“Mack, my man.” The words are like bubbles, popping just as I get the right sound, harder and harder to form with my muscles tightening like a vise on my head. “I see, I see. Life’s a bitch, and then you die. But at least you’re going to be around to make some changes. That’s gotta be worth something. Maybe you should stay away from the stuff for a couple of weeks. See if you can make peace with Juliann at least. I think she really likes you.”
“Great advice from the all-time fresh air junkie. Thanks for all your concern. I’ll catch you later.”
Well, I’m zero for zero on that one.
The storm burns itself out by late afternoon Sunday. About the time the flu is raging. Dad has banned me to the bunk room and banned Nick from coming in. Still distracted, Dad brings me a glass of ginger ale from an old can he found in the back of the icebox. I don’t have the heart to tell him it’s flat. I’m not sure I could swallow it anyway. Through the sliding door their voices dribble, muffled and intermittent. A word here and there. My mind tries to fit them together like a hangman puzzle, shifting and shuffling, then falling into sleep so cottony and thick I can’t remember the words or the reason I’m trying to.
When Dad comes in to check on me the next time, he reports that Mom called to say she’s headed back, to go ahead and eat without her. The idea of eating catapults me back to the bathroom and a position on my knees more familiar than I like to admit. The dream follows me, an army of marching cancer cells, with AML emblazoned on their uniforms. Unwavering warrior lines crest the hill, and below them an army of flu cells marches through the valley. Trumpets sound, flags wave, and on the periphery of my field of vision, television cameras whir as they interview my parents standing with Mr. Walker, who’s dressed like a cheerleader, his thick hairy legs like stumps below a pleated pink skirt.
“Pizza?” Nick again with the pizza, his voice crashing from the front cabin into my dream. The nausea rises in my gut.
Dad’s getting quicker. “I’m not going anywhere except to get your mother in the Whaler.” With that little bit of reassurance, I fall back asleep.
Who knows when Mom gets home? I’m finally done with the heaves. Feverish and shivery, I sleep, in and out of dreams that beat anything my waking imagination could fabricate.
Sometime later—evening again, who knows what day—I wake up, drenched, and can actually open my eyes. I’m surprised to find myself in the bottom bunk. It’s logical. As out of it as I was—am still, maybe; I’m not awake enough to be sure—the ladder would have been tricky. Impossible actually, because when I look more closely, it’s not even there. Dad. One of those parent things they do: anticipate and eliminate even the possibility you might make a mistake and do harm to yourself. Does he blame himself for the leukemia because he didn’t take some parental precaution last spring?
With my palm on the cabin wall, I trudge to the head to pee. The ghost in the mirror vaguely resembles Daniel Solstice Landon. It’s scary enough to send me slinking back to bed without looking again. The next time I wake up, it’s dark outside and the light is on over the desk Nick and I share. Mom’s there, her head on her arms. Maybe asleep. I wriggle a little, way too warm, and slide my legs across the mattress to find a cold stretch of sheet. When the covers catch at my feet, I have to fight the urge to fling off everything and get free.
“Daniel.” Mom shoots up and takes my elbow. “Feeling better?”
“How long have you been here?”
“It’s Tuesday morning. Two-something last time I checked.” She watches me struggle out and up. When I shuffle in the direction of the head, she relaxes, like I might have been preparing to jump instead.
She whispers, “I thought I would read in here, in case you needed something when you woke up.”
I hum in agreement. My skull drags down like a bowling ball. I don’t even know if I can carry it all the way to the john and back to the bunk.
“You turned sixteen just now,” she says, slightly louder, as if even she is having trouble believing it.
More humming from me. I don’t understand what she’s talking about.
“Did you know you were born in the middle of the night like this?”
“Born?” I mumble through the closed door.
“Yes, your father woke up Joe so he could see you. He was about five. We had this wonderful midwife, Mary Stewart Elliott. Sixty-two or sixty-three, maybe. She had delivered hundreds of babies.”
“Like in the movies, when the midwife is giving the woman a stick to bite and the husband has his head in his hands at the foot of the stairs, sick over what he’s done to the woman he loves.” It’s the clearest thought I’ve had in days.
Whoa, I must be getting better. Although this could be my subconscious talking. Even more clearly than the midwife movie scene, I see what I’ve done to Meredith. I change her life forever and then disappear into a haze of fever and night sweats. Even in her own flu-induced haze, she’s probably wondering what the hell kind of guy I am to not have called in two days.
Although Mom holds my arm to keep me upright, I’m stalled midway across the room, sicker over how I treated Meredith than the flu could ever make me.
“You’ve got it all wrong, sweetie. The husband is worried about what can go wrong. Having babies is a complicated thing, scary. I mean, the birth part is less scary today, but… but still…”
She is definitely lost in that memory.
“So, was I everything you expected?” Scrambling to think how I can ask for the phone without clueing her in to my dilemma with Meredith.
“Well, we’d already had Joe. We knew what to expect. You were a different baby, though. Less greedy, more patient. But curious right from the start. You climbed as soon as you could boost yourself up. Joe never did that. All he had to do was squawk and we would come running.”
“No wonder I’m so messed up.”
When she laughs, I know she appreciates my joking. Her eyes stay on my face, her hand at my elbow. She’s doesn’t have to think very hard about the possibilities of what can go wrong.
At breakfast the whole family sings “Happy Birthday” to me through the wall to maintain the quarantine. Nick’s tenor-breaking-to-bass solos the standard extra line, “And many more.” Followed by the cabin door banging open and Nick, tears jammed in the corners of his eyes. He stands on one foot and then the other.
“Sorry. Sorry, Dan, I’m so sorry. It just came out. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Forget it, dude.” Which, if you think about it, is as stupid as people saying “no problem” after you ask for help or complain about something.
He fumbles around at the desk, changes his sweatpants for jeans, and looks back at me where I’m lying on top of the blanket on the lower bunk, too tired to get under the covers.
“Where’s Mom?” I ask.
“Back in their cabin. She and Dad are arguing about whether to call the doctor or the Undertaker. I mean, Misty Underwood.”
It’s still a good joke, makes us both laugh.
I prop myself up on my elbow. “Can you get me the phone, bud? I really need to talk to Meredith.”
“That’s for sure. She’s called like eight times. Didn’t leave a message. Actually, she could hardly put two words together. Flu.” His grin is wider than the houseboat. He’s so proud of himself.