What She Left Us Page 5

  “Well, you had to finish school, then you were working most of the summer, and I was taking a class. Darren worked the night shift. We were dealing with our grief in our own way. When it comes down to it, we're all pretty private people. Then you were back to school late July. It wasn’t that hard to keep our breakup from you.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Courtney said. “It still doesn’t make sense.”

  “I’ve only talked to him twice,” Jenna said, “and both times had to do with Mom.”

  “Why?”

  “I got Mom’s autopsy report back. She died of a disease called hereditary hemochromatosis. You and I might have the gene for the disease. We need to get some tests.”

  Chapter 15

  “You’re really that freaked out about this?” Courtney asked after Jenna explained about the iron overload that could be happening in their bodies that very moment, and the repercussions if they carried the gene for hemochromatosis.

  “Well, yes. It’s very serious. My God Court. Mom died from this.”

  “Yeah, but it seems from everything that you’ve explained, if we do have it, there are things we can do to control it so that we’ll be totally okay. Right? I mean, did the doctor three weeks ago tell you, ‘Get the test now or you’re going to die?’”

  “No.”

  “I think you’re being a little hyper about it, that’s all. If we do have to do something about it, it totally sounds like it’s manageable. You made us appointments right?”

  “Yes.” Suddenly Jenna felt a bit foolish about how urgent she had made everything seem, and she wondered if she had in fact made a bigger deal about it than she should have. “I just, I didn’t know. I mean, this disease killed Mom. I got the autopsy report. It said that the disease was hereditary and that relatives are strongly advised to get tested for this type of disease. So yes, of course I freaked. Why aren’t you freaking?”

  “I don’t know why I’m not freaking. I’m just not. I guess I’m not going to worry about something I can’t control until I know the results.”

  “Oh my God, you have grown up these past couple of months. It almost makes me sick.”

  “I know right? It’s these damn kids I’m in charge of every single day.”

  “What about that kid you like? The guitar player?”

  “Mitch? He's not a kid. He's twenty-two. And he’s good. Very good. Things are going too well. It's scary almost. I think we might spend part of winter break together.”

  “I hope you mean here at least. I want to meet him.”

  “You will. I want you guys to meet.”

  “I have to say, despite me being so screwed up and miserable lately, I'm happy to see you happy. I haven’t seen you this optimistic since before Mom died. If he’s got something to do with it, then I'm really happy for you.”

  “Yeah, I am happy. I'm really happy.”

  Chapter 16

  Jenna doesn’t know if her first memory of Courtney is a true memory or a memory she’s captured from a photo. But it’s there, in the forefront of her mind, and she’s wearing plaid orange and white pants and a frilly Bohemian yellow top holding a squawking baby squirming out of the tightly bundled blanket. She remembered the blanket had black and white penguins on it and Jenna thought maybe a baby penguin was wrapped up inside.

  The first words she remembered hearing from her mother were: “You’re holding her wrong. Here, let me.” And the baby was swooped out of her arms, like a falcon grabbing its prey.

  When she was allowed to hold Courtney the next time, Jenna was told to sit with her bum all the way securely up against the back of the couch, her arm resting carefully in the corner. Her mom placed Courtney, who was again all tucked up like a burrito Jenna thought, into the crook of Jenna’s elbow. Jenna could barely see her little sister and tried to move the blanket away so she could look at her tiny mouth, to see if maybe she could smile. She pushed the blanket away from her hands and fingers too. She wanted to touch her sister’s hands, say hello to her new baby sister.

  “Don’t do that. She’s fine the way she is. She’s very delicate,” her mother said. Jenna didn’t know what the big deal was. She played with her dolls all of the time and they were fine. After all, she was five, she knew how to touch a baby.

  She was doing fine, she thought. The baby was very quiet. Her father was smiling, but her mother was twisting her hands together and her face looked knotted with worry.

  “I want to take a picture of my two beautiful little girls,” her dad said and he stepped out of the room in search of his camera.

  Jenna held her sister, and then all of a sudden, the baby began to vomit. Jenna remembers it was not regular throw-up, but pink, like strawberry milkshake, and it got all over her new dress. Her mother grabbed the baby and yelled for her father, but all Jenna could think of was why her new baby sister was throwing up strawberry milkshake when she didn’t even get dessert yet. There was pinkish-red throw-up everywhere. Life already wasn't fair.

  She remembered being afraid to go near Courtney for weeks fearing she would make her throw up again.

  The next time she went near the baby, she did so out of desperation. Her mother was in the shower, it was early in the morning, and her father already left for work. Jenna was watching Tom & Jerry when she heard the baby crying. She remembered what her mother told her, not to go near the baby without an adult nearby, meaning don’t go near Courtney unless her mom or dad were there to help. But she knew her dad was at work and her mom was in the shower. The baby was in her crib crying.

  Jenna silently prayed the crying would stop or that her mom would get out of the shower, but by the time a commercial for Bounce dryer sheets came on, the crying escalated to screams of terror it seemed. Jenna tentatively got up from the floor and walked into Courtney’s room.

  She peeked over the side of the crib to see her baby sister. Her face was red and splotchy from the screaming, and her legs were flailing all over the place. She could see the binky just out of reach. Jenna stuck her hand into the crib, grabbed the pacifier and plugged her sister up. The noise stopped. Jenna stood amazed as her baby sister opened her eyes and locked them to hers.

  Her mother came out of the bathroom. “Jenna! What did you do to the baby!”

  “I stopped the crying.”

  “Don’t you dare go near the baby without an adult EVER!”

  “But Mommy! She was crying, I didn’t want her to throw up again. I gave her the binky and she stopped cr… ”

  “Jenna! You are not to touch the baby, ever, without my supervision! Understand!”

  Just as quickly as the cries stopped, Courtney’s screams started up again, more furious than before. Jenna’s mother, still damp from her shower, wrapped in a robe, her hair pulled up in a towel, rushed to the crib. She picked up the screaming baby and held her to her chest.

  Jenna was worried that she had done something wrong, that because she had gone over to Courtney, done something she was clearly told not to do, that she had caused her sister to be hurt, and that was why she was crying so hard. She was scared that she had made her hurt, or something worse, that maybe she had put her in serious danger. Especially after what her mother said next.

  “Jenna, get me the phone. We have to call an ambulance.”

  Chapter 17

  Courtney hadn’t expected her fall break to go like this. Consoling her sister over her breakup with Darren, and then consoling her further over the fact that maybe, just maybe they might have some crazy disease that didn’t even really sound that serious. It sounded like if they had this hemowhatever it was called, it would be easily treatable. She didn’t understand why Jenna was getting so worked up over it. Jenna seemed so over the edge.

  Suddenly, the tables were turning. Now Courtney appeared to be the big sister taking charge of everything – she was embarking on a mature relationship with Mitch, she was trying to talk her sister off the ledge about this disease, she was taking charge of forty-eight kids in college. When was she going to
have a chance to grieve for her mom, get a break, catch her breath?

  “You want some coffee?” Courtney asked as Jenna made her way into the kitchen. Courtney had already been up for an hour. Their appointment at the hospital for their blood tests was at eleven.

  “Can we have coffee before the blood draw?” Jenna asked.

  “Yes,” Courtney replied. “I read over the info the doctor gave you. It said we can have water and coffee the morning of, just no food after midnight the night before the test.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay you’ll have a cup?” Courtney asked.

  “Yes, please.”

  “Are you okay?” Courtney asked.

  “Not really. How can you be so calm?”

  “I told you, I’m not that freaked out about it. Remember, worst case, best case, right? Seriously, what’s the worst case scenario?”

  “I don’t know? We die?”

  “No. We don’t die. Mom died. We are not going to die. Come on. Quit being so dramatic. We’re not dying. Look, I get that you’re all messed up right now. I get that you’re sad that you and Darren aren’t together. I don’t get why you broke up with him. At all. But you’ve got to pull yourself together. We’re not dying over this.”

  Courtney looked into her sister’s eyes and said the next words slower.

  “Okay? We’re not dying. You’re being completely ridiculous.”

  “God Court, don’t you miss her? I miss her so much.”

  “I miss her every day,” Courtney choked on the words. “Remember when we used to lay in bed with her and annoy her for the heck of it? She would pretend to be mad at us, but then we’d all crack up? It’s like those times I miss the most. Or when we’d have nothing to do and we’d watch endless hours of TLC wedding shows or rent mindless movies like Night at the Roxbury or Romi and Michele’s High School Reunion? That’s kind of what I miss most.”

  “I miss her cooking,” Jenna said. “I miss going to her house, walking in and smelling what the house used to smell like when she’d make a big pot of her chili and her cheddar cornbread biscuits. I miss when Darren and I would show up and you and Mom would be there, cooking all day, and she’d greet us and say, ‘There are my other kids!’ She’d always make such a big deal about Darren coming over.”

  “I miss when we had a family, when we felt like a family,” Courtney’s words hung between them.

  Jenna nodded, took a sip of her coffee. “That was forever ago.”

  “That’s really sad,” Courtney said. “That we didn’t ever get to be a part of a family. Not a real family. It would have been nice to actually grow up in a real family, you know. Not just us and Mom.”

  “It made us grow up so fast, don’t you think? I don’t feel like I ever got to be a kid. I mean, I’m not really just twenty-four, am I? I feel more like thirty-four. Did I even get to have any fun in my life?”

  “Jenna! You’re not dead! You’re not dying! Stop talking like this. We’re going to get these blood tests, and they’re going to come out negative, and we’ll be fine. You’ll see. Then we’ll clean out Mom’s house over winter break when I’m home, and you can get back to your master's degree next semester like you've planned.”

  “I wish everything would be that easy. It doesn’t seem that easy.”

  “It will be that easy. One foot in front of the other, sister. That’s all we have to do. We can do it together, okay? I’ll always be here for you. Like you’ve been here for me. Always.”

  “I love you Court-Court.”

  “I love you too. Now finish your coffee and get your stinky butt in the shower so we can go get this blood test over with and figure out what we’re gonna do next.”

  Chapter 18

  Jenna stayed with a neighbor while the ambulance came to take her mother and her baby sister away that morning. She watched as the back doors of the ambulance closed behind her screaming flailing little baby sister, and her mother, who was now crying as well.

  Jenna cried and cried and begged to go with. Not that she thought it would be fun to ride in the back of an ambulance with the flashing lights and go through red lights in town. She really didn’t want to stay with old lady Mrs. Crand from next door and she didn’t want to be away from her mom and her baby sister who she was afraid might not come back if they took her away. She was starting to like her even though she only got to hold her twice so far since she got home from the hospital.

  And now they were taking her back to the hospital in the ambulance. All because Jenna went into her room when she wasn’t supposed to and put her pacifier into her mouth.

  Jenna had caused this. She knew it. She was told not to go near the baby without her mom and dad and she disobeyed them. Now her baby sister got bad sick and she didn’t know what was going to happen. She was stuck next door with Mrs. Crand and her stupid crawly five cats who sat all over the kitchen counter while Mrs. Crand asked her a bunch of stupid questions. At least she gave her some cookies while she did so. Except Jenna discovered they were raisin oatmeal cookies.

  “So Jenna, what happened to your little sister?” Mrs. Crand asked.

  Jenna wasn’t really done crying but she didn’t want to be rude to Mrs. Crand so in between tears she said that her sister had been crying a lot so her mom called the ambulance to take her. She didn’t want to admit that the reason was because Jenna put the pacifier in her mouth and that made her bad sick.

  “Were you excited to be getting a new baby in the house?”

  Jenna didn’t answer, only kept picking the raisins out of her cookie and wishing her mom would come back and get her.

  When Jenna finally looked up, Mrs. Crand smiled at her with crooked teeth. “I bet it was such a nice surprise to get a baby!”

  Jenna’s eyes flooded with more tears at the thought of her baby sister in a hospital. She wanted to go home, but she knew there was nothing she could do. She was stuck there with ugly Mrs. Crand. She watched an orange cat jump onto the kitchen counter and start licking its butt. Jenna finally got some of the raisins out of enough of the cookie to take a small bite.

  Another cat hopped up onto the table where Jenna sat. This one was smaller, a kitten. Jenna didn’t mind kittens. Maybe if they stayed small like a kitten that would be okay. But the big cats scared her. They looked stinky mean. Some of them even snarled at her. This one though, the one that hopped up by her, was nice. It was soft and orange and brown. She pet it and it purred at her.

  “Is your mom feeling okay after having the baby? She looks great!” Mrs. Crand would not shut up, Jenna thought. She wished she was old enough to tell the lady to please be quiet. Jenna’s head hurt from all Mrs. Crand’s talking and all of the crying too. Then she felt kinda bad because she knew she was an old lady with no husband or family. Only a bunch of ugly cats except for the one who was purring on Jenna’s lap. This one was cute and cuddly and Jenna kinda wished she could take it home. But then that reminded her of home, and that reminded her that she wanted to be at home with her mom and dad, and her new baby sister, and that made her cry more.

  She didn’t want to cry in front of this old lady, even though she knew Mrs. Crand was trying really hard to be nice, by giving her these yucky raisin oatmeal cookies. And she was only trying to make stupid talk because she was lonely. But Jenna was sad, and scared and wanted to go home.

  “Can I go watch TV please?” she asked.

  When Mrs. Crand nodded her okay, Jenna picked up the orange and brown tabby and went into the TV room.

  Chapter 19

  Jenna parked the car in the garage at the hospital, the same hospital where the ambulance had taken her dead mother’s body that night. She never understood why they had insisted on taking her mother’s body to the hospital. After all, she was already dead, but she hadn’t thought to ask.

  The night they found her mother on the floor, Darren practically had to carry Jenna into his car. She was numb. They drove behind the ambulance, which had its lights on but no siren. She always heard t
hat silent ambulances with lights on meant they were carrying dead people, and now she knew that was, in fact, true.

  She remembered Darren’s hand on her leg and him telling her how much he loved her, and that everything was going to be okay. He was trying so hard to console her. She wasn’t crying hysterically yet. She was trying to get from point A to point B: From her mother’s house to the hospital. Her mind had been reeling. Why hadn't Darren done anything? He was in the medical field. Why had Darren been late to pick her up that night? If they had gotten to her mother's minutes earlier, maybe her mother wouldn't be dead? Maybe all three of them would be in the car that very minute, heading to the Italian bistro, talking about the warm bread and the spicy red bottle of wine they'd all be enjoying soon.

  Darren was telling her that they would figure everything out when Jenna said, “There’s nothing to figure out.”

  “I know honey, but it will be okay.”

  “Stop saying that, nothing is okay,” she snapped at him. “Just shut up, please. I cannot hear myself think. Just please drive.” She pushed his hand away from her leg.

  He followed the ambulance into the ER entrance and parked the car. Jenna got out and rushed over to the ambulance as soon as the EMTs moved to the back of the vehicle. An orderly came out of the ER and rushed to the back of the ambulance. He recognized Darren.

  “Darren, hey buddy,” he said to him.

  “Hey, it’s Jenna’s mother,” he, motioning toward Jenna.

  “Oh man, I’m sorry. The guys called it in. You know she’s DOA?”

  That’s when Jenna lost it. She collapsed to the ground and started wailing. Darren called for more help as he reached for Jenna. She wept uncontrollably, clinging to Darren, crying for her mother, saying, please don’t be dead, you’re not dead, don’t be dead, that it was too soon, and she was too young to not have a mom anymore.