Chapter 1

 

 

     Once upon a time, Kelsey Mitchell harbored hope. Perhaps dream was a better word. She dreamed that a handsome prince (or at least a well-paid doctor) would whisk her away from life’s drudgery into a romantic, happily-ever-after with 2.5 children tucked safely inside a European SUV. But reality had a way of stepping on hopes, snuffing out dreams, and landing her squarely behind the wheel of a beat-up minivan on its third transmission.

     Kelsey squinted in the bathroom mirror, touched the lines at the side of her eyes, and realized how off-course her life had become. But looking back, she wouldn’t change a thing. The dark times brought her the best of times—her children. She’d walk through hot coals for Meagan and Nathan.

     Inside her circa 1964 bathroom, when bulbous, plastic crystal faucets were all the rage and linoleum was a lifelong product, she felt grateful for all she had: her family, a roughed-up, aging condo, a car that ran, and a job that paid their bills. What more could she ask of life? She rubbed her hand along the faucet handle and thought only of its beauty. Freedom was far more fabulous, far more priceless than genuine diamonds in a gilded cage.

     An alarm clock droned on from the other side of the apartment.

     “Nathan!” she called. “Get up, honey!” Her son moaned his annoyance.

     She knew exactly how he felt. Kelsey wasn’t a fan of mornings either. It was harder to pad along the worn carpet after the heated travertine floors of their former home. The dingy apartment was a daily reminder of all her choices had cost her children.

The alarm clock beeped on, and she walked down the hallway.

     “Nathan. Let’s go.” He groaned again and covered his head with the comforter. “Trust me, I get it.” She left him alone, satisfied he’d gotten the message.

     She went back to the mirror and faced her dangling, wet hair. She wished it were Saturday and she could simply plop a baseball cap over the mess, but work expected more from its employees. It was actually a good thing for her to have something the same. She’d never cared much for change, and now everything was different—life was turned upside down and tossed like a fresh salad.

     She sighed. People expected performance in the workforce, as well as coiffed hair and a friendly attitude before coffee. It was all too much. And it was all based on other people’s notions. After all, she didn’t want to be the woman who didn’t wash her hair any more than she wanted to be the kid who ate paste.

     She heard Nathan slump down the hallway. Thirteen years old and he faced every morning like a college student after a bender.

     “There’s some cereal and some fresh fruit on the kitchen table. Please eat something.”

     Another moan answered her.

     This morning, the responsibilities seemed to rise like a wave and cover her until she couldn’t breathe from the pressure. She left the hairbrush dangling in her knotted hair, picked up a snapshot of her with the kids at Disneyland that was tucked into the mirror, and sighed again.

     “You’ve got this,” she said to the mirror. “Quit feeling sorry for yourself.” Finishing the stroke of her brush, she wondered if life would ever get any easier. “Life sucks.”

     “Nice sentiment for a Monday, Mom.” Kelsey turned. Her daughter Meagan was nine going on thirty-five. She’d been dealt a rough hand in her short life, but she was the very picture of organization and enthusiasm, a testament to the fact that more than genetics played a role in Creation because she wasn’t anything like either of her parents.

     “Do you even know what sentiment is?” Kelsey cupped her daughter’s chin. “Why are you so warm?”

     “It’s hot in here. Your shower steamed up the whole place.”

     “Yeah. We’ve got to get these fans fixed. They just make noise. They don’t actually do anything.”

     Meagan bent lanky elbows and placed her curled fists to her middle. “I’m in the fourth grade, you know. I know what sentiment means. Like, it’s a disturbing sentiment that my mother uses the word sucks.”

     “You’re right. I shouldn’t use that word. It’s just Monday and I’ve never been a fan.” Kelsey grinned, looking up at the bathroom fan that was supposed to draw all the steam from her bathroom. They didn’t make them like that anymore. It sounded like a tank and worked with industrial strength…but only in the bathroom. Somehow, the fan shot out the steam through other ducts in the house, making the apartment swelter like a sauna when someone showered, as if it was a group activity. She shuddered at the thought of the bacteria dwelling in the carpet since whatever decade it was laid down. She wouldn’t let the kids sit on it and planned to replace it with engineered wood as soon as she was able. “I’m sorry, but I have to shower. Work has these strange rules about its employees not smelling.”

     “Imagine that,” Meagan said.

     “We need a vacation.” Kelsey stood on the toilet and looked outside at the weather. The slender, horizontal window afforded the only ocean view from the apartment. She hated to admit how much time she’d actually spent dreaming while standing on the john since they’d moved there. She looked down at her daughter. “If you could go anywhere, where would you go?” She hoped the enthusiasm in her voice would rescue the dreamer lurking within her serious daughter.

     “You’re going to dry your hair, aren’t you?” Meagan gave her an upturned lip. “You can’t go to work like that.”

     “What are you, Martha Stewart?”

     “Mom, lots of people short of Martha Stewart dry their hair in the morning. It doesn’t make you a perfectionist to get ready for work.”

     “I think it does, actually. Is your brother at the table?”

     “It’s Monday.”

     Kelsey was struck by how her daughter crossed her arms to express her annoyance, just like her own mother had done. Meagan yanked a brush through her tangled hair. There were some genetic connections one just didn’t want to make, especially on a Monday morning. “Meagan, tell me you didn’t iron your outfit.”

     She twirled in front of Kelsey. “Last night. I like that little crease in my pants. If you lay everything out and just add coordinating socks, there’s nothing to do in the morning. I highly recommend the system for both you and Nathan.”

     Kelsey thought that their iron hadn’t made it with them in the move. She should have guessed Meagan had confiscated it with glee. “I’m sure you do. Now, where would you want to go on our imaginary vacation?”

     Meagan shrugged her small shoulders. “I don’t know. Somewhere that I didn’t have to stand on a toilet to have a view, I guess. Mom, what if I made you and Nathan a schedule? You know, wrote it all out like they do in preschool—maybe we could even get some gold stars. Do you think you could follow it?”

     Some people were born without a sense of fun, and Kelsey counted people who ironed unnecessarily among them. “We’ll talk about it later, Meagan. Can you go check on Nathan? I can’t be late this morning. My boss is about on her last nerve with me.”

     Nathan was not simply a teenager; he was not a morning person, not even as a baby. He’d been too leisurely as an infant to wake up in the middle of the night. Of course, she’d heard all the horror stories about 3 a.m. feedings, and when her son failed to interrupt her sleep, she’d panicked. But soon, they were both sleeping through the night without worry. When Nathan slept, it was like waking the dead. He greeted the day like an unwelcome friend who’d come to borrow money.

     She watched Meagan smooth her cotton pants like an old lady at the shore in her summer linen.

     “I need you to sign my Friday folder.” Meagan thrust forward a perfectly kept paper folder. “Pictures are tomorrow, so you need to fill out the form for how many you want and send a check in the envelope—”

     Kelsey winced. The only thing worse than her relentless to-do list was a daughter who remembered it all without a planner. She was like a walking, talking organizer. “Go check on your brother, please.”

     Meagan rolled her eyes again. “I have to do everything around here.”

     “Your eyes are going to get stuck like that, and your crease is crooked in the back.” Meagan rushed back in and Kelsey giggled as she jumped off the toilet. “I’m only kidding. Your crease is as straight as an arrow.” She kissed the top of Meagan’s head and tousled her hair.

     “Mom, that’s not funny.”

     “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ve got a bit of the grump this morning.” Her four-foot perfectionist left the bathroom, and Kelsey laughed again. Her poor daughter deserved a homeroom mom, the kind who organized crafts and snacks for the entire classroom.

     With the touch of fall in the damp air and the morning fog off the coast, Kelsey knew she’d freeze if her hair weren’t dried, so she unwound the cord from her hair dryer, believing herself industrious for a Monday. Of course, it was hard to feel too accomplished when Meagan already had razor-sharp creases with a matching part in her hair.

     “It’s definitely time for a vacation when I want to sing my own praises for something as mediocre as drying my hair.”

“And stop talking to yourself. It’s weird!” Meagan yelled from the hallway. “I can only handle one crazy parent!”

     Before Kelsey plugged in the dryer, she heard an odd clunk that sounded like the time she’d knocked over her mother’s grandfather clock. With all the natural clunks part of their apartment’s paper-thin walls, something told her this one was different. She looked at the floor while she processed the sound. She waited, but there were no telltale signs that the old woman next door was cleaning out her closet again.

     “Meagan?” she called. “Is that you?”

      No answer.

    “Meagan, answer me!” When her little girl didn’t, Kelsey’s sixth sense kicked in and she dropped the hair dryer and ran into the bedroom. Meagan lay slumped on the floor alongside the bed. Kelsey lifted her off the floor. “Meagan!” she screamed. Meagan was dead weight, still and heavy. Seeing her daughter so limp and unlike the natural dictator she’d raised, dread spread through her. Meagan’s eyelids were closed, but her eyelashes fluttered, and Kelsey could see her dark pupils rolled back into the drawn lids.

     “Meagan!” Kelsey felt slightly disconnected, as though her body acted on its own volition. She couldn’t bear to be in the moment. “Sweetheart, wake up! I’m sorry I made fun of your crease. Mommy just wishes I could be more like you, that’s all. Wake up, sweetie! This isn’t funny.” She searched for the inner light of her daughter’s personality, confused by the foreign invasion of something altogether different within the delicate, familiar body. “Come on Meagan. Mommy won’t have time to dry her hair,” she threatened, hoping her daughter’s eyes would pop open in fear of the humiliation. But they didn’t, and her heart dropped like lead in her chest. “Meagan, please,” she whispered, before looking to the ceiling, “God, please!”

     The little girl roused with a few moans. Her limp frame lifted slightly, and she vomited all over her mother. Kelsey brought her daughter close to her breast. She wiped Meagan’s face with her jacket collar and realized how great it felt to be needed by Meagan, so self-reliant and adult by nature.         “Meagan, look at me!” Kelsey lifted her daughter’s chin, but Meagan’s lids fell heavy again. “Baby, wake up! Please, sweetheart, you’ve got this. Wake up, baby.”

     Kelsey looked around her bedroom for something that might explain the sudden illness, but all she noted was her perfectly made bed. Meagan’s doing, naturally, complete with throw pillows at attention. Her lilac backpack lay on the floor next to her, and the girl’s green eyes stared mystically at her.

     Her motherly instinct finally kicked in, and her body jumped into motion. Meagan’s eyes were glass, and she was burning up now with a fever. Kelsey murmured soft words and said a prayer while her body lifted Meagan to the bathroom and ran the bath water to clean them off with a damp, warm washcloth. She hadn’t even finished sponging them off when she realized Meagan needed a hospital.

     “Nathan!” she screamed in that voice that he knew was serious—the one where she’d yelled, Earthquake! Get under something! “Nathan, get in here!”

     Nathan appeared instantly at the bedroom door, rubbing an eye with the back of his hand. “What’s the matter?”

     She forced her voice to remain steady. “Nathan, we have to go to the hospital. Get your clothes on and get in the car. Don’t make me wait for you! This is not the time.”

     “Mom, what’s the matter with Meagan?”

     “She doesn’t feel well,” Kelsey answered in monotone. “She has a fever. Do as I tell you.” The fear in his eyes was palpable, but she kept her wits about her. “Nathan, it will be fine. Just get in the car and we’ll go to the hospital. Meagan needs a doctor. She’ll get to the doctor, and he’ll tell us what’s wrong, and everything will be fine.”

     Mundane actions like drying her hair suddenly felt like a perfect dream. If only she were rustling the children into the minivan for school right now, trying to shove a granola bar down Nathan. She shouldn’t have complained. She should never complain.

     Once in the car, Kelsey wondered how they all managed to get there. Meagan’s feeble frame was conscious now, and she took the time to manage her mother’s life. “Mom, you left the light on in the kitchen. PG&E…” she trailed off and Kelsey grinned, never happier for an environmental sermon.

     “We’ll go green, baby. As soon as we get back. Keep talking. Stay awake. Tell me how to get to the hospital.” Kelsey locked Meagan into her seatbelt, and her heart skipped a beat as she remembered her baby daughter fighting the car seat by stiffly thrusting her hips and screaming bloody murder, as if Kelsey had been a kidnapper rather than her flesh-and-blood mother. Once, she’d been chastised by an elderly woman who told her that the baby’s mother shouldn’t have left her with such an inexperienced nanny.

     “That toddler won’t get into the car-seat willingly because she feels abandoned by her mother,” the stranger offered. “You tell that woman to quit her job today and come home where she belongs.”

     “I’ll get right on that,” Kelsey had said.

     She grinned at the memory. Meagan had always been a fighter, and she took solace in that fact as she drove. She feared that in the same situation, Nathan probably wouldn’t have fought. He was like a leaf on the river, going wherever life took him while Meagan was born for the struggle. At that very instant, Meagan was probably plotting how she’d make up for missing a day of school.

     Nathan usually rode shotgun, a position he announced the moment he awoke. The truth was Meagan didn’t care one way or the other, but she liked to save it for the power struggle once in a while. She always said it was good to know Nathan wanted something badly enough to fight for it.

      In the rearview mirror, she saw her son’s wide eyes as he watched his sister. “Will she be all right, Mom?” his voice quavered.

     “She’ll be fine, Nathan.” But in her mind, she raced through the childhood illnesses that could come on so quickly. Since she came up with nothing good, she forced the thoughts away. “She’ll be fine,” she said again as she searched for something to lighten their dread. “I’ll give you some money when we get to the hospital, and you can find the cafeteria and get breakfast. I’ll bet they have donuts. The waxy kind without nutrition.”

     Nathan never ate breakfast. Since he was a baby, she’d tried to force the meal down him in the shape of scrambled eggs, smiley-faced pancakes, sugary cereal and plain toast. But it all sat there untouched. Another testament to her failure as a mother. Once, when Nathan was going through his bathroom humor stage, she’d even tried baking Banana Butt Bread, which had the nuts taken out and was formed into the shape of his rear end to get him to eat.

     “That’s disgusting!” was all he said, leaving the lumpy loaf to rot on the counter until the summer ants came and she had to throw it away.

     Meagan moaned, and Kelsey realized she should have simply called 911. Meagan would have thought to call 911.

     “I want artichokes. The fish one,” Meagan said.

     “What did you say?”

     “Potatoes love science.”

     “Nathan, get the cell phone out of my purse and dial 911.”

     “What do I say?”

     “Just dial it. I’ll do the talking.” She pressed her foot to the floor and raced through a yellow/red light. Looking in the rearview mirror, she saw she’d gotten away with it, and she dashed to the next light, which was red. She honked her horn in short succession and gingerly drove through the intersection against the light.

     Nathan handed her the phone. “911, what’s your emergency?”

     “I’m bringing my daughter to the emergency room at Santa Cruz General. I need someone to meet us at the door. She’s very sick. It was very sudden. Whatever this is, it’s not normal. I want her taken to Lucile Packard Stanford’s Children’s Hospital. Can you get an ambulance to meet me? What about a helicopter?”

     “You want EMTs to meet you at one hospital to take you to another?” the woman asked incredulously before returning to her bland, uncaring voice. “What are your daughter’s symptoms?”

     “It came on so suddenly!” She tried to transfer a portion of her trauma onto the operator, but the woman would have none of it.

     “How old is the child?”

     “She’s nine. She’s nine and she’s talking nonsense. She spiked a fever, and she’s been vomiting.”

     “Ma’am, can she move her neck?”

     Kelsey pulled to the side of the road. “I don’t know, she seemed limp to me, not stiff,” she said, warding off the very thought of meningitis. “Yes, limp.”

     “Ask her to touch her chin to her chest.”

     “What about the ambulance?”

     “There’s one en route, ma’am. How far are you from the hospital?”

     “About three minutes. Maybe four with traffic.” Kelsey estimated as she pulled back into traffic.

     “Ask her to touch her chin to her chest.”

     “Meagan?” Kelsey put her hand under her chin. “Meagan, can you hear me?”

     “Mom, the state of California can hear you. Turn right, Mom. The school traffic will get in your way.”

     Kelsey did as she was told. “Meagan, I need you to touch your chin to your chest. Can you do that for me?”

     “No,” she said without trying. “Hurts.”

     She was grateful Meagan made some sense. “She was fine fifteen minutes ago. This just happened. Could she have swallowed something?” Yet she knew her daughter wouldn’t so much as swallow a piece of bread if it contained hydrogenated oil, much less something inappropriate for human consumption.

     “How far are you from the hospital now, ma’am?”

     “About two minutes. Will she get transferred?”

     “That will be up to the attending doctor. We need to make sure she’s stable. Ma’am, is your daughter alert?”

     “Yes, my daughter is alert. Please call Stanford and tell them she’s coming.”

     “Ma’am, I need you to bring her to the closest hospital. That's Santa Cruz General?”

     “Yes!” Kelsey gritted her teeth. She might have been the sitting president of the Human Doormat League, but when it came to her children she had the ferocity of a starving great white shark. Kelsey hated confrontation of any kind, but she fought for her children so they wouldn’t turn out like her. She needed them to know they were worthy of more than life’s crumbs. She found this one element of parenthood crucial and unavoidable.

     She pressed the phone off. It started ringing again, but she ignored the buzzing sound and focused on the road. Kelsey realized there was no ambulance en route and that she’d been kept on the line by false promises. The 911 operator had no intention of transferring Meagan. Kelsey would have to take care of that herself too.

     “Mom, can I do something?” Nathan asked.

     “Just pray, Nathan. You’re good at that. Pray that this will all be over soon and we’ll have our little Martha Stewart back.” Kelsey held back tears. “Meagan, Mommy can’t live without you. You know that! I’m a complete mess, and I need you, honey.”

     “I’ll pray,” Nathan said.

     The side streets, which she thought would be faster than Highway 1, were jammed with mommies in minivans taking their kids to school, as Meagan predicted, so Kelsey used the shoulder and let them berate her with their horns while she committed the cardinal sin of cutting into the drop-off lane.        They arrived at the hospital and she honked the horn continuously until someone came out to greet them. She stared at Meagan, slumped in the passenger seat, and she prayed like she never had before.