“I’m not mad, sweet girl.”
Close to midnight, her infusion finally finished. As we passed through the lobby, Gracie asked to ride in a wheelchair she spotted languishing in a corner. I didn’t like the idea of her playing sick. But she’d had a crummy day, and I wanted to make her happy. “Fine.”
She hoisted herself onto the seat with a little wheeze. Come on left lung, keep it together.
It was late, she’d had no real dinner, she’d spent all day hooked up to a machine doling out medicine, but she was in a purely sweet mood. As we pushed through the double doors into the parking lot, I took in a huge breath of damp, warm, living air, soaked in oxygen by the million exhalations of the countless green things of this Durham spring. Surely this had to be better for her than canned hospital air. Hospitals, what a bad idea. Except when you need them. Above us, a single star struck a pinprick of light in the dark dome of sky. I stopped pushing her wheelchair to say a prayer for her, and for Varun.
Gracie noticed that we had stopped and wanted to know why. I said I was praying for a boy who was sick and had to spend tonight in the hospital.
Gracie said, “Who is sick?”
“A boy,” I said, not wanting to tell her, hoping she’d let it go.
“Why is he sick?”
I said there is no real reason, he is just sick, it happens. She wasn’t satisfied.
“Say why.”
I reinforced how she, Gracie, was well enough to go home, and we didn’t always know why.
“That little thing followed us here,” she said, pointing up to the star.
As we drove home, she said, “Guess what?! It’s magic. That little thing is still following us.” And then later, “Mom, guess what? It was behind a cloud, and then it came out. Isn’t that magic?” I didn’t know what was magic and what wasn’t. I didn’t know why we got to drive home, chatting about stars, while Varun didn’t. I didn’t know what to count on, whether Gracie’s cough might progress or disappear by morning.
I tried to live with these cohabiting facts: Varun was off the vent but not yet back at home; Gracie had the beginnings of a cough that could worsen; the night sky was as indifferent, as beautiful, as ever.
The next morning it was, suddenly, spring. The geese, in their elegant dark gray hoods, their sleek feathers, clustered on our porch cooing into each other’s ears like lovesick teenagers. And Gracie was better. She might have gotten worse, that could have happened, but instead she was better. Thank God, thank each and every god.
*
Varun had been healing, and then all at once he worsened. He was transferred back upstairs to the PICU, placed back on the vent. And then he grew sicker still. I was driving to the hospital to visit him with Gracie in the car when Bobbie called; our plan had been for Bobbie to watch Gracie while I went upstairs to see Ramya. When I saw it was Bobbie calling, I pulled over and parked along the edge of Duke’s forest. Cars sped past. Bruce Springsteen was playing on the radio. In her car seat Gracie was doing hip-hop arm jerks and shoulder drops.
“Don’t come,” Bobbie said, “go on home.”
I understood her without wanting to. I knew she was telling me that Varun was gone.
Which was impossible. But also maybe true.
“Is Deepak with Ramya?”
“Yes, they are here together.”
I could feel a sob rising. Bobbie had likely heard more grief than anyone I knew; and was the most willing to listen.
But not Gracie.
“Thank you for telling me, Bobbie,” I said. I hung up.
“What’s wrong?” Gracie said. “What did they say?”
I knew it would be wrong to turn around. I knew she would see grief or terror on my face. At the same time, I didn’t want to know this alone. I didn’t want to know it.
“What’s wrong?” she said again.
I unbuckled my seat belt. “Please stay in the car, love. I will be right back, I promise. You will be able to see me.” I got out of the car, walked a short ways away, turned around to wave at her. She waved back, unsure of what this was. A game? I walked a few more feet away. Wave, wave. I stepped into the woods.
I was surrounded by the obscene explosion of life that is southern spring—glossy, nascent, waxy leaves, blooming lilac, the yellow-green lace of weeping willows, the white innocence of opened dogwood. Wisteria in warm filtered light. Veil upon veil of silvery green branches, split by an astringent blue sky.
This crescendo of life could not contain death.
I rejected that possibility with every atom; rejected it out of hand.
Sentinel of trees: pitch pine, scarlet oak, sweet birch, Virginia pine, bald cypress. Every one silent. Agnostic.
Say why.
I was far enough from the car that Gracie could not hear me, and far enough that she was worried. I could see her squinting, frowning, in my direction. I kicked the nearest tree. Fuck you. My foot felt strangely liberated from my body. I kicked and kicked. The thwack was dull, unsatisfying. My ankle began to throb. I kept kicking.
Overhead, a pair of woodpeckers, unperturbed, drilled in and out of the trunk. Two heads bobbed in unison, each with a bright racing cap of red feathers. Get out of here. I waved my arms. They kept on boring their holes. Go! They stayed.
When my foot was numb, I limped back to the car.
“What’s wrong?” Gracie asked. “Are you sad or mad?”
“I am sad and mad.”
“Why?” She looked at me, a level, direct stare. “Tell me.”
She was four. There was no way to tell her without pointing to the same possibility for her. She could sense vital information being kept from her.
“Tell me now.”
“I will, sweetheart,” I said. “Someday I will tell you.”
But I wouldn’t. I would tell Brian, my mom. I would tell Kathy, Cassie. I would tell Suzi, who, every time we talked long-distance, said, “Tell me everything.” I would tell her how, the last time I saw him, Varun’s body shook with the oscillator’s vibrations, how I felt his pulse throbbing in his right thumb, about the goo they put in his eyes to keep them moist, the bruises. I would tell her how Deepak touched Ramya’s back.
I would tell anyone willing to listen how beautiful Varun was, how beaten up by the machines, how loved he was. Is. I would tell everyone, anyone. Except Gracie.
I felt the inverse of what I’d felt the day the first child, Sam, had died on our ward. Then I’d wanted to understand, to know. With Varun, I wanted to unknow.
At home Gracie ran to Brian. “We’re not hospital people, we are home people.”
He picked her up and snuggled her. “You’re home people!”
“Yes, but Mama was sad and mad.”
He set Gracie down, and she scampered off to wake up Gabe. He looked at me. I walked into his arms.
“Varun died,” I said into his ear.
“My god,” he said. “Sweetheart, I am so sorry.”