grabs onto my mom’s arm. My mom has been sleeping at the hospital with me. They don’t have any cots, so she’s been living in the waiting room with other sad strangers. Webs of redness cover the whites of her eyes and the supple skin of her cheeks has gone chalk-dry from too much AC. She’s undone. She hasn’t been undone like this since the day she gave birth to me in a room just like this one.
“Baby, RuRu, Mommy’s here.”
I attempt another smile for her when she comes closer and she nearly collapses from the joy of it. She has been waiting for me, brushing my hair, singing me songs, and wishing she could travel with me into the jungly space between life and death. Over and over, she traces my face from the bottom of my chin to my forehead and then ski-jumps off the tip of my nose. I bat my gummy lids at her and she belly-laughs. It’s like she’s just become a mother all over again.
I want to speak to her but I can’t, I can’t make any sounds with the tube down my throat. I move my fingers a little, just below the restraint, and the motion startles both of us. I uncurl my pointer finger and write I love you on the bed with the tip in an invisible ink only she can read. My mom loves Jesus but she was angry at God for a long time, after cancer took her mama when she was just thirteen years old. As she kisses my hands and watches me drift back into sleep, she feels completely loved by him.
When something happens in St. Francisville, people show up. The accident doesn’t just happen to me and to my family—it happens to everyone. The entire parish, all colors and classes, all the different people, waits to see me two at a time, loosely corralled by side tables and rows of plastic chairs. They drain the vending machines of Mountain Dew, pass out tins of oatmeal cookies, and fall asleep upright, heads leaning into each other when the caffeine wears off. People who have never spoken before become friends, they share newspapers and snacks, they take care of each other while they take care of me. The West Feliciana High mathematics department comes to visit, Lile’s ex-girlfriends, the Ladies in Pearls, Jamise and the Pams, the people from the Episcopal church, the Catholic church, and Frannie’s all-day-long church in Hardwood, they all come, even Chuncky, the toughest girl in school, who loves to pick on me and is so imposing that she’s never, ever corrected for spelling her own nickname wrong. She makes sure to tell my mom that she’s my very best friend, but apparently everyone says that. Still-hot suppers are delivered to my mom nightly in Tupperware steamed all the way up the sides and she tells me there have never been more competing casseroles in one place.
“You are so loved,” she says to me, and I hope she knows that she’s loved too. She has never been very good at receiving that truth.
My daddy is a celebrity here, so I always know when he arrives; it is the best part of my day. Former students and neighbors mob him when he steps off the elevator, inundating him with hopeful stories, giving him a meal for the Deepfreeze, asking him if there’s anything, anything at all they can do to help. He’s the man who taught most of them how to show up, the man who at some point showed up for them, for their families. He winds his way out of conversation as politely as he can and turns up the long hallway to my room. He is finally alone with the anticipation of seeing me. His slippery-soled work shoes click and clack on the tile, quicker and louder the closer he gets. Once he crosses the threshold, it’s a homecoming for both of us. He holds my hand in his and says, “Pat, pat. Rub, rub. God loves you, Daddy loves you,” over and over again and I almost forget that I’m not five years old and beside him in his big bed. I feel peaceful here, held, enveloped by God’s love and minded by his angels. My daddy comes often but he can never stay long; sitting next to me as I sit next to death, quiet and still, is too much for him. He leaves so I don’t have to see