heartbeat.”
“He wouldn’t let you.” It’s the truth.
Paul chuckles. But it’s a sound without any merriment.
The doors of the hospital slide open and Logan, Pete and Sam run in. I hop out of my chair fall into Logan’s arms, because I know he’ll catch me. He squeezes me to him and rubs my hair for a second. Paul walks over and starts to speak to him. They’re all signing, but I can follow it. He explains.
Can we see him? Logan asks.
Paul shakes his head. “Not yet. They’ll let us know when we can.”
If we can. But no one says that out loud.
Logan drops his arm around me and pulls me into him. His face is in my hair and I can feel the warm caress of his breath against my neck. I lift my head and look up at him. “It’s bad,” I say.
He closes his eyes and lays the tips of his fingers against his temple. He knows.
Now we wait.
They’re all draped over the furniture in the waiting room, taking up a ton of space. But no one else is there, so it hasn’t mattered. Any one of these boys would give their seat up for someone else. Pete took Sam’s socks about an hour ago, and Sam put his shoes back on with none. Pete was barefoot. I somehow knew he wouldn’t go back inside. He went for his brothers instead.
It seems like days later when a doctor comes to talk to the family. It could have been minutes. It could have been hours. It feels like days.
The doctor sighs heavily and starts to talk. I hear snippets of it over the pulse that’s pounding in my head.
The chemo didn’t work.
He’s worse than he was.
They can call hospice.
“There’s nothing else you can do?” Paul asks.
The doctor sits down with them. “We’ve exhausted every opportunity. There are some trials that he could get into, but the chances are small. And the one that would most benefit him is very expensive.”
He waits. A pregnant silence falls over the room. “How expensive?” Paul asks.
“Hundreds of thousands,” the doctor says. “He doesn’t even have medical insurance.”
So that’s it. They don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars so their brother dies.
I wipe a tear from my cheek. “This treatment, it could save him?” I ask. “Or would it just prolong the inevitable?”
He looks at me like I’m the most ridiculous person he’s ever met. “They’re having good success with it. There are no guarantees, however.”
“But it would give him a chance?”
“The best he could have.”
I nod. Logan squeezes me to him. I’ll be right back, I sign to him. I know what I have to do. My heart is breaking in two. But I know what my choices are.
Where are you going? he asks.
Restroom. I’ll be right back.
You ok?
I nod. He watches me walk away, his gaze boring into my back. I can feel it all the way down the hall. I don’t stop at the bathroom, though. I keep walking until I find a payphone.
I pick up the handle and a weird sort of peace settles over me. I press the button for the operator. “Collect call to California, please,” I say. I rattle off the number. It’s Saturday afternoon. My dad will be in the office.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
“Mr. Madison’s office,” a chipper voice says.
“You have a collect call from – caller, state your name?” the operator says.
“I’d like to talk with Mr. Madison, please,” I reply.
“We’ll accept the charges.” There’s a stillness on the other end of the line. “Emily, is that you?” the voice says. There’s hope in her voice. She’s been my dad’s secretary for as long as I can remember.
“Can I talk with him, please?” I ask.
The line goes dead for a moment, and then my dad picks up. “Emily?” he asks. I can almost hear the beat of his heart through the phone in the stillness.
“Dad,” I say.
“Em,” he says on a long sigh, like he’s deflating. There’s a clank and I imagine him taking his glasses off his nose and laying them on the table. “Where are you?”
“I need some help, Dad,” I say. I lay my forehead against the cool tiles on the wall and try not to cry. I want to cry for all that I’m giving up. I want to cry for all that I’m giving them. But mostly, I want to cry for me.
“Anything, Emily,” he says. His breath catches. “You’re not hurt, are you?”