“You got it.”
When they’d gone, Meghann leaned back in her chair, rested her head against the wall. In her arms, Ali snored quietly. It seemed like yesterday that Meg had held Claire this way, telling her baby sister that everything would be okay.
“It’s been almost four hours, damn it. What’re they all doin’ in there, anyway?”
Meg looked up. Mama stood there, holding an unlit Virginia Slims cigarette. Her makeup had faded a little, been smudged off in places, and without it, she looked faded, too. “I thought you went out for lunch with everyone.”
“Eat cafeteria food? I don’t think so. I’ll eat an early dinner in my hotel suite.”
“Have a seat, Mama.”
Her mother collapsed into the molded plastic chair beside her. “This is the worst day of my life, honest to God. An that’s sayin’ something.”
“It’s hard. Waiting.”
“I should go find Sam. Maybe he’ll want to play cards or somethin’.”
“Why did you leave him, Mama?”
“He’s a good man” was all Mama said.
At first, Meghann thought it wasn’t an answer. Then she understood.
Mama had run away because Sam was a good man. Meghann could relate to that kind of fear.
“There are things I should have said,” Mama whispered, gesturing impatiently with her unlit cigarette. “But I never was too good without a script.”
“None of us talks really well.”
“And thank God. Talkin’ doesn’t change a thing.” Mama stood up suddenly. “Talkin’ to reporters always cheers me up. Bye, Meggy. I’ll be across the street when”—her voice trembled—“y’all hear that she’s fine.” With that, she sailed out of the waiting room, her smile Hollywood bright.
One hour bled into the next until finally, around 4:00, Dr. Weissman came into the waiting room. Meghann was the first to see him. She tightened her hold on Ali and got to her feet. Bobby stood next; then Sam and Mama; then Joe, Gina, Karen, and Charlotte. In a silent group, they moved toward the doctor, who rubbed a hand through his thinning hair and managed a tired smile.
“The surgery went well.”
“Thank God,” they whispered together.
“But she’s a long way from out of the woods. The tumor was more invasive than we thought.” He looked up at Joe. “The next few hours will tell us more.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
Claire woke up in recovery feeling groggy and confused. A headache pounded behind her eyes. She was about to hit her call button and ask for an Advil when it struck her.
She was alive.
She tested her memory by counting to one hundred and trying to list all the towns she’d lived in as a child, but she’d only made it to Barstow when the first of the nurses came in. After that, she was poked and prodded and tested until she couldn’t think.
Her family took turns sitting with her. Two of her most vivid postsurgery memories were of Bobby, sitting by her bed, holding an ice pack to her head for hours at a time, and of her dad, feeding her ice chips when she got thirsty. Meghann had brought in Ali’s newest drawing; this one was three brightly colored stick figures standing by a river. In an uncertain scrawl across the bottom it read: I love you Momy.
By the second full postop day, Claire had become irritable. She hurt now; her body ached everywhere and the bruises on her forehead from the iron halo had begun to throb like hell. They wouldn’t give her much in the way of pain medication because they didn’t want to mask any surgical aftereffects.
“I feel like shit,” she said to Meghann, who sat in the chair by the window.
“You look like shit.”
Claire managed to smile. “Again with the bedside manner. Do you think they’ll come soon?”
Meghann looked up from her book, which Claire noticed was upside down. “I’ll check again.” Meg put the book down and stood up as the door opened.
Claire’s day-shift nurse, Dolores, walked into the room, smiling. She was pushing an empty wheelchair. “It’s time for your MRI.”
Claire panicked. Suddenly she didn’t want to go, didn’t want to know. She felt better. That was good enough—
Meghann came to her side, squeezed her hand. The touch was enough to get Claire over the hump. “Okay, Dolores. Take me away.”
When they rolled into the hallway, Bobby was there, waiting for them. “Is it time?”
It was Meghann who answered. “It is.”
Bobby held Claire’s hand all the way to Nuclear Medicine. It took an act of will to leave them behind and go down that familiar white hallway alone.
A few minutes later, as she lay once again in the jackhammer coffin of the MRI, she visualized a clean, clear scan of her brain, saw it so clearly that by the time it was over, her temples were wet with tears.
Bobby, Meghann, and Dolores were waiting for her when she was finished.