This isn’t a reunion.
“He’s in the trauma center. I think. They rushed him back.” I hold up the pager. “She said this will buzz when we can talk t—”
But she’s already rocketing toward the desk.
That’s when it dawns on me: not only is Ms. Barrantes a nurse, she works here. She probably has special access, can find out things you normally couldn’t.
Except the purple-haired lady is suddenly standing, motioning for Ms. Barrantes to lower her voice. “Simone, please. Simone, listen to me. I understand you’re upset. I do. But just because you work here doesn’t mean you can . . . look, I promise you, I promise you, that as soon as I know something about Q, anything, I will walk right over to you personally and I will—”
My lap vibrates.
I call out, “Ms. Barrantes!”
I hold up the pager, a beacon of quivering red light.
86
The walk to conference room C is the longest, but Ms. B’s on a mission to break the world record for arrival time. I jog to keep up.
The hallway walls are lined with charts of our body systems—the skin cross-sectioned and layered. And it hits me—I’m just skin draped over bones.
I mean, I knew that, but.
It’s weird because when our bodies, our organs, are working, we think about them nearly never percent of the time.
Ms. B sets down her phone, turns to me.
“I’m happy you’re here,” she says while we wait for the doctor. “Surprised. But happy. He misses you, Jamal. When you two stopped hanging out, he wouldn’t talk about it, but he took it hard. And then his dad decided to be an asshole and get cancer . . .”
I frown. “Huh?”
A small smile. “Just a dumb joke Mr. B used to make.” She shrugs. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Jamal. Figured we could use some levity, you know?”
“Levity’s cool,” I say. Because I want Ms. Barrantes to have everything she needs: her son, levity, not-so-funny jokes, peace.
Ms. Barrantes nods. “I didn’t know you two were hanging out again.”
“Yeah,” I say, because correcting her right now seems stupid, selfish.
“No wonder he was so excited for this party. I know . . . I know my son isn’t the most social. I try not to push him, but . . . I just want him to be a kid. To have fun. And he tries . . . he tries . . . so hard.”
“He’s an awesome kid. An awesome human.”
She swipes at her tears. “He really is.”
And then footsteps louder, louder, until they stop outside the door.
Someone just standing there, waiting.
Which makes me think it’s bad.
Because you don’t wait for good news, right?
You race in, you explode in, because there’s almost no bad way to deliver good news.
Ms. Barrantes doesn’t seem to notice. “You sure you feel okay, Jamal? You call your sister?”
“I left her a message.”
“Try her again.”
“Okay, I will.”
“You don’t have to wait here with me. You can go. I can call you with news.”
I shake my head. “Thanks, but if it’s okay with you, I wanna stick around.”
She squeezes my hand. “Yeah, well, I appreciate the company.”
Ms. B’s standing, stretching, when the conference room door swings open.
And before the doctor says one word, Ms. B’s wagging her head.
“Dr. Rodriguez, no. No,” she says, firmly. “Nuh-uh. Not my son.”
“Simone . . .”
“Not my Quincy. You better go somewhere else with that. You hear me?”
“Simone, I’m so . . .”
“You take that somewhere else, Kevin! I don’t want it! Please! Please. I don’t want it.”
I want to reach for her, comfort her, but I’m cement.
Dr. Rodriguez clears his throat, busies himself with his hands, staring down at them, wringing them, poking his cuticles, sliding the silver wedding band up and down his finger.
I wonder when he decided to be a doctor, to devote his life to saving lives, if he thought about these moments.
Stepping into a room that’s anxious for good news, even mediocre news, except there’s neither. There’s only worse and worser.
But his voice, unlike his hands, is steady and calm, a series of soft I’m so sorry we did all we can I’m so sorry we did all we can I’m so sorry I’m so sorry I’m so sorry fluttering around the room, flying over our heads.
And I’m waiting for my alarm to sound.
I’m waiting to sit up in my bed.
Blink this nightmare away.
I keep waiting and waiting but.
Ms. B slumps over like her bones have liquefied, crashes to her knees, the doctor barely stopping her from spilling all over conference room C, her screams loud enough that people rush in: Is everything okay? Is everything okay?
But how could it be?
Everything’s never gonna be okay again.
85
One Week Before the Funeral
The doctor snatched the surgical cap from his head. “Is there someone I—I . . . can call for you?”
“No.” Whit glanced at me, then the door. “It’s just . . . us.”
“What about grandparents?” the doctor asked.
“None left,” Whit said.
“Aunts, uncles, cousins?”
“We have a great-aunt in Cali, I think. Or Arizona. Look, Doctor, I’m sorry if this is rude, but when can we see them? We just want to see our parents.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “But your parents are . . . they, umm . . . they d—”
But I erupted from my seat, sprinted down the hallway to the ER. There were heavy curtains on one side of the wide corridor, and regular rooms with walls and doors on the other. Most of the rooms were empty, filled with beige machines and platters of shiny instruments. I was halfway down the hall when I arrived at the first closed door.
My hand turned the knob when a voice said her name.
I turned around to see Trauma 2’s door propped open, a man mopping, a woman spraying a mist onto a metal table.
“Did you say Jada?” I asked the man.
He glanced at the woman.
She sucked her teeth. “Told you you can’t whisper.”
He waved her off. “Who you, little man?”
“I’m looking for Jada Anderson.”
He scratched his cheek. “You gotta ask the front desk. They’ll help you.”
But I could feel it, the things he wasn’t saying. “Was she here?”
His face fell.
The woman cleared her throat. “Don’t do it,” she warned. “They’ll fire you for that.”
He stood up straight, soaked the mop head into the bucket. “I’m sorry, but just go back down this hall and . . . c’mon, little brother, don’t cry, man. C’mon.” He scratched his chin, like he was thinking. “Look,” he said softly. “Who you say you looking for?”
“Jada Anderson. She’s . . . she’s my mom. And my dad, he’s Andre Anderson. I’m looking for him, too. If you can show me where either one of them is, I’d . . .”