16 Things I Thought were True Part 4

1 6 t h i n g s i t h o u g h t w e r e t r u e for Amy." He meets my gaze. "You know I kind of have to be a jerk at work, right? Or no one will listen to me."

"At least you do it well." I grin as I say it. He doesn't laugh, but he does smile back. Something pa.s.ses between us. Friends, I think.

We really could be friends.

"See ya, Morgan," he says softly. "Keep me posted."

I have an urge to grab his arm and ask him to stay. I have a feeling he would, but he's walking, and he waves at my brothers and keeps going toward the elevator.

Almost immediately, Josh and Jake walk back to my side. "Was that your boyfriend?" Josh asks.

"No!" I glance at the back of Adam's head, hoping he didn't hear as he disappears around the corner.

"A good guy won't care about that video, Chaps," Jake says. "He was looking at you like a boyfriend," he says. "Do you owe me ten bucks?"

My cheeks burn. "Check your texts. Lunch was a disaster. You owe me ten bucks. He's my boss, and he already has a girlfriend."

There's a rat- tat- tat of clicking heels behind us, and we all turn. A woman in a white doctor's coat, carrying a clipboard and tapping a pen against the side of it, walks toward us.

She stops when she reaches us. "You're Maggie McLean's kids?"

she asks.

We all nod in unison.

"Good. I'm Dr. Sally. Libby Sally."

I study her face. She has high cheekbones and dark lashes, and far as I can tell, she's not even wearing makeup. She's naturally beautiful. Not only that but she can slice into human skin and

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J a n e t G u r t l e r deal with copious amounts of human blood and save lives. It seems rather unfair.

"We need to talk about your mom."

I hold my breath.

The tone in her voice doesn't sound good.

"She's definitely got a heart condition. I suspect she'll be needing angioplasty surgery, but we don't know for certain until we go in."

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chapter three.

2. Heart disease happens to other people.

#thingsIthoughtweretrue Y ou can go in and see her. I'll be with you in a minute," Dr.

Sally says after delivering her news. She described how high risk Mom is for a heart attack, with her smoking and high blood pressure, and talked about other symptoms and probable causes.

Heart disease. My mom. It's hard to digest.

I step into the hospital room. Four beds. In the bed closest to the door, a pale old man hooked up to a bunch of tubes lies on his back, covered by a blanket. His papery white feet stick out of the bottom of the blanket, his toes pointing straight to the ceiling. He snorts and grumbles with his eyes closed.

Across from him, in an identical bed, there's another sleeping man with tubes everywhere. He's old, with thin skin and white hair. The bed beside him is empty, but across from it is my mom.

A half- closed privacy curtain separates her from the old man beside her.

I walk closer and see she's tucked into a narrow bed. The steel sides of the bed are pulled up, almost as if she's in a crib for adults.

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J a n e t G u r t l e r Her eyes are closed, and plastic tubes stick out of her. She's attached to a pole with IV bags hanging from it and more tubes that run to another machine. It looks scary and obscene, as if she's a giant voodoo doll. I worry I'll trip on a tube and unplug her and try not to imagine what will happen if I do.

She looks tiny and vulnerable under the thin covers. Her hospital gown falls opens at the neck, and her skin is translucent. I study her pale face, and it occurs to me that she doesn't have her lipstick on. She always does her makeup so early in the morning, it's rare to see her without it.

She's incredibly still, no indication of her chest rising and falling even. Worried she's not breathing, I move closer and hold my hand above her mouth. She swats away my hand and rubs her nose.

Then she sputters and opens her eyes and glares at me. I pull my hand back.

"Geez, Mom. You scared me," I say and drop my backpack on the ground beside her bed.

"Did you think I was dead?"

I frown at her, and she giggles, but it's frail and fades off. Jake steps behind me and reaches over and pats Mom's hand.

"Chaps, quit bugging Mom." He b.u.mps my hip with his, and I shut my mouth even though I didn't mean to bug her. She actually freaked me out.

"Hi, boys," she says and smiles, but it's weak and fades quickly too.

Josh hangs back, behind Jake and me.

"I'm really tired," Mom says, looking at Josh.

He shuffles his feet but doesn't respond.

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1 6 t h i n g s i t h o u g h t w e r e t r u e "You'll be fine, Mom. You're a tough old broad." Jake glances back at Josh and frowns and then turns back to Mom and pats her hand.

There's a cough behind us and we all turn. Dr. Sally grabs the privacy curtain and expertly swings it all around, so we have a false sense of isolation from the other patients in the room. "We have you scheduled for an angiogram in two days," she says to Mom. She turns to Jake and me. "We're keeping her admitted to keep an eye on her. Because her blood pressure is high, and she's been short of breath, we want to monitor her. She's high risk for a heart attack."

I picture a doctor on TV rubbing together a defibrillator and trying to shock someone's heart to start up. Mom closes her eyes.

"What exactly is an angiogram?" Jake asks.

"Basically an X- ray of her arteries, so we can see what's going on around her heart. We'll check for blockages. We can do the angio- plasty if need be."

Dr. Sally goes on, describing what they're going to do in the angiogram, inject a dye into her and poke around her insides and what they'll see if she needs angioplasty. My stomach swoops and my head sways with a dizzy queasy sensation. I shut my eyes. This is not supposed to be happening to my mom. She's not a sixty- year- old man with a bad heart. I open my eyes when the doctor stops talking, and she's glancing at her watch.

"Any other questions?" she asks briskly.

"How old are you?" Josh asks.

She blinks at him, presses her lips together, and raises her eye- brows. "I'm thirty- five. And if you're concerned, my credentials are impeccable. I've performed this procedure dozens of times."

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J a n e t G u r t l e r Josh doesn't take his gaze off her. "You look young is all," he says.

I honestly can't tell if he's worried about her qualifications or if he's trying to flirt and figure out if she likes twenty- somethings with mustaches. It's hard to say which is worse.

"Thank you," she says without a trace of thankfulness. She looks down at her watch again and then up at us. "Right. Don't tire her out. I have another patient to see." She turns and leaves.

Mom feebly attempts to boss us around to give the impression she's in charge, but she tires quickly. "If I were to base my chances on the looks on your faces, I'd be a goner," she says.

Jake pushes down the side railing of her bed and sits, making sure he doesn't sit on any tubes. Josh doesn't move from where he's standing, his shoulders hunched over.

"You're going to be fine," Jake says. "If there's a blockage around your heart or anything, they'll take care of it right away. We'll have this done and get you rested and back on your feet," he says as if he knows it all now. He stands and walks to the window and stares out of it.

"I guess things happen for a reason," she says, looking at Josh.

That's her favorite saying. Things happen for a reason. Well, that and "pa.s.s the wine, would you please, sweetie." She loves her wine, that's a fact. I hope at least one of those will change.

Josh attempts a smile but looks lost. The whole scene feels like an awkward segment of a reality show. It would be nice to tell some- one to turn off the camera. Mom fades back into her blankets. "I'm dying for a cigarette," she says.

"If you're not careful, you'll mean that literally," I tell her.

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1 6 t h i n g s i t h o u g h t w e r e t r u e She sighs. "You're right."

I move closer to her side. "I'm going to get you Nicorette gum.

You have to quit smoking, like, yesterday. No heart attacks allowed."

She nods, and I know she's definitely scared. The boys and I have been asking her to quit smoking for years. Even Jake's late- developing asthma didn't stop her.

"Boys," she says. "I want to talk to Morgan. Go get something to eat. You must be starving." She's probably right, because they're always hungry, but I remember I haven't had anything to eat besides one or two French fries on my embarra.s.sing break, hours ago now.

Josh and Jake mumble, and I watch them disappear from the room with a little dread and a little resentment.

When they're gone, she reaches out her hand. I move beside her and stare at the steel thing on her finger that looks like a splint. It's connected to a tube that runs to a machine.

"I think I knew this was coming," she says. Beeps and other noises from the machines hum in the background. "I've been having dreams."

I don't ask what kind. She's always believed she has psychic abili- ties through her dreams. She loves to describe them and a.n.a.lyze the meaning. In excruciating detail.

"You've always been the strong one in this family," she says to me.