Heft - By Liz Moore Page 0,49

I cannot hear or reply to. Just let me think a minute, I want to tell him.

Eventually he stops trying.

It seems as if my mother is breathing now but I can’t tell. And I can’t ask. And I want to put my hand on her but I don’t because she is no longer mine, she belongs to the paramedic.

When we get to the hospital they jump out and take my mother with them and I jump out after them in time to see them running her in through the open emergency room door. I run after them. I can run faster than they can. Then they take her through swinging doors and I try to follow them but another nurse stops me in my tracks. I see the top of my mother’s head disappear as the doors close. The way the light is hitting it makes her scalp shine through her thinning hair.

Can’t come back here yet, kiddo, says the nurse, and then she looks back over her shoulder and says something to someone and then says to hang on.

Have a seat in the waiting room for one minute, she says.

I haven’t found my voice yet but I don’t want to obey her. I want to go with my mother. The nurse is a tall lady and fat and she gives me this look that’s a mix of pity and warning so I listen. I walk backwards to a seat and I put my head down on my knees. I do not want to be looked at.

Someone sits down next to me and asks me for my mother’s name and her birth date and her Social Security number and her insurance. I only know the first two. I don’t know if she has any, I say, about insurance. I never lift my head.

When a young doctor comes out and asks me to follow him I do so reluctantly. He takes me to a little room and picks up his clipboard and pen and the first thing he tells me is he’s not a doctor, he’s a med student. He’s not that much older than me. He asks me things about my mother like what medicine she takes and what sicknesses she has.

—Lupus.

He pauses. When was she diagnosed?

—I don’t know. I was little. Ten years ago maybe.

—Is she being treated?

—She was at first.

—With what?

—I forget. The name.

—Plaquenil?

Maybe, I say.

—She doesn’t take anything anymore?

—No.

—When’s the last time she saw a doctor?

I don’t know the answer to this. Five years, probably, I say.

—Why so long?

We’re poor. She’s drunk. All the time. I don’t say this. I shrug.

He is jigging his leg up and down. I think he is very new.

So, he says. Has she tried this before?

What, I say.

He’s stumped. He lifts and lowers his pen.

—Has she ever intentionally hurt herself?

I hesitate. She drinks too much, I say. She passes out a lot.

Eventually he releases me into the waiting room. I put my head down on my knees again. I stay this way for a very long time. I would like to say that I pray but I don’t, I can’t. My mind is blank and I keep it blank. When at last I lift my head I see that I am alone in the room but for one old lady sitting next to me and a couple sitting on the other side. This is the strongest I have ever wanted a family. Other people to worry with. I am the only person worrying for her and it feels to me like this diminishes her odds of recovery. To have many people praying for you suddenly seems like a necessary thing, and I consider telling the woman next to me what is happening if only to have another person thinking about my mom. She looks nice, the woman next to me. She’s a grandmother I think. She’s wearing grandmother shoes. She’s knitting. I wish I could knit. I wish I could do something with my hands.

I can’t speak, though. I can’t do anything.

It’s eight at night. I see by a clock on the wall.

My mind goes toward places I don’t want it to go. I feel superstitious about letting it go there. Skipping ahead toward scenes I don’t want to imagine. When I was a boy I did this sometimes. In elementary school I imagined her dead and then pinched myself to prevent it from happening. Always the same way: I imagined being called out of gym class, called to the principal’s office,