Good For You

hidden from her coworkers, worn next to her heart.

***

Dad and I travel back and forth between LA and Dad and I travel back and forth between LA and Indianapolis while Mom remains steadfastly by Deb’s side.

When she can be coaxed to leave the hospital for a few hours, she spends them at Deb’s apartment, where she tends my sister’s balcony ful of plants but doesn’t get enough sleep to remove the circles from under her eyes.

My mother and sister have both always been slim. Now, they’re both more emaciated every time I return from LA.

Once I apprise him of the fact, Dad and I begin to press food on Mom—jars of cashews, buttered blueberry muffins, turkey sandwiches topped with avocado.

I postpone my admission to Berkeley for a semester. I don’t tel my parents that at the moment, I can’t imagine myself there at al . Thanks to donated air miles, Dad and I get into a rhythm of swapping off—hospital, home, hospital, home—so we don’t impose further on anyone to watch the house or feed and walk Esther. I hardly see my father, our flights passing each other like that saying about ships in the night. My strongest feelings are reserved for anything relating to a change in Deb’s condition.

Her doctors used innovative, controversial approaches to lessen the swel ing in her brain, and the terror that we could lose her diminished, too. There’s been little change since she was successful y removed from life support. The monitors prove a low level of brain activity, and when she’s awake, her eyes are open. But if I move directly into her line of vision, it’s like I’m made of glass. She just stares right through. She doesn’t speak or react to voices unless they’re very loud—and then her only responses appear to be irritation or pain.

be irritation or pain.

The doctors yel at her in attempts to provoke a response, and Mom sits stoical y, while I can barely stand to watch my sister flinch over and over. They ask me to try, hoping she might respond to my voice.

“Deb, can you hear me?” I say, and they insist louder, louder. “Deb, can you hear me? Can you hear me, Deb?” I’m screaming, but the volume only makes her recoil, and I run from the room, weak and ineffective, gasping for breath and slumping against the hal way wal , sinking lower and swal owing tears. I bury my face against my knees, wishing this was al a nightmare, and I could just wake up.

My mother joins me as I huddle on the floor, opening her arms. “It’s okay, Dori. They won’t ask you to do it again.” I let myself cry, because I don’t want her to let go. This embrace is for me, and I want it desperately even while I berate myself for leaning on Mom for comfort. She doesn’t need me to break down and add to her burden.

Bradford remains close by, but I wonder how long that wil last. He and Deb weren’t married; their relationship wasn’t even public knowledge. Excluded from decisions concerning her care except where his opinion is quietly sought by my parents, he has no official place in her life—

this woman he wanted to marry, the person with whom he intended to link his future. As Mom and the chaplain prayed over her stil form yesterday, requesting miracles on her behalf, my eyes met Bradford’s. I saw my grief mirrored there, as wel as my recognition of her prognosis. The girl we love is not coming back.

There’s no discussing reality with Mom when she constantly addresses Deb as though she’s capable of making a coherent reply at any moment. “How are you feeling today, sweetie? Looks like your hair is growing back in—time for a trim, don’t you think?” Her fingers run lovingly over the sparse spots on Deb’s head as my sister stares straight ahead at nothing. Mom chatters on about the weather and I fade from the room, because it’s almost as unbearable as watching people yel at my sister to get a response.

When I’m home in LA, I see my friends, fel ow church members, or Nick—who brings me food and stays to sit and talk when he’s home from col ege, though we skirt sensitive subjects like my newly aimless life or Deb’s increasingly unlikely recovery. Two months ago, I confided in my sister and counted on my parents. They each encouraged my independence, but they were always there.

Now there is no hand to steady me and no net beneath me, and I’m more isolated than I thought it was possible to be.

“Dori is such a little rock for Doug and Jocelyn,” I overhear Mrs. Perez tel Mrs. K one Sunday. “They don’t have to worry about her fal ing apart.”

Too late, I realize what my show of strength costs me.

I’ve become disconnected, and the people in my life have become mirages. When I reach for them, my fingers go right through.

There is only one exception—Reid.

I can’t explain it, but whenever I catch sight of him on television or a magazine cover, I’m connected to my former life, my former self, even if it’s just for a moment. I’ve memorized times and channels for entertainment news programs that I’ve never watched, flipping rapidly between channels in the first two minutes. My pulse quickens when he appears in the teasers, like a monkey who’s learned to press a lever and get a treat. He’s a drug, and I need him. I tel myself that this is a safe obsession, because he has no knowledge of it.

Sometimes I wake from dreams of him, shuddering with longing. In these waking moments I come back to reality unwil ingly, grounded by Esther, who sleeps pressed to my chest like an extension of me. She is proof that I’m alive—

my ear snuggled against her chest, attuned to the faint gurgles of her soft stomach and the steady drum of her heart, my nose breathing in her familiar doggy scent, my face and fingers buried in her fur, stroking her beloved warm body.