Standing at the circulation desk, filing cards grown soft at the corners, I heard the phone ring. Eager for a change of pace, even if it meant I'd be doing someone's research over the phone, I grabbed up the receiver.
"Batesville Public Library, can I help you?"
It was my dad. Calling from the hospital room in Chicago where my mom had been admitted during their getaway weekend. He just wanted to check in on me - he'd missed me when he called home to talk to the boys.
"I'm good. Work is fine. I'm excited to go to Cincinnati this afternoon. Can I talk to Mom?"
Pause.
Now, I should explain that pauses in telephone conversations with my dad are not unusual. There is always... a great deal... of... white space... in talking with him. So why was I suddenly hot around my eyes, and tight in the back of my throat?
"Dad?"
Throat-clearing. "No. You can't. Mom's in a coma, Bec."
Did I know that? Was there some conversation in the past few days where this information was given to me, and did I somehow forget about it? Is that even possible? But if not, how could he have neglected to mention such a vital fact to me?
The library, quiet anyway, went fuzzy like cotton around me. Even the whispers were muffled, and I felt wrapped up in the familiar. I didn't even sit down. I tipped my chin to roll the tears back into my head, and finished the conversation like a well-bred teenager. Which I was.
Maybe years of living with a mom who spent a week every year in the hospital calloused me. Maybe the idea of her in the ICU was just part of my childhood. I'd lived with it my whole life, you know. So maybe you won't find me a completely unfeeling ingrate when I tell you that the rest of the day was more than fine - it was fun.
After a rowdy drive into Cincinnati, Missy and I got dropped off downtown, scoured a few ballet supply stores (for her) and a bookstore (for me). We ate at Taco Bell. For a skinny person, Missy could really eat. She ordered no less than five menu items, and I watched, impressed, as she downed every bite. We met at the rendezvous point to get picked up for the dance.
The dance.
Here was where I belonged, in this under-decorated church-building-turned-social-hall. With these kids, from towns and cities an hour from my home -- this was where I felt like me. Good kids, and all so different. Different from what I saw every day at school, and different from each other. I felt loved there, not judged, not watched, not weird. This was a place for a great deal of hugging.
Dance, dance, dance. Cute boys and happy girls and jokes and laughter and music. Forgive me for forgetting, for a couple of hours, what was going on a few hundred miles to the northwest.
After the dance, Pizza. As ever. Mr. G's pizza, breadsticks, and root beer. More laughing. More talk. More teasing. Gentle teasing from the others, and more pointed teasing from my brother. I shook it off, like I'd learned to do (not like the years and years that I would scream and yell and then get in trouble for overreacting).
Somehow on the long drive home, I didn't know. I had no premonitions. The earth didn't shift. Air wasn't sucked from the atmosphere. I just rode home, laughing and not sleepy and not afraid.
I checked on Marc. He was sleeping in the parent's big bed, elbows and knees everywhere. Good. Wash face. Brush teeth. Change into jammies. Lights off. Climb into bed.
Knock at the door.
Blood runs cold.
Ignore it. It will go away. My fear of the dark, fueled by far too many Stephen King novels that first year I worked at the library, overtook all logic.
More knocking. Monsters. Axe murderers. Doorbell. Vampires. Psychotic animals. More knocking. Another doorbell.
I picked up the phone in my room and called our own number. I don't know if this works anymore, technologically speaking, but that night, I hung up quickly and the phone began to ring. Once, twice, three times. It stopped. I grabbed the receiver.
"Nathan?"
"What?"
"There's someone at the door."
Only the intervention of a benevolent God prevented him from reminding me that axe murderers do not ring doorbells.
"Okay. Coming." The bravest words of a brave big brother.
I stood, shivering at my bedroom door. Saw him walk from the basement stairs across the small family room. He turned and I heard the door open. Heard the Rockwoods' voices, hushed appropriately for the time of night and the delicacy of their mission.
I didn't wonder if we'd left something in their car. I didn't wonder if anything terrible had happened to their kids between dropping us off and getting themselves home. I didn't wonder anything. Because I knew.
I knew.
I walked to the front door. They'd come in, but only just. Their backs were pressed against the door, and I knew again. There were no jokes, and if the Rockwoods weren't telling jokes, this was more serious than anything I'd ever experienced with them. Jolene, tall and stricken, held her arms out to me. I shook my head, not because I didn't want her comfort, not because I didn't believe, but because my head would shake. Back and forth as I was folded into her arms.
Whispered words: "Your mom..." Head shake, back and forth.
"... dad called..." Head shake.
"Come home with us, sleep at our house..." And then I could nod. Yes. Your house. That is the right thing to do. Because we shouldn't be here alone. And we should give you the thing you need, too. We should allow you to do the only thing to do when there is nothing, nothing anyone can do.
Before getting in the car, I did the only thing I could do when there was nothing else to do. I went back into my room, picked up the phone again, and listened as the buttons sang Jorja's song - the eleven-note jingle that meant I could reconnect with my far-far-away best friend.
Her mom told me she was asleep.
"Please."
"I need her."
"My mom died."
Gasp. "Oh, Becca." A quick waking, and there it was. The comfort I needed, across a thousand miles. The words, just right.
Will you be shocked, or will you understand when I tell you we laughed? Will you know what it is to share a heart, and to realize that there is a time for tears, and a time for laughter? And, sometimes, will you understand the need for both at once? Will you know that both, in equal measure, are required in order to heal?
