rigid and she sat absolutely straight in her seat. She took hold of her coffee cup, took a long drink, and set it back down again. “It’s not like I slept around with everybody all my life. It just…happened.”
He watched her struggle with herself and felt helpless to do anything about it. He was in no position to judge anyone. He was not good with people, he thought, and that was the simple truth of it. Someone who was worth a damn would say a word or two to make her feel better about herself, make her feel more at ease. But everything he thought to say sounded cheap or patronizing or downright cruel in a backward sort of way, and so he kept his mouth clamped shut.
After a moment, she said, “To answer your question, I don’t know if I would have come here on my own or not. After the dreams started a few weeks ago, I thought I was going crazy. I felt them pulling at me and I thought I had todo something about it. So maybe I would have come. Or maybe I’d be dead by now. The heroin helped with the dreams, you know. It made me…forget things, everything. Who I was.”
“And your brother,” Smith said, as gently as he could. “What happened to him?”
“Michael got sick when I was twelve,” she said. “Leukemia. He was in his senior year of high school, I think, when they diagnosed it. He played baseball and he was very good. Everyone said he would play professionally. The college recruiters were coming to look at him, calling the house and taking him out to see their campuses. Even a few pro scouts, I remember. My father was very proud of him.” She picked up her fork again and began tracing more designs in the bit of egg that remained. “Then he started complaining that he was tired all the time. We didn’t think much about it, since he was training so hard every day, but it got worse, and he got very pale and started losing weight. They took him to see Dr. Lewis, and she ran a lot of tests. I remember that Michael was in and out of the hospital for a week or two, and everybody was really scared. They kept taking blood. And there were long needles, I remember that.
“He quit the baseball team just before graduation. They were going to go to the state finals, and the whole town was devastated by it. I mean, little towns like ours didn’t go to the state finals too often. Without Michael they didn’t have a chance. And he was well liked too, always friendly. But he just sat around his room for most of the days after that, and he wouldn’t talk to me. He wouldn’t talk to anyone. The whole team came to see him one day but he wouldn’t even let them through the front door, and after standing out on the doorstep for a while, they left.
“The doctors started giving him chemotherapy at the hospital and his hair started falling out. It all happened so fast . He got really thin, I mean he was like a skeleton, and he bled so easily. He cut himself shaving once and I thought he wasgoing to die right there, the blood just kept pouring out of him. And then he went back into the hospital again, later that summer, and they told us the cancer had spread to his brain and that he had a few weeks to live. And then he was gone.”
“And you were how old, then?”
“Thirteen. He died less than a year after he was diagnosed. I didn’t get to talk to him before he died. My father went to the hospital that night, and I asked him if I could go, but he said, ‘Not now. It’s late. You’ll go tomorrow.’ His words, I remember them exactly. I guess he just assumed Michael would be around in the morning.” Angel sighed, saw what she was doing with the fork and her remnants of egg, and put it down carefully on her plate. “So that’s it,” she said. “My father didn’t beat me, my mother didn’t turn into an alcoholic or a religious fanatic or anything like that. They just stopped paying attention, and after a while I guess I did, too.”
“So that was why you left for Miami, eventually.”
“I suppose so.
He watched her struggle with herself and felt helpless to do anything about it. He was in no position to judge anyone. He was not good with people, he thought, and that was the simple truth of it. Someone who was worth a damn would say a word or two to make her feel better about herself, make her feel more at ease. But everything he thought to say sounded cheap or patronizing or downright cruel in a backward sort of way, and so he kept his mouth clamped shut.
After a moment, she said, “To answer your question, I don’t know if I would have come here on my own or not. After the dreams started a few weeks ago, I thought I was going crazy. I felt them pulling at me and I thought I had todo something about it. So maybe I would have come. Or maybe I’d be dead by now. The heroin helped with the dreams, you know. It made me…forget things, everything. Who I was.”
“And your brother,” Smith said, as gently as he could. “What happened to him?”
“Michael got sick when I was twelve,” she said. “Leukemia. He was in his senior year of high school, I think, when they diagnosed it. He played baseball and he was very good. Everyone said he would play professionally. The college recruiters were coming to look at him, calling the house and taking him out to see their campuses. Even a few pro scouts, I remember. My father was very proud of him.” She picked up her fork again and began tracing more designs in the bit of egg that remained. “Then he started complaining that he was tired all the time. We didn’t think much about it, since he was training so hard every day, but it got worse, and he got very pale and started losing weight. They took him to see Dr. Lewis, and she ran a lot of tests. I remember that Michael was in and out of the hospital for a week or two, and everybody was really scared. They kept taking blood. And there were long needles, I remember that.
“He quit the baseball team just before graduation. They were going to go to the state finals, and the whole town was devastated by it. I mean, little towns like ours didn’t go to the state finals too often. Without Michael they didn’t have a chance. And he was well liked too, always friendly. But he just sat around his room for most of the days after that, and he wouldn’t talk to me. He wouldn’t talk to anyone. The whole team came to see him one day but he wouldn’t even let them through the front door, and after standing out on the doorstep for a while, they left.
“The doctors started giving him chemotherapy at the hospital and his hair started falling out. It all happened so fast . He got really thin, I mean he was like a skeleton, and he bled so easily. He cut himself shaving once and I thought he wasgoing to die right there, the blood just kept pouring out of him. And then he went back into the hospital again, later that summer, and they told us the cancer had spread to his brain and that he had a few weeks to live. And then he was gone.”
“And you were how old, then?”
“Thirteen. He died less than a year after he was diagnosed. I didn’t get to talk to him before he died. My father went to the hospital that night, and I asked him if I could go, but he said, ‘Not now. It’s late. You’ll go tomorrow.’ His words, I remember them exactly. I guess he just assumed Michael would be around in the morning.” Angel sighed, saw what she was doing with the fork and her remnants of egg, and put it down carefully on her plate. “So that’s it,” she said. “My father didn’t beat me, my mother didn’t turn into an alcoholic or a religious fanatic or anything like that. They just stopped paying attention, and after a while I guess I did, too.”
“So that was why you left for Miami, eventually.”
“I suppose so.
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