Send Me a Sign

Chapter 6.4

“That woman!” Mom huffed as she stormed into my hospital room.

 “Who? What happened?” I put my laptop on the side table and turned toward her.

 “Nancy Russo crossed the line this time. She asked me who your counselor was.”

 “Same as Gyver’s. Ms. Piper is the only guidance counselor at East Lake,” I answered.

 “No, like therapist.” Mom spat out the word. “Like you need a therapist! You’re popular and well adjusted. You’re a cheerleader! If Nancy spent half as much time worrying about her own son, maybe Gyver wouldn’t have turned out like that.”

I gave myself half a second to be grateful Gyver had already left before asking, “Like what?”

“Introverted.” Mom pronounced it like it was the worst possible swear word. In her mind it probably was. “And then she had the gall to suggest family counseling. Like I’m some crack mother she’s arrested who can’t take care of her own daughter. Family counseling!”

“You know she didn’t mean it like that.”

She tutted at me and went back to being offended. Their friendship was a one-sided competition and I knew from experience that my defending Mrs. Russo only made Mom feel more threatened.

I picked up my laptop and resumed the e-mail I was writing to the girls. I’d figured out it was easier to ask what they were doing than make up lies about all the old-people things I was supposed to be enduring.

The Calendar Girls didn’t doubt me once—which made me feel worse.

                                                                                          *** 

I thought about telling them sometimes. When I opened a particularly sweet e-mail from Ally, or one of Hil’s voice mails saying, “If you don’t escape the elderly soon, I’m launching a rescue party,” or when Lauren e-mailed me the rules she invented for drunk shuffleboard, or Chris and Ryan texted pictures from the shore.

 Mom reassured me I was “doing the right thing,” but I started looking for signs and made deals with myself.

If I don’t need a transfusion today, I’ll tell them.

If I throw up less than three times today, I’ll tell them.

If I stay awake until noon.

If Nurse Snoopy’s wearing her ladybug scrubs.

If my numbers are . . .

If the next person through the door is . . .

If there’s green Jell-O with lunch.

I never got my “if.”

                                                                                      ***

I woke to laughter—a sound so foreign in my hospital room that I thought I must be dreaming.

 But no, Gyver and Dad were grinning and deep in conversation.

 “What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Music,” answered Gyver.

“Figures.”

“Did you know your dad used to play the sax?”

I raised my eyebrows and turned to Dad, who looked sheepish. “For real? In the marching band or something?”