Chapter 19
My phone buzzed.
I'd been in the chair beside Bonnie's ICU bed for some part of every one of the last three nights. Bonnie was sleeping. The monitor over her bed had been the same for three days. The numbers on it had been the same.
The phone was on my lap, and it buzzed again.
The number was a hospital number.
"Hello?"
"Ms. Vela?"
"Yes."
"This is Patricia. I'm calling from the surgical scheduling office at the foundation."
"Yes."
"Ms. Vela, I have your daughter's name in front of me, and I don't get to make calls like this very often on a Monday morning. We have moved her up."
I didn’t — I couldn’t — I wasn’t breathing.
"Ms. Vela, are you with me?"
"Yes. Yes, I'm with you."
"Bonnie has been reclassified. We are doing a preoperative review. The surgery is on Thursday morning. The surgeon is Dr. Garrison. The procedure is the septal myectomy Dr. Reyes has been requesting."
"Patricia, did you say Thursday?"
"Thursday. Yes, ma'am. The surgery is on Thursday. Six days from now."
There was a knock at the door.
Dr. Reyes was at the door. He had a chart against his chest, his glasses up in his hair. He saw the phone in my ear. He stopped in the doorway and waited.
"Patricia, Patricia, I have to go. Dr. Reyes is here."
"Yes, ma'am. We will be in touch. I'll email you the pre-op time."
"Thank you. Thank you, Patricia. Thank you."
I hung up.
Dr. Reyes was watching me. "You got the call."
"I got the call. Dr. Reyes — "
"They also called me at sunrise."
He came over to me. Dr. Reyes wasn't a man who hugged, but he put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it once.
"We are going on Thursday, Sabrina."
"Thursday."
"Garrison. Memorial. Three days from this morning."
The crying came up.
It came up bigger than the room. Dr. Reyes didn't move. He stood there with his hand on my shoulder. He let me cry until Bonnie shifted in the bed behind us. He glanced at Bonnie, then turned back to me.
"I have to do rounds. I'll be back in a few hours."
"Yeah."
"I'll see you Thursday morning at Memorial."
He left.
I texted Beau.
Sabrina
Surgery Thursday. They moved her up. Beau, they moved her up. Come.
He texted back within thirty seconds.
Beau
On my way. Where do I find you?
Sabrina
She's now in ICU 4. Room 12.
Beau
I'm in the lobby. Five minutes.
He came in five minutes.
He had to put on the gown and the booties at the door, and he paused in the doorway with the booties half-on to look at me.
I walked to him.
He met me.
He had me in his arms, my face in his sweater, the soft one I’d been sleeping in last week. It still smelled like him, and I was, for the first time since the seizure, crying without panic for a long time.
“They moved her up. Dr. Reyes — Reyes said they called him at sunrise. He said Garrison is the surgeon. Beau, the surgeon Dr. Reyes wanted is the surgeon she is getting."
"This is wonderful news, Sabrina. I’m relieved."
Bonnie woke up.
She was groggy and was coming up out of it slowly, and her hair was on one side of her face, and her hand was around the edge of Walter, who had been on the bed beside her since the paramedics had brought him in.
"Mom."
"Hi, baby."
"Why is your face — "
"I was crying, baby. Good crying."
"There is no such thing as good crying."
"There is today."
"Mmm…"
She looked past me.
"Beau."
"Hi, Bonnie."
"You are wearing a gown."
"I am."
"You look funny."
"I know."
After a brief moment, she fell back asleep.
Bonnie was moved out of the ICU into a regular pediatric ward room. The room had a window. The view wasn't anything special. But it was a step in the right direction.
Mrs. Park did her rotation. She came in twice a day, in the morning and the evening.
She sat with Bonnie when I needed to step out, and she sat with me when I needed company.
She also made me eat the food in the cafeteria that I'd told her, on three separate occasions, I wasn't going to eat, but I had to. Mrs. Park doesn't lose.
Kit came by the next afternoon.
He came with a paper bag from the lobby vending machine. The bag had four kinds of candy in it, one of which had been on the bottom row of the machine, which was the row Kit always picked from because Kit liked, on principle, the candy nobody else picked.
"Kit, she can't eat all of that," I said.
"But she can eat some of that. Come on, let the girl enjoy her chocolate," Kit smiled
Bonnie was already opening the package.
“Hi, Bonnie,” Kit said, leaning in like he’d been invited.
“Hi, Kit,” she replied, without looking up from the package.
“I brought you a Charleston Chew,” he announced, like it was a diplomatic gift.
“What is a Charleston Chew?” she asked, suspicious.
“It’s the chocolate-covered nougat stick everyone forgets exists,” he explained, solemnly. “It is the candy of my people.”
Bonnie finally looked at him. “Who are your people?”
Kit grinned. “Bartenders,” he said, as if that explained everything.
Bonnie ate one Charleston Chew. She declared it acceptable. She gave Kit's other recommendations — a roll of Necco Wafers, a packet of orange Smarties, a piece of black licorice — a thumb-up, a thumb-down, and a hand-shaking gesture.
Kit laughed harder than I'd heard him laugh in a year.
The next afternoon, Cade and Suzanne came.
Cade brought Bonnie a book — Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness — which was, by Cade's hesitant explanation, a follow-up to the cephalopod book Beau had been reading her. It was a grown-up book. Bonnie didn't care. She demanded that Beau read it to her tonight.
Beau took the book. He looked at the cover, then at his brother.
"Cade, you read this?"
"Yeah, I did. I noticed it was related to the cephalopod book you mentioned she was interested in. The reading was, on my part, deliberate."
Beau and Cade laughed.
Bonnie smiled. “Thank you very much. I love it.”
“You’re welcome, Bonnie,” Cade said.
Suzanne brought a thermos.
She brought it to me without comment and unscrewed the lid. She poured the lid full and held it out to me.
"It’s chicken soup, my mother's recipe. I've been making it since I was twenty-two and have found it to be the only thing that makes a hospital chair survivable."
"Suzanne, you didn’t have to."
"Drink it, Sabrina."
I drank it, and she sat with me by the window for an hour.
Bonnie was already moved to Memorial where Dr. Garrison was supposed to operate. Vivienne came the day before surgery.
She came with a coffee from the place on the corner, with cream and a sugar packet on the side, because Vivienne hadn't, since I'd met her, given up the discipline of asking what people took in their coffee.
"Sabrina, I brought you coffee."
"You didn't have to, but thank you."
"Try the coffee later. It’s good."
She talked about the coffee shop on the corner and the new owner's mother, a retired ballet dancer.
She spoke like someone who had spent long hours at a sickbed and learned which words help and which only weigh things down.
Vivienne knew. She had been at her husband's bedside until the last moments of his life.
That night, I went home.
Mrs. Park stayed at the hospital with a pillow under her arm and a bag with three changes of clothes and a look that had told me, without her saying it, that I had to go home tonight, whether I'd decided to go or not.
I took Beau with me. I'd simply, on the way out of the lobby, taken his hand, and he let himself be taken.
He drove us to my apartment.
I leaned my head against the window, and he kept his hand on the gearshift.
The apartment hadn't been lived in for some days. The cephalopod book was on the couch. Pickles was on the back of the couch. He came down to me. He wound around my ankles in a slow motion, looking a little sad.
Beau leaned down and held his hand out to Pickles.
Pickles walked around Beau's ankles too.
We went to the bedroom and didn't turn on the light. We took our clothes off in the dark and got into bed. He pulled the covers up and embraced me.
I put my face on his neck and didn't move for a long time.
"Beau."
"Mmm…"
"After this, after she’s okay, we need to talk."
"Yeah."
"About what we are."
He was very still. He had been still for a moment longer than the question had earned.
"Okay, don’t worry. We will talk."
I kissed his neck because I didn't have the words for the thing I wanted to say, and the kiss was something I could give in the dark with a man I'd been telling myself I wasn't allowed to feel about.
I slept peacefully that night.
Surgery morning came.
Bonnie was up early. The nurses had been in to do the pre-op vitals. She was in a hospital gown that was too big on her, and her hair was in a ponytail Mrs. Park had put in, because Bonnie had said the ponytail was important enough that I hadn't been the one allowed to do it.
Walter was on the bed.
He was going into the OR. The nurses had agreed to send Walter in with Bonnie because the nurses hadn't been able to convince Bonnie that Walter wasn't allowed in the OR. Bonnie had won the argument.
I was in scrubs.
The nurses had given me scrubs to wear into pre-op. The scrubs were green and a size too big.
Beau was in the family area.
He had on a different sweater. He had a coffee in each hand with Mrs. Park beside him on a chair. Kit had arrived with a duffel bag containing a change of clothes for me, three energy bars, two paperback books, and the scarf I'd left at the bar. Kit had taken the day off from the bar.
The pre-op nurse came to the door.
"Ms. Vela, it is time."
I went to pre-op with her.
The pre-op room had three beds, each with a curtain. Bonnie was in the middle bed. She had Walter in the curve of her arm. The IV had already been put in her hand.
I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at Bonnie.
She took it with the hand that didn't have the IV. Her hand was small and warm. Her fingernails were painted. I hadn't realized that her fingernails had been painted. She had asked Mrs. Park to paint them. They were pink with a sparkle in them.
She looked at me. "Mom."
"Yes, baby."
"I love you."
"I love you too, Bonnie."
"I love you so much, and I want you to know that."
"Bonnie — "
"In case. You should know it. I should say it more often."
I kept my face still. Dr. Reyes told me that the children's anesthesia team didn't need a parent crying in the room.
I didn't let her see me break.
I put my forehead against hers. "I love you, Bonnie."
"I love you too, Mom."
She breathed.
"Mommy."
"Yes."
"It is gonna be okay. You don't have to cry. I'm okay. I just…I just don't want to leave you."
I broke quietly — I didn't let her see all of it — but I broke. I hugged her and cried into her shoulder for a beat that was longer than any beat I'd let myself have all morning.
The nurses came in.
"Ms. Vela, it is time. We are going to wheel her in three minutes."
"Yes."
I kissed her cheek, her forehead, and her cheek again.
"I love you, baby."
"I love you too, Mom. I'll see you when I wake up."
"You will see me when you wake up."
"Tell Pickles and Beau I said bye."
"I'll tell them."
I stepped out.
The nurses pulled the curtain. The curtain hid her. I walked to the door and stepped out into the corridor.
Bonnie was my whole world, the only reason I got up every morning. I just wanted her to have a normal life — to run without her chest hurting, to go to school like every other kid, to grow up beautiful and strong and free. I didn't need miracles. I just needed the surgery to work.
The corridor was bright.
I walked back to the family lounge, and Beau was in the chair he had been in. Mrs. Park was across from him. Kit was on his phone.
Beau saw me and stood up. He held me until my trembling eased.
I sat down beside him.
He had his phone in his hand.
He had been looking at it.
He glanced up at me when I sat down and looked at me like he had been waiting for me to come back.
"Sabrina."
"Yeah."
"Can you finish this? I'm trying to text my mom about what is going on, but I can't find the right words. I can't do it right now."
He held the phone out at me.
I took it.
The text said, “Mom, Bonnie is in pre-op. Sabrina is with her. Her surgery has just started. I…” The text was missing the next sentence, the one where you tell your mother how you are doing, and Beau hadn't, by his own admission, been able to write that sentence.
"Help me word it."
"Beau."
"I can't, Sabrina. I've been staring at it."
I took the phone.
My finger went to the keyboard.
I was thinking about what Beau wanted to say to his mother. I'd been a mother for nine years, and I'd been asked by men who didn't know how to talk to their mothers to help them write a text, and I'd developed a small expertise over the years.
A notification slid down from the top of the screen.
Aldridge
Mr. Cross, confirming Vela surgery underway. Per your directive and the discretionary review form filed on Monday, the reschedule has been processed in the system. Will follow up after.
I read it.
I read it again.
Vela.
Cross.
Per your directive.
Beau hadn't told me he’d made a directive or a call about a discretionary review form. He hadn't told me they'd rescheduled.
I had gotten a call from a woman named Patricia, who had told me there had been a priority reclassification. I'd thanked Patricia three times, but I hadn't asked Patricia why.
My thumb moved and tapped the notification.
The thread opened with three messages.
Aldridge
Mr. Cross, confirming priority reclassification per the chairman's discretionary review. Vela case escalated. Preoperative review done. Surgery will be on Thursday. Will need signed paperwork.
Beau
Confirmed. Will sign in person today. Forms on your desk by noon.
Aldridge
Mr. Cross, confirming Vela surgery underway. Per your directive and the discretionary review form filed on Monday, the reschedule has been processed in the system. Will follow up after.
I read all three.