Chapter 8
I heard Helen before I saw her. The chair beside my ICU bed scraped a little too loud and then her veil rustled. She hadn't taken it off since the crematorium hall. I could smell the faint powder and hairspray I always associated with her, and underneath it the cold stone smell from that building was still on her clothes.
Her hand hovered over mine but didn't land. She was afraid to touch me wrong, like I might break again.
"Elena," she whispered. Her voice was raw. "Honey."
I tried to turn my head. I got half an inch. My eyes found the two gold crosses at her throat. They'd been there in the hall when she'd had her hand over her mouth. Now they rested against her black dress and caught the fluorescent light every time she breathed.
Daniel stood at the foot of the bed. He hadn't left the room except when the nurses made him.
Helen leaned forward. The words came out in a rush, like she'd been holding them since the furnace room.
"I told you to trust him," she said. "Dr. Brenner. I told you not to worry Daniel, that good wives don't make a fuss. I told you to pray about the dizziness instead of calling again."
Daniel's jaw tightened but he didn't interrupt her.
"I told you obedience was protection," she said. Her hand finally found mine, her gold bracelet cold against my wrist next to my silver rosary. "I was so sure. I thought if you were quiet and faithful, God and the doctor would take care of it."
I wanted to answer. In my head the sentence was clear: It wasn't your fault. But my throat wouldn't make sound and my fingers wouldn't squeeze. My eyes stayed on her crosses and a tear slipped without me meaning it. I didn't have the strength to absolve her, even though I wanted to.
She saw it. Her face crumpled. "You don't have to forgive me. I just needed you to hear me say it."
The waiting area outside the ICU was too bright at seven that evening. Helen had folded her veil back and her hair underneath was pressed flat. She sat with a styrofoam cup of coffee she hadn't touched. Daniel crouched beside her chair so they were eye level. I was watching from the bed through the open door, the nurses had left the curtain half pulled because I got anxious when I couldn't see the hall.
"I don't know how to be here," Helen said to Daniel. Her voice was low. "Every time I pray I hear the furnace."
"Then don't pray for a fix," Daniel said. He spoke quietly, the way he'd learned to with me, a small pause before each sentence. "Just listen."
Helen looked at him, surprised. "I don't know how to do nothing."
"You're not doing nothing," he said. "You're sitting here. You came. Mom, she doesn't need us to explain it away. She needs us to stay when it's uncomfortable."
Helen's hands twisted around the cup. The gold ring on her finger caught the light. "I kept telling her not to question authority. Like that was holy."
Daniel didn't defend her and didn't attack her. He just put his hand over hers for a second. "We both did."
Later the nurse wheeled me to the little chapel on the second floor because Helen asked if she could pray with me. It wasn't a real chapel, just a beige room with four chairs and a plastic plant and a cross on the wall. The air smelled like floor cleaner.
Helen held my rosary bracelet between both of hers. The silver beads were warm from my wrist.
"Would you like me to say the rosary?" she asked me. She was careful now, asking instead of deciding.
I blinked once for yes. My speech therapist had told them one blink meant yes, two meant no. It was the only reliable signal I had that day.
She started, her voice steady at first, then shaking. Hail Mary, full of grace. The beads clicked. After the second decade she stopped.
"The doctor said the beads don't regulate blood pressure," she said suddenly, looking at Daniel in the doorway. "He said that when you asked about side effects."
Daniel nodded. "He said to double the dose."
Helen stared at the rosary in her hands, then at my face. The tension was right there between prayer and action. She had always believed prayer was action enough. Now she was holding the thing she'd told me to cling to while the medicine was shutting me down.
"I prayed instead of driving her back to the clinic," she said. Her voice was barely audible. "I thought I was protecting her."
I blinked once. I meant I heard her. I didn't mean go ahead and keep praying like nothing changed. I didn't have another way to say it.
Daniel walked over and knelt beside the chairs. He gently took the rosary and placed it back around my wrist, then covered both our hands with his.
"We pray," he said to his mother, "and we make them check her chart twice. Both."
Helen nodded and tears came finally without her hand over her mouth to hide them. She didn't pull away.
When they brought me back to the room, Dr. Patel came for evening rounds. Helen didn't stand in the corner anymore.
She stood up straight, veil folded over her arm now, crosses visible, and she stepped to the side of my bed where the doctor could see her.
"Will you write down the name of what she had?" she asked. "The catalepsy. And what medicine caused it. I want to learn it so I don't miss it again."
Dr. Patel looked a little surprised, then he wrote it on the whiteboard: drug-induced catalepsy - lorazepam toxicity suspected - pending review.
Helen copied it into a small notebook she kept in her purse, her handwriting slow and careful. Then she looked at me.
"I'm going to be at every consult," she said. "If you want me. One blink."
May you like
I blinked once. The effort made my eyes water but I did it.
She sat back down and didn't leave when visiting hours ended until the nurse told her she had to, and even then she said she'd be back at seven in the morning before the next team rounded.
