The Good Goodbye

Author:Carla Buckley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2016-01-11T16:00:00+00:00

Natalie

DR. MORRIS SQUIRTS soap into her palm and pedals a splash of water into her cupped hands. She talks to us while she does this. “How are you? Have you been outside today? Did you see the game last night?” It’s clear her mind isn’t really on our responses and neither are ours. She yanks latex gloves from the cardboard box, picks up the flashlight from the bedside table, and goes over to check the machines, then Arden’s pupils.

“How is she?” I ask, and Theo’s hand tightens on my shoulder. Dr. Morris doesn’t answer. She’s intent on what she’s doing. I want her to say, Don’t worry. Just a false alarm. Or, Here’s a nice surprise. But what she does say when at last she turns and strips the gloves from her hands is “Let’s talk in the hallway.”

She tells us that the medication has brought the fluid buildup inside Arden’s skull back down within normal parameters, but just barely. I watch her lips form these words. Her brown hair is parted neatly down the middle and tucked back over each ear. She wears small pearls in her earlobes and I wonder if she’s taken the time to do this, or perhaps she inserted them weeks before and hasn’t yet gotten around to removing them. She tells us that she would like to see a greater drop and she’s a little concerned that it’s been four days with no real improvement. Four days. It seems like forty, the water rising and our little boat rocking dangerously to try to stay afloat. Arden’s not getting better. If anything, she’s starting to slide in the other direction. Stop it, I tell myself. Stop it.

“You said it might take a while,” Theo reminds her.

“Well, that’s still true. She’s young and healthy. She could surprise us, but I really was hoping to see more of an improvement by now.”

“But she’s within normal range,” I say.

“Yes, she is.”

I should acknowledge this small victory with a bottle of expensive wine poured with great ceremony into a round glass. Instead, I am eyeing the choices in the vending machine and talking on the phone with my mother while Theo naps at the hotel.

“Nothing yet,” my mom tells me. She has scanned every inch of the boys for signs of itchy red spots, despite their squirming insistence that they are fine. Henry put up a struggle, which she had quelled by telling him it was the only way he was going to be able to visit his sister. But it will be ten more days before they’re officially cleared. Where will we be then?

“Potato chips or chocolate?” I ask my mom, and she says without hesitation, “Chocolate,” so I slot the coins into the vending machine and push the button. Mom knows about Hunter, having seen it on the news, and we’ve talked about the vigil that’s been planned. If you’re planning to attend, she said, I could drive up with the boys and meet you there. They don’t have to know what it’s about.

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