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LETTERS TO THE POPE

AND OTHER WAYS TO TRY TO CHANGE THE WORLD

CINDY HUMMEL

2014CindyHummel

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For Mr. Woods, with gratitude

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Letters to the Pope And Other Ways to Try to Change the World

Conceived in the mid-1960s, the result of a joke during a TV commercial, Reed Kerning crashes headlong at birth into the comfortable, ordinary lives of a mother who pathologically fears changesteering clear of all unnatural things like hippie shoes, brown rice, opinions about the war, and anyone associated with La Lecheand a father who has a surefire philosophy to maintain peace in the Kerning household. That is, his wife is right. She is always right. Always. But, from a young age, their only child creates constant upheaval in the family as she attempts to eradicate injustice wherever she finds itall the while driving her mother to nervous exhaustion. At age 16, all goes wrong when she takes on the 1980 health care system to save a friends life. The town takes sides and Reed must choose whether to take on the fight with the local hospital and, if so, how?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cindy Hummels professional writing career spans more than 20 years. As a communications specialist for a variety of nonprofit organizations, she wrote and published feature stories, speeches, and web content to promote health and human services ranging from residential education to skilled nursing care. As an adjunct professor, she taught Advertising Writing and Design at Lebanon Valley College, Annville, PA, from which she graduated in 1988. Previous published works include a volume of poetry, Snow on a May Morning, in which she poignantly describes the effects of Alzheimers Disease from the imagined voices of victims, family, and caregivers. After her retirement in 2008, she began once again to write, as she states, simply for the joy of it.

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CHAPTER ONE
Id est quid id est. headstone, Father Ambrose, 1897-1961 A thin, blue, hardcover book hadnt traveled far from position 293.16 on a back shelf in the Rockdale Library for as long as the librarian could remember. The 300 or so pages of Ancient Rituals of Fertility and Conception were worn soft and ragged from constant handling. Yet, no one had ever actually checked the book out at the front desk as far as she knew. Curious, she looked inside one day and discovered what she concluded to be very, very disconcerting photos. Sea shells resembling female anatomy. Pagan-looking Native American Kokopellis hunched over God knows what. And, worst of all, page after page after page of phallic symbols. Color photos in the very first chapter depicted townspeople in Komaki, Japan, gathered around giant, wooden penises near the Tagata Shrine, drinking sake, and bowing to Shinto gods. A few chapters later, pictures showed villagers in Dorset, England, flocking to a giant chalk bedrock carving of a penis to improve their fertility. Some were even camping out and sleeping on it. On another page, ancient Buddhist women offered sugar cakes to a fertility deity with a snaking manhood. Then they ate mouthfuls of earth. It wasnt so much that the book was vulgar. After all, shed traveled a bit and had Page | 6

once even seen a real half-naked Aborigine. What really bothered her was that in Rockdale this kind of information was utterly irrelevant and unnecessary. The small Pennsylvania steel town in which shed grown up had never had any difficulty re-populating itself. In fact, all that seemed to be required was a few winter months of spending time indoors. And so it went one February night as Nelson Kerning was eating peanut butter crackers in bed. If he hadnt been, none of this would have happened. But he was and it did. At least that was the way Reeds mother Irene would tell it. Over and over again as Reed was growing up. So that by second grade, Reed had come to understand from a joke Uncle Warren told every Christmas that she was in many ways like Jesus, since she, too, appeared to be a child born without marital relations because Irene hated them. In fourth grade, she realized those words did not mean Daddys side of the family. Around the same time, she also learned that, according to Irene, every disappointment, embarrassment, or gray hair in her mothers life never would have happened if it werent for her. Her being Reed, Irene and Nelsons only child, conceived during a TV commercial in a time Irene liked to call then. As in everything was fine until then. Indeed, the first couple of years of the 1960s had proven to be good years for the young couple. Irene and Nelson had just turned thirty, were easily able to make the one hundred twenty-one dollar mortgage payment on their small, but comfortable brick rancher on the outskirts Page | 7

of Rockdale, Pennsylvania, thanks to Nelsons job at the steel foundry. Nine years into their marriage, they were still childless, but only Nelson was unhappy about that. Irene barely noticed since she was so busy with the house all day, she said. How would I keep up with a baby? shed demand whenever Nelson brought it up. I have enough to do just taking care of you! It takes me one full hour every day just to straighten your sock and underwear drawers and disinfect the sink after you brush your teeth and shave. And thats on top of all the other cleaning and cooking I do and Nelson always cut her off when she got started up like that with a soft pat on her shoulder and the words he knew she wanted to hear. I know, sweetheart, you are a saint. No one works harder than you. No one. Hed given up trying to get his point across years ago. Now he just did what was effective in meeting his two primary goals: peace and quiet. Besides, it was up the Almighty whether or not there was ever a little Kerning that and getting Irene to let him do what a man needs to do once in a while. That part was not easy. She complained during sex. It seemed he was always hurting something: her shoulder with his chin stubble, her scalp from hair rollers bumping the headboard, and so on. Once, she even swore hed bruised her spleen. But there were at least two times he knew shed liked it. The way a man knows that sort of thing. And it was enough to keep him trying again and again and again. Even though she only let him once in a while, it was worth it just to Page | 8

think he just might see that look on her face one more time before he died. The rest of the nights he ate peanut butter crackers and watched TV. The night Reed was conceived, it was the two hundred fortieth cracker night in a row. Next to Nelson, Irene stretched out stiffly and unmoving in a position shed discovered kept the top sheet from wrinkling. Her flat chest, ironed nightie, and turned out feet made it easier. Ed Sullivan was on. Television was one of the few things Irene enjoyed even though it was a black and white model and she was certain the rest of the country had already moved on to color. The first day theyd bought it, shed insisted it sit on a lightweight metal stand with wheels so she could roll it into whichever room she was in. Lawrence Welk, Wagon Train, and My Three Sons were nighttime shows in the bedroom. Afternoons, Truth or Consequences, Father Knows Best reruns, or her favorite, Queen for a Day, in the living room or kitchen. Fanning herself with a folded piece of the Sunday paper, she swatted at what she thought was a fly. She wondered what Anne and Jerry would joke about tonight. Backhanding the air again, she turned her attention in the general direction of the nuisance. A trail of orange specks advanced from her right knee in a straight line across the coverlet where it made a ninety degree turn upward: a glaring hypotenuse leading directly to the guilty vertex: Nelsons crumb-covered lips.

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She smacked him on the head with the paper. Honest to God, Nelson, why cant you just be done eating at the dinner table like every other normal human being? Or at least eat something that wont stick to my rear end? Irene had been raised stiff and starched by wartime parents who traded carousel rides, picnics, and stories at bedtime for fear manifesting itself as specters of hunger in rationed bread, pools of ghostly shadows cast by blackout curtains on their bedroom walls, and the dream piercing scream of air raid drills that came in the night. The second World War theatre had broaden its tragic stage from Europe and Northern Africa to a small town in Pennsylvania where it glared its spotlight on Irenes young, uneducated parents crouching in wood shavings under the workbench in the basement. Their peace of mind was the first to fall. Hope for their future was next. And as their sense of safety lurched mortally wounded into all of their tomorrows, they increasingly tightened their grip on the one thing they could control: their daughter. The end result was that baby Irene arose from the sawdust with the personality of an end table not so much nurtured as she was produced. Having a pristine, pragmatic, predictable child comforted Edith and Lester Whitsend. And so, Irene grew up with rules screwed into her young psyche even tighter than the braids her mother religiously bound and trussed into her little daughters hair every morning and evening. The girls breasts never did develop fully. Maybe it Page | 10

was from all the blood being pulled up into her hair roots. For the rest of her life, her world stayed very small, no bigger than what could fit inside 800 feet of a sanitized one-story. Nelson! Listen to me! she again admonished. Nelson pulled in his tongue. Crap, two crackers left. Dont you think Im miserable enough in this ungodly weather? Do you honestly think I want to have pieces of food plastered all over me night after night? Nelson sat quietly. Hed learned at least that in nearly two years of marriagedo not actually answer the questions. What if something happened to me in the middle of the night and ambulance people had to take me away? Id look like a a damn cheese ball, all rolled in nuts and crumbs and whatever else youre eating over there! Nelson rubbed his palms together, licked the last dab of peanut butter off his thumb, and dutifully leaned over top of Irene to brush off the sheets. Hmmm. There were some crumbs on her nightie, too, and her knee and her thigh and he had to brush those off, too, of course. And, oh geez, she smelled good. Kinda like peanut butter. He smiled. He usually picked up a trace of Vicks or bleach on her. Secretly, he often wished shed spray on some of whatever the gals in the main office wore. It reminded him of those little purple Easter flowers, the inside of old cigar boxes, and his moms vanilla cookies. Page | 11

Sorry, sweetheart, he murmured into the side of her bobbypinned head. I wasnt being careful like I shoulda been, I guess. Itd taken him a hell of a long time to figure out how to quiet down this woman. But hed done it. The first few times shed yelled at him about something hed done wrong, shed scared the hell out of him. But he stuck with it because, to tell the truth, in spite of her nagging and hollering, she was cute and, Nelson thought, almost comical to look at. Big brown curls; freckles; a swan-like neck; long, straight, almost boyish legs. A little on the pale side but with a giggle Nelson had a hard time getting out of his head. He had a foolproof way of handling things. She was right. She was always right. Always. Before she could get any more wound up, the show came back on. Topo Gigio. Sigh. Nelson despised that squeaking hunk of foam rubber. Even worse was the lip-sticked fist with some foreign accent that popped up from time to time alongside the lovesick mouse. Their fake accents reminded him of the red-haired waiter at Morettis. Italian? No one believed it but they all played along. But when the puppet languished on the hosts lapel begging for kisses, Irene leaned back. Smiled a little. A straggly curl wiggled out of a hair clip and coiled into her ear. Nelson scratched his head. She was still so darn cute. He had an idea and, besides, he was out of crackers. When the next commercial came on, he jumped up, grabbed a hand towel from the nightstand and Page | 12

draped it over the crook of his arm. Is Senora Kerning-a feeneeshed? Would she like me to clear zee table? He bowed and made a big show of putting the last two crackers back on the plate, shaking and smoothing the covers, running one hand up over his cheek and into his thick black hair; pushing it back out his eyes the way Irene liked it. "S'OK? S'awright? Irene rolled her eyes. During the day her husband combed his hair like Cary Grant, side swept and a part so straight it appeared to have been made with a tweezers and ruler. But at night, an unruly lock usually broke rank and dangled on his forehead all rockabilly style. She hated it. He had his hairbrush now, sweeping crumbs into his palm. For a second, she thought he might actually eat them. Turning, he pushed up the window and tossed the entire plate of crackers out into the rhododendrons below. Winter air swept in and Irene gasped. Nelson! What the But she couldnt help it. She giggled. He knew he had her. He jabbed the TV off with his big toe. Irene pressed her lips together but it was no use. She let loose what sounded like a whinny. In fact, she even reared her head back a little. He closed the deal. Keesa me goonight? And so nine months and two days later after her life began in a bed of crumbs as a joke during a commercial, Marguerite Jacinta Kerning shot out of Irenes birth canal like it was the high slide at Water Way

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Park. She splashed right on past Dr. Browser who leaped off the stool, flinging out both hands to catch her. But all he snagged was an ankle. Great God Almighty! he shouted, staring at the dripping person dangling upside down by her leg, Shes a wild one. With a flip of his wrist, Marguerite flopped right side up. He clamped both hands around her middle, but before he could hand her off to the nurse, Marguerite twisted again banging the top of her slick little head into his left eye. Ow! Ow! Ow! Dr. Browser cupped a hand over his split skin. Nurse Miller! For Gods sake. Take her! Nurse Miller took a step backward. Then, straightening her cap, she grabbed a tiny wrist and ankle, swung the newest member of Rockdale, PA onto a blanket, rolled the whole thing up like a burrito, and plunked her on the scale. She slid the weight to the right, then the left, and then a hair to the right. Shes five pounds, eleven ounces. Irene grabbed Nelsons hand and squeezed. She? Did you hear, Nelson? She! Its a girl! Its, shes a little girl. Nelson eyed the wad on the gurney next to Irene. Are you sure? The blanket looks kind of blue to me. No, its not blue, Nelson, its more of a seashell gray or a smoky white probably from being bleached so much. And how dare you argue with me!

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No, no, youre right, honey, youre right. He did his woodpecker nod for unmistakable affirmation. Thats a girl alright. Well, okay then, thats it, folks. Nurse Miller will take it her from here. Dr. Browser was carrying a tray filled with gauze, Mercurochrome, and tape toward the door. At first they thought he was winking at them. Then they saw the blood at the corner of his eye. The door swung open before they could say anything and he was gone. Congratulations, he called over his shoulder. Shes very he hoped they didnt notice her pointy head. Shes very healthy. Im going to wash up now and get a bite to eat and give myself a few sutures. The new parents watched him disappear then turned and looked at the small wet face peeking up at them. Her ears stuck to the sides of her head like crumpled tissues. She had a big greasy white streak down the middle of her forehead. Raspberry-colored splotches covered the rest of her. Irene was the first to touch her. Shes beautiful, dont you think? Irene whispered to the top of the Marguerites tiny head. Nelson studied his new daughter for a minute, softly patting the swaddled spot where he thought the feet might be. Remember, he thought, Irenes always, always right. Man, Ill say. Shes really, really, really pretty.

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He couldnt stop staring at the pointed head, not to mention the fact that she didnt look like either one of them. Well, except maybe the shriveled hands. Those actually looked like Great-Grandma Kernings. He turned his head left and right, trying to see her from a better angle. All the while, truth elbowed and shoved its way past any of his thoughts of marital harmony, personal safety, and good sense until finally he blurted, Dont you think shes kinda puny? Irene touched her lips to her daughters forehead. The tiny girl opened her eyes. What did you say, Nelson? the new mother asked, as though she were hearing Nelson for the first time. Uh, I, um, said the words leaked slowly out of a small hole in the center of his lips, Shes a little um, scrawny dont you think? Irenes face crumpled. Oh my God! Oh my dear Heavenly Lord! she wailed. Our daughter is not even two minutes old and youre insulting her? Shes almost six pounds and shes not, what, big enough for you? Good enough for you? What in Gods name did you expect, Nelson? Did you think we were buying a ham at Supermart? Hey, could you throw a little more on the scale, please. Is that what you thought? Nelson tried squinting at the baby. Maybe he was wrong. Nope, she was a runt. No, honey, no, what I meant was Marguerite Jacinta Kerning seems like too big of a name now. Its not that the names too Page | 16

big, actually, its just a too big of a name for a he searched, a tiny, I mean especially since I was gonna call it Bruce if it woulda been a boy like I was hoping. He sucked in his breath, but it was too late. Irene lifted her colorless face to him with a tear-filled stare that raced straight at him, headlights rushing toward him on a dark road. He braced for the collision. Her mouth and half of her face turned upside down. What? What? What did you say? Honey, it was nothing. Im happy its, shes a girl. Really, I am, I mean it, I was just thinking out loud no, I mean, I wasnt thinking I mean oh, come on, hon, you know thats not how I feel. Right? Right? S'OK? S'awright? Too late. The crash was going to be fatal. He could tell. Instantly, he saw those words a boy, a boy, a boy steel, serrated, guaranteed for life, severing the fun from every pink birthday cake from now until the end of time. He saw the words cross-stitched in pink and hung over the mantle, a memorial to his short life, 1930-1964. Every Kerning generation would shake their heads at them long after he was gone: The Cruelest Words Ever Spoken: If It Woulda Been a Boy. Those words took on a dark life of their own, bobbing up and down like big, black funeral hats. Yes hed said it. Mmm-hmm. Yes, yes, yes,

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its true. His own mother would nod right along and, he guessed, rightly so. He could hear Ma now: Yes, even God Almighty is on Irenes side. After all, did you hear what my son said? Right there in front of his precious, helpless, newborn daughter! And his dear, uncomplaining wife who suffered for over twelve and a half hours to give birth to that child and only had three or four no more than five teensy little whiffs of gas for her pain. No, it was no use. Irene would never believe a kind word he said about their child from now on. Ever. Crap, even he knew he was lying. In fact, itd serve him right if she made sure he remembered those words for the rest of his life, remembered them better than he knew his own name: If it woulda been a boy like I was hopin. A tear rolled down Irenes cheek and dropped onto the babys puckered forehead. The guilt was too much to bear. Nelson did the only thing left to do. Silently, inside his mind and heart, he rationalized he was right. It shoulda been a boy. After all, he was the one whod spent over seven months getting the nursery ready. Not her. Not anyone else. He was the one who, every time he finished painting, had to go back and do it again because Irene changed her mind about the color. Yellow, no, green. No, not that shade. Emerald. Too bright. Lets go back to yellow. How about a nice, light, whatd she say, oh, yeah, lemon Page | 18

chiffon. It wasnt enough shed already gone through half the alphabet at the paint store. Now she was in the Ls and coming up with pie names. Hed had enough. One afternoon, with four open cans of paint at his feet in the nursery, he thought it for the first time. Damn, if it would just be a boy, I could paint everything blue and be done with it. There cant be that many shades of blueits a man colortwo, maybe three: light, medium, dark. Every day while he drove to work at the steel mill, the thought rode along in the passenger seat. Hey, what if its a little girl? Hed have to be the dad who fixes everything all the time. Boys dont need that much. When he was a kid, he figured stuff out. He grew up Catholic. Lots of rules but no pressure if he broke some. Old Father Ambrose would hear his confession and he could go right back to being a boy. Easy. Besides, what in Gods name would he do with another Irene running around yelling about crumbs on the floor? Not too many days passed and the thought got bigger and stronger. His boss sent him down to the library to use the mimeograph machine on some of the mills purchase orders. Waiting for the guy in front of him to finish, he picked up a baby name book on the shelf next to him. He wanted to check on a gut feeling he had. It seemed to him there was something weird going on with those girl names Irene picked out. They sounded like names on tombstones no one could pronounce Page | 19

anymore. Or labels on the bottom of Irenes nail polish bottles. Or worse, flowers. He flipped the pages to the M section. He was right. Marguerite: pearl. His hand shook a little turning to the Js. There it was. Jacinta: hyacinth. He envisioned handing over his softball glove and Yankees cards to someone named Hyacinth. She asked him if she could paint them emerald. By the time he stepped up to the mimeograph, the thought had sprouted strong, angular limbs; a baseball hat; and a grin that showed both rows of teeth. His name was Bruce. Thought by thought by thought over the next few months, Bruce filled out at the same pace as Irenes ballooning belly. Bruce was a nice kid, but stubborn as the dirt on his face when it came to life. Nothing could get him down. Hed skin his knees and never cry. Fart and stare Irene down. What a boy. Hed be crazy about his dad. Hed say, Dad, youre the best, when Nelson gave him his old tackle box, hockey stick, sprocket wrench, book of the planets, and race car collection. Bruce was a good son. He was an Eagle Scout, mowed the lawn, helped his mother with the dishes, and grew up to be part of

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management at the steel foundry. The only problem with Bruce was he wasnt so hot in school when it came to learning his colors. Nelson could live with that.

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CHAPTER TWO
One of the first things Nelson taught his daughter to do was spit. The first time was an accident. Marguerite had just slurped the last of her lunch bottle and moved on to excreting the morning one. She buckled her eyebrows in what would later become known as her determined look. A burp pushed its way through her pinched lips, bringing with it a noisy strand of milk bubbles. She locked eyes with Nelson. He laughed. Who knew a girl could be so funny? Marguerite studied him for a second or two then pressed her lips together and blew again. A perfect little fart sound! Nelson laughed harder and did it back. Then Marguerite. Then Nelson. It was a good volley. Back and forth until she got bored. Nelson wiped her chin and kissed the top of her head. Years later, hed remember that morning in the kitchen, the two of them with spit on their chins, as the awakening of a truth as absolute as the earth beneath his feet: he loved this little girl as much as he could ever love a boy. Inspired by the bubble game, he set out to teach his little girl everything he knew about having fun. To Irenes dismay and bewilderment, baby Marguerite, or Reeda, as shed nicknamed herself, took to throwing her shoes, toys, and melba toast like baseballs, piling

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mashed potatoes on her head, and struggling to get off laps and onto the floor at every turn. Her first words were cats reeda! Irene had no choice but to comply. She caught her when she fell out of cabinets, off tables, and from the porch railing. She caught her when she climbed the five-foot philodendron in the living room. She caught her when she skated in her socks in the bathtub. At Reedas three-year check-up, Dr. Browser patted Irenes hand. What will I do, doctor? she bawled. This is my only child, my sole offspring, my one and only chance to be a mother a good mother! Whats wrong with me? Whats wrong with her? Well, sometimes they outgrow these things, he said rubbing the scar on his eyelid. Really? Do you really think so, doctor? Do you really think shell stop being so strange? Reeda was trying to stand on her head on the examination table. As she kicked her legs in the air, the toe of her Mary Jane clipped his elbow. I cant make any promises, he said. Over the next few years, as her vocabulary grew, so did her ability to argue. Nelson frequently found himself in the middle of the seemingly innumerable debates with Reeda simply because Irene gave up so

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quickly. On one particularly memorable morning, Reeda insisted that Nelson wrap a hard-boiled Easter egg in her baby blanket and hatch it. A veteran trial attorney couldnt have done it better. With one hand on her hip, Reeda thrust the evidence toward Nelson. Look, Daddy, she insisted, pointing to several hairline cracks in the shell, there are more cracks in it than before. Theres a peep inside this egg! Its trying to peck its way out. Its trying to be born! Sweetie, He said gently, There is no peep inside that egg. That egg has been um, cooked. Its a uh, cooked egg. Do you understand? She stuck her chin out and locked eyes with him. Daddy, youre wrong. Reeda, I know about these things, he explained. I know whats inside. Its a hard-boiled egg. She smiled. When the peep comes out, can I keep it? Sure you can, but a peep is not coming out of that egg, sweetheart. It is a hard-boiled egg. Mother boiled it on the stove. You know, the hot stove, where the fire is. So now, the egg is, well, food, get it? Boiled food. He said the next part slowly and loudly. There is NO PEEP INSIDE THAT EGG. Maybe volume would make up for lack of understanding.

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She rolled her eyes. Oh, Daddy, think about it. If a peep were not inside trying to peck its way out, why are there more cracks now than before? I dont know. Maybe it rolled off the refrigerator shelf? She sighed, pulling the egg toward her chest and cradling it with both hands. Im going to keep it warm, she said over her shoulder, skipping away. It was at that moment, as he watched his daughter be a mother: devoted, kind, loving beyond all reason, that Nelson was glad in a small waya very small way that he and Irene had created a girl, not a boy. To see her small hands caressing something smaller and more helpless than herself, nurturing it, believing in it, filled him with love for her that made his throat ache and his eyes sting. For the next hour she carried the egg around. Talked to it. Kissed it. Rocked it. A neighbor girl called her to come and play. She refused. Right before dinner, she walked to the kitchen window and held the egg up the light. She laid it on the table, began to pick at the shell. Nelson envisioned her putting on a lab coat. She poked the rubbery white surface, sniffed it, and shrugged. You know what? There is not a peep inside this egg, she said. Nelson slowly handed her the salt. Ive always wanted to have a baby peep, she said with a mouthful of egg. Page | 25

I know, he said, patting her little shoulder. It might have been a boy, he thought. No, I mean, theres not peep in here THIS time. And so it went. Reeda seemed destined to be the kind of person who would try to love, hope, and insist without reason that people and situations become what she wanted or believed they could be. Some part of her stubbornly cradled the belief that the hardest situation could be willed into something miraculously good if you didnt give up.

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CHAPTER THREE
Maybe it was denial. Maybe it was irrational maternal love. Maybe it was hormones. But Irene was dead-set for at least the first five years on making a lady out of her wild little daughter. Early in spring 1968, she bought a small, faux patent leather, white purse at Shop-Right, hoping to pass on to her daughter what she had learned from her own mother. She assembled a lavender hand-embroidered hankie, a tiny packet of facial tissues to use instead of the hankie, a nail file, breath mints, and a dime. Then she called Marguerite to her side. Irene spoke seriously as she explained each item, emphasizing what she believed to be a key point. Dont ever spend the dime and dont ask me right now what it is for. Ill tell you when you are older. Its just a good idea to get in the habit of carrying one and I guess you might as well start now. Even at five, Reeda knew that like everything else Mother taught her, there was only going to be one way to complete the task and each step had to be followed precisely. She leaned in, trying to memorize everything just as she did her spelling words.

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The handkerchief went in first, ironed into a stiff little square. Reeda knew that Mother liked squares: pictures in the living room, bread with dinner, and hair, like her bangs. There were rows of little turquoise and carnation colored Xs on the handkerchief making a tiny picture on one corner: daisies, raindrops, and a small girl with an umbrella. She moved in closerit was a story! She loved stories! What was on the other side? Maybe there was more to see! Maybe a dog! Or a gorilla! Reeda started to say something. Too late. The girl and the adventure disappeared into the purse. Reeda sniffed as hard as she could. I need a hankie, Mother. No, Marguerite, you dont, Irene answered without looking up. She sniffed very loudly one more time just to make a point. My names Reeda, she said, turning her attention to the mints, nail file, and dime Mother was dropping into a zippered pouch in the silk lining. The mints looked okay, but she liked fruity ones better. The nail thing looked useful, like one of Daddys tools. A person could dig to China with that thing or operate on dolls and see whats inside maybe guts! Look, Irene handed the nail file to her. Feel it. Feel how scratchy the sides are? That will keep your fingernails nice and square. All big girls carry these. You are a big girl, arent you?

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Well, Donna Porter weighs more than me, at least thats what she said. But Donna lies and everybody knows it and she was bragging that shes fifty-eight pounds already and she knows Im only thirty-eight. Oh, and Lizzie Barr thinks shes smart, too, just because shes taller and she can jump farther in hopscotch than me and For heavens sake, Marguerite, thats not what I meant! Listen to me! What Im asking is, youre going to keep your fingernails nice, arent you? You wont let them get all dirty and crooked like some girls do, will you? Promise Mother you will always keep your fingernails nice and clean. Promise. Okay, Reeda lied. How can you keep your fingernails clean and still dig all the way to China, which everybody knows you can only get to if the holes deep enough. She didnt dare say it out loud, but Mother was not very smart about purses. She knew because shes peeked inside Aunt Millies purse once and there were all kinds of good things in there cigarettes, a long silver lighter with a rose on it, candy bar wrappers, Uncle Johns pocket knife, and some little curled up balloon things. Someday shed point that out to Mother. But not today. A few days later, Reeda filled her purse with water just in case she caught a fish. When Nelson returned home from work, he found Irene swollen-faced, hoarse from crying. She pulled the hankie away from her mouth and sobbed. Page | 29

I cant take it anymore! First she uses her doll heads as containers for a scab collection. The she refuses to go to church because the people are too stupid to know God isnt a baby who wears a diaper. Now she turns her purse into a minnow bucket! What in all of creation will she do next? She didnt have to wait long for the answer. It all started one afternoon before dinner. Reeda loved helping Irene in the kitchen especially when they made messy stuff like breaded veal cutlets with white cream sauce. Cooking was one thing she and Mother could do that didnt make Mother run away and cry and close the bedroom door until Daddy got home. Leaning against her mothers waist, Reeda recited the steps in exact sequence. First, you put the veal in the wax paper and then you hit it with the rolling pin. Hit it and hit it til its extremely flat. Shed just memorized the word extremely and was proud to be able to use it in a sentence. Then you dip it in the flour, right, Mother? Then the eggs. Then the flour again. Thats right, Irene smiled. Its going into the hot oil in the frying pan. Therell be a big huge hot splatter, remember? So step back now, Marguerite. Reeda moved in closer. Mmmmmmmmmm, I cant wait, Mommy, this dinner is going to be she scanned her mind for another big word exceptional. Page | 30

That would be the last time Reeda ever spoke those words about veal. Saturday, July 11, 1969 changed all of that forever. Nelson hadnt planned on taking Reed along to the Whitmans farm that day. It was just going to be a quick stop to pick up sausage and a couple dozen eggs and then back to town for a haircut. But alone with her without Irene, he was free to do all the things he might have done with a son. He showed her how to turn over rocks in the creek while keeping one hand cupped in front of it to the crayfish as they shot out of their hiding place. He was proud that even when she got pinched a couple times, she just laughed and held out her hand with the crayfish still clipped onto the webbing between her fingers, and said, Look, Daddy! Funny! Hed taught her how to stand on his shoulders as he walked and she could do it now for a long time on just about any terrainthrough a row in a cornfield, down a hill, even over railroad tracksjust like a small soldier. Straight, confident, attentive. She knew how to forage for food in the woods just behind the factory: black walnuts, brick cap and puffball mushrooms, fiddleheads, raspberries. She didnt need a sled in the wintertime. Lying flat on her back, shed squeal and slide over the ice-crusted snow and holler, Woo-weeeeeee! And she didnt need shoes in the summer even on jagged rocks, hot sidewalks, graveled creek beds. Irene could never figure out how her little daughters feet had become so calloused. How her shoulders, belly, and back could be all the Page | 31

same brown color from the summer sun. And how her clothing always had splits and holes in the oddest places, such as the seat of her underwear, the tops of her socks, and entire wool caps, crushed and filthy as though they had been run over by something repeatedly. She was never sure how these things happened, but she had growing suspicions. The summer day Nelson was headed to the Whitmans, it felt like nine hundred degrees outside. The jar flies singingReeda knew the big word, cicadaswas cranked up so high only dogs could hear them. The sky clamped down on Rockdale like a giant lid, holding in heat, turning air into drops of sweat. In the back of the yard, under a forsythia bush, Reed crouched over an anthill. Perspiration dripped from her hairline onto a little sandy mound leaving tiny craters of saltwater. Ants poked at them with their antennae. Reed was frowning. The ants were not cooperating and she was hot. She picked up her Barbie doll for a minute then dropped her face-down in the dirt. Even after shed spent all day filing those bumps down on the sidewalk to make it easier for Barbie to slither through grass and sneak up on birds and chewed her feet into flippers to help her swim better, Reed still found the doll useless for adventures. Daddy said not to let Mother see it, so Barbie lived in the raspberries now, where she didnt even make a good scarecrow. Mostly, on account of her permanent smile. Page | 32

Reed glanced up and spotted Nelson headed for the car. Maybe a fast, short ride in the Mustang with the windows open all the way would cool her off. Hey, Daddy! Dad! Daa-a-a-a-ady! Can I go along? Sure, buddy. His answer popped her up out of the brush like bread from a toaster. Ya-a-a-a-a-aa-y! she yelled running towards him. And here I was just thinkin this day wasnt going to be very exciting cause Im trying to teach ants how to swim. But they wont even go in the water, Daddy. And I dont know if theyre scared or what but how am I going to finish my experiment if they just stand there. Theyll nevershe reached deep for a big wordevolve! Nelson grinned and stood a little straighter. Well, if anybody can teach ants to swim, itll be you, Reeda. Come on. A few minutes later, they pulled into the lane leading up to the farmhouse. Reed was leaning halfway out the window. I can name almost all the flower, Daddy Shepherds Purse, Queen Annes lace, Goldenrodstop, Daddy, stop! Let me out here! I want to see the cows! As the car slowed, she jumped out, landing insouciantly in the dirt on her rear end. Ooooo, look at the pretty flowers. Periwinkle! My favorite color! Well, except for orchid, maroon, and honeydew. Nelson grimaced at her affinity for colors, but a second later smiled in spite of himselfthe hot wind had blown her ponytail into a big black Indian-style feather on the back of her head Now listen here, you. Page | 33

Dont go past the fence. And for Gods sake, its hot. Please stay out of trouble. Ill be right back to pick you up in five minutes, no more than ten. Got it? Got it, answered a tall patch of wriggling Joe Pye weed. Just down the road, Mrs. Whitman waved to him. Ill be right back, he repeated to himself, mentally crossing his fingers. The field smelled like apples and old books and cloves. Reed stretched out her arms and spun around until she was dizzy. She could stay here forever. In the meadow, everything was alive! Thistles scratched the back of her neck like Mothers hairbrush. Grasshoppers exploded into space like popcorn everywhere she put her foot. Dragonflies whirred past like airplanes on their way to some exotic destination. Who were the passengers? Where were they going? Maybe to China! Over the buzz of crickets, she heard a funny sound. Like a baby crying. Where was it coming from? Was it a Chinese baby? No, it couldnt be. She was only pretending the part about China. She was still in the Whitmans field. There it was again. Maaaw! Maaaw! Just past the fence was a wooden box that looked kind of like a doghouse. The baby must be in one of them! But why? Daddy would be mad but she had to do it. She had to go through the fence and find out about that baby. She had to help! She scrunched under the railing and ran after the sound. Page | 34

The meadow disappeared long before she got to the place where the crying was coming from. She stopped outside the box and held her nose. The boards smelled like one of those big outside potties. All around it, ants were crawling around on the rock-hard dirt. Dropping down on her hands and knees, she peeked inside. Flies landed on her eyes, ears, nose. She smacked at them. Shoo! Shoo! Baby Ba-a-a-by where are y Struggling to stand against the inside of the box was a tiny calf. He had a white heart shape on his otherwise black forehead. His ears stuck out like big velvety flower petals. A thick mud-encrusted rope made a knot around one leg covered in scabs, worms, and cow bowel movement (Mother insisted she use that phrase for poop.) Farther up on his sides, skin was coming off. His eyes trembled like egg yolks. He was crying. Water! She needed water! But there wasnt any the rope she had to get it off! Squirming on her belly, she got hold of the knot and yanked as hard as she could. It was no use. Blood trickled from behind the knot, then oozed, turning bright red. It was all over her hands. All over his hooves. All over the inside of the box. He was bawling louder than ever now. The box was a coffin and they were trapped inside and dead forever together. Horror turned her brain upside down like a cereal box with Page | 35

something in the bottom, shaking and shaking until the thing tumbled out. She screamed and screamed and screamed. Far off, someone, maybe God, hollered, What the whys she in the veal crate? Get her out of there! Then the Good Lord grabbed her by the feet and pulled. Turned out, it was Mr. Whitman, towering red-faced over her. What in Gods name you doin in there? Reeda sobbed. Oh, please, please help him. Theres a baby cow in there and hes stuck and he cant get out and hes bleeding and I cant find his mother and I cant find his water and I cant get him out and Mr. Whitman started to laugh. Oh fer cryin out loud. Thats just nothin in there, honey, just veal. Just plain Bob veal. The real little ones always carry on like that. Now dont you worry. He wont be in there much longer. Hes soon ready to eat. You like veal dont you? Eat? Eat? Eat? Mr. Whitman put his hand on top of Reedas wet black curls. There, there. Itll be alright. Thats just the way life is, honey. From the pantry all the way on the other side the house, Nelson and Mrs. Whitman could hear Mr. Whitman shriek. The gash on his arm where Reeda bit him required nine stitches plus a tetanus shot. When Dr. Brewster heard whod attacked Mr. Whitman, he said maybe he should administer treatment for rabies, too. Irene was beside herself,

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crying over and over, This never would have happened if it werent for HER! That night in her bedroom, Reeda sat down at her desk and wrote: Dear The POPE PAUL Nomber Six in Vatiken City, I hope it is oK with you if I write only 1 letter. My friend Says your nomber 6. I only have 1 piece of paper. So can you read this to the other 5. Thank you. I wish I could meet you BUT I do not think my dad will drive to the Holy Sea. My mother does not like to get her hair wet. But I think she wouldlike ST. PETERs SQUARE because of the shape. She stopped writing for a minute, her thoughts straying to the last time theyd gone as a family to the seashore. She was exhausted from diving through big ocean waves with Daddy and had plopped down on a towel on the sand next to Mommys chair. She was happily licking salt off her arms and calculating how to catch a seagull when her mother looked at her and spoke wistfully. Well, it must be nice to be able to have all that fun with your father. Thats something I never had a chance to do when I was little. My parents only took me to see the ocean one time. I was eleven and very, very small for my age. Unfortunately, they also brought my older cousin along who was not right in the head. He was a grown man, but had the brain of a five-year-old, they said. Page | 37

And, honest to God, I will never forget this! He thought I was a baby! So he picked me up and carried me the whole day. He said he did not want me to dwound. And my parents let him! They said they didnt want to hurt his feelings. What about me? My feelings? I wanted to touch the sand, the water, the boardwalk maybe even go on the carousel. But no. I sat on an old bedspread and stared at my feet. And now I wait here all alone and watching you and knowing I will never have the chance to be a little girl at the beach. Ever. Irene bit her bottom lip, pausing for a moment to make certain Reed noticed then turned her face away. Poor, poor Mother, Reed thought. How selfish she had been to have all that fun and let Mother just sit there and be sad and all by herself. She jumped up and wrote in the sand. My MOTHER is the BEST in the world!!! She stepped back and read it out loud. It needed more exclamation points, she thought. Irene smiled weakly, but it was enough to make Reed feel a little better. She reached over and took hold of Irenes hand and the two of them stayed side by side, watching the waves come in and out for the rest of the afternoon. The feeling she had that day was the same thing shed experienced in the veal crate. Bad. Like something was wrong and she had to do something. She began to write some more.

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I want to ask you an importent question. I am not Cathlec like you and my friend Peggy Walsh and all the Pauls, but I heard you are like God. That is nice. Hear is my question. Does God send you to Hell if you hurt baby cows? I think HE should. I would ask GOD but I do not know exakly where he lives. But I know the Whitmans live at 204 Old Forster Road. Please make them stop eating baby cows and please tell people to stop doing bad things. THANK You. Sinceerly, Marguerite J. Kerning. And just in case he didnt get the letter in time, Reeda had another idea. She sneaked into the woods behind the church every day for two weeks, pulling skunk cabbage out by its roots and smashing it between rocks. She walked the half mile to the Whitmans house, made big brushes out of wild buckwheat, and smeared skunk juice on the baby cow and his pen every day for two weeksjust like her Sunday School teacher said the Israelites did with the blood on the door posts so the angel of death would pass over them. Mr. Whitman never told anyone that one of his veal calves started to smell rotten like it was sick or infected or something and couldnt be sold for meat. But the next spring, whenever she could, Reeda asked Daddy to stop at the Whitmans pasture so she could give an apple to the big sweet bull with the white heart on his face. Page | 39

So there! If you had teeth, something to write with, and a good idea, you could do anything.

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CHAPTER FOUR
Night after night while Reeda was growing up, Irene and Nelson lay in bed and whispered the days events to each other. Each sentence began with Can you believe she Nelson would chuckle in between bites of peanut butter crackers. But worry wrapped itself around Irenes mind like an overindulged cat. As theyd done in so many other areas of life, they strapped themselves fast to opposite conclusions. She was hilarious and the smartest kid I ever met to her father. Possibly mentally disturbed and not like my side to her mother. However, there was one area of common ground from which neither would budge. They both loved their daughter. Nelson loved Reeda more than they loved anyone or anything in the world and, many days, that included each his wife. And in her own way, Irene love her child, too. Although, for her, it was more of a yearning, reminiscent of a time she sneaked out from under the workbench as a little girl and stared at sky, sickly yellow and framed in a tiny, splintered window. It was a funny picture of Heaven, but she believed birdies were happy when they flew there. And thats how it was with Reedshe was an odd, raggedy promise of happiness but a promise nonetheless. Not the real thing but enough to fill Irenes small world. Page | 41

This mutual affection for their daughter, in spite of Irenes occasional hysteria, combined with the countrys widely-held belief that life in general was pretty good, made the seventies an era of comfortable ordinariness for the Kerning familyat least for the first few years. Like other housewives whod not yet heard of Gloria Steinem or Cher, Irene spent most of her time making sure she and her family fit in. Every Sunday morning, they attended the Methodist church. All the dcor in their home was orange, brown, and harvest gold and avocado green just like every other one story brick home on the block. She steered clear of hippie shoes, health food, opinions about the war, and anyone associated with La Leche. Ugh. She was careful to keep her spider plants misted, her oven lined with clean aluminum foil, and her toilet water blue. She switched TV channels when there was talk of Vietnam, college protests, hostage situations, or anything like that. Best of all, she was regularly adding to her gelatin mold collection, opening up a whole new world of possibilities for canned salmon. In fact, if it hadnt been for Reedas constant episodes, as Irene preferred to say, things were nearly perfect in the Kerning household that is, until one morning, a few years after the episode at the Whitmans farm. Reeda walked slowly into the kitchen one morning at breakfast. Her parents put down their coffee cups and stared.

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Shed squashed her wiry black hair under a bath towel turban, wrapped herself in a bed sheet and knotted a thick piece of rope around her waist. Fingering a long string of green plastic pop-beads, she announced, Let us pray. Nelson studied Irenes chest to see if she was still breathing. She wasnt. Crap. It was going to be up to him to jumpstart her again. He began. Well now honey, heres what Daddy thinks. I think that is very, very nice of you, but we all just prayed on Sunday, remember? We always pray the Lords Prayer on Sunday with Reverend Thompson and we say the Come Lord Jesus prayer before we eat, right? Reeda closed her eyes and whispered. Dear Holy God please, please, please, please give us Kernings salvation so we dont burn in Hell forever and ever. Irene was bluing around the lips. Nelson knew he had to think fast. Hey, wow, Reed, I see you learned another big word there. Salvation. Thats really nice, honey. Did you learn that in school? Eyes still closed, Reeda explained. It was at the library. The librarian was staring at her again. She didnt know that it was because shed come to be known as the odd little child who stands in front of the oscillating floor fan waiting to catch the next gust. If she turned her head just right, the breeze blew her frizzy black curls into huge Mighty Mouse ears and made people laugh.

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Reed remembered that one of the times she was pretending she was Amelia Earhart near the big fan, she tilted her head coming in for a landing and saw her name spelled out on a sign near the runway. Well, actually, it was only her middle name, Jacinta. And, really, it was on a book. Upon hitting the ground, she found an interesting looking page. She checked out the book and had it with her now. As Nelson and Irene held each others hand, she began to read: Jacinta Marto was born in Portugal, March 11, 1910. One of her jobs when she was a little girl was to go to the fields each day to watch the familys sheep. One day, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to her and asked her to say the Rosary so there would be peace on earth. Also, The Blessed Virgin showed a vision of Hell to Jacinta. She asked her to suffer so sinners would not have to go there. Jacinta agreed to suffer. She gave her lunch to beggars, refrained from drinking water on hot days, wore a little rope around her waist and prayed all the time. When she was only ten years old, she became seriously ill. Our Lady appeared to her and told them her she was coming soon to take her to Heaven. Poor little Jacinta was very, very sick but she did not complain. She was ready to suffer anything to save souls from Hell. Our Lady continued to console Jacinta with her presence, and on February 20, 1920, Jacinta died. Nelson and Irene had a bad feeling. This had all the earmarks of becoming one of those times they deeply, deeply regretted their fourth graders ability to read at the seventh grade level. Page | 44

Irene found her voice first. Now listen to me. Not one person, not one soul on my side of the family is related to any people who are shepherds. In fact, none of us has ever even touched a sheep. Weve always been more of the city type. Thats why we go to the nice Methodist church right over on Chestnut Street, which, by the way, does not like to use the word you just said to say where bad people go Nelson interrupted. The point is, Reeda honey, therell be plenty of time to suffer when you grow up, he said, trying not to look at Irene. But its real nice of you to read stuff in the Bible. Its kinda like history, you know? And if you ever do see Jesus or His Mother, please tell them Nelson Kerning said hello, alright? Reeda shook her head and pulled the rope a little tighter. This wasnt going to be easy, but she had what was the word? Oh, yeah, endurance. Shed written to the Pope. Shed taken a vow of suffering. She was destined for sainthood. Now it was just a matter of time. A few days later, Nelson stopped by Coovers Books and bought a pocket size copy of the New Testament. He didnt know much about Bibles, but this was one was kinda pretty. It had a pebbly white cover with gold lettering and gilded edges on all the pages. There was a thin, red, satiny ribbon attached to the binding that could be used for a bookmark. Reeda would like it. He was thinking maybe if she had a little Bible to read, she could figure some stuff out. Like why its good to build a big boat if God says to and other things hed heard growing up. Maybe Page | 45

shed drop this whole suffering thing and just be a normal kid who made crosses at Easter out of Popsicle sticks and hung pictures of rainbows in her room. He couldnt have been more wrong. I love it, Daddy, she squealed when he pulled it from his coat pocket that night. Im going to read every single word and Im going to memorize it and Im going to pray with it every day. Thats just what Jacinta probably did. Leave it to you to make things worse, Irene spat from her side of the kitchen table. Nelson just shook his head as Reed skipped off toward her bedroom. She flapped her arms like wings and proclaimed in a loud voice, Fear not! Im going to be a saint, Daddy! Even if it takes me my whole life! She didnt have to wait that long at least in her own mind. May 14, 1972 was the kind of insignificant day Irene Kerning lived for. Spring had warmed up the backyard and, even though dinner was over, the sun still held a soft torch behind the maple tree. Reeda was not talking. Nelson had licked the last traces of lemon meringue pie from his fork. Dinner had only dirtied a few dishes. And Walter Cronkite was on TV. Homework done, dinner over, and daylight left, Reed turned her attention to her microscope. These days, she often equivocated between science and religion. So far, the Blessed Virgin had not shown up no matter how hungry and sad and perfectly good Reeda tried to be. It Page | 46

wasnt that she stopped believing in God or Jesus or His Mother, but, after all, how could she help them if they all insisted on being invisible like that? If she put a drop of water from the creek at Whitmans farm, under her microscope, she could see amoebas playing bumper cars with each other and snacking on little black specks of algae. If she could figure out a way to see something so tiny and God was reportedly very large omnipresent, she recalled there had to be a way to see Him, she reasoned. So every day, she followed the instructions from the little white Bible Daddy had given to her. Lets see, she posited, It says here, The kingdom of God does not come with careful observation because the Kingdom of God is within you. So she pricked her finger with the pin on the back of her Jackson Five button. After a few minutes of looking at it on the tip of her finger she plopped the tiny red globule carefully onto a piece of paper and blew on it. It sprouted Bugs Bunny ears. Impossible, she concluded. God was much more dignified than that. She settled on a different tactic suggested a few pages back. Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. If God was real and she were to be one of His saints, then she would need proof. She politely reminded God that she had knocked on the door on the door of the Vatican some time ago with a letter to the Pope. Did He remember? Did He hear? Would He do something to stop people from being so cruel? Page | 47

She didnt mean to doubt Him, she explained, it was just that when she looked through a microscope lens, things appeared that werent there just a minute ago. It seemed to her to be a different kind of miracle, but a miracle nonetheless. A microscope makes invisibility disappear. All she had to do was place her specimen samples dead fruit flies, lint, bread crumbs, or whatever else caught her eye on the tip of her pinkie and hold it up to the light at window. There, backlit in the sun, the essence of the thing began to emerge: colors, patterns, edges. Every piece, bit, smear, and drop she lifted to the window asked the same question: now can you see what I really am? After a long time at the window, after shed worked imagination, reason, and empirical knowledge into exhaustion, shed wipe the question from her fingertip onto a clean glass slide; press her eye to the lens piece, and exclaim, Oh! Back in first grade, shed read about George Washington Carver, picturing him just sitting there on his porch steps eating his peanuts as usual after lunchlike Daddy and his orange crackers. Under the noonday sun, right before he went in to wash his plate, he took a good long look at one of the nuts. He turned it around and around. Then just for fun he stomped on it, went back into his house, and stuck a little bit of the peanut mush under his old microscope. Oh! he said. And the next thing you knew, he was inventing linoleum. Page | 48

She was exactly like him, she thought. When she squinted just right, she too could tell what deserved a closer look. She too could identify the potential mystery and power in just about anything. And she too could begin to answer the ancient question: what am I really? Like slivers of things on the slide, the answer slowly began to take shape in her mind: clearly, nothing is ever what it looks like at first. To Irene, the whole microscope thing was ridiculouspeeping into a little hole at the same thing for over an hour when right there in plain sight her school shoes are all scuffed again and she acts like she doesnt even care if theyre polished or not! Once, shed scolded her. Reed! For Gods Sake, get your head off that contraption and come help me fold the laundry. You want that thing to grow fast to your forehead? You want to get a humped up crooked bent over spine like old Mrs. Brubaker? You want to get pink eye or a brain tumor or wear glasses from all that cockeyed staring at God-onlyknows-what-it-is? Reed straightened up and turned around. Squinting very hard at her mother made the light behind her so much brighter and the freckles on her nose so clear Reed could almost count them. One, two, three she thought. Irene looked at Reeds wrinkled nose and scrunched up eyelids. Oh my God! she cried. You did it! You ruined your face! Nelson!

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Nelson! Oh my God! Shes ruined her face! Her eyes are all piggy! Nelson! Ree-eee-eeda! For the love of God stop tormenting your mother and go outside and play! Nelson hollered from the dining room. Irene must never know that just a few weeks earlier, hed sneaked a sewing needle from a box in the laundry room and pricked his finger, then Reeds. They each squeezed a watery red drop from their index fingers, smeared them onto glass slides, and marveled at the squiggly, dark, shapes under the microscope. Theyd yanked hairs from their heads and picked tiny scabs from their noses, too. That kid was so much fun. Reed thought about all this on that spring day and remembered that it was almost three summers ago that she wrote that letter to the Pope. Knock and the door will be opened, she whispered to herself as she made herself smaller by hunching tighter over the microscope. Maybe Irene wouldnt notice her and make her dry the dishes. Shed tucked her feet up underneath the chair seat when the TV announcers voice yanked her backward, almost toppling her onto the floor. We continue our coverage tonight with news from the Vatican. Pope Paul has issued a compelling call to action to people everywhere to take personal responsible for achieving peace in the world. Specifically, the Pope said in his epistle it is every persons duty to examine themselves, to see what they have done, and what they ought to do. Page | 50

Reed slid off the chair and dropped to her knees, ignoring the implausible lapse of three years since shed written her plea about the calf. Thank you sooooooooo much, God, she prayed, at last the Pope has come right out and said it, although not in exactly the words I would have used: people, look at what you are doing horrible things like putting poor little calves in a packing crate before theyre even dead! She still got mad when she thought about it, even though she knew God was watching her. She stood up and turned to study Pope Paul VI on the TV screen. He had nice dark eyes like Daddy. His forehead went all the way back to a white cap on the back of his head. His ears stuck out and he was smiling a little a familiar way. She could see him and it was almost like he could see her, too. He seemed to be saying to her that he had read her letter and understood. He was encouraging her to do something, to help even more. She felt like a saint. And she hoped the Whitmans had their TV on. She had written a letter and something good had happened. Deep in her mind, the results of cause and effect slid down an axon like the first sled on a snowy hill packing down a slick groove for all the other sleds to follow. The thought bounced to the next slope and the next until the neural pathway was a fast ride for all Reeds experiences from that moment on.

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Microscopes and prayers, God and calves collided. It was the Big Bang of an eight-year-old birthing unwavering social entrepreneurism, lifelong ideology, and a defiant way of sizing up world systems for the rest of her days. History and future snapped into focus. She hadnt accepted the fate of a small animal. Shed bitten the head off the snake of evil. And shed found a way for everyone in the world to hear her: write a letter to someone important. She faced her future with fisted determination. Well, except for one small insecurity about her intelligence that loomed like trees her thoughts were not always able to steer around. It happened in second grade while Mrs. Woozak was explaining something during science class. All the kids were standing around the science table and she got shoved to the back of the group by the Kominshky twins. Their father owned a butcher shop and they were already the size of sixth graders due to a steady diet of saturated fats and scrap meats. Even so, Reed might have pushed her way to the front, but the brothers also smelled bad, like the bathroom at home sometimes after Daddy was in there. So that day, Reed chose to stand in the back and discreetly hold her nose. It was a decision she would regret for a long, long time. She heard the teachers question just fine. And can anyone tell me what a dry cell is?

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The problem was she never heard the answer. Practically everyone put up their hand. Then someone in the front row whispered something. Mrs. Woozak smiled and said thats right, and all the other kids nodded as if to say everyone knows that! Really? Was she the only one who didnt know what a drysell was? She tried to imagine. A seed pod? A sea shell? A compartment in a bee hive? What could she do? She couldnt ask anyone what the answer was because shed have to admit she didnt know everything. And all the kids thought she did. And they proved it by fighting every Friday morning to have her on their weekly spelling bee team. She stood on her tiptoes and peeked between the twins necks. All she could make out was a wire and a lemon. The worst part was, she didnt learn the answer until middle school when the teacher explained how batteries work. By that time, her shame and embarrassment had grown into full-blown anxiety that someone someday would discover she really wasnt as smart as everyone thought she was just by saying, Hey, hand me the drysell, will you? And she would just stand there. Unmoving. Unknowing. Unacceptable. But other than that, she was proud of herself and all the times shed raised her hand in school and had given the right answer. Because its biodegradable. Its the predicate, of course. Three thousand forty-six. And even more so, she was pleased with herself for of all the times shed shaken her head no at what was the law, the rule, Page | 53

the way things are done. Not me had been her response to mothers insistence that all girls carry purses. Not me shed vowed upon hearing Mr. Whitmans joke that everyone likes to eat baby cows. Not me shed prayed out loud when Reverend Thompson told all the nice people in church that they might go to the place he was too much of a pastor or a scaredy cat to even say the name of. So naturally, four years later when Irene explained menstruation by having her daughter read a pink flowered brochure from the school nurse, Reeda would walk two and half miles to a shabby old fieldstone bungalow half-hidden by a walled garden of gnarled fruit trees and gray green drifts of tangled herbs and vegetables. She would knock on the door of the old woman whose Ojibwe grandmother had taught how to scrape roots, mash leaves, and crush seeds into poultices and potions. She would duck beneath the hanging bunches of dried flowers in the brick-floored kitchen that smelled like paint. She would watch as the woman hunted slowly through little cloth bags and tinctures and salves, mumbling, Squaw mint, chokecherry, pig weed She would take the pee-colored oily concoction and think of what the pages had said about bleeding for at least two weeks every month for practically the rest of her life. She would shiver for a moment with the horror of the headaches and the stomachaches and the swelling and the blood and the Page | 54

hatefulness of it all. And she would drink the potion, whispering loud enough for the old woman to hear: Not me. And as if to punctuate her newest resolution, she determinedly jettisoned a syllable from her name like a doll from childhood. From now on, shed be REED. Of course, eventually, Irene would come upon the dozens and dozens of unopened boxes of sanitary napkins in the back of Reeds closet hidden way beneath the winter linens. She lifted the blankets out of the waybeing careful to keep them nicely foldedand picked up box after box after box of sanitary napkins. Sealed, sealed, sealed. What no, it couldnt she couldnt something is Irenes brain failed like an orphaned antelope in the face of a lion, trying to make sense of something completely senseless up until the very last second before the killer lunged. Oh my God! She screamed Nelson! and dropped to the floor. Reed bolted toward her mothers shrieks, but when she heard the thud, she spun around and ran the other way. Some things did not require a closer look. That was the exact same sound shed heard two summers ago when Irene came upon a cube of owl droppings that still had a little mouse foot sticking out of it drying daintily on Grandmothers silver turkey platter.

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She huddled at the bottom of the stairwell, pleading with God. Please, please, please, help Mother and me, God. Please! Im driving my mother crazy. She said so. But I dont mean to. I know theres something terribly wrong with me or else I cant help it. Maybe its red food coloring like they said on TV or something. I cant! I just cant! She started to cry. Im sorry, sorry, sorry Then Nelson was coming toward her. The light was dim, but she could see he was clutching a box of Stay Whites. Daddy, is Mother, is she? She just needs some time alone. He handed the box to her. Whats this about? Are you sick? Are you all right? I mean, you know, girl-wise. Everything okay? Your mother seems to think youve done something wrong, but there must be some kind of explanation or something, right? Right, honey? Reed curled up on the step and started to cry again. Nelson dropped the box and wrapped his arms around her. Oh, thats just wonderful! Irene screeched from the top of the stairs, a sound like tires with not one millimeter of tread left on them. Nelson and Reed braced themselves. Thats just wonderful, Nelson! You just be all nice and understanding! Im the one with the problem, right? Reeds just fine the way she is, right? Shes just perfectly fine, isnt she? Just perfectly fine! Now, Irene, sweetheart, I was just asking if Page | 56

Irenes teeth were showing. The veins on her neck stretched out like over-wound banjo strings. No white was showing in her eyes. Bruce! she screamed. Br-u-u-u-u-uce! Irene, for the love of God, dont! Bru-u-u-u-ce, Bruce, Bruce! So there you have it! Thats what he wanted to call you! Did you know that? Well? Did you? This fine upstanding almighty father of yours who you think is so perfect wanted to name you Bruce! And do you know why? Irene! Nelson started up the stairs. Because he didnt want you! Thats right! He didnt want you! He wanted a boy! Nelson dropped to his knees on the step beneath Irene. Irene, please Hes been secretly trying to turn you into a boythe son hes always wantedever since you were born. Well, maybe he got his wish! Maybe thats why you hate purses! Thats why you start fights! Thats why you played with microscopes instead of dolls! And with God as my witness I know thats why youve done somethingand I dont know what but by God I swear I will find out what you have doneto stop your your womanly cycle! Reed looked down to see whose fingers were poking her on her chest. No, it was her heart. Knock, knock, knock. Whos there? Bruce.

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Pushing past Nelson and Irene, she ran to her room, slammed the door and crawled under the blankets. The sound and feel and smell of her own breathing were her whole world when she put her head under her covers. It always when she was scared or sad or angry. She loved the whooshing sound in her ears as though she were holding big seashells over both of them. I hear the ocean, I hear the ocean, I hear the ocean, she thought, but this time it didnt work. She couldnt push Irenes voice out of her head. And she was running out of air. People take breathing for granted, she thought. They must have never had a mother who stuffed their mouths full of giant marshmallows, made them sit on a chair in a corner in the dining room, and suck the marshmallows until they dissolved. That was the punishment Irene had concocted to silence Reeds logic. Sit! shed hiss, shoving marshmallows into Reeds mouth until Reed could hardly breathe. You know what to do. Suck those and dont you dare chew them or you get more! Thatll keep you quiet for a while. Reed tried hard not to cry during those times because if her nose got stuffy when those huge globs of marshmallow were clogging her throat, she couldnt breathe. Breathe, breathe, breathe that was her fallback mantra for survival with Irene. Gradually, as she lay curled up under her blanket, her chest began to move slower and slower and slower until, finally, she could think about something else. But as soon as she allowed one thought back in, Page | 58

Irenes rant was right there, waiting on the doorstep of her consciousness, stern missionaries pointing to eternal damnation: Daddy really wanted a boy, not her. Shed always felt that Irene hated her for something, but she could never put her finger on it. But, Daddy, too? Why? Why? Was she really all wrong all the way down to her DNA? Who were they hoping they got instead of her? Was it a specific boy or just any male as long as he had boy, instead of girl, parts? She could kind of understand if they wanted a son because he was going to grow up to be someone like Hank Aaron or the president or Jesus Christ. But if it just came down to genitals, it wasnt fair! She didnt need a mirror to know what she looked like. Shed made anatomical drawings of herself ever since this change thing started. Like Da Vinci, she always began by sketching how she pictured her bones, then adding whatever recent layers of muscle and fat had appeared that month. A few illustrations ago, shed started penciling in skin and little black commas for new hairs. The evidence was clear. She was a girl. Her shoulders were square and bony but her breasts were all nice and round like double scoops of French vanilla ice cream, especially the one on the right. A long squiggly scar stretched across her belly from when she fell out of the poplar tree. That was a great day, she remembered, except for the falling part. Page | 59

She squinted her eyes into an imagined lens as she thought more about her body. This is how you see what things really are, she remembered from her hours with her microscope. She turned her mind toward a sunny window. See what you are, she said out loud. Long straight boyish legs, caramel from the summer sun, came together just beneath a little curly black beard. She imagined two eyes and a nose and laughed out loud. She opened her eyes and squeegeed the tears off her cheeks with her index fingers. Studying her feet, she wiggled her toes, pleased with the black-licorice-colored polish shed picked out at the Shop-Right which Irene said was too strange but she bought it anyway because she had her own money from returning soda bottles for the deposit money. She scolded herself. Marguerite Jacinta Kerning, listen to me, youre a girl. No doubt about that. Whether Daddy likes it or not. And youre going to have to start bleeding whether you like it or not and youre going to have to keep on bleeding to keep Mother from winding up in a mental hospital. So you might as well just get on with it. If only shed walked away from her inner mirror that very second. But, no, she took one more look, squinting a little harder. And thats when she remembered them teeny tiny black specks on the sides of her nose and across the point of her chin. Shed recorded them last week with tiny little jabs of the pencil point. Blackheads!

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Oh, please, God, no! Cheryl Dighower had blackheads since fifth grade and now everyone called her Pepper Face and fake sneezed every time she walked past. Theyd start as soon as they saw her coming down the hall at school: Oh, man, my nose itches! Does your nose itch, too, man? Yeh, I can hardly stand it. Hey Pepper Face! Does your nose itch with all that nasty-looking black pepper all over it? Ahhhh-choooo! Wow, man! How do you stand it? Does your dad ask for the salt and your nose at dinner? Worst of all, it had started out looking like a few flecks but now the oil clogs were more the size of the coarse grind that comes out of a pepper mill. A vague feeling that there was something about her that wasnt quite right tightened her fists at her sides. Daddy wanted me to be a boy? Mother wants me to be a lady? Reed felt the tears coming back. People made such a big a fuss over menstruation and blackheads and purses and tackle boxes and Methodists and homemade potions when there was so much suffering in the world! Vietnamese children, typhoons in China, cancer. She wiped her nose on her arm and stayed in her bedroom for a long time. It was absurd. With all the things that were important to care about, such as ridding the world of evil, it all came down to what she

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looked like? How she acted? Whether she was male or female? Bruce or Marguerite? It wasnt fair. Something had to change. And that was the day Reed Kernings lifelong anger toward inequalities solidified. It was also the day her compulsive hair pulling and nose scrubbing habits started. As most neuroses do, a few vaguely disturbing feelings turned into a hundred-dollar-per-therapist-visit obsession without anyone noticing at first. Slowly over the years, it crept furtively through Reeds soul, drawing its nourishment from a rare poor test score, a cruel joke from a popular boy about her frizzy hair, a left breast that remained remarkably puny compared to the right one no matter how many exercises she tried, a pimple on her otherwise smooth and highly polished forehead. Yes, the world needed to change and now that included her, too.

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***

CHAPTER FIVE
The seventies ended uneventfully on a Monday night with only the people whod learned to disco bemoaning its passing. That night, Reed listened to K C and the Sunshine Band sing Please Dont Go on the radio. Ironically, the band itself went away for the rest of the eighties after that hit. Aging disco dancers began their awkward limp out of the glittering ballrooms toward the crepepapered banquet halls of class reunions and wedding receptions. It was a few minutes before midnight. Richie sucked hard on the joint before holding it out to Reed. She waved her hand at it without looking at him and kept typing. I dont do that and you know it, so chill! Youre going to permanently blunt the neural transmission capacity of your brain, wind up living with a bunch of heroin addicts in an alley, eat rotten escarole out of restaurant dumpsters, and, for sure, you will never ever have an opportunity to make out with me again, you putz. He hated when she was in these moods. There was nothing that would slow her down or bring her back to him. Whatever. He took another hit. Come on, Reed, its New Years Eve, he said in a Page | 63

tight voice, trying to hold the smoke in his lungs. Lighten up! We dont even have classes tomorrow. And this is why I have a GPA of four point zero and you are in danger of failing tenth grade. Tonight, this months editorial was all that mattered to her. What the hell, he thought, its like, only a high school newspaper. Who even freakin read the Rockdale Report? Who gave a crap? Only her. And it really pissed him off. He should break up with her, but he was so into her. He could never stop staring at her ass. It was like, unreal. She hadnt figured it out yet why he was always pointing out litter on the sidewalk. She fell for it every time, dutifully bending over in her tight little miniskirt to pick it up. Bitchin. Okay, listen to this, she pulled a short curl in front of her ear very hard until it was straight and taut and began to read. Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived. This is a quote by Abraham Lincoln. Consider this statement in light of the events leading up to the takeover of the American embassy in Iran last month and our fellow citizens being held hostage by Iranian militants. It was forcea coup dtatthat put the Shah of Iran into power decades ago. It was the iron grip of force that kept the Shah in power. It was force that sent the Ayatollah Khomeini into exile and force that removed the Shah and brought the Page | 64

Ayatollah back. And now it is force that has taken the freedom of American diplomats. Leaders rise and fall. Peace lives and dies. Freedom comes and goes. The victory is short-lived. The Bible says, Blessed are the peacemakers. Note: the scripture does not say peace-lovers, or peace-seekers. It distinguishes between those who say they want peace and those who are willing to make peace. Simply stated, peace is an action. Is it then also a force equal to that of conquering? If so, how do we as a citizen, a nation, a world find lasting peace, rather than short-lived results? Well? What do you think of it so far? He took another long, slow, deep hit. Reedo, man, I dont, like, have a freakin clue what you just said. Like I thought you were, like, writin about what a total bummer the caf is, like, especially that mystery meat they dish up on Thursdays you know, somethin like that. She saw the corners of his mouth twitching. Wait a minute! Was he really going to laugh at her? For a second, her bottom lip recoiled. But then she stuck her chin way out, somewhere in the general direction of unflinching dignity. So you think its, what, too, too what? Its like, I dont know, its like, like really heavy, man, ya know? I mean, its like, the Shah of somethin and world peace, Page | 65

like, what?! I dont even know what youre, like He stopped speaking. She was glaring at him. He cleared his throat. Youre just messin with my head, right? Like this here, thats not the real thing, right? Airhead. She should break up with him, she thought, but he was darkly beautifulespecially when he jumped to hit the hoop from the top of the key. She could see every muscle in his body stretched and glistening. Richie was laughing now. Hard. Catching his breath for a second, he inhaled, swallowed another hit, wiped snot from the tip of his nose with the back of his hand, and shook his head. Okay, wait, so its like, I am so into you, babe, but youre like, I dont know, like, totally freakin unreal sometimes. I mean, holy shit, man, do you, like, seriously try to be like this? Like what? Like a buzz kill. Oh, no, you dont, oh, no, you dont, she yelled. Sunday afternoon TV is a buzz kill. Not I and you know it, you freakin jerk. Get out of my face! Now! I mean it, now! She kicked his leg. Hard. Richie just grinned at her. He was too stoned to move, much less care. Hey, babe, be cool... Page | 66

Cool? Cool? Look at me! Look at my hair! Humidity had teased her long curls had into a dark frizzy tumbleweed around her face. I dont even have the hair to be cool! Richie fell back on the bed laughing. I hate you, she snarled, running into the bathroom and slamming the door. Without thinking about what she was doing, she grabbed her magnifying mirror and toothbrush and began to scrub her face, hard, especially her nose. When the skin was taut and red, she turned her attention to the rest of her face. She twisted and yanked on her hair until she tethered it into a rubber band. Then she spread styling gel all over it and sprayed it with Freezy. But all around her hairline there were still small wiry black curls that refused to lie flat. She reached for the manicure scissors. After she was in there for half an hour, Richie let himself out. Her room was dark when she opened the door, but shed finally made a decision. The article would be about the cafeteria, but it would be a factual report about the meal preparation process in the cafeteria. She yawned. It was late, she was tired, and her nose hurt. Shed start interviewing kitchen staff tomorrow. Right now she had to go to bed and breathe.

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The next morning, Reed was early, giving her time to pause for a minute on the front steps of Rockdale High. The citizens of Rockdale considered their high school building to be one the towns masterpieces, a towering symbol of their deep-rooted appreciation of art, tradition, and good budgeting. Constructed in 1932 of concrete block, Rockdale High was the grey color of iron ore and steel. When the fiery orange light of sunset hit the walls at night they turned to rust. Architecturally, though, it had three last minute flourishes that convinced the townspeople they were as modern and cultured as the rest of the world. The first was a six-foot grey and black the school colors R molded in concrete to imitate real masonry cemented directly over the front door. Next was the outside of the school: the sides and back were painted to match as closely as possible the brick faade on the front. Last, inside, the school emblem stretched out in a large circle of joined and inlaid linoleum pieces on the floor of the lobby. In the center of the circle was a linoleum mosaic of Rockdale Highs mascot, Rocky, a mountain goat standing triumphantly atop a steeply angled rock formation of what appeared to be coal. Radiating outward from a blue cloud behind Rockys head was the school motto in black letters: Rockdale High R kids. R school. R future. Page | 68

Reed paused for a minute as she did every morning and kicked the air behind Rockys rear end with the tip of her shoe. Yesterday, this food story seemed like a good idea. But, as usual, inside her school, she felt smaller, less important. American politicians were going to jail; the hostage rescue had only made Iranians laugh; Jews in France had been blown up right in the middle of the reading of Shaharit Amidah. She shuddered picturing mothers and fathers staggering around in their bloody prayer shawls and yarmulkes searching for their children in the debris. Why? They werent hurting anyone, just saying their prayers. Thats all. And now John Lennon was dead, too. And what did he ever do to anyone except ask people to try to be nice to each other? R you kidding, she grumbled, giving Rocky an extra kick. The schools alternating blue and white faux marble linoleum squares on the hallway floors always reminded her of a huge chessboard. She stepped only on the blue squares as she did every day, pretending school was a big game of chess, and she had to move through it strategically. When she got to the double glass doors at the cafeteria she smelled cookies. Maybe it wouldnt be so bad. Maybe there was a story there somewhere. After all, shed never really studied the food in the cafeteria. Mostly, shed just avoided it, filling a little paper Page | 69

sack each morning with granola, a can of diet soda, and sometimes an apple picked up from the grass under the Whitmans tree on her way to school. She opened the door. The head cook was picking through wilted lettuce stopping for a second to pick up a leaf on the floor and throw it back on the counter. Reed pulled her pen from her jeans pocket. Ooooooooooocheckmate, she whispered. Reed tapped lightly on the glass. The woman looked up, swiped one hand over her apron and waved her in. She ripped the brown edge of lettuce leaf off and tossed the rest into the bowl as Reed began to speak. Excuse, me, please. Hello. Im Reed J. Kerning, a reporter for the Rockdale Rapper and Im writing a story for our winter issue about our school cafeteria. May I speak with you for a few minutes? Guess so. If the heat dont kill you. Well I just would like to sit and observe, quietly and out of the way of course, Reed explained, tucking herself neatly on a stool in the corner of the kitchen near the canned tomatoes. I understand you and the rest of the culinary personnel prepare nutritional lunches every day for nearly 150 students, faculty, and staff members of Rockdale High. I thought our readers should have

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a greater awareness of the daily food preparation process which results in our daily mid-day meal. The cook rolled her eyes. Anybody ever tell you that you have a funny way of talkin? Yes, maam. Maam? Im Polly. I aint got a big enough car or wear enough lipstick to be a maam. You wanna piece of baloney? Um, no, no thank you, Reed answered. Polly Moyer pushed a damp hunk of orange-gray-brown hair from her sweaty forehead and took a long look at the skinny slickhaired kid sitting there big as you please, eyes dark as coffee, staring a hole right through her. Shed been the head cook at Rockdale for going on twentytwo years and shed seen a lot of kids come and go. But there was somethin more than just a little different about this one. Not a single hair on her head out of place, a shiny gold pen with no logos or bank ads or Jesus loves you smiley faces on it or nothin and big sparkly million dollar words just tumbling out of her like jackpot winnins at the casino. First time you get in my way, youre out. Absolutely, Reed nodded, clicked her pen open, and looked at her watch. 8:23 AM. A tub of tuna salad was on the counter next to her. When Pollys back was turned away, Reed slid her Page | 71

hand over the outside of the bowl to check the temperature of the container. Warm, probably room temperature. She opened her notebook and started writing. 8:25 AM: Inadequate refrigeration.

Polly waved a bunch of flies off the lunchmeat platter then covered the whole plate with plastic wrap. The flies moved over to the tray of cheese slices. 9:12 AM: Flies contaminating food. Cookin Polly thought. Why in Hell would a girl her age care about cookin! Shed long since forgotten about herself when she was only a couple years older than Reed. That was back when she first married that no-good man and waited night after night for him to come home for dinner, putting just a little more water on the pork chops, a little more, a little more. Keeping their meals warm in the oven, pinching foil covers tighter hour by hour until the edges fringed and frayed like her nerves, not capable of holding onto anything anymore. All this just to keep the family together at the dinner table as the kids came inside hot and hungry every few minutes whining, Mom cant we eat yet? Were hungr-eee-ee-ee! With every Not yet, your daddy aint home from work her selfesteem dropped faster than the sun, eclipsing behind the dilapidated shed in the backyard hed promised to fix every month for two years. Page | 72

How many chicken legs had they eaten, the desiccated meat crumbling like toast in their mouths as he sat there at the head of the table smelling sour from Jack and some floozys Salem Lights and three-dayold armpits and trying to keep his head on his neck. But, ironically, it was all because of him that her cooking was what it was today. Thats how she got resigned to serving up something with every meal to help people swallow their anger along with their food: gravy, butter bread, noodles. Why shed scrapped the whole idea of salads and vegetables. They just turned into limp, stringy, wads anyway. Why shed stopped filling the kids glasses with water and icewhich just melted and warmedand started letting them have Cola right out of the cans. And why, gradually, she began to cook as she did nowbig sloppy meals with plenty of sauce and cheap cuts of meat that had atrophied on the animal way before they hit a frying pan. Lucky for her, her culinary style was just right for making school lunches. There was one problem, though. As plantswell, all except for onionsdisappeared from her diet, she learned yet another ugly truth about that man: hed not only been aggravating as Hell to live with, but he was also apparently irreversibly fattening and constipating. But that was a long time ago when she was young and foolish. He was long gone and now, as a thick-waisted, middle-aged, dreamless woman, she just ate whatever she wanted whenever she wanted. She had a mental collection of he aint comin home recipes stuffed loosely in a Page | 73

brain file labeled: Effem And she had her favorites, too: half a can of ice-cold sweetened condensed milk stirred up with sliced bananas and cornflakes. Hunks of French bread smothered with two cans of mushrooms drained and fried in an entire stick of butter until they were sweet and dark brown and crisp around the edgesthen pour a whole can of brown gravy over that. Leftover mashed potatoes with lot of shakes of black pepper and a couple of serving spoons of mayonnaise and American cheese melted in until everything was all silky and stretchy and hot and filled her mouth with peace. Polly looked up. The girl was moving toward the restroom. Um, excuse me, Polly but its 9:30 and thats the end of my journalism class period. May I stop by again tomorrow? Yeh, you werent any bother. If you want, you can even ask me a few questions for your story. You wanna piece of butter bread for the road? She said something else after that, but it was muffled since her head was mostly inside an oven. No thank you. See you tomorrow morning. Reed clicked her pen shut with a triumphant little snap after writing, 9:21 AM: Food preparation near toilet. Check for hand washing. Possible E.coli infection. This was going to be a great story. She glanced back just as Polly cut her finger, stuck her bloody knuckle in her mouth, then wiped the blood off the cutting tray with her

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apron. Oh, yeah, the Department of Health was going to be all over this one. That night at dinner, Irene set a big platter of roasted chicken topped with canned onion rings in front of Nelson. It was one of his favorites. She handed the carving knife and fork to him and asked politely, Do you mind? Maybe this would be a nice dinner. But no, Nelson took the utensils without looking at her. Ever since Irenes hysterical outburst accusing Nelson of wanting a son instead of a daughter, he had been quiet. No more clowning around to make Reed and Irene laugh. No more rocking back on his chair and rubbing his belly when Irene brought the food to the table. No more chewing ice just for the look on Irenes face. Nothing. Simply out of habit, Reed began to talk. Guess what? Im writing my first expose! Thats nice, Nelson muttered from one corner of his food-filled mouth. Irene straightened slightly at her husbands one hundred thousandth infraction of the talking with food in your mouth rule but said nothing. At the sound of another one of her daughters big fancy words, Irene squeezed more lemon into her iced tea, then she began to describe the events of her afternoon, inserting extra syllables into her words the way she always did when she was nervous or trying to impress people. She unremittingly believed that the more important and educated one Page | 75

wished to sound, the more syllables were required. So, when speaking to fellow parishioners from church, the principal at Reeds school, or to any woman married to management at the steel mill, hand became hay-and, Elm Street, Ell-am Street, and poinsettia, point-see-et-tee-a. I saw Mrs. Armstrong today. Shes home from the hospital. She turned her eyes to Reed. Or, in-firm-ee-ary, as one might say. One what? Reed thought. The doctors said that it was a disorder in her intestines. I believe it is called She lengthened her neck and folded her hands on her lap for the pronouncement: Die-ridicu-losis. Reed swallowed a laugh and the last bites of her meal in big, hurried hunks, a trick shed learned from marshmallows. She couldnt wait to get away from the table. Her family was like the old pendulum clock in the hallway that had lost the weight from its pivot years ago and now hung motionless, stuck in time forever at 9:41 A.M or P.M., no one knew. And even though it was an air-a-loom according to Irene, it had always seemed to be too much trouble to fixand, besides, it was still useful for two minutes of each day.

***

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CHAPTER SIX
The next morning promised to be the best day of Reeds life. She was about to join the ranks of award-winning investigative reporters around the globe whose covert, dogged, and courageous pursuit of information had toppled governments, exposed criminals, and even brought down a president of the United States. That night, she smeared big gobs of green setting gel all over her hair and wrapped it so tightly around soup-can-sized rollers she could barely close her eyes to sleep without pulling the hair at her temples really, really hard. It felt good in a way. Then she prayed as she had every night since she was a little girl. Shed made sure to memorize scriptures, especially the ones that made her feel happy and safe, like together with all the saints may you grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. The words together with all the saints were her favorite part of that verse. Heavenly Father, she began, I know I dont have to tell you how wicked the world can be and the troubles that she searched for a righteous-sounding phrase, befall us poor sinners. But I want to help make Your world a better place by writing about the travesties and injustices and thereby correcting them and I especially need your help to make a difference at my school. I think the food could make people Page | 77

sick and then Thee would have to heal them. You and I Thee and me can work collaboratively to fix this situation. I just know it. After all, we saved the Whitmans veal calf. And I will always remember that. So please help me do my best tomorrow. I thank you, Lord God. Amen The next morning in the bathroom, she smiled at the perfect combination of extremely crunchy but smooth hair and cool, low dew point air outside. Her nose was scoured clean of all dermal imperfections along with some of the top layer of skin. She was ready for anything. When Reed got to the caf, Polly was already up to her elbows in a thick dingy substancepizza dough? Here I am, Reed announced in the insouciant voice of smooth hair days. Right on time! Polly squeezed the stuff in the bowl until it oozed out like big gray snakes between her fingers. She squished and spoke alternately. Oh, hi there, squoosh, Hey, young lady, squash, whats with your hair today? I set it in rollers and I... why? Oh, nothin, just thinkin out loud, thats all. Thinking? Polly paused for a moment. Using the tip of the nail on her right thumb, she dug something out from underneath the nail on her left thumb. Then she went back to kneading and talking.

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Yeh, Im thinkin its kinda all one piece today, squeeze, like a hat or a wig or somethin. Reed blushed. Aint that somethin, Polly said, scraping gooey wads of lunch off her forearm back into the bowl. Some people pay good money for curly hair and then other people get it for free and dont want it. Screwy. You wanna cookie? Reed held her breath. She hated the way some people made her feel. Not girlie enough for her mother; too girlie for her father. Not fun like other girls to Richie. And now even the cafeteria lady was picking on her. Well, adults could intimidate and ridicule other kids all they wanted to. But they were not going to do it to her. Nope, not her. Suddenly, she wanted to kick something. Who asked you? she snapped. A blob of goop landed on Pollys nametag so now it read olly. What? I said, who asked you? I mean, excu-u-u-uu-se me, but just in case you didnt notice, your hair is the exact same color that the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation uses to paint lines on the highway. Well, some of it, anyway. The rest looks like you got your head on upside downsepia on the bottom, tangerine on the top! Shed always had an inexplicable mastery of colors.

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Polly turned her head slowly without moving a muscle anywhere else on her body, like a turtle sneaking up on a fly. She stared at Reed out of the corner of one eye. She was the exhausted single mother of two teenagers and a third grader who couldnt read. Jack Junior has disexier or something so he saw words and letters backward but, funny thing, he could knock down ten outta ten empty soda cans from the back porch to the creek edge with his B-B gun. She was also the grandmother of a three-month-old girl Jora-Lynn had brought home between boyfriends. Somewhere along the way, shed stopped caring about who looked away first in staring competitions. Especially teenagers. Reed, on the other, would have died before losing a stare-off. The older woman shrugged and turned back to her cooking, tossing a word over her shoulder out of habit like salt: Whatever. A second later, Reed felt something like shame wrap itself around her like a heavy wool sweater in a hot church. How could she have allowed herself to lose her temper? After all, she was an objective journalist, and here was this poor woman working so hard, up to her elbows in, well, up to her elbows in whatever that stuff was, and not even capable of noticing that the universe or karma or mashed potatoes had just deprived her of a consonant in her own name. She had been cruel. Im sorry, Reed offered softly. It was rude of me to say that. I thought you were making fun of my hair and I just kind of reacted and Page | 80

S okay, I was making fun of your hair so I guess were even, squish, so now, squoosh, what can I do for you? After a few seconds, Reed realized she was holding her breath again. Not good. That raises ones carbon monoxide level thereby dulling the brain. Must be careful with the ratio of blood gases. Breathe, breath, breath. She sniffed and began: Well, as you might recall, yesterday we agreed that I could interview you for a story for our school newspaper about the processes behind what must be an enormous task of preparing meals for our institutions population on a daily basis. To begin, I thought Id start by asking you to tell me a little bit about yourself. Well go ahead then, squeeze, ask. Ask what? Ask about me. I just did. Oh, never mind She scratched something out on her tablet and flipped the page. Lets start again. How did you begin your career at Rockdale High? My what? Your career. You know, your job. Oh, fer I know what career means. I aint stupid. But any who, lets not try to fool anybody. Im a cook. She stopped to lick a knuckle and grab a rubber scraper. As she dumped the goop out onto the counter, she looked at the clock and

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shook her head. Sweat was dripping from her chin onto her forearms. It was hot as hell in the kitchen. Noonll be here before I know it. Gotta keep movin I understand. Now, how did you first decide that you wanted to become a cook? Polly rolled her eyes. Well, I used to sit around on my back porch when I was a little girl and dream of growin up and standin on my feet for 14 hours a day, cookin and scrubbin and then goin home and puttin up with my own kids, and cookin some more. Yeh, thats what I decided I wanted to do when I grew up. She glanced at Reed, then back at the glob. Look, this here jobs a have to do thing, not a want to do thing. Where was it? What? Your back porch. What? Why? You just said you sat around on your back porch when you were a little girl, so where was it? Well now, hows that part of your story or even your business, fer that matter? This is not my story. Its your story. Polly started to say something then stopped, breathing raspingly through her nose as if she had a mouthful of somethinglike too many Page | 82

marshmallows. She thought and thought and thought. My story? There aint no story. There were just mornings, afternoons, and nights. She thought some more, digging around a bit in her recollections to find the beginning, but her memories were all jumbled up like a box of photos somebody dropped. There she was. Trying not to cry when Mrs. Lance, smacked her on the face for talking back in second grade. Frying eggs for the kids for supper when the meat was gone. Writhing, drunk and pig-tailed with her jeans still half on, the first time she let a boy go all the way. Wailing like a banshee when she got ringworm and her mother threw away her baby doll. Singeing off her eyebrows and knuckle hairs, burning feathers off a just killed chickens for dinner. Mamas boss standing in the kitchen saying, She got killed, and Im sorry, Im sorry. Jora-Lynns belly swelling underneath her tight little t-shirt and her not even being old enough to have to shave her legs yet. Reed continued. Of course, if youd rather not reveal where you grew up, I certainly understand. And, actually, that information is not critical to the newsworthiness of this piece, although I do like to inject some personal information so as to create a bit of human interest in the A row home. I beg your pardon? Page | 83

Where I grew up. It was a row home right near the knitting mills, you know, the old textile works back behind Walnut Street. Everybody worked there back then. My mother did, too. She worked in the weaving room. One day she tried to thread a shuttle by sucking on the yarn and she went and got her hair too close. Got it caught in the hand gear on the loom. It broke her neck. And that was that. Reed felt a little sick. So, your mother, shes dead? Yep, since I was twelve. The familiar tapping feeling began in Reeds chest. She tried to imagine Polly with her fat hairy arms as a little girl and being told a sewing machine killed her mother. She remembered Marcy Lilly from in sixth grade. Her mother hung herself on laundry day with the belt from her husbands bathrobeat least thats what everyone said. Poor Marcy! Not only did her mother die, but she also humiliated her children by going that way. So Marcy got it in her head to tell the other kids what she insisted was the real story about what happened. She said her mom had a real good singing voice, almost as good as Linda Ronstadt. One day, her mother was belting one out in the backyard, tending her prize roses, and drying her long, naturally blonde hair in the sun. Next thing you know, just like in the movies, a talent scout from Hollywood pulled up in his steel blue Lamborghini and discovered her. Just like that. She was going to be famous. In fact, Marcy Page | 84

said, her mom was on her way to Gold Star Studios in a beautiful apple green Cessna when it went down somewhere over Kansas. And thats the real reason she was dead. The lie lasted until recess when Scotty Kropfhauer sat on Marcys head and made her tell the truth. She was wearing an angora cap with big round pearly buttons on the sides so she told right away. A few weeks later, Marcy started acting really weird. Shed learned in science class about an experiment with this kid named Albert and how he got scared of men with white beards because scientists spooked him with a white rat. So she started eating ice cream while sitting on piles of dirty clothes. Maybe the experiment would work the other way around. Maybe she would stop being so sad on laundry day. Sheila tried every flavor. Mocha Almond Chip. Butter Crunch Swirl. Raspberry Sorbet Sublime. And your basic vanilla. But she kept on crying. Eventually she went back to making up stories. For instance, she told everyone that her mom was folding laundry and somehow got all tangled up in it and even had a pair of her husbands boxers on her head when they found her. It was an accident. A freak accidentalmost comical, really. Thats all. After a while, the other kids just patted her on the arm. Reed thought it was all very sad. She didnt know what to say to Polly. She wanted to say something kind, something consoling, polite. But her words stuck inside her like a Page | 85

randomly placed bookmark, holding a page nowhere near the beginning or the end of the book or even close to where the reader might need to take a bathroom break. Shed uncharacteristically lost her place. Pop was never around after I was seven or eight, Polly went on, giving the glutinous blob a hard smack. So I took over. Had to. Had four little sisters and a brother. One side of Pollys mouth scrunched up into a half grin or a half scowlReed couldnt tell which. Hey, what d ya know, I guess that right there might be the reason Im a cook. Lots of mouths to feed. So there you go. She looked at Reed. You wanna piece of cheese? No, no that, well, okay. I guess that would be nice. She took the yellowish cube. It was white around the edges and felt like an eraser. She nibbled a corner and it was surprisingly good. She continued to watch Polly, trying to picture her as a girl younger than herself, hearing that her mom got her head stuck in a sewing machine. There she was, twelve years old. Maybe she had her period that day and maybe she hated it, too. Did she cry? Did she swear? Did she pray? Maybe she didnt do any of that because her little brother and sisters wanted something to eat. Maybe the news about her mom came right at dinnertime. And she just had to get busy. Reed thought about the one time she had tried to peel potatoes. Irene made her stop because the peels were too thick and she was wasting good potato. Page | 86

But Polly would have had to peel potatoes all by herself because the kids were hungry and her mother was never coming home again and it was all she could do. How many times had she cut herself? How much blood got into the mashed potatoes until she learned how to do it right? She looked at Polly, who was standing mostly still, cutting up cheese for the macaroni, her silhouette backlit by a long row of windows in the kitchen. Reed studied her. How old was she? Her shoulders were hunched like Grandma Kernings but her face wasnt nearly as raisin-y. She had freckled, patchy skin that sagged into wrinkles. Frinkles. A broad, tea-colored bra strap stuck out near the neckline of her blouse. No one young wore bras like that so Reed figured she had to be at least as old as Irene. Maybe like fifty or sixty. Had she been cooking the whole time? Since she was twelve? You okay? Polly asked, handing her a long shaving of cheddar. Yes, yes, Im fine. Its just that I have to go. I have to get to my next class, she answered, managing a fake smile. There was no way she could submit the cafeteria article. If she got right to it in study hall, she could finish the piece about the Iranian hostage crisis by tomorrows deadline. She could easily flesh it out with quotes from philosophers and historians and news facts about President Carters actions. And even if

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no one liked it, she knew shed still get an A from her teacher just because of the impeccable grammar, organization, and vocabulary. That night at home, Reed sat in the kitchen, thinking while her mother cooked dinner. Irene was making a salad to go with the fish shed been baking all day. She liked to get the evening meal in the oven in the morning so she had plenty of time to scour the appliances before dinnertime. It didnt matter what kind of meat it was: a whole turkey, meat loaf, or haddock fillets. Everything got roasted from 11:00 AM until 5:00 PM. The kitchen had to be spotless by the time they sat down to eat. Irene also used the exact same recipe for all meatfish, pork, beef, or chicken. Shed top it with cream of celery, tomato, or mushroom soup and an entire can of onion rings, cover the whole thing with foil and bake it while she scrubbed and disinfected the house for the rest of the day. The six-hour roasts were always still baking in the late afternoon when Reed got home from school. This was how Reed learned that aromas, like other first impressions, could fool a person. For example, dinner always smelled so deliciouscaramelized onions, brown gravybut the truth was that the onions and whatever else Irene made to go along with main dish were about all Nelson and Reed could swallow without slow, deep gulps of milk to push it along. Peristalsis all by itself was never enough when it came to Irenes cooking.

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It was strange. Irene was clean and orderly and her meals were hard to swallow. Polly, on the other hand, was sloppy and chaotic, but even the dried out pieces of cheese she handed to Reed tasted good. After dinner, she decided not to write about the hostage crisis after all. She was tired and the next day was going to be busy. Rummaging through a notebook, she found one of the extra articles she wrote from time to time and filed away just in case the paper needed a filler. Shed written it several months ago, so she hastily re-read it: Theres a reason newspapers are printed in black and white. That is, to remind us that facts are black or white, i.e., true or false. Except for the editorial page, there are no places in journalism for gray areas, that is, subjective, biased, or otherwise slanted news. It is the highest duty of a journalist, at least this one, to stick to the facts. That is why it is so difficult to report objectively on the untimely death of John Lennon last week. Those among us who also dream of world peace and making the world a better place for all who live on this planet mourn his death in a way that exceeds the boundaries of good journalism and even common sense. After all, he was not a president, or a Nobel Prize winner, or a saint. He was a singer and a songwriter. But he asked an ancient question in a

contemporary way few of us will ever forget: why cant everyone in the world live together in peace? As an investigative Page | 89

reporter, I am obliged to help find the answer to that question. As of now, however, I do not know the answer. Furthermore as a committed member of the news industry, I must persevere to uphold exemplary professional standards to identify and report the truth and the facts. Therefore, as much as reporters would like to speak of the widely held beliefs regarding John Lennons inspiring and almost magical qualities, our sources can only be police reports and eyewitness accounts. Good enough, she thought, and turned out the light.

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CHAPTER SEVEN
Next day, on her way to the school kitchen to tell Polly she wasnt going to write a story about the cafeteria after all, Reed dropped her science book. If she hadnt, the next thing that happened never would have happened. But she did and it did. When she bent over to pick it up, she saw a cockroach scuttle into the heating grate. Curious, she leaned closer, but it had already disappeared into the dark. That was disappointing. She didnt hate bugs like most other people. In fact, she studied them affectionately. As a little girl, shed spent many summer afternoons lying on her belly, watching ants in the backyard. She wished people would be as nice as ants. Every time another ant would show up, theyd touch antennas in a comical hello. They were such hard workers, too, scooping up cookie crumbs five times their size, hoisting them up over their heads with limbs thinner than a hair, and dragging them back to the ant hole. It made her laugh to see them stagger under the weight of their burdens like Uncle John when hed had too many Whiskey Sours. It wasnt like that with peopletheyd walk right past each other in the grocery store or church or school and not even look at each other. Ants, on the other hand, were a model of congeniality. Maybe thats why, to this day, she was sorry shed never been able to teach them how Page | 91

to swim. They would have excelled at relay races, what with their teamwork and all! Whats more, ever since shed read Kafka last year, she came to envision all insects as tiny Gregors, wanting only to provide for their families and sadly unable to change their reviled and misunderstood state. It wasnt fair! She was still thinking about ants when she got to the kitchen. Even though school hadnt started yet, Polly was already hard at work, just like a struggling ant, surrounded by gigantic mounds of shredded lettuce, buckets overflowing with sliced onions, and heaps of cut potatoes waiting to be dropped into three very large deep fryers. It was hoagie and French fry day, and, sadly, Polly was by herselfno helpers in sight. This is a huge task for one person, Reed thought, picturing Polly tottering and stumbling under the weight of a giant hoagie bun Polly mumbled a greeting as she scraped some raw hamburger off her hands before reaching in up to her wrists to toss the lettuce and dressing. Well, look here at Little Miss Early Bird. Let me guess. It dont take you thirty minutes to get your fat feet stuffed into your hard-asnails steel-toed work shoes. She meant to say a simple good morning, but instead blurted, I just saw a cockroach! Polly shrugged. You kill it? Reed didnt answer, so Polly asked again, Did you kill it? No, no, I, Reed stammered, It ran away. Page | 92

Shi shoot, Polly said, eyeing up a corner of the kitchen. Which way did it go? Down. Huh? Down. It crawled into a grate. Oh, well, dont feel bad. Even if youd a killed it, it wouldnt a made no differencefor every roach you see, theres a couple million you dont. Thats life. Reed sighed. Polly just didnt seem to understand how terrible it was to combine dirt, bugs, and food preparation. She had to do something, but what? She had already decided not to tell anyone about her observations. After all, Polly was a decent hardworking person whod already had enough trouble in her life. No, she couldnt tell. Shed have to think of something else. Suddenly knowing exactly what she was going to say, Reed wasted no time in getting to it. Polly, I just wanted to say thank you very much for allowing me to interview you this week for my school project. You are very interesting. Unfortunately, Mr. ONeil, my journalism teacher, who is also the schools newspaper advisor, gave me a different topic, so I wont be able to write an article about you and the cafeteria after all. Huh.

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More importantly, I am compelled to tell you something. While I was visiting you, I noticed a number of things about which I am concerned and I believe the Board of Health would take exception. She looked down at her notes. For example, there seem to be a lot of insects in the kitchen that I believe are illegal, at least in institutional kitchens--specifically, flies and roaches. Also, sometimes it seems as though things arent very clean. For instance, one day I saw a hairnet in the kitchen sink and another day I observed a carrot being put back into a kettle after it had fallen onto the floor. You been spying on me? Oh, no, no, no well, alright, maybe just a tiny bit in the beginning. But what I really want to say is that you seem to be kind and hard-working and I think your life must have been extremely hard ever since your mother died, so I dont want to get you into any trouble. But I do think that if someone in charge becomes aware of the problems in the kitchen, you might be reprimanded or maybe even fired. This worries me because it sounds as though you need your paychecks to take care of your children and your grandson. She paused for a moment and thought of Jesus, of little girls in rope belts, of the Egyptian goddess Isisshe felt divinely protective, gloriously beneficent, and angelically helpful. Polly opened her mouth to say something then shut it again. Unbelievably, that child was still talking. Page | 94

Oh, Polly, please dont think I am being presumptuous, because I really, truly just want to help. Here is what I am thinking. I could stop by each morning before school and help keep the kitchen clean while you cook. I am not asking to be paid. In fact, I absolutely do not want anything in exchange for my help. I just want to make sure you dont get into any trouble. Please let me know if you do or do not accept my offer of assistance. Polly stood unmoving for a second then shaking like a bag full of pudding and wheezing with the effort of it, she swung her purse in the direction of the talking as hard as she could until that girl backed out of her kitchen. I do not, I repeat, I do not accept your offer! she hollered after her. Thats right! You just keep right on runnin! Just another damn smarty-mouthed kid! You cant do nothing to me! Im walking, not running! Reed called back from the hall outside the door. And, look, it sounds as though you need some time to think about my proposition. If you change your mind, just let me know! Im available on Thursday! For the rest of the school day, Polly ruminated the indignity of it all. But at long last, she decided to just forget about the whole incident. Whatever, she said walking through her front door at home. But later that night, after shed pronounced practically every word on the reading assignment for Jack Jr. for something like the hundredth time, put Jora-

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Lynns baby down with her bottle, scared the rest of the kids off to bed, and fallen into her own cot, she found she couldnt get warm. She yanked two wool blankets and a heavy coverlet from the dresser drawer and pulled them way up past her chin. Still she shivered. Finally, she said, Christ, quickly followed by, If youre listening God, that was my bedtime prayer. After the day shed had, shed better not jinx herself on top of it. She crawled out of bed, drew a glass of hot water from the kitchen tap, and checked the top of the refrigerator for whiskey. Nothing. Shed finished that off on Jora-Lynns last birthday. Oh, well, nighttime cold medicine was the next best thing. She poured a couple of shots into the water and downed it. But it was no use. She recognized this kind of cold and knew it was going to keep her up all night. This was the kind of cold that happens when theres no one left to feed the kids but you. No, she couldnt get fired. On Thursday morning, Reed was rummaging in the closet for cleaning supplies when her mother walked into the room. Irene thought she was way, way, way past the point of Reed startling or surprising her anymore, but there she was doing it again, this time with a plastic laundry basket full to overflowing with bleach and scouring powder. What in Gods name are you doing now? Irene demanded. Cleaning.

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Irenes tongue nearly dehydrated from her standing there so long with her mouth gaping.

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CHAPTER EIGHT
Rounding the corner to the school building, Reed had only a few seconds to groom her hairline before reaching the school doors. Digging in her purse, her fingers snagged a nail clipper. I hate you, she spit at a wiry little hair at her temple. No matter how many times she yanked and snipped and plucked, there was always another frizzy rebel to take its place. Snip. Crap! Shed missed. Within seconds, scattered tympanic sounds in the hall became the steady drumming of kids running to their first class. Time to go. Shed obtained permission to skip first-period study hall each Thursday morning for three weeks so she could report to the cafeteria for her project. She hoisted her basket of cleaning supplies a little higher. Man! They were heavy! How did Mother do this every day? She felt a little nervous. She hoped Polly had changed her mind and wasnt still insulted by her offer. She only wanted to help. Polly hadnt arrived yet when Reed got to the cafeteria kitchen. But Reed was eager to get to work. That dirty stovetop was first. She leaned in for a closer look. As always, she knew the exact word to describe what she was looking at. Pyrolysis the thermo-chemical decomposition of organic materials at high temperatureshad clearly set in. Peas, ditalini, Page | 98

meatballs all had escaped boiling in pots only to be cremated on burners below. Here and there, thick yellow resin held shriveled strings of spaghetti like prehistoric tubeworms suspended in ancient amber. Her mind drifted to the Eocene period momentarily and she felt she could have studied the oddness of it all for hours, but she had to think like her mother now. How would Irene clean this mess? She grabbed the degreaser and squirted it all over the top surface until the bottle was half empty. Nothing budged. She prodded the edge of the greasy tar with a wad of steel wool, but soap and water just squished out the sides of the pad as metal slivers dug into her fingertips. Luckily for her, shed grabbed Dads toolbox. A putty knife would do the trick. She hunched over the stove, put as much weight as she could behind the scraper, and started to push. Instantly, the blade acted as a snowplow, lifting unctuous whorls of debris that coiled up over the handle and onto her fingers. She didnt stop but backed up the blade, bore down again and again, until shed cleared path after path through the grime, pausing only to bang the knife on the edge of a garbage can from time to time until coils of thick black gunk plopped off. Next she sprinkled powdered cleanser on the stove the good kind, the one with the woman running in wooden shoes and beating dirt back with a stick picked up the steel wool pad again, and, this time, she could see things starting to shine up beneath the bubbles. Twenty Page | 99

minutes later, after three more rounds of scrubbing, rinsing, wiping, and polishing, she straightened up her back and said, There. But it was already time to go to her second period classthe rest would have to wait until next Thursday. Quickly, she dumped straight ammonia over her hands, added a few squirts of dish liquid and a sprinkle of baking soda, and rubbed them together as hard as she could under steaming water from the spigot until her skin burned. Her back hurt, her fingers ached, and a blister was swelling on the inside of her thumb. How would she ever get this all done? And Polly had never shown up! Unknown to Reed, Polly was still at home in her own kitchen. Earlier, bracing herself with both hands, she leaned against the counter, so she wouldnt shake when she thought about that pain-in-the-rear-end girl. Her morning coffee had long since cooled in the mug as she tried to settle on what she was going to say. First, she went the religious route, backtracking to the sermon Pastor Bob preached on Sunday. Hed talked on and on about what people did and didnt do and how what a person did or didnt said about that person. He went on to read from the Bible somethin about trees with rotten fruit or good fruit and how the bad fruit trees get cut down and cast into the fire. She didnt know for sure whether he wanted to scare the Hell out of her and everybody else in the room, but he did. Page | 100

All that remembering got her to thinking about fruit in general. If God gave you credit for fruit, then all the thousands of apples shed peeled for pie and sauce, the endless bananas shed mashed for bread and baby food, the truckloads of strawberries shed sliced and boiled into jam, and all the other good things shed done with fruit must count for somethin even if the whole world was cursed from the beginning because of one little apple. Bad fruit? What did that mean? Did he mean like that old quince tree in Mommas backyard? Quinces were hard, sour, not good for anything. She knew. Shed tasted one once. But the next-door neighbor said a long time ago the old lady who used to live there cooked up those bitter doorknobs into big gold jars of quince jelly, which she handed out to her neighbors every September. It was a good story, but Polly really didnt care one way or the other for jelly making. Besides, shed found another use for the quince bush. It was the perfect hiding place back when Pop was staggering around itching to swing his belt. No one except she had ever crawled underneath the overgrown thorny branches that dangled like the limbs of a thousand legged spider arching from the gnarled top of the plant all the way to the ground, making a fearsome woody creature that swallowed stray baseballs, an occasional fledgling robin, and most often, Polly.

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Inside the quinces barbed arms, she could sit undisturbed for hours, hunched into a tiny ball that fit perfectly inside a small clearing in the center of the bush. All she could see were the tops of her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms hugging her legs, small brown shoes, and dirt. Sometimes she fell asleep like that, waking up with scratches and thorns still stuck in her cheek from when she fell over. Sometimes shed just think. Shed show him! Shed marry a rich, kind, pretty man not a movie star or anything, but close. Then shed never again have to pluck chickens, change her brothers diapers, or freeze her hands raw untwisting icy bed sheets from the clothesline in the dead of winter. Housekeepers would do all that. Now she felt tears coming. None of what shed dreamed had come true. Even worse, what had she actually done with her life? Nothing, came the answer. Youve done nothing. She tilted her head back to recycle the tears. Oh, Lord, no, she must have done something! Otherwise, why was she so tired all the way from her brain to her bunions? Why was she always so busy? How had she gone from raising her eyebrows in the seventh grade so shed look more like Audrey Hepburn to raising an out of wedlock grandbaby? Whered the years go? In the next tight breath she knew: cooking day after day after day and cleaning, too. If somebody laid the floors shed scrubbed end to end theyd circled the worldtwo, maybe three times. If she hadnt stopped at her front door, but kept going, shed have swept her way clear across the Page | 102

country and back hundreds of timesdeserts, cow pastures, city sidewalksscoop it into the dustpan. Keep going. And the dishes! Jesus God! Musta been five or six million! A massive pile of scrubbed dishes, pots and pans loomed in her mind as high as four maybe five Mount Everests set right up on top of each other. Lord, if shed known that was gonna be the case from the very beginning, she woulda actually piled them up, climbed to the top, and jumped to her death. Her luck, though, shed a just broke her neck and her with no insurance neither. The pain in her chest sucked her ribs nearly to her backbone. Her mind circled back to the pastor again. His favorite thing to say to Polly and all the rest of the folks at Old Calvary Church was to keep on running the good race of life. Another tear leaked onto Pollys cheek, as she thought about herself. She cussed at herself out loud thinking: Youve spent your life running alrightrunning in circles. And no matter what you do, you never get anywhere. Thats what the girl had Fate sliced through the middle of her conclusion. She gasped. It wasnt pain exactly, more like somebody blowing up a beach ball inside her chest. Then the fillings in her back teeth started to ache like crazy and she was sweating and cold at the same time. She began to pull herself along the counter. Maybe she could reach the sink. Maybe a glass of water

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Minutes later, Jora-Lynn came looking for her cigarettes, but her feet would not move past the kitchen doorway the air smoked with breakfast bacon. The faucet dripped a tinny staccato on a pot lid in the sink. Jack Jr. sat on the kitchen floor, slumped inside his baggy pajamas, his arms gripping his pulled up knees, his thin frame making a small tee-pee next to his mothers body. Jora-Lynn heard a sound like air being slowly let out of a balloon. He was crying, his body collapsed so completely in on itself, he fit completely on one square of tile as though it would be bad luck to have his foot on a crack. The room felt as cold as Pollys skin looked. Jora-Lynn bent slowly from the waist and touched her mothers motionless cheek. Later, she would think: its odd what you remember when youre terrified. But for now, she could only scream.

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CHAPTER NINE
By the time the news reached the school that Polly was dead, Reed was already in fourth period finishing up a biology exam. Her hand was flying across the paper scribbling answers as fast as she could remember them before she forgot them again. Eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells are the two main types of cells. Eukaryotic cells are called so because they have a true nucleus. Animals and plants are examples of organisms that are made up of eukaryotic cells. Prokaryotes include bacteria and Excuse me, boys and girls, their biology teacher Miss Miller began. Ive just received some very sad news. Her face looked as though she were trying to do a chin up. She intertwined her fingers as though in prayer and took such a deep breath that her breasts pushed the middle buttons on her blouse open. The boys in the front row leaned forward. Reed was annoyed. She hated to have her train of thought interrupted and now here was Miss Miller doing that right before she remembered what prokaryotes were! Principal Stone has just informed me that our, I mean, Rockdale Highs cook, Polly Moyer, has left us. Reed felt a thump behind her rib cage where her heart was supposed to be. She left? Like quit left? She couldnt possibly have been that insulted by a simple offer to help her get things back on track! And what about the nice clean stove? She walked out without even seeing it? Page | 105

Whered she go? Reed blurted. Miss Miller took a step back then slowly turned to face Reed. Oh, no, dear, she didnt GO anywhere. Well, not exactly. See, she she passed away. She expired. Miss Miller tried again. She she died. It took a moment for the words stinging like muddy blood and wet rope and hot summer air to smack Reed into realization. She felt herself drop from the highest peak on a roller coaster. She heard rushing in her ears as though they were pressed tightly against conch shells. Oh no, oh no, oh no, what did she say, what did Miss Miller say, oh, no, Polly, Polly, Polly Reeds chair clattered to the floor as she bolted out of her seat and made a break for the hall all the while sobbing, Im sorry, Im sorry, Im sorry She only made it two yards past the door, when she collapsed to her hands and knees and began frantically crawling away from everything, toward nothing. Later, she would not remember whether she spoke out loud or the words were just all inside her head. Oh, God, no, make it not be true! Dont let this happen! She tried to pray, but her words were caught up in a tornado of religion: whorls of plastic picture-framed Jesuss in Sunday School, parchment scrolls inked with pontificates and pronouncements, statues of the Blessed Virgin at the grave of baby martyrs in Portugal, glittering bottles of Ojibwe potions. Around and around went her thoughts until she dropped dizzily at the edge of a lifetime of experiential and didactic Page | 106

learning and wept into the void, God, where are you? Help me! Help Polly! Fix this, please! She raced frantically back and forth from lobe to lobe in her brain trying to find a scripture that would save Polly, but all she came up with was, Jesus wept. Suddenly, she felt strong hands under her armpits pulling her up to her feet, lifting, her, lifting her until she stood, drooping against someones body like a punch-drunk boxer. She sagged and felt forceful arms with impeccableshe thoughtdeltoids holding her upright. The base of a solid, broad chin pressed down on the top of her head and her face crushed into the Brut-scented shirt of Richie? She looked up incredulously. I prayed to God and He sent Richie? But she shouldnt have doubted, because in the very next instant, just as Balaams ass in the Old Testament had begun to talk when he saw the Angel of Lord, Richie opened his mouth and spoke: Dude, shes not dead. Her heart stopped and they started it again. Somebody got it wrong, man. I just heard it in the locker room. Really! No shit! Shes not dead. Reed struggled out of his arms, wiped her nose on his shoulder, and stamped her foot. Her hands compulsively flew to her hairline to smooth down any wild hairs. I swear to God, Richie, if youre making this up just so you can feel me up, youre going to be six feet under right along with Polly. I

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already killed one person today. Might as well make it an even number! I mean it! Geezes, Reed. Why do you have to be so damn hotheaded? I told youshes not dead! They say her kid found her on the floor and she was like, sort of dead, I guess. But they got her heart going again and shes at Mercy Hospital. And why are you all freaked out anyway? Its not like shes your mom or anything. Forget it! You dont understand anything! Especially me! You got that right, he said shaking his head and walking away, glancing back over his shoulder at her rear end. So fine but so friggin crazy. So she was resuscitated. Thats good, she said out loud then promptly began to organize her thoughts: they must be able to save her. Cardiac technology had made significant advances over the past decade. Pacemakers were widely recognized as electrical miracles for keeping hearts beating normally. But waitwas it a clot or an irregular rhythm? If it was a clot it couldnt possibly have been her fault. Probably it was all that grease! But what if Pollys heart stopped because someone had upset her? Someone had made her ventricles flutter out of control? Someone had caused electrical chaos in her heart? If that were the case, then she was responsible. Tears stung her eyes again. She could hear her mothers voice: What in Gods name is the matter with you? What have you done now? Why cant you be normal? Page | 108

And so it was with self-loathing and guilt, that Reed set out from Rockdale High that afternoon to run, then walk when she was tired, then run again the two and a half miles to Mercy Hospital where she would hold Pollys hand, weep at her side, and ask for forgiveness. But when she reached the hospital room where Polly lay flat on her back in a mummy-like position, her hands folded on top of abdomen, Reed could only stare in dismay. A straggly tangle of electrodes emerged from under a stained, frayed, worn to near transparency hospital gown. Pollys wiry orange hair was smeared back into a stringy pompadour. There was a plastic bowl thing on the chair next to her what was it a wash basin? No, it smelled too bad. A closer look revealed a dark yellow stain in the bottom. She turned her attention to the thin white lines pulsing onto a small black screen just above the bed. Reed knew what this was. Shed seen them on television: life-or-death-Etch-A-Sketches. Pollys eyes were closed and Jora-Lynn had just left to go outside and smoke, so Reed felt alone. In 1981, the system of Diagnostic Related Groups, that is, billing hospital treatment according to a diagnosis rather than treatment, e.g., heart failure, was still in development at Yale University. Eventually, Medicare would be the first insurer to jump on the wagon when it rolled by and private insurers wouldnt hesitate to go along for the ride. But change was already in the wind, propelled by a nationwide shortage of nurses, languishing hospital profits, and a rise in outpatient services. Page | 109

The emerging fiscal trend was fix em up; get em out. Of course, no hospital trustee, administrator, or doctor would ever actually voice that out loud. But it was telepathically understood across the industry. The longer that patient stayed in that bed, the more it was going to cost. And with registered nurses averaging fifteen dollars an hour, who could afford to staff at anything higher than a barely legal state minimum level? Too late, Americans would ultimately realize that the snake on the rod of Asclepius was both venomous and provoked in 1981. Half a dozen presidents later, there would still be no antidote up their sleeves. A nurse came into the room on Reeds heels and trilled in a meadowlark voice: Well, Miss Polly, are you ready to go home? Reed did not know anything about the rapidly changing world of health care yet. But she did know that a woman who just dropped dead from a ventricular arrhythmia should NOT be resurrected from the dead just in time to go home and cook dinner. What makes a hero? A gene? A brain chemical? A greater power at work in a lesser being? Take Gandhi, for example. Childhood teachers gave him poor grades in geography and handwriting and he was only mediocre in most other subjects. (He did, of course, earn exemplary marks in conduct.) And what about the others: seemingly ordinary people whose altruism, compassion, and bravery dont get the kind of headlines as someone like Gandhi, Mother Theresa, or Anne Frank, but theyre heroes nonetheless. Theyre the co-worker who gives a kidney. Page | 110

The sixth-grader who sells cookies to help pay for her friends chemotherapy. The mother who opens her home to get kids off the street and out of gangs. Why? What makes them do it? For Reed, it was most likely a combination of a critical mother who imbued a sense of things never being quite good enough, a kowtowing father whose chronically slumped shoulders compelled Reed to straighten her own spine and stick out her chin while she was at it. There was also at work within her an elegant neural network, constructed of congenitally high levels of dopamine and unusually narrow synapses; the indelible memory of bloody calves in coffins and little girls who died trying to be good and the insouciant possibilities of belief in science, religion, and self. Furthermore, if there is a foot-stamping gene, she had that, too, because thats exactly what she did, turning to face the nurse. The impact of her foot on the floor caused the water tumbler to spill a little on the bedside tray. The nurse lifted her arms away from her sides as though trying to keep her balance. You cant send her home! Reed shouted. Shes barely alive sorry to say that, Polly, but you do look gruesomeisnt this a hospital? Arent you supposed to take care of sick people? Look at her! Do they get any sicker than that? What the! This is a mistake! She cant walk to the toilet, much less leave the hospital! Now, miss, please calm down. Youre going to upset her...

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Oh and dropping dead again tonight on her kitchen floor wont upset her? Now, now, listen, dear, the doctor knows what hes doing. Ive worked with him for many years, twelve to be exact. And everyone likes him. If he says she is recovered enough to go home, she is. The doctor was here just a few No, you listen! Look at her! Really look at her! Go ahead get close. Cant you see it? Shes cerulean shes blue around her lips! Is she getting enough oxygen? Do you even know? Whos in charge here? Twin patches of rosacea on the nurses cheeks swelled to strawberries. She could raise her voice, too, if she had to! Okay, now I asked you nicely to settle down and now Im telling you. Whos in charge? Whos in charge? Im in charge at least of this unit and I dont like at all the way youre speaking to me. Furthermore Reed didnt wait for the rest of her sentence. She felt cold and stiff with anger but somehow her feet moved and willed her down the hall in the general direction of someones, anyones office. But within just a few steps, the sound of a child crying slowed her down. It was coming from Room 224, two doors down the hall from Polly. She had a strong feeling she shouldnt look into the room, but the crying was so pitiful. She looked. The childs wail was coming from a scarecrow of a woman arching her back in a wheelchair with a board across her lap. She pinched her Page | 112

lips against a spoon. The nurse pressed harder and the woman opened her mouth to cry again: Mama! Mama! Help! In went the spoon and she gurgled and twisted and spit. Please, Millie, the feeder implored. Please, eat. Just a little. You have to go back to the nursing home soon Millie stretched out her arms like some tent-meeting sinner come to Jesus and sobbed, Ma-a-a-a-Ma! Reed began to shake. Her hands made little fists. But she would not allow herself to cry. Not yet. Not until she located the people in charge and made them change their minds about Polly. She clenched her teeth and took a few more steps. But just five doors down from the crying woman, she stopped again. A man who looked to be the same age as Daddy sat in faded pajamas in a rumpled bed. He was leaning forward and squinting as though he were trying to see in the dark. The doctors back was to Reed and he was talking. Well, for the most part, you will simply grow weaker and more tired but you shouldnt have too much pain, that is, as long as we can keep the majority of the fluid out of your abdomen. That and any toxic levels of ammonia in your blood that may cause pruritus basically itching and some agitation, which we can treat with sedatives if needed. Those are the two most common occurrences. Actually, many of my patients who have end stage hepatic rather, liver cancer enter a Page | 113

coma toward the end of the disease and therefore pass quite peacefully. So do you have any other questions? The man brought his hands together to rest on his puffy abdomen and knit his fingers together as if in prayer or self-protection or both. I know I cant stay here, he said in a low voice. I dont have money but I dont have any family either and I Well, yes, the doctor chuckled nervously, who does have money these days? But if Im at home, you know, at the end will I be able to have nurses or somebody to help me you know, just help me? Do you have friends who can provide some assistance? Friends? He sounded confused. Reed pressed her back against the wall in the hallway and slowly lowered herself to the floor. In the eighties, a smattering of sociologists believed that people who engage in heroic acts might be born with a genetic predisposition toward more evolved levels of empathy and compassion than other people. Indeed, far across the Atlantic, Italian neurophysiologists were trying to determine that very thing. They came close one day while measuring the activity of individual neurons pulsing from electrodes in the brains of macaques when they noted that the same neurons fired whether the monkeys performed a movement themselves or observed another monkey do it. They called it mirroring. Page | 114

However, no one knew for sure if these findings indicated a source of empathy, because kindness didnt show up on PET scans. The neuroscience team might have found Reed at least as interesting as a macaque, since her impulse to help others seemed to have always been there. At least thats how it seemed to her. As if proof, that day, within the space of eight hospital rooms and ten minutes, one thing was certain: a heady inundation of tenderness and activism had filled her to the brim with a desire to champion sick people who needed care. As electricity coursed along the chemical circuits in Reeds brain, it took a familiar sharp right and headed straight for the prime real estate of a sprawling neuronal network populated by right-fighters. She stood up and started walking again.

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CHAPTER TEN
Its funny, Reed thought. Sometimes, its the most insignificant events that seem to change everything. If only macaques grandparents had stayed away from villagers, theyd have escaped those Italian neurophysiologists and the electrodes stuck in their frontal cortexes. Instead, theyd be sauntering into temples and dining on fistfuls of snacks from worshipping locals: bananas, peanuts, bits of roti or crispy kachori filled with peas and potatoes. Same thing with their Japanese cousins. The Honshu clan would have unlimited spa days: lounging in hot springs, eating persimmons, grooming their arm hair, steaming their pores. But no! Because they were so much like people they just couldnt seem to stay out of trouble. It was too bad, too, because in just a few more evolutionary eras, they might have found some more human purpose for their opposable thumbs, like playing video games. But instead, they chased down the local kids and snatched their ice cream conessimply because they could--right out of their hands. So even though, not very far from the lab in Parma, the Apennine Mountains arced their lower ridges like craggy arms reaching up from earth, ready to scoop up the monkeys if they made a run for it and it was Page | 116

only a few short swings to the oak, beech and chestnut woods; pure mountain springs; clean air; and glacial lakes; the cages had rusted locks and the scientists did not mirror the macaques wistful, downturned eyes. If they hadnt liked ice cream, they might have never seen the inside of a lab. And so it was with her life, she knew. It began insignificantly. Daddy eating peanut butter crackers in bed, shed been told. But if he hadnt, Reed wouldnt be standing in the hall of Mercy Hospital. But what do you know? There she was. Well, yes, you do have to pay upfront, but Medicare will reimburse you for part of all medically necessary equipment, a pretty, young woman with a nodding head and bouncing earrings said into a phone. The sign on her door said Admissions. This seemed to Reed to be as good a place as any to start. A shiny gold nametag pinned to the lapel of her lavender and grey striped blazer read, Abby Uther, Director of Admissions/Marketing. She looked a lot like Barbie. Reed knocked on the doorframe. The director swiveled in her chair, smiled at Reed, and held up her index finger. What does medically necessary mean? she rolled her eyes but kept smiling. Well, Medicare will only pay for she started to read from a yellow sheet of paper taped to her desk. Lets see, um, services or supplies that are needed for the diagnosis or treatment of your medical condition and meet accepted standards of medical practice. Page | 117

In addition, the service must fall within a category of benefit covered by the program, be a service not specifically excluded by law, and it must meet the Medicare definition of reasonable and necessary. She paused and listened slowly shaking her head making her earrings swing in the other direction. An example? Well, I cant really say for sure because it all depends on the coding I said, coding and, no, Im not sure. Its something the doctor does and then our billing department uses the code in order for us to receive payment. Oh, and the documentation must be absolutely correct and complete, too, or the payment will be denied. So thats what might have happened and why you were billed for those services from his first stay. But since your husbands being re-admitted, you will need to pay upfront for the egg crate foam mattress pad because its just for his comfort its not necessary. She switched ears and held the phone between her head and shoulder. Reed thought that was the first good use shed seen for the big shoulder pads everyone was wearing nowadays. No, no, no Im not saying his comfort isnt important, Im just Reed clenched her teeth and took a step backward so she wouldnt give in to a sudden urge to bite her.

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There was a long pause and more earring shaking then she sighed and, still smiling, said, Well, see, heres the thing. Im actually not in charge of billing or coding or documentation, so Im going to transfer you over to our accounts payable and receivable department, okee-dokee? So hold for a sec. Thanks! Thank you for waiting! Im Abby. How may I help you? Reed imagined dousing the flaming amygdala in her head with a cold bucket of logic. She had to be smart. You seem to be very good at your job, she lied. Abby flashed the proud grin of a two-year-old who just peed in the toilet for the first time. Why thank you! She swiveled toward the mauve and mint green wall and pointed to three oak-framed certificates. From where Reed stood, she could make out the words, Abby Uther and Exceeded Goals for Private Pay Admissions. Congratulations! Im very impressed! she lied again. Hmmm what does that mean, Reed asked, using her best investigative reporter skills. The private pay admissions part? Oh, that. Its kind of a, uh, an industry term Industry? Reed quizzed. Well, see, its like this. There are three ways to pay here: private paythats when people dont have insurance, but what they do have, is a lot, and I mean a lot of money. Then there are different kinds of Page | 119

insurance, but they only pay so much and only for certain things. And then theres Medical Assistance. She frowned and stuck her tongue out a little. Ugh. Thats the worst. M.A. pays like, nothing, and our shareholders wait. Why do you want to know? Its about my aunt, Polly Moyer. She had a terrible heart attack and theres been some kind of mistake. The nurse told me Aunt Polly was going to be discharged. But my uncle, Uncle Walter, Aunt Pollys deceased husband was the Walter Moyer you know, the one who owned the steel mill before it was sold. And I know with all my heart that my uncle, if he were here, God rest his soul, would want Aunt Polly to have the best, and I mean the best treatment, including resting here for as long as she needs to. Abby squinted, probably trying to squeeze out some fake tears. Oh, my goodness, she mewed. Your poor aunt. You say she has adequate financial resources for a more, shall we say, extended stay? She reached into her top drawer and pulled out a file. I mean out of the goodness of my own heart, I never want to see one of our patients receive a bill that would cause them any financial duress. Of course you wouldnt. Gosh, youre sweet, Reed said, mentally asking God for to forgive the lies that kept snaking out from between her gritted teeth. And yes, she has millions. Millions! More than enough for, what did you call it? An extended stay?

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Abbys attention was on some lined papers shed pulled from a file drawer. If you dont mind, she murmured, Id like to ask just a few little questions to get just a teensy bit more information about your aunts financial situation. You dont mind, do you? She stuck out her lower lip to make herself appear somewhat saddened by the circumstances. Oh, heavens, no! Reed replied. I completely understand. What do you need to know? She sat down on a pink and green striped wingback chair and smiled. Well, lets see, Abby began, brows raised, tapping her pen on her cheek, looking as though she were seeing these questions for the first time. Oh, okay, I see. I understand she only worked part-time at the school, so she was not eligible for insurance coverage. So, in that case, she traced a winding line with her pen down to about the middle of the paper. Lets see. Oh, here it is. They want to know if she has checking and savings accounts and what the balances might be. Just estimates are fine, we Ten thousand or so in checking, sixty thousand or so in savings. Abby was scribbling, not looking up. Are there also certificates of deposit? Stocks? Bonds? Real estate? Two or three million, I think, in the, um, certificates. And the bonds, too, I mean, combined. She paused, wondering if that was enough. How much did a day in the hospital cost? How long did Polly Page | 121

need to stay before she was better? Abbys writing was slowing down and Reed felt scared. So she did the only thing she could. She lied some more. Then, of course, there are all the shares in the steel mill he sold he put that money into, um, apartment buildings. A couple of places in Florida. And I think three, maybe four, along the coast in New Jersey. Im sorry. I cant be more specific. Waving her left hand and putting down her pen, Abby looked up. The corners of her mouth were turned down and she was shaking her head no.

Reed felt sick in her stomach. Oh no, she doesnt believe me. Or its not enough. Or maybe both, she thought. I cant believe this Im sorry, Reed blurted, you said I could estimate No, no, thats not it. I mean I cant believe that your aunt was almost sent home. And so soon after colorectal surgery Heart attack Yes, yes, and Im so glad you came to see me. You are absolutely right. Theres been some sort of misunderstanding and I promise you I personally will look into it and make sure Aunt Polly, I mean, your Aunt Polly is one hundred percent ready to return home and you and the rest of your family are confident and comfortable with the decision.

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Reed stood up. School was over for the day and she should be heading home. She extended her hand and said, Abby, you are truly the angel of Mercy Hospital. A true angel and Aunt Polly and I will never forget you. I wont forget you either, Abby replied. No, I bet you wont, Reed thought. But before she could make a clean getaway, there was a loud commotion in the hall, a girl screamed, You cant do this to us! Just cause we aint got any money! You bastards! You stinkin rotten You think we cant get a lawyer? You think we wont sue? Let go of me! Let go! Looking down the hall, Reed saw the end of the world. Jora-Lynn was trying to wrench her arm out of a red-face, sweating security guards grip. Judging by the orange hair, Reed immediately knew she was looking at Pollys daughter. With a loud grunt, the security guard wrestled Jora-Lynn to the floor. Her head snapped back and hit a metal door stop protruding from the wall. The rubber tip had come off, so on impact, it knifed open a deep gash on the back of her head and blood spurted onto the carpeting making a widening, dark, horrifying stain. Jora-Lynn stopped hollering. She was groaning, limp. The security guard let go of his grip on her arm and kneeled next to her, cradling her upper body. Abby Uther began to sob, Oh, my God, Page | 123

oh my God, oh my God. Inside Reeds mind, thoughts pushed, shoved and trampled each other, rushing hysterically toward an exit like crowds of people in a fire. But one thought suddenly seized leadership, heroically rising above the rest, shouting and pointing toward the way out. Stop, stop, stop! Let go of my cousin! She takes drugs and gets crazy, but shes a good person! Oh, sweet Jesus sir! Sir! What have you done? What have you done! Lisa! Lisa! Are you okay? Are you alright? Reed was sprinting toward the crying girl, while at the same time being careful not to outpace her own cleverness. Jora-Lynn opened one eye halfway and said, Huh? Shhhhhhhhh shhhhhhh, Reed urged, crouching by her side. Youll be okay. Who who Jora-Lynn sniffed. The guard was on his radio, calling for help from the closest medical team. Luckily, they were right above the emergency room and near the elevator, so if they got her there right away, maybe she wouldnt wouldnt shit, he couldnt think. The elevator doors yawned open and a gurney slid out with two nurses gripping its edges. A frowning doctor stepped out from behind them. All three pushed the security guard out of their way. One nurse gently laid Jora-Lynns upper torso and head on the floor, strapped a blood pressure cuff on her upper arm, and squeezed the bulb so hard and fast, it appeared she was trying to force the last of the toothpaste out Page | 124

and she was late for work. The other rested two fingers on Jora-Lynns wrist and put a stethoscope on her chest. After a few seconds, they announced to the doctor that her vitals were good. Meanwhile, the doctor moved his finger back and forth in front of her eyes like a windshield wiper in slow motion. Open your eyes and watch my finger, he said. She raised one hand up to the side of her head and opened her eyes. Reed saw her eyes moving side to side and her mouth opening. Dont talk! Reed said, loudly and slowly. You hurt your head and you need to be quiet. Then to the doctor she added, Shes probably high on something like maybe cocaine. I think thats her favorite illegal substance. She gets a little out of her head. But shes really a good person. The triage team kept their focus on Jora-Lynn, but the doctor pronounced over his shoulder, Intoxicated? Thats not possible. Her vitals are steady and regular, and shining a penlight into her eyes, and her pupils are normal. He helped the nurses gently roll the injured girl onto her side. His index and middle finger softly parted her matted hair and probed the source of the blood. Satisfied, he pressed a big square of gauze to the wound, leaned back and said, Lets get her downstairs for a few stitches. Then to his patient, he encouraged, Dont worry. Your head

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has a pretty good sized cut on it, but were going to fix that for you. Do you think you can stand up if we help you? Sensing the urgency, she answered, Yes, yeah, I think so but its about my mama you gotta help her. You gotta. The doctors and nurses heads swiveled left and right. Your mama? the doctor asked. He turned his attention to Reed. Whats she talking about? Reed cognitively rounded a bend and saw the bridge was out over the crevasse. All she could say was, May I use your phone to call my dad?

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CHAPTER ELEVEN
Nelson was having a good day. Haller Creek was clear and low. Mayflies hatched in thick white clouds, luring hungry brookies from their hiding places all along the banks. Even the sun was on his side, flashing red and yellow on the brook trouts jeweled sides, making them easy to spot. Nelson approached fly fishing as he did life: casting upstream, letting nature take its course, bringing his hopes back to him, then away, mostly unrealized. But today he had the advantage. He had unclouded water, the right flies on his line, the sun, and, best of all, he had time. Irene was at the hairdresser. His thoughts floated easily along, like leaves and sticks on the water going wherever the current took them. He remembered coming here with Pop as soon as he was old enough to stand still in the creek. He had to promise not to kick or splash or throw stones when he got bored. He could still smell the rubber lining on his first pair of waders. Pop patiently taught him how to tie flies from the feathers on Moms hats. He showed him how to spot a rise: bubbles, ripples, curls in the water that told him the fish were feeding and where. He said he could even tell which way a fish was facing when it ate. Nelson never doubted him. Pop knew just about anything there was to know about the outdoors, wildlife, and what boys liked to do. Hell, he could make a meal Page | 127

of watercress, and a couple of brookies. He could tell a bull elk from a white tail buck just from the hoof prints. And he could wait until just the right time for almost anything: a chance to see baby hummingbirds in a thimble of lichen, an eight-point buck coming into sight and becoming a half a winters worth of dinners, or a salamander to poking its head out from under a rock to surprise a nine-year-old boy. Popwhat a great guy he was. Nelson always hoped someday a boy would look up to him like that. He missed fishing with Reed. Ever since that terrible day when Irene blabbed her mouth about something hed said God knows how many years ago, nothing was the same with his daughter. Somehow, the girl had twisted everything around to make it seem like he didnt want her, didnt like hermaybe didnt even love her. Just because she wasnt a boy. Yeah, it was truehe was hoping for a son back then. He had stuff he wanted to teach him, show him, and do with him, just like Pop had done with him. But that was a long time ago. Besides, in a dozen years or so, hed passed on a lot to his girl. Fact was, just a few years ago, she would have been standing right next to him, hoping to spot a couple of bubbles. Bruce. He didnt even like the name anymore.

Red-gold movement caught his attention. He was downstream from a shallow pool rippled with fish gulping down Mayflies. He was ready. Little did he know, he should have been ready for a whole lot more that Page | 128

day. Not only had Reed gotten herself into a whole lot of trouble, but Irene had beaten him home. So it was she who heard the call from Mercy Hospital. She who drove with clenched teeth and hunched shoulders the two and a half miles across town. And she who glared through the glass pane of the hospital administrators door with eyes so slitted with fury that her arrival momentarily immobilized everyone in the room, especially her daughter. The acrid smell of ammonia from Irenes freshly permed hair burned the air. Brimstone, Reed thought. Mercys administrator took a deep breath, pushed back his chair, and stood up. Only a veterinarian faced with a foaming pit bull would have moved slower. He cracked open the door. Mrs. Kerning, thank you for coming, he started. But in less than a second, he was looking at her back. He scuttled after her but it was too late. This one wasnt leash trained. Please, please, have a seat, he tried, but she was already noseto-nose with her daughter snarling, What have you done now! Reed tried to answer, I But her mother would have none of it. Quiet! she growled, trying to think and taking a quick look around. It didnt take her long to realize where she was. Dusty rose and celery green striped paper covered the walls. Everything in the room matched those two colors: satin brocade drapes; tapered candles in identical brass wall sconces; vases of silk flowers on a Queen Anne coffee table and a marbleized pedestal; prints of calla lilies hung with gold cords on a picture rail. Uh, oh. She was someplace ritzy. Thank God, shed just had Page | 129

her hair done. Inhaling deeply, she tried to count to ten but only made it to four. That would have to be good enough. She raised one pinkie, both eyebrows, and the corners of her mouth. Not quite a smile, but the best she could do under the circumstances. Please ex-ca-use me for being upset. Normally, Im not like that. Its just that I was very concern-ed when I received your telephone call. Her voice was lower, but sounded breathy and forced like she was talking through a Halloween mask. The others worked their faces into smiles, but Reed knew better. Her mother was just getting started. Well, yes, I understand your concern and we agree with you that this is an important matter, he parsed. It seems that your daughter was interfering with a hospital matter concerning one of our patients and her family Reed interrupted, Mother! Polly, the lady who runs the cafeteria at my school had a heart attack and theyre going to kick her out and The administrator finished his sentence, and we are making arrangements to transfer her to the county hospital. Isnt that correct, Miss Uther? Abby curled her raspberry-colored lips into a half smile and nodded slightly. He went on. There was clearly a misunderstanding regarding our patients discharge. Certainly, she requires a few more days of hospital care and she will receive that care at Rockdale Memorial. However, your Page | 130

daughter attempted to manipulate the stated plans by, one, pretending to be relative and, two, providing false statements concerning our patients financial resources. Simply stated, she lied. Irenes shoulders rose and fell rapidly with the short, shallow breaths of shame and rage. Her ears receded a little on her skull. Her lips parted to show both her upper and lower teeth. Her words hissed out like steam from a radiator. This is all her fathers fault. He did it! He made her like this! Mother, please! Reed begged. Dont talk about that. Daddy had nothing to do with this. Its just the way I am. I just wanted to help Polly. I was so worried and I had to do something Do something? Do something? Why dont you put some polish on your nails and go shopping like other girls your age? Why dont you learn to sew or embroider or bake? Why dont you try out for cheerleading? Oh, no. Not you. Not my daughter. You dont do anything normal! You have to run around all over Gods creation trying to help people. People I would not even care to meet! Care to meet? Mother, stop, youre embarrassing me Im embarrassing you? So now youre too good for your own mother Ladies, please! The administrator stood up and stretched out his arms, a palm turned to each of their faces. Stop. I can see this is not going to be resolved today. I would like its Reed, correct? Page | 131

Reed nodded. He went on. Reed to return to my office tomorrow after school, say around four oclock. And Mrs. Kerning, I thank you very much for your participation and insight, but I believe we can move forward tomorrow without your assistance. Irene fumbled with the clasp on her purse and plucked a tissue from inside one of her handbags six compartments. She pressed it to her nose and sniffed. Her voice came muffled from behind the hankie. You just dont understand. You dont know what its been like There, there, he reassured. I do indeed understand. Trust me. I believe I know exactly what youre up against. Several neuroses, he thought. Meanwhile, at home, Nelson sauntered through the back screen door. He could take his time. Irene was obviously still at the beauty shop. Without her there, he was free to swing the chain weighed down with still gasping brookies up and right into the kitchen sink. Hed have these all gutted and scaled and washed and wrapped in foil and in the freezer in no time. His fishing knife was sharp and neat, slicing off the heads just below the gills in a heartbeat. He was sure the fish didnt suffer. The tails and fins were next. Pop had shown him how to cut a little V at the base of each fin and just lift em out. Hardly lost any meat that way. He let the tails on until he was done scaling. They served as handles and gave him a good grip as he shaved backward with the blade against the direction of the scales. Tiny, iridescent flakes exploded off the fishes sides and onto Page | 132

the kitchen counters, floor, even the curtains. Suddenly, he felt nervous. Maybe he should hurry a little after all. Irene would be furious if she caught him cleaning fish in the house. Whats more, there was a knife in plain view. He heard her before he saw her. It was a whinnying, wet, scream like hed once heard a mare make while birthing a foal hooves first. The whites of Irenes eyes were all that were showing between her gaping lids. And she was pointing one long, manicured index finger toward her blue-striped, ruffled, caf curtains on the window above the sink. Her knees bent slightly and Nelson could waste no time. It was a practiced catch. One hed made many times before. He knew he had to move fast to save his wife but he had fish guts on his hands. Irene would not want him to touch her. A moment of hesitation and it was too late. She fell, whacking her head on the way down the edge of the kitchen table.

CHAPTER TWELVE
In the sixteen years since Dr. Browser first dropped Reed upside down into the world, hed gotten many phone calls from the Kernings. Aside from the occasional need for stitches because Reed had fallen out of a tree or off the roof on the shed, the reason for the calls was almost always Irene. She was babbling. Or she wouldnt eat. Or she was Page | 133

throwing tea cups, bottles of salad dressing, or whatever else was within reach. It had reached a point where he routinely tensed up on the seventh hole at Fairland Greens because hed been paged many times at that exact spot just as he was teeing up. Years ago, she was usually crying and repentant by the time he arrived. Still, hed open up his wellworn medical bag and retrieve a square white envelope half full of little brown pills: phenobarbital. Hed instruct Nelson to give her two every four hours until she felt better. A decade and a half later, she still didnt seem to feel better. Hed switched her over to valium a few years back and winced at admitting it to himself, but he often took one himself before he arrived at that house. No one could blame him.

If you didnt know better, Dr. Browser thought as he pulled into the Kernings driveway, youd think the family that lived inside the modest red brick two story flanked by pyramid arborvitae and neatly trimmed boxwoods was just like the house they lived in: typical, orderly, pleasant. But the Good Lord had played a little trick on that young mother years ago. What Irene needed was an angelic, shy, little girl who spent her days coloring pictures of flowers; who used her napkin without being told; who practiced her piano lessons; who liked her blonde curls tied up in ribbons. God laughs at our plans, he concluded. Because instead of the little girl Irene needed, she got Marguerite: swarthy, loud, defiant, boyish. As a result, the family was in constant chaos with Irene Page | 134

wringing her hands over her daughters latest antics, Reeda causing all kinds of ruckus with her wild ideas, and poor Nelson, God bless him, he was caught smack dab in the middle. It was dark by the time he left their house. Irene needed a couple butterfly sutures on her forehead, her blood pressure was elevated, and she was in a highly agitated mental state. The valium wasnt as effective as usual, so he also administered an injection of Fentanyl and put her to bed. Other than her blood pressure, her vitals and reflexes were normal. He told the girl to let her mother rest and whatever it was she did this time to upset Irene, she should stop it immediately. He gave Nelson a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. There was nothing else he could do for them. He was the last doctor in Rockdale to still make house calls. His wife wanted him to retire this year. Maybe he would. Reed had been sitting on the floor in the hall outside her parents room. She was crying on and off. How did it always happen that when she tried to help or do things differently than the rest of the world, she wound up practically killing her mother, or giving someone a heart attack, or making an entire hospital mad at her? She only wanted to make things better. But it seemed she only made things worse. She pulled the little black curls sticking out from her hairline hard. Her shirt front was wet with tears. She kept thinking about Pollys heart failure, and Jora-Lynns concussion, and Mothers breakdown and, wait what was that? A bright yellow paper was sticking out from underneath Dr. Page | 135

Browsers black bag hed left on the hall table. She scooted over and carefully slid it out. She only managed to read a little bit before she became scared of getting caught. What she saw were the words: Pennsylvania Institute of Medical Excellence/Helping Doctors Help Patients. Right below, there was information about the next meeting and, most importantly, a phone number. She pulled a pen from her jeans pocket and wrote the number on her forearm. Tomorrow, she would call them and explain about Polly having to go to the county hospital which everyone in Rockdale knew wasnt as good as Mercy. In fact, shed heard many stories growing up of people going there for something like a simple appendectomy and winding up dead from infection. Maybe they could do something to make sure Polly could stay at Mercy where there were plenty of nurses and even a special wing for cardiac care. (Shed read the brochure while waiting for her mother to come to the meeting earlier that day.) Nelsons footsteps sounded heavy and slow on the stairs. Reed couldnt tell if he was angry or tired. As soon as he came around the corner, she saw how exhausted he looked. His dark wavy hair was wet with sweat and sticking up like meringue peaks on the top of his head. The knees of his khakis were gray and scummy from crawling on the floor trying to scrub away every last fish scale. The whole time Dr. Browser was there, Nelson had been downstairs wiping down walls, disinfecting countertops, and washing curtains. He flopped down on the Page | 136

floor beside her. He still smelled like fish, but with bleach and laundry soap mixed in. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back to rest it on the wall. Reed was afraid to say anything and she felt as though she were going to cry again. Daddy looked old and sad, she thought. Some of the dark curls at his temples had silver hairs in them. His cheeks sagged around his mouth. She could see every vein on the top of his hands. She didnt know what else to do, so she poked his shoe with the tip of hers. He opened one eye. Hi, sweetie, he said. I guess we both messed up pretty bad today. I know better than to bring my huntin and fishin stuff into the house. And for the life of me, I dont know why I just stood there while she fainted. I mean, I just stood there! What kind of man just stands there while his wife passes out? I feel terrible too, Daddy. I told a lie at the hospital to help a lady who works at our school because she had a heart attack and well, the worst part is I think Im the one who made her sick. And now Ive made Mother sick, too. Again! Nelson put his arm around her and pulled her toward him until her head was on his shoulder. Listen to me, he spoke the words slowly and emphatically. You did not make your mother have this episode. Its just the way she is. She has always had this problem. Shes the kind of person who has to have everything all lined up, all neat like, no surprises. If she could, I swear shed rearrange the stars into columns and rows and stop the oceans from breaking on the shores. But deep Page | 137

down, I know she cant help it. Its just the way her mind works, you understand? Reed nodded, picturing Irene running up and down the beach freaking out over the way the waves were disturbing the grains of sand. And another thing I know. She loves you, Reed Reed buried his face deeper into his neck. No, she doesnt. She hates me because she thinks Im a tomboy. And you hate me because Im a girl. I know thats what you think. Ive known that for a long time. And I dont know how to change your mind. But the truth is, you are the child God gave to me and I have thanked Him for you every day since you were born. I dont know why He made you the way He did, all full of fire and determination to set things right in the world. But Im glad He did. I might not always know what youre doing, but I always know who you are. You are my daughter. And thats more than enough for me. He pulled his head back so he could look into her eyes. His voice became stern. Now listen to me. I dont ever want to have this conversation again. I love you. You. The science girl, the God girl, the scrappy girl, the little girl, the big girl. And heres something else you dont know. A couple of months after I bought that Bible for you, I went back to Coovers and picked one up for myself. I even read it now and then. Last time I looked inside, my eyes went right to this line and I took it be meant for me. It was somethin like Husbands be considerate of Page | 138

your wives and treat em with respect on account of theyre weaker. Now Im not saying men are better than women or the other way around. And I especially dont want to get into any talk about the Womens Lib stuff. I can honestly say I can see both sides of that coin. But what I am saying, Reed, is that I was pretty fed up with your mother bossing me around and maybe she didnt think I was man enough to run my own home. So when that jumped off the page at me, I started thinkin. I believe your mothers got some kind of weakness in her mind that makes her act the way she does. And it doesnt make me less of a man to stand by her, and be patient with her, and love her. No, not less of man at all. She hadnt snuggled with Daddy for a long time, so she didnt want to move right away. But she knew she still had things to do before bedtime and she was mentally writing a lengthy list for the next day. Thank you for what you said just now. I love you, too, she whispered into his ear. Before she stood up, she kissed his cheek. It made her lips taste briny. She didnt wipe it off. Her parents room was just a few steps down the hall but to Reed it might as well have been the North Pole. Her feet did not want to move, her chest jerked with every breath she took, and she heard a whooshing sound in her ears. Eventually, she reached the door. She felt as though she had a handful of marshmallows crammed into her mouth and she was six-years-old, sitting in the corner of the kitchen. She pushed the door open a few inches and peeked in. Irene was stretched out on her Page | 139

back and covered to her chin with matching sheets, blanket, and coverlet. The blue damask bedspread looked olive drab in the ochre glow of matching hobnail lamps on either side of the bed. Irenes eyes were closed, but her pink flannel covered arms were sticking straight up in the air like she was declaring a touchdown. It was because of the arms that Reed knew she wasnt dead. Mother? Reed said softly. Irene did not move or open her eyes. She inched a little closer. Mother? Irene opened her eyes a tiny slit. Oh, hello! Are you with the other angels? So pretty! Like ballerinas with wings! I am so happy flying with you all. I havent ever been this happy. She moved her arms up and down and waved her hands in circles. Oh my God. What did Dr. Browser give her? Reed wondered. Shed seen kids get high at parties and under the bleachers at football games and to her best recollection, none of them imagined they could fly. She moved closer and said in as deep a voice as she could manageone that Irene could not possible mistake for an angel, unless it was perhaps Gabriel or MichaelMother, it is I. Reed. Your daughter. My daughter? Oh, you mean my little girl! I had a little baby girl once. I crocheted the cutest pink booties for her. She raised one knee under the covers in a pirouette. And after I bathed and powdered her, I put the teeniest, tiniest, little white barrettes in her hair. She had the prettiest black curls and a perfect little red mouth just like a dolly. Page | 140

Irene lowered her arms and laced her fingers together on her chest. Go ahead, angels, keep flying. Im going to take a little rest. Her forehead crinkled. I wonder whatever happened to her. She was the most beautiful child. Mother, Im here. Im your your little girlIm the one youre looking for. Im right here, do you understand? I have come to say Im sorry for what happened earlier. I know I embarrass you. I know I make you mad. Its just I just was so scared about Polly, but mostly I was angry and I just had to do something to make the hospital not kick her out. She works so hard and she doesnt deserve what theyre trying to do to her. And Im sorry, Mother, I really am. I dont mean to cause problems. What I really want is to fix them. Irene slowly raised one hand to her lips and blew a kiss to Reed. You seem like a good girl. Maybe you should talk to your mother and explain things. My mother always whipped me for talking when I shouldnt. But if your mother is a good mother, she will listen. Go find her. She rolled onto her side and stretched out her legs. Excuse me, now, dear, I want to fly above the garden before the mosquitoes come out. With her back to Reed, she said over her shoulder. By the way, you really should stand up straight and do something with that wooly hair. Good-bye now! Reed was torn. Should she give her mother a kiss good night? Or open a window and let her out? Page | 141

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Even though she had a test in Spanish that day, Reed woke up doing math problems in her head. If she left school the very instant the dismissal bell rang at 3:05 PM, she could traverse the entire two or so miles to the hospital before 4:00. Her meeting with the hospital administrators was at 4:30, so that gave her a good thirty minutes to check on Polly and investigate a bit. Hopefully, they hadnt already dumped Polly off at County, or worse, home. After school, she made better time than calculated, which left a few minutes for her to find someone to interview. She didnt have to look far. Several people wearing bathrobes and slippers stood smoking cigarettes near the main entrance. A sparkling expanse of glass windows spanned the entire front of the hospital, top to bottom. She took a peek at her reflection. The clouds moved to backlight the frizz around her hairline. She gritted her teeth remembering her mothers words from the night before: wooly. Hoping no one noticed, she licked her palm and ran it backward over the top of her head and approached the person closest to her.

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Excuse me, please, are you a patient here? she asked. They all turned their heads at the same time. Some laughed, which made them choke on smoke. They fanned the air trying to breathe. What gave us away? Our wristbands? one man joked. His graystreaked hair was stringy and a large square of gauze partially covered a crescent moon tattoo on one of his bruised, scabby forearms. The hand without a cigarette gripped a metal pole on wheels from the top of which hung a plastic bag filled with red-tinged yellow fluid. One end of a thin tube was on the bottom of the bag; the opposite end appeared to be up underneath the mans gown. Reed wondered for a moment where it went. But the man with the pole was staring at her, so she refocused her attention to the matter at handthat was determining if other patients got kicked out, too, or if Polly was being singled out for some reason. She politely turned her gaze away from the tubes and poles and looked into his eyes. They were yellowed and sagging, but she saw gentleness in them. She found confidence to speak. Im here to visit a friend and the hospital wants to discharge her. She only had her heart attack yesterday! Ive never heard of such a thing, have you? Amidst collective eye-rolling, nods, and grunts, a woman in the back spoke up, Where the hell you been, girlie? Not here, Im pretty damn sure of that! Else you wouldnt be stupid enough to ask a question like that. Huh! Did we ever hear of such a thing? she says. Look at us! Page | 143

Were what they call regulars. We get doctored up. She exhaled smoke, shrouding her words in a thick, dark cloud. Then we get thrown out two, three times a month sometimes. Depends on how bad things get. Hell, why even bother gettin outa your bathrobe and walkin home? Might as well just hang around near the front door, so when we fall over dead they dont have far to drag us to the cooler. That is, if they dont just step right over us on their way to the country club... The man with the gentle eyes interrupted. Come on, Jan, take it easy. Then to Reed, he said, You say you have a friend here, sweetie? Reed nodded, so he continued. I know youre worried about somebody, but theres no sense in trying to figure this place out. Believe you me, Im a lot older than you and all I know is it is what it is. Want a smoke? She looked at the purple and black splotches on his arms and said quietly, No, no thank you, then explained. Okay, this is my problem. Im kind of in an argument with the people who run this place and I want to back up my suppositionmy thinking, that isthat patients are forced out of here before theyre well. Im just asking, is this true? Jan elbowed her way to the front. She wasnt fastened to a pole like the others, so she had the advantage. Man oh day, dont I wish I was a fly on the wall for that one! Some little ponytailed chicklet in high school bitin the rear end of the Man! Wooooo-hooooo! Wouldnt I give a month of my lifeand I only got six leftto see that one! She stopped to cough Page | 144

and spit a wad of chartreuse phlegm on the sidewalk. She dropped her still glowing cigarette butt on it. Reed swallowed hard at the sizzling sound it made. Okay, Jan went on. You asked for itso heres a story for you. Then, for the next twenty minutes, Jan, the gentle-eyed man, and the other patients took turns telling one tragic story after another. People dying for lack of treatmenteven infantsall because they didnt have a way to pay their hospital bills. As the sun dipped lower in the sky, Reed knew it was time to go. But by then, she had more than enough foundation for the strategy she was constructing in her mind. The clock in the lobby said quarter after four, so Reed had only a few minutes to visit Polly before the meeting. As it turned out, Polly was sound asleep on a mess of rumpled sheets and blankets like she was resting in a silk hammock at a beach resort. Reed had never seen her look so peaceful. Jora-Lynn was out, too, her bandaged forehead resting on her mothers thigh and sprawling half in, half out of a chair next to the bed. Reed touched Jora-Lynns shoulder. Pollys daughter jolted awake. Reed flinched, wondering if a punch were coming her way. But instead, a toothy grin greeted her. Hey there, cuz! Reed felt her face flush. About yesterday Yeah, that was some crazy stuff you were talkin. You got that social workers head spinnin faster than a tornado tryin to screw itself Page | 145

down to something anything! Do she got money? Or dont she? She laughed like man, slapping her legs and spitting a little. So get this! I heard em! It was all they was talkin about down in the ER. Some kid lying to that fancy pants admissions girltelling everybody Polly Moyer was a millionaire. Polly Moyer! She laughed again, this time slamming her head down on the bed. Her muffled voice came from the heap of linens: Ouch. So youre not angry? Angry? Angry! she hollered. Hell, no, I aint angry. Werent for you, Mamas ass would be on the curb by now. You got us auh, a reprieve. Thats it! A reprieve! Cause theyre all runnin in circles trying to catch their breath from doin the hokey-pokey with the paperwork. Bring my mama in, sign a hundred papers. Get ready to put 'er out, get a whole other stack. Find out she has money, so quick get the first packet back. But now they gotta redo em. Then find out she dont have money after all She sprayed another laugh in Reeds direction and wiped her eyes with her shirt cuffs. Best of all, Im right downstairs yelling Im gonna sue cause they near about split my skull wide open! Polly opened one eye to see who was making such a ruckus while she was trying to take what was probably only the third nap of her entire life. It figured, she thought. That nosy little girl reporter would follow her straight into heaven or hell. And she was sure it wouldnt matter

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which one because with that kid it would be hell either way. In as loud a voice as she could muster, she announced, Im dead. Go away. Reed studied her for a moment. It was funny how when you stretched out people on their backs, they looked shorter and younger than when they upright. With gravity redirected, jowls and bags under the eyes and chins kind of got reabsorbed into the scalp. Or maybe they slid to the back of the neck. All of that aside, Polly looked a little better than she had the day before. But before she could say that, Polly opened her other eye and snapped, So, are you here to spy on me some more? Is that what you? Oh, Polly, no! Please, you need to understand. I changed my mind about the story. I turned in one about the role of diplomacy and peacekeeping and the Iranian hostages. Im sorry, but I did think the school kitchen needed cleaning, but I was going to help you, not report you! She began to sniffle. Polly, did I give you a heart attack? Did I? Because if I did, Ill never forgive myself, I As it often did against her will, Pollys mind conjured her own twelve-year-old self, with the boss of the Blue Rose sewing factory saying Mama was dead. Had she kissed her goodbye that morning? Were her mothers last thoughts those of Polly sassing her? Was God punishing her for something? Guilt on the small, thin shoulders of a young girl was too big a cross, she knew. Stop your blubbering now, she chided. A big girl like you. But Page | 147

I said, quiet! Let me speak. Listen here, if my heart broke, it was because it had a big crack in it for years and yearslong before I met you. Besides that, the doctor says it was my sinus rhythm. But like I told him, my nose has been just fineit aint even hay season. So what does anybody know about what made it happen. Especially you! She looked out the window where some high clouds were moving across the sun. Dont let the sun go down on your anger, she remembered Mama saying. She slowly rolled her head to face the tearful girl and said, Now just say Im sorry, Polly, and thatll be that. Im sorry, Polly, Reed whispered. Then to herself she added, And Im going to fix this. The clock on the wall in the administrators office had no numbers on it, only two thin black rods pointing to nothing on a white background encircled by sculptured metal ivy leaves. Laurels? Reed filled in the blanks mentally. The longer bar was pointing straight down at the bottom of the circle. The shorter one was slightly northeast. So it was 4:30; she was on time. However, the chief executive officer, the chief financial officer, and the chief operating officer, according to their name badges, all stood with their arms crossed over their chests and tapping their feet as though she were late. The tall one in the middle stepped forward and spoke directly: Marguerite J. Kerning? Reed stuck out her chin and squared her shoulders. Yes, and you are? She looked him straight in the eye. Page | 148

His head bobbled back and forth like a newborn baby when the person holding it forgets for a second and takes the supporting hand away. Regaining his balance, he replied with exaggerated politeness, Im Mr. Vinnith, C.E.O. His shoulder twitched toward the man on his left. And this is Mr. McStinton, C.F.O The man on his right smiled and interrupted. And Im in charge of operations here at Mercy procedural, not surgical. He snickered, leaving Reed to guess hed used that joke many, many times before. When the girl didnt smile back, he returned to business. Anyway, my names Mr. Albright. Based on his sense of humor, clearly a misnomer, Reed thought. Have a seat, the tall one said in the same tone of voice that teachers use when they say, Do your homework. Theres no choice in the matter. Reed sat down on a plush, English Cabbage Rose tapestry covered armchair. She thought of Polly lying on a thin, stained mattress. A white wicker teacart near the administrators desk held a large coffee carafe, a gold-edged plate of shortbread cookies, a wire basket filled with an assortment of teas, and silver canisters labeled Wallingford. Dozens of live orchids and miniature roses lined the windowsills. All the men wore diamond studded tie tacks and gleaming black wingtipseven their fingernails were shiny. It was easy to see where the money was going. Reed felt herself getting angry. She thought they deserved to suffer the opposite, contrapasso, like the fortunetellers in Dantes Inferno who, Page | 149

as punishment, had their heads put on backwards so they had to walk backwards, never again seeing what lies ahead. These men should be old and sick and poor and stuck in Mercys revolving front door for all eternity! I understand youve created some challenges for our staff over the past day and a half. Misrepresenting yourself. Providing false information. Interfering with the custody of a patient It sounded bad, when he put it like that. But not bad enough to make Reed feel guilty or reverse her course. She cut him off. How did the hospital get its name? Excuse me? Why does the hospital have the word Mercy in its name? What does that have to do with oh! I see where youre going with this. You think if we lived up to our name, then wed keep Ms. Moyer here, regardless of her ability to pay. Is that it? You tell me, sir. He took a long time inhaling and his teeth were showing as he sucked air in slowly as though he were taking a long drag on a cigarette. Leaning forward, he exhaled in a loud hiss, again, through his teeth. Then he spoke. I will only explain once. So pay attention. Our founding physicians worked out of a little house near the steel mill in 1870. They were well enough off financially that they could accept the occasional bushel of potatoes or some pork chops for payment. Little wonder! They Page | 150

came from rich families and, lets face it, their overhead was pretty low. Some clamps, scalpels, quinine, bandages, a midwife, coal tar, and some cots in the halls. Thats it. So, yes, these affluent, idealistic, young physicians had the liberty of making choices regarding payment of bills that we, as a modern day institution, can no longer make. They called it Mercy. Today, wed call it no longer an option. Reed set her face in an angelic expression, eyes opened wide, lips slightly pouting. Are you saying that there is no more mercy at Mercy Hospital? The C.O.O. made a gurgling sound in his throat. The C.E.O.s head snapped back so hard Reed half expected a Pez to pop out of his larynx. No, no, no, no, no, no, no thats not what Im saying at all Are you sure? Because Im going to write a story for my school newspaper about the illness that has overtaken our beloved Miss Polly and I would hate for that to be the headline The C.F.O. picked up his colleagues dropped baton. He said loudly, Look, were a for-profit enterprise with shareholders who expect to see healthy returns on their investment. If they cant pay, they cant stay. Its as simple as that. Its just the nature of capitalism. You might as well learn that now. You have to accept things the way they are in this world His rebuttal broke off suddenly with a choppy wave of Mr. Vinniths hand. No one said anything for almost a full minute. The long Page | 151

bar on the faceless clock moved a tiny increment. Mr. Vinnith stood up. He smiled, but the corners of his lips didnt turn up. I can see that you are very concerned about your schools cook, Pol, uh, Ms. Moyer. With that in mind, we will consult her doctor first thing in the morning and take the utmost caution before determining where things go from here. How does that sound? It sounds like your brochure, Reed thought. It wasnt much of a concession, but at least she had a few more hours. She was ready to move forward with the next part of her plan. With an ambiguous halfsmile, she shook each mans hand and thanked him for his time before closing the door behind her. Pulling a small square of paper from her jeans pocket, she read what shed copied the night before from literature in the lobby: Pennsylvania Institute of Medical Excellence: Serving Doctors to Better Serve Patients and Philadelphia Daily Sentinel. Directly beneath were fax numbers for both organizations. She would write the piece tonight and get to school early to use the fax machine in the journalism room. On her way out of Mercy, she peeked at charts hanging by patients rooms: the man with cancer, the smokers, and, of course, Pollys. Every person whod said they had to leave because they had no insurance had a yellow sticker on their chart. She passed by the rooms of patients without yellow stickers. They were resting comfortably in private rooms full of wilting flowers and deflating balloons, a sure sign of a lengthy stay. She stopped by several of the rooms where charts had Page | 152

telltale yellow stickers and talked to the people inside. One young mothers infant was stillborn earlier that day. She was to have a few hours of rest and two more blood pressure checks. Then she was going home. Reed also talked to a housekeeper hanging out near the snack machine. Flattered by Reeds interest, but looking over shoulder constantly, she whispered tale after tale of people who died because they were discharged too soon. Before she even reached the elevator at the end of visiting hours, she was writing the article in her head. Before she walked in the front door at home, she had the headline: Yellow Sticker Means No Mercy for Patients. After looking in on her mother who was still in an arabesque position even though she was sound asleep, Reed sat down and began to write. Yellow Stickers Mean No Mercy Residents of Rockdale would do well to check their wallets before they check into our towns hospitalespecially if they have a serious illness, e.g., heart attack, cancer, or a complication of pregnancy. Thats because policies at our hometown hospital, ironically named Mercy, demand that patients who cannot pay due to poverty or lack of insurance get something besides a list of their vitals in their file. They get a yellow sticker.

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This sticker serves as an alert to the staff to not to do any expensive tests or procedures that the patient cannot pay for even if the tests are necessary. Emergency room doctors are even discouraged from providing what is known as stabilizing care because this could also cost the hospital money that cant be recovered. As a result, many patients report being transferred against their will to the County hospital, which is underfunded, over-crowded, and outdated or back to their homes while still sick. This practice has had deadly consequences on at least two occasions. I had to sit in my car outside the emergency room until my contractions were two minutes apart. The hospital said they needed insurance or proof that I could pay for a bed or I couldnt come in, one young woman stated. My husband begged them. She was our first baby. It hurt so much, but they said no By the time the twenty-two-year-old was ready to deliver, it was too late. During the final stage of labor, the baby girl had become tangled in the umbilical cord and strangled. For people fortunate enough to have insurance or the ability to pay privately, comfortable beds, fetal monitors, and attentive staff are available. For those without, babies trying to make it into the world get yellow stickered and sometimes dont make it past the back seat of their parents car. She typed the words its horrible! Then quickly backspaced fourteen spaces to erase that interjection. She was letting her feelings Page | 154

permeate her writingsomething a professional journalist would never do. Flipping back and forth through her yellow legal tablet of notes, she zeroed in another interview and started typing again. In another case, an elderly man complained of a very high fever and unbearable abdominal pain. He, too, was financially bereft and had no insurance. The emergency room doctor realized the high probability of a ruptured appendix and took a quick peek at the mans chart and there it was: a yellow sticker. Wasting no time, the physician contacted County hospital and told them he was sending a patient their way. The semiconscious, moaning man arrived nearly an hour later without any medical records. By the time County staff determined the diagnosis, a fatal case of sepsisblood poisoninghad set in. Just yesterday, the head cook at Rockdale High had a critical cardiac episode. She needed to be resuscitated. Before the end of the day, Mercy was done with her. She had no insurance because she is a parttime employee and not eligible. They wanted to send her home. She got yellow-stickered. Her family and a close personal friend intervened, but achieved only a temporary victory. She will be discharged to County tomorrow. This woman, who has dedicated her life to caring for her family while providing wholesome and healthy meals for Rockdales youth, is being turned out for lack of money, and some would say, a lack of mercy. When questioned about these practices, Mercys CFO stated, Look, were a for-profit enterprise with shareholders who expect to see healthy Page | 155

returns on their investment. If they cant pay, they cant stay. Its as simple as that. This Rockdale High School employee has worked in the cafeteria for a long tenure. She has served countless lunches to help take care of our young, growing population. She is a mother and grandmother. She takes time out of her schedule to talk with students. But today, she is not that person. She is not a cook, helper, mother, grandmother, friend, or mentor. Today, she is a yellow sticker. And even though she cannot pay her bill, the sticker on her medical records might cost her everything, including her life.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Reed woke up before her alarm clock buzzed. Irene was singing. Apparently, shed had another Quaalude before morning. She sat up and listened. Shed never heard her mother sing beforenot even in church. Shed always had a longstanding hunch that Mother was mouthing the hymns, even the doxology. Now she understood why. Irenes voice sounded like that of someone who still had packing in her nose from rhinoplasty. A lot of packing. Cole Porter never would have been prouder that he wrote only the lyrics to what Reed heard through the thin walls. Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, give me land, lots of land, under starry skies abovedon't fence me in! Let me be by my-sa-elf in the eve-e-nee-ing breeze Irene hummed a bit, lowered the range but not the volume, and Page | 156

repeated the lyrics from the beginning. Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, give me land, lots of land Reed lurched out of bed to check on her, but when she opened the door she saw Nelson running down the hall toward the bedroom. Dad? was all she could say. Nelson gave her a reassuring grin. Dont worry, sweetie, Ill make sure shes fenced in. Just get ready for school. The door closed behind him just as Irene hit a crescendo: ... i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-n! Reed shook her head. Polly needed to stay in and Irene wanted to get out. Life was weird. She only had enough time to brush her teeth, slip into jeans and a sweater, and spray her hair into a smooth, tight bun. She wished she could be like TV news correspondent Jessica Savitch, with her perfectly side swept bangs and feathered back blonde coiffure. That woman never had stray hairs sticking outeven in war zones. By the time she arrived at the classroom, the custodian had already unlocked the door. My hope comes from you, God, she thought, thank you. Clearly, the Almighty was on her side. Even so, she held her breath until the last page slid through the feeder on the fax machine and she heard the final whir of the report transmitting. Through the small window behind the teachers desk she could see the sky: turquoise, calm, unclouded. The little portal to the outside world gave no her no warning of the tempest headed toward Rockdale. Somewhere, Dante cringed.

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At the other end of the fax machine, reporter Jeff Gold was wondering what the new secretary thought of him. He wasnt bad looking, a woman had once said, tall and kinda cute, with only a silver dollar size bald spot that his yarmulke covered at temple. Otherwise, most people could only see it when he sat down or the wind blew apart the swirls of brown hair he carefully combed up and over the shiny spot every morning. It had taken him a full year to grow the thick, curly mullet that covered the back of his neck and grazed his shoulders. But it gave him the feeling of having more hair than he did. He liked that. Once, someone actually told him he had handsome blue eyes when he took his glasses off. And while most of the other guys in the newsroom smelled like cigarettes they smoked days ago, he made sure he always trailed the aroma of Dial soap and Old Spice aftershave behind him. Hey, it worked for his dad. The Golds just celebrated 35 years together. He jumped. The fax was ringing. Dammit! Why did they have to put that thing right next to his desk? Swiveling and rolling his chair sideways, he grabbed the cover sheet as it inched out and pulled. No paper jams today, please God, he said to himself. A large curlicue letter H caught his eye. The script looked feminine and he was curious. Pulling the page close to his face, because hed taken off his glasses, he read: Hello! Please read the attached article and consider it as a story for your newspaper. There is a TRAVESTY happening in our town. I thought you might be interested. Sincerely, Reed J. Kerning, student reporter, Page | 158

Rockdale High School, Rockdale, PA. Thoughts of women left his mind. A travesty? Who the hell used a word like that? At first glance, he thought the headline was a joke, or at the very least, an affront to acceptable journalism style. But entrenched investigative habits combined with a slow news day pulled him into the story anyway. Like a third generation hunting dog. Once he caught sight of a fox, he was compelled to track it, chase it, tree it, if necessary. To him, it was always less about the end result than it was the searching, the seeking, the hounding to find the truth. As he read, he underlined certain words: not do any expensive tests, transferred against their will, deadly consequences. Was this true? Sure, a few readers had griped recently through letters to the editor that, lately, doctors performed more and more surgeries as outpatient instead of in the hospital where patients could rest and heal a bit before going home. But they were mostly plastic surgery patients, so the scope of importance and newsworthiness to Daily Sentinel readers was extremely limited in his opinion. On the other hand, if physicians were treating critical illnesses more or less as outpatient cases simply because patients were uninsured or indigent, that was a whole other matter. He sat quietly for a moment with only his index finger moving, tapping lightly on his desk phone. Then, grabbing the receiver and slapping his glasses back on, he dialed the number next to the kids name. Maybe this Reed was onto something. A feature? Hard news? Who knew? Leads came from all over Page | 159

the place. Why not a high school in western Pennsylvania hed never heard of? Meanwhile, Ms. Washington was the first to hear the fax ring at the Pennsylvania Institute of Medical Excellence. It figured, shed convinced herself. Ever since shed come on board at the institute, shed never known anyone to hear a fax or a phone except her. After she picked it up, someone would inevitably say, Oh, was that the phone? I would have gotten it! But, of course, they never did. And it was a small office, too six cubicles in a twenty-by-twenty room, a broom closet, and a tiny toilet that stank up the whole place when someone used it. She hoped none of these lazy-ass people had infants at home, else those babies would be wailing all night while these good for nothings waited for someone else to take care of it or the kid to grow up enough to get its own damn bottle. Lucky for her, the phone didnt ring often. That was because for the most part, the institute served as a distribution point for mass mailings representing the medical professions interests in legislative matters. The institutes real lobbyists were based near Washington, D.C. This office mostly printed mailing labels, made copies, and affixed postage. It was a good enough job, but if you asked her, the latter part of their motto was a lot of hooey: to Better Serve Our Patients. She knew better. Shed read the letters and flyers they sent out. This place was all about getting laws passed to benefit doctors, she was certain. Like Carter in 77, when he insisted on giving a bigger chunk of the pie to private insurance Page | 160

companies. She knew doctors liked getting more reimbursement than they could from Medicare. So how did that help the patients? Higher premiums? Cherry picking who got surgery and who didnt? She stubbed out her Virginia Slim Menthol in an ashtray filled with dozens of other half-smoked cigarettes and pressed receive. What she read confused her. Why would some teenage reporter ask them for help? Huh! She must have actually fallen for the slogan. One of the staff called out from her desk: Hey, was that the fax? I would have gotten it Miss Washington shot back, No you wouldnt have! But forget it. I think we have a possible situation here. Wait til you see this. She slowly pulled another cigarette from the pack and rolled it between her thumb and index finger. Anticipation was the best part of smoking. The next morning, one of the institutes in-house attorneys gassed up a company Volvo and drove non-stop to Rockdale. Meanwhile, Jeff Gold stepped onto a bus at a Philadelphia terminal and headed in the same direction. The hotel was only eight blocks from the bus station and the sun was high over the streets of Rockdale, so Jeff swung his duffle over his shoulder and decided to hoof it. Compared to Philadelphia, this place sparkled. Sidewalks were litter-freenot even a stray candy wrapper or pop-tab, much less used condoms. Wooden front porches had fresh paint and pots of geraniums, ivy, or petunias on their steps. Glass store Page | 161

front windows gleamed. At first glance, the town looked fresh and alive. But as he walked on, he noticed signs that Rockdale had seen better days. A downtown eatery was now a laundromat with yellowing, handwritten flyers taped to the inside of the front door. On them, people had scrawled Babysitting in my home. Reasonable. You name it. I clean it. Garages. Attics. Yards. Call for free estimate. Bake Sale at St. Joans. Benefits Steelworkers Volunteer Fire Company. As a steel mill town in 1980, Rockdale had already suffered the impact of cheaper overseas competition. The foundry had shut down the year before. But from the well-scrubbed look of things, it was clear the citizens had barricaded themselves with paint cans and handyman jobs and hunkered down together to ride out the economic storm. With the Monongahela River at their backs and generations of men trained in only one thingsteelthey had no other options. The hotel was Carnegie-like in design: neo-Renaissance, massive, and complete with a rooftop balustrade. In contrast to the architectural elegance, recent owners had posted neon signage on the front lawn that boasted Vacancy and TV in Every Room! Rug stains from the inns Friday night disco parties suggested casual business in the otherwise ornate and stately lobby. A black marble mantel topped a mahogany fireplace. A tall glass vase of white plastic roses stood on an ivory inlaid antique sideboard. A life-size ceramic bust of Thomas Jefferson rested

on the intricately carved front desk near a handwritten sign that read, Page | 162

Went to dinner. Back at 6:15. A manila envelope lay next to it with Jeffs name and room number on it. He really had to pee so he just grabbed it and headed up the stairs. He pictured the entire town of Rockdale sitting down to dinner right about now. That would explain why hed only passed two or three people on his trek through town. Wow, if the townspeople were this religious about their suppertime, he could only imagine their reaction to Ms. Reed J. Kernings criticism of their local institutions. He chuckled. Heresy. And from a school kid, no less. Downstairs, Kane Robertson, Esquire, stepped inside the dim lobby of the Dellmore Hotel. Within seconds, his eyes took it all in: the dirt-mottled rug, artificial roses, dust on Thomas Jeffersons head, and deep scratches on carelessly arranged and clearly outdated furniture. The room smelled like disinfectant and bacon. A faux-gold framed mirror hung crookedly over the fireplace. Worse, there was not a single employee in sight at the front desk. He was glad he had a credit card from the organization. And besides, it wasnt too late in the day. Maybe he could still upgrade to a Hilton or at least something that had two or three more stars than this place, even if he had to drive clear to Pittsburgh. He could really go for a plate of chilled fruit and brie and an ice cold Luksusowapotato vodka was about as close to local flavor as he hoped to get in this sooty little town near Pittsburgh. Mostly Polish Americans here. Well, they could keep their cabbages and babkas. He planned to be in and out of steel town before the weekend. He looked at Page | 163

his watch. It was 6:05. Across town, exactly one minute later, Polly slumped over her dinner tray. For the second time in one day, her Sino atrial node stuttered. She was dead again.

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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Dick Vinnith looked at his desk calendar and grimaced. The medical team has just told him theyd had to resuscitate that cook from the high school again. She was stable, but they were now certain they were dealing with arrhythmia. Unless she had a pacemaker implanted immediately, there was little chance she would live for more than a few weeks without another fatal episode. He had to weigh all the ramifications: financial, public relations, shareholders, image. On top of all that, he had two worrisome appointments on his calendar the next day. One, with a reporter from Philadelphia, and the other, an attorney from a nationally acclaimed medical organization. They both were inquiring about the cook. He was sure that damn kid was behind this and shed left him no choice. He ordered the cardiac team to proceed with the surgery. If only theyd been able to discharge this woman faster. Shed be Countys problem by now. But no, delay after delay held up the transfer paperwork and now it was too late. Thered be costs for surgeons, room and board, equipment, medications, rehabilitation, and more. Plus overtime because it would be Saturday. This was just laissez faire economics capitalism. Didnt anyone else ever read Atlas Shrugged? Why was it his job to take care of a bunch of parasites and

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moochers? He was going to miss dinner. All because of some mouthy girl. Meanwhile, news of Pollys most recent death was still a mile away from reaching Jeff, who was stretched out on top of a still-made hotel bed eating a hoagieno dairy, but extra pickles to make up for the lack of cheese. Hed prayed the Kiddush to keep a promise to his mother and lit a votive candle he kept in his glove compartment for Shabbat when he was away from home. Other than the nightly news on TV, the sooty little flicker was the only light in the room. So in more than one way, he was mostly in the dark. The attorney had no idea, either, as he tapped both pinkies on his steering wheel to the rhythm of Allegro Maestoto from Handels Water Music. Ah, the horns! The strings! And a nice drive at sunset to better accommodations! He smiled as the asphalt beneath his car smoothed out after exit 17. Banality was growing smaller by the minute in his rearview mirror. Similarly, in the Kerning household, Reed was zeroed in on her trigonometry book. She needed to get studying out of the way, so she could concentrate on more important things like changing the utter unfairness of the way hospitals did business. Luckily for her, ever since she was a little girl, she excelled at mnemonics. That was one of the reasons she always got As, she quickly reminded herself, then read aloud, Sine equals Opposite divided by Hypotenuse. Cosine equals Adjacent divided by Hypotenuse. Tangent equals Opposite divided by Adjacent. If only life were more like triangles, she thought. All Page | 166

youd have to know was one or two angles and you could figure out the rest. She chewed on her pencil, giving the words time to coalesce into an easy sentence to remember. She had it: Stop Odious Hospital Creeps from Abandoning the Helpless and the Tragic over Assets! Coincidentally, just at the moment she turned her mind back to helplessness and tragedy, Irene was suddenly standing next to her at the kitchen table. She had put on a fresh nightie and combed her hair. With no lipstick or face powder, shiny cheeks, and her short, curly hair tucked behind her ears, she looked youthful, scrubbed free of worry. For a moment, Reed forgot that she was ever frightened of her mother. Then Irene spoke. Your father said I should talk to you about what happened at the hospital. But I told him I dont care about what happened. I want to know why! Why, Marguerite? Because with God as my witness, I do not know why you do these things to me. Embarrassing me. Driving me to the edge of insanity. Making me feel like a bad mother. Why? Reed quickly analyzed her mothers expression. When she was upset, Irenes face wilted faster than a plate of lettuce in hot sun. Even her ears looked droopy. Uh, oh, Reed knew exactly what that meant: the weeping was coming with next breath. And as shed known since childhood, in the wind storm of Irenes emotions, all Reeds points of view instantly plummeted to the world of Irene. They might as well have named her Icarus. And there was no Page | 167

point in futilely flapping her lips, either. No point in telling her mother that she herself didnt understand why she got so freaked out about things. That the world so often just made her, well, mad. That whatever gene or attribute or brain function that makes people say whatever or forget it or its okay was absent from her being. Her soul. Nope, no point at all. And this was clearly one of those times when Irenes feelings were spinning downward, sucking Reed right along with them. Please God, help me, she prayed. Give me the words to help my mom to help me just help! Neither mother nor daughter moved as the minute hand on the oven clock made a full circle twice. Finally, Reed found her voice. Mother, Im not trying to do things to you. Im just trying to do things period. Like fight evil. Help people. Force change. Its like something inside me drives me to do things Irene fingered the cross that hung on a thin gold chain around her neck. She spoke slowly, as though she was walking on ice and if she fell, shed never get up. You mean like the devil? Oh my God! Mother! Is that what you think? That Im possessed? That Im the evil one? That its me, not the world? She threw her pencil across the room where it landed in the sink. Her insides felt cold and small and hard like an ice cube. Her voice shook. Did you even hear me say the part about wanting to fight evil? Not be evil? It was too much to take in. Everything that she was striving to do to help Polly and all the Page | 168

sick, destitute, suffering patients who were being denied Mercywhat was the point? Her own mother thought she was Satan incarnate. A thousand arguments rose up in her. To tell her that shed memorized more Bible verses than Irene ever would. That she was considering joining the Guardian Angels just because she liked the name. That Pollys own daughter had thanked her for trying to help. That Daddy said just being his daughter was enough. But she was head over heels in the whirlwind and all she could do was throw her arms over her head and try to hold onto herself. At that moment, a different mother might have enveloped her child in maternal comfort and concern. But Irene wasnt different, at least in that way. So instead, she put her face close to Reeds heaving shoulders and snarled through gritted teeth, Oh, yes, I suppose now youre sorry! Now that I spent the last two days in bed out of my mind with humiliation! Now that Im all worked up and nervous and beside myself! Now youre sorry! Well, its too late! Youre going to have to be more than sorry! Mother, I am sorry! I No, youre not sorry. If you were, youd stop making me the laughing stock of Rockdale. What do you think its like knowing that every other mother in the neighborhood can get their hair done with their daughters, and go to the movies, and try on dresses? And I have a daughter who stirs up trouble, and asks ridiculous questions in church, Page | 169

and puts mucous under microscopes, and sticks her smart aleck little nose into other peoples businesspeople I dont even know! Reed tried to talk, but she couldnt catch her breath. She felt like she was tumbling head over heels in Irenes wrath and every time she tried to come up for air, her mothers words pushed her back down. Off in the distance, she heard a door slam. Then she heard Nelsons voice. Irene! What in the what are you doing to her? Irene spun around and locked eyes with her husband. For a second, Nelson thought she was going to hit him. The only thing he could reach to defend himself was the long skinny spout of a little, orange, polka dot, plastic watering can. He grabbed it and without realizing it, brandished it like a sword. Stop it! Stop yelling at her! he demanded, advancing and feinting slightly with the can. Hed been changing his clothes when he heard the commotion, so he was wearing faded blue boxers, a Hawaiian shirt, and white tube socks with red stripes around the tops. They were pulled up to his knees. The sight of him with the watering can was an answer to Reeds prayer. Irene closed her mouth, dropped her arms to her sides, and stared. Then she covered her mouth with both hands and made a raspy choking sound that ended in a snort. Praise be to God, Reed thought. She was going to choke on her own tongue! Or, wait, was she actually going to laugh? Nelson and Reed held their breath until it was certain. Then within seconds, there it was: a titter at first; then a loosePage | 170

throated giggle; then a full-out, bent over, sputtering guffaw. Nelson followed her line of sight to his hand. Oh. He understood. He was being silly. How about that, he marveled. Once again, without even trying, it seemed hed found her ticklish spot. Reed rubbed her eyes on her sleeve. Nelson, keeping a straight face, waved the can wildly in the air. A little water splashed out and landed on his nose and forehead. Do you ladies give up? Do you surrender? he teased. Or must I attack? He wiggled the can menacingly. Huh? What will it be? Do I need to get the turkey baster? Or the egg beater, maybe? Irene was doubled over, saying, stop, stop, but eventually she was able to talk without laughing. She wiped her eyes, sat down on a chair next to Reed, shook her head and said, Enough, enough. That was the thing about her mothers mental disorder, Reed marveled. From rage to giggling in the same breath. Amazing. Someday after she got this hospital thing straightened out, shed have to take a look at the treatment of mental illness in America. After all, charity begins at home. So I take it the little talk you had with our girl didnt go so well, huh? he said gently to his wife, walking over to her and stroking her cheek with his thumb. She made me lose my temper, she defended softly, looking at the floor. I know. I heard. But I know you tried, sweetie, he reassured. Im sure you both did. But yelling like thats never done any good. And it just Page | 171

upsets both of you. Let me take a stab at it. Reed rolled her eyes at the pun. Nelson cautiously slid the tablecloth out from under Reeds school books and skirted it around his waist as he sat down to face them. It was celery green with huge mauve roses on it, so Irene and Reed giggled again. It was hard for him to tell where on voice left off and the other began. If only they could see it, he reflected. Theyre so much alike: petite with curly dark hair and toothy smiles; stubborn to a fault; and in their own minds, right, always right. Now heres how I see it, he began, pulling the tablecloth a little tighter and leaning forward with his elbows on his knees like a football coach. My daddy told me to use these holes on the side of my head, he pointed to his ears, more than I use this here one under my nose. Irene, honey, try to hear whats in our girls heart. She wants the world to be a better place. She just doesnt go about the right way Reed protested: Daad! But Nelson was hell-bent on getting his point across, even if it was once in a blue moon. Hush, Reed, he said, again tapping his ears. Youre using these right now. Now just sit there and listen. I have somethin to say to your mother, then I have somethin to say to you. He scooted his chair sideways a little so he could take both of his wifes hands in his. Irene, didnt ever strike you as odd that the Good Lord only gave us one child? Page | 172

She dropped her eyes to the top button on his shirt. Was he mocking her womanhood? No, no, now dont go feeling bad. Thats not what Im sayin. Its just that if wed had a dozen kids, it woulda wore us out and where would we put em, much less feed em? So, the way I figure it, he gave us just about every kind a kid there is all in one bundle. A pretty curlyhaired one just like her mother who wants things to be perfect. A smart one, a scientific one, a funny one, a tough one, a kind one. Dont you see? Like a whole lot of possibilities all in one package. Irene looked up at him. One eyebrow was higher than the other. Much higher. Nelson patted her shoulder and went on. Now I know what youre thinkin: but shes a handful to raise! And you are dead right on that, as usual! But remember right after we said our I dos and we hoped wed have a big family someday? Well, think how hard twelve kids woulda been, right? Cant be no harder than this here child we got sittin right in fronta us. Right? So, see, honey, we can look at this a whole heck of a lot different than we are right now. You brought one hell of a girl into this world and God must think you are the best and perfect mother to raise this child. Else he wouldnta given her to you. Irene dabbed her eyes and nodded. I do try. Surely, my heaven-elly father must know that. Oh, no doubt, hes onto you alright.

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I do try, she repeated, nodding at the high gloss shine of the press and stick tiles on the kitchen floor. She used toothbrushes to get between the cracks. That had to count for something. Nelson turned his attention to Reed. She was pursing her lips tightly as if to resist any nonsense he might be getting ready to dish up. One hand clutched a protractor. The other, a pen. Some ink had leaked onto her fingertips staining them purple and. as if to celebrate its rare release from a ponytail or bun, her hair spilled forward in curly tangles over her cheeks, neck, shoulders. If hed been a wealthy man, he thought he would have a painting done of her looking just like that: determined, studious, wild. What was he going to do? She was like that puppy in Reeds old storybook. The one where theyd put up a fence and hed tunnel right under it. Theyd fill in the holes and hed dig new ones. They couldnt keep him in no matter what. He was hell-bent on running headlong into the worldjust to chase adventure. Nelson couldnt remember exactly how the story ended. Oh well, it probably wouldnt help him anyway, he figured. Hed have to come up with his own way of putting a stop to all this hoopla. He decided to use an example from real life. Well, seems you got a lotta people mad right now. And I think I know what happened. I think you forgot somethin important I told you more than once in your life. Remember that time when you were little and you went kickin your way into that big old tangle of greenbriers Page | 174

tryin to spook out a baby bunny rabbit? You had all kind of ideas about makin a pet outta one and lettin it sleep under you bed. You said, dont worry, Daddy, if Mother see it, shell just think its one of those dust bunnies shes always talking about. But no sooner than you thrashed things up, a young cottontail dashed out and right into the path of a weasel we didnt see a couple yards away and wound up as dinner. Now, if I told you once, I told you a million times. You dont go disturbin nature and that includes human nature. You especially cant go stompin your way into the business of the people that run things. And now look whats goin on. Your mother and me, well, were the ones with somethin chompin down on the back of our necks. Phone calls from school. Phone calls from the hospital. Phone calls from President Carter next? Reed opened her mouth to speak. Nelson cut her off. No, no, no. Not your turn. Not just yet. Cause I know what youre thinkin. Youre gonna say you dont care if you get bit. Youre just all fired up to put things right in the world. But you gotta remember, even if the wound itself doesnt kill somethin, weasels have a way of hangin on til they wear a living thing down. You gotta think about that before you go stirrin things up. You gotta think about the other folks who might get chewed up in the process. You gotta think. Period! Understand? He waited for her to nod her head. Instead she said, Know what, Dad? I see your point. In other words, its similar to bees. From what Ive read, male yellow jackets, well, they die right after mating. And, even Page | 175

more importantly, the females are the only ones that sting and guess what? They die, too, before winter sets in. So for all those cold months before the following spring, the queen is the only one alive and shes just sitting there all fat and slow and pregnant with trouble. So I understand, Dad, I do. What youre saying is its all about the timing. If I want to take down the queen or the analogous weasel, I just have to wait until they are unprotected. Got it! She stood up and, bending at the waist, put an arm around Nelsons neck, and kissed him on the cheek. Youre amazing, she whispered in his ear before going over to Irene and giving her a little hug, too. I have a lot of plans to make, so Im going up to bed. Ill see you tomorrow. Night! And thanks again, Dad! For the first time since Reed started her rebuttal moments earlier, Irene exhaled. Otherwise, she did not blink or move except to say out of the corner of her mouth, Nelson, you are an idiot. Youre right again, honey, he admitted, mentally throwing in the towel. Right again. It was a pink towel.

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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The moon and sun were sharing the sky when two nurses, a woman with what looked like a cardboard six-pack carrier filled with little glass tubes with orange stoppers, and a man who later introduced himself as the anesthesiologist entered Pollys hospital room like an ascension of larks, all trilling at the same time: Good morning! Good morning! Good morning! Polly, still in a dream state, reached for Jack Jr.s B-B gun. The woman with the six-pack caught hold of Pollys outstretched arm and tied a long thin rubber band around the top of it, pulling the knot until Pollys veins bulged painful and purple on her hand and wrist. Pollys eyelids snapped up like overwound window shades. Well, arent you the helpful one? Nurse One crooned. I dont even have to ask you for your armyoure all ready for us. Shelly here is going to take just a couple little blood samples, then I will be putting in your IV. Oh, my, my! Look at those nice big veins. You really are the helpful one arent you? Hmpf? Polly answered, rubbing her eyes with her free hand. One of the nurses reached behind Pollys neck, undid some ties, and slipped the front of the hospital-issued gown down to below Pollys breasts. This will be a little wet and cold, she explained after she had already started swabbing the dazed patients chest, staining it to a dark Page | 177

rust color. The only man in the group stepped behind the drawn privacy curtain and stated loudly through the fabric, Just let me know when youre done, as though the flimsy partition were some great sound barrier. Okay, a little prick. Thats all. The nurse cooed, piercing the inside of Pollys elbow with a hollow needle. Ow! Polly yelled. Stop! No more little pricks! Especially the one over there behind the curtain! Get out here and face me! And all of you, tell me what the hell is going on! Hold still! Nurse Two said sharply. Or this is really going to hurt and were going to have to start over. Polly glanced down at her arm and saw her own blood, dark and red, pulsing into one of the glass vials. She decided to be still until they were finished. But as soon as that procedure was over, Nurse One was back, tapping on a very blue, raised, wormy looking vein the back of Pollys hand. Without warning, she jabbed another needle horizontally through the skin. All this before coffee, Polly thought miserably. Got it! Nurse One exclaimed like a kid at a carnival whod just lobbed a ping pong ball into a fish bowl. Is it safe to come in? the man behind the curtain called out in a booming voice. Oh, for the love of will someone please tell the patient what were doing here this morning? Polly said. Page | 178

Two men stepped out from behind the partition. Who are you guys? Polly asked weakly. Hello, Im Dr. Nestor, your cardiac surgeon, and this is Dr. McCaw, an anesthesiologist. Were part of the team who will be completing the insertion of your pacemaker this morning. I visited you last night, a few hours after you had your second cardiac incident and explained the procedure at that time. Remember, this will keep your heart beating normally. A few small wires threaded into the cardiac chambers and anchored to the myocardium. He drew a few lines and circles on her chest with a marker. The rest of the unit will be placed subcutaneously right about herehe jabbed a spot above her left booband the batteries should last about five years. Do you have any questions? So I will die in five years when the batteries run out? she asked in a trembling voice. The medical team laughed and elbowed each other. Man, shes funny! one of them said. Nurse Two leaned over and said softly, I put some medicine in your IV and youll start to feel sleepy very soon. Polly noticed the room was growing a gray frame around it that was spreading inward like when they used to turn their old TV set off. Just before the room shrank to a tiny little white pinpoint of light, she thought she heard someone say, We using the Cardi-Tron model? Page | 179

Nah, shes charitywe still got some leftover Tic-O-Meters. At 6:23 A.M., Polly rolled into Operating Room Two, just as Jeff Gold was reaching for his first mug of oolong. Hed been up since six, click-clacking on his old IBM typewriter, pausing only every minute or so to backspace and white-out his mistakes with the Correcto-Wheel. He never missed correction fluid when dry tape came along. Hed ruined the cuffs of almost every shirt he owned by accidently running his sleeve over white streaks of covered-up errors. Newspaper journalism was a fastpaced business. No time to wait for some cover-up to gloss over. Father always said, The early bird gets the worm, but in the end, the worms get the bird. No, he had no intention of ever letting any worms get the drop on himespecially, the corrupt big business kind. Thats what got his blood pumping. Doing his part to look out for the little guy. Or, in this case, a seemingly insignificant school employee. Her little mentsh, Bobeshi Anna called him. She had nicknames for all her grandchildren, but he was proud to be the only one she called the good guy. He stopped typing long enough to blow on his hot tea and read the last few lines hed written: But at least one resident of the small steel town is calling attention to perceived loopholes in a number of areas of hospital admission and discharge policies not currently regulated. Specifically, she is raising allegations of patient dumping as well as other instances of unethical procedures at her local hospital. Page | 180

The sky was brightening. It was Saturday. He had to be back on the bus Monday morning. No time to waste. He typed another line or two, grabbed his sweatshirt and car keys, and gulped down a couple swallows of tea. That would have to do until lunch. The paper had no petty cash or money in the kitty for breakfast. His five bucks a day would only do dinner and maybe a convenience store hot dog at mid-day. Luckily, hed discovered a chain of stores that offered free relish, onions, sweet peppers, sauerkraut, mustard, ketchup, melted cheese, and chili sauce when you bought a hot dog. Over the last three years since college, he learned a thing or two about how to pack an entire square meal into a hot dog roll. Clowns in a car had nothing over him. By the time he parked his car on the hospital lot outside Dick Vinniths office, the bathrobe smokers had already dragged their IV poles and walkers to the sidewalk in front of the main entrance. Being unknowingly like-minded with Reed Kerning, Jeff also stopped to check out their stories. He was early, as usual, for his appointment, so he had at least fifteen minutes to interview what he would later come to learn the hospital referred to as the boomerangers. In that time, he scribbled so many quotes, attributions, notes, and leads on his small, yellow tablet that he wished hed brought more paper. All this, he thought, and he hadnt even talked to the big guy, yet. His final question to the bathrobe people was this: do any of you know what a yellow sticker on your chart means? A desiccated woman with cracks in her teeth the color of burnt Page | 181

toast quickly raised her hand. When Jeff looked at her, she said matterof-factly, It means Im dead and dont know it. The others erupted in a mixture of loud coughing and laughing. She went on. The way I figure, the thing in my lungs was no biggern a baked bean when I first came to Emergency. They gave me a bottle of cough syrup and sent me home. No x-rays, no nothing. Came back every couple months or so. Chest hurt like a son of a bitch. Got so skinny my pants fell down when I stood up. Coughed til I puked. Just kept givin me more cough syrup. So I went to County. Got a x-ray. Got cancer in both lungs. Probly my brain and bones, too. Plus I got water in my chest. But County dont have the right doctor to drain it, so they sent me back here. I come in, get a needle stuck in right here, she jabs a place near her heart. Yesterday, I went and passed out on em, so they gave me a cot in the hall and said theyd keep me one night. Im going home this morning. But they and I both know damn well Ill be back afore a couple days to get stuck again. And were just the ones you do see! We all got friends and family that died of all kind a cancer and brain bleeds and Godknows-what who never even seen a doctor! They just set back and watch emselves rot away. Said what the hells the use? No other doctors gonna help me either. First thing they ask: do I got money? Hang up and wait to die. Theres a hell of a lot more of them than us. We the ones who still got some fight in us. But you want to find out anything about the others, you best go up to Saint Joan cemetery. Just dont be goin up there alone Page | 182

after dark cause theyre still plenty pissed off about the way things turned out. She laughed again and a little tube taped to her neck filled with blood. Jeff tasted oolong in the back of his throat. Thank you, he said in a voice that sounded like his father praying and then without completely knowing why, added, Noch dem oreman shlept zikh der shlimazel. It means bad fortune follows the poor man. Im sorry. Nie mam nic do stracenia, she called after him. Thats Polish for Got nothing else to lose! As he walked away, he didnt have to turn his head to see their response. He knew they had collectively rolled their eyes, shrugged, and gone back to smoking their cigarettes like there was no tomorrow. He reviewed his notes. Do patients give informed consent before they are moved to County hospital? Are they stable when they are discharged? Are they being transferred to another hospital because this one cannot provide necessary treatment? Five years in the future, Congress would answer these questions with a modicum of healthcare reform. But for now, the queries were just taking shape in Jeffs mind. He jabbed the up arrow on the elevator door panel. It was sticky. He grimaced. Then spent the time from when the doors closed until he reached the fourth floor, trying to scrub his gooey fingertip clean by rubbing it on a leg of his jeans. But that just made the feeling of crud seep through to his thigh. God, he hated sickness. And what was that smell? Bleach. Deodorant. Cabbage. Page | 183

Semantics are a funny thing, he thought as the odor quickly changed to fragrance when he entered Dick Vinniths office. Fresh brewed coffee steamed from a silver carafe. Clusters of gardenia and orchid buds perfumed the air. And an iridescent green bowl filled with dried flower petals exuded a meadow-like aroma of cinnamon, wild grapes, sweet grass. He was there to report, not judge. Still, he had to admit, it did smell a lot better in here. The first half of the interview went about as hed expected. Vinnith opened fire with the hospitals long and dedicated tradition of caring for the community of Rockdale. A barrage of highlights of an exemplary staff and top-notch services followed. The presentation included a fan of marketing brochures laid before Jeff, as well as the last ten years of annual reports; a thick media packet complete with a glossy, complementary bookmark featuring a grinning little boy wearing a hospital gown and holding a green to match the hospitals logo teddy bear; and a wall-length row of certificates and awards directly in his view. A cache of individually-wrapped chocolates piled high in large crystal tureens on a sprawling nearby credenza had the word Mercy imprinted on the paper sleeves. As usual, Jeff took some perfunctory notes and nodded, feigning interest, knowing if he needed a few facts about the hospitals history, administration, or profitability, he could grab them later from any one of the dozens of brochures and catalogues already in his backpack. Page | 184

Vinnith was winding down; taking more frequent breaths, dragging his index finger along the bottom of a page of talking points the marketing team had put together for him, and frowning with his whole face as though hed only had a six-shooter and hed just counted to seven. It was the moment Jeff waited for. The interviewee had run out of public relations ammo. And, he, the interviewer was still loaded with questions. He kept his eyes on his tablet so he wouldnt have to see the panicked look he knew was on Vinniths face. Emotions have no place in the realm of journalistic objectivity. He studied his list of questions, then went with his instinct, handing the C.E.O a copy of Reeds fax and asking, What is your response to the allegations in this letter I received from a student at Rockdale High School regarding your admission and discharge procedures, specifically as they relate to a patient named Polly Moyer? The older man stiffened his posture and maintained a demeanor more inflexible than his moussed pompadour. Smoothing his suit jacket with a sharp little tug and rubbing the palms of his hand together, he stretched his fingers as though he were a concert pianist readying himself to perform. Jeff waited quietly. Like Descartes, he agreed with the theory that vacuums do not occur naturally. In other words, in nature, a void will generally suck something, anything, into it. Thats why he allowed interviewees to experience long moments of empty silence. If he could just allow nothingness to do its work, they would nearly always Page | 185

rush in to fill it with sound. Sure enough, after about thirty seconds, Vinnith got pulled into the strategy so hard his lips flared back. Jeff hit record. Look, heres the thing, he blurted. I dont know what youre referring to about our admission policies and the like. But you can be damn sure we do our share to care for indigents and transients and pretty much the whole welfare bunch. Do your homework. Our standard operating procedures are just as fair as all the other institutions and are right on par with us. Oh, sure, maybe the hospitals struggling to get out of the red are desperate enough to take Medical Assistance or, worse, patients with no money at all. Well then, fine! Let them go to County! Or how about this: dont eat all that lard in the first place. Because we sure as hell didnt get to be one of the biggest and best hospitals in the greater Pittsburgh area by sitting around crying for people who cant even afford something once and done like gall bladder surgery, much less months and years of cardiac treatment. And as for Ms. Polly Moyer, if youd have checked, youd know we went ahead and performed cardiac surgery this morning. Shes now the recipient of a state-of-the-art pacemaker surgically inserted by our top-notch, and when I say top-notch, I mean penultimate team of cardiologists. Will we ever see a dime of payment for that? What do you think! Again, Jeff said nothing, but moved his head so slightly his opponent couldnt possibly interpret it as either agreeing or disagreeing. Page | 186

Vinniths last couple of sentences had hit the air in the room like a thick putrid aerosol. Jeff decided to let him breathe it in a little, before asking the next question. Every good reporter has the question, he knew. Its the one you follow the guy to his car to ask. Elbow your way past security. Call him at home when hes not expecting it. But no matter what, the question must be asked and answered. That was lesson one when he was a freshman at Temple. And he was an A student. And a noodge besides. Today, the question was in all caps, underlined, and circled at the top of his notes: There is a phrase circulating during the past year or so describing what many see as unethical and some would argue potentially illegal methods of refusing medical care to financially limited patients. The practice has been dubbed, the billfold check. Have you heard this expression, and, if so, how would you say it applies to your practices here at Mercy? Meanwhile, Vinnith had straightened out two paper clips and was reaching for another. Jeff took a piece of candy from the bowl, unwrapped it deliberately, and asked the question. Both men noticed the air in the room felt combustible. But only one was enjoying it.

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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It was better than Jeff had hoped for. The Associated Press grabbed the piece off the wire the instant The Daily Sentinel filed it. And thats how The Herald in Rockdale picked it up the same day. The local paper re-printed verbatim virtually everything the A.P. ran, since they only had one writer. And obituaries, weddings, and police logs kept him busy enough most days. So by Tuesday afternoon, the news of the local hospitals alleged discriminatory policies was on the kitchen table in virtually every house in town. The headline said it all: No Money, No Treatment at Pennsylvania Hospital. Most people only bothered to read the headline and the first couple story lines before they ran to their phones to call their neighbors. Did you see it? they asked and, without waiting for the answer, read aloud to each other: Rockdale, PALack of insurance coverage and money are reasonable and necessary business-related reasons for hospitals to refuse treatment, according to Mercy Hospital Chief Financial Officer Richard Vinnith. Hotels, movie theaters, and amusement parks are not going to let in people who cant pay the price of admission. Why should we? Were a business just like they are, after all, Vinnith stated at the conclusion of a recent interview. Page | 188

Jeffs article proved to be logical static in an emotional gas leak. Families in Rockdale had been fuming with insecurity, resentment, and feelings of victimization ever since three quarters of the husbands and fathers all came home on the same day a year earlier with no paychecks, no health insurance, and the sensation of no balls. The foundry had cut off everything in one fell swoop along with their jobs when it slammed its century-old iron gates shut for the last time in 1979 and locked them tight. Meanwhile, the president bailed a car corporation with one and a half billion dollars. Who was going to do that for them? At first, families had banded together, helping each other out with odd jobs, hand-me-down clothes, and free meals at the towns churches. All the while, they swore with God as their witness to keep themselves, their neighbors, and the town from going under. But when unemployment eventually ran out, esprit de corps splintered faster than the plywood boards covering the windows at the old mill. Kids blamed the parents for not being able to take them on vacations and buy new school clothes. Wives got fed up with their husbands for not finding new work. And the men looked around for someone to blame for their hard luck. Then came Jeff Golds headline in The Herald. It was the flashpoint, illuminating exactly who that someone wasnone other than the C.E.O at Mercy Hospital and all the rest of those selfish bastards who ran the world and ruined lives. As a result, before dinner was on the table that very evening, the townsfolk re-united as protestors, Page | 189

huddled in garages and on each others front lawns, nailing boards together, and painting their anger in big orange letters: HEY BIG SHOTS! THE NEXT FUNERAL WILL BE FOR YOUR PAYCHECKS! and GO TO MERCYWIND UP IN A HEARSE-Y. The women were proud to see their men flexing their muscles again even it was with little dollar store paintbrushes and finishing nails instead of pipe wrenches, boiler parts, and welding torches. The mood throughout town turned aggressive, self-righteous, and ready for anything. At dusk, the protestors came out of their houses and milled around the streets looking for others to add fuel to their fire with anecdotes, head shaking, finger-pointing. Smoke from backyard Tiki torches, cheap cigars, and charcoal grills hung in a thick, gray cloud over the streets, creating the impression of a sound barrier which encouraged people to speak their minds freer and louder than they had for a long time. That night, just as theyd done before the mill closed, men drank beer and shots of Jack, joked, cussed, and eyed up the women. Wives put fuchsia lipstick on and made hot dogs and hamburgers for their guys. The kids played Kick the Can under the street lights with empty beer cans. Things seemed closer to normal than they anyone could remember for quite a while. Next morning just before dawn, the protestors arrived on the front steps of the hospital. They had been stove tenders in hell for most of their lives, so they were more than ready for a heated battle if it came to that. Not to mention, they didnt have much else to do. Jeff Gold was Page | 190

there, too. Out for a walk the night before, hed headed toward the aroma of lighter fluid burning off of charcoal, the blaring chorus of My Sharona on a boom-box or car speakershe couldnt tell whichand an orangey glow which turned out to be dozens of citronella candles, burning cigarettes and cigars. It was the neighborhood just around the corner from the hotel and it was chock full of people boozed up and wanting to talk. Hed drank a couple cans of warm beer and mingled, listening to story after story of how the big guy was out to screw em all and it was time for the little guy to put an end to it. While it all made for a good piece, boozed up hordes of people still made him a little uneasy ever since the Disco Demolition fiasco he covered at a White Sox game the year before. Who would have ever thought people loved rock and roll that much? And hated disco just as much? But twenty minutes after a promotional stunt to explode a barrel full of disco records on the field in between game, tens of thousands of drunk, stoned, die-hard rock fans swept out of the stands and onto the field. He snapped photos as fast as he could: people stripping off their clothes, copulating at third base, starting fires on the pitchers mound, smashing empty bottles of Jack Daniels, all the while chanting, Disco sucks! Disco sucks! A woman spun him around and exposed her boobs. He took a picture of that, too, all the while knowing most of the roll would wind up in the trash but not able to resist the unfolding, apparently epic struggle of disco versus rock. Page | 191

Mementos from that night wound up in a different shoebox. One reserved for more contemporary reflections of his work: local reactions to the fall of Saigon, his byline on a front page story after the attempt on the Presidents life, and the AP ticker he used to develop the Karl Wallenda pieceironically, a fall from a wire to a wire, hed thought at the time. Naturally, thats where he kept a vinyl shard of one of thousands of detonated Lionel Richie and Village People records littering the stadium that night. That and a blurry picture of a very long-haired, middle-aged man flashing pectorals resembling big, fat, fleshy breasts. That photo was all the reminder hed ever need for the rest of his life that things were not always as they seemed. That morning, he arrived early, figuring the ones who were most full of piss and vinegar would be there first and provide the most colorful quotes. Scanning the throng of people, he spotted two gray-haired, burly guys with bullhorns leading the crowd in yelling, Mercy! Mercy! ControVER-sy! He started in their direction, but stopped short when he caught sight of a young girl with long wiry black hair, a backpack at her feet, a small point and shoot camera in one hand, and a notebook in the other. She was squinting into the sunrise and standing on her tiptoes, which made her look a little older and taller than she actually was, but there was no mistaking her. He called out, Ms. Kerning! Reed came down on hard on her heels and looked around. He called her name again and this time she made eye contact with him. Observing his Page | 192

notebook and camera, she nodded and waved. He pointed to a bench on the other side of one of the twin rose gardens that flanked the front entrance. She nodded again. Jeff kept his eyes on her as they approached the meeting point. So this was the little girl who had started all this ruckus. He laughed to himself. She didnt even look old enough to drive or see R-rated movies. And judging by her dismayed expression, the junior reporter didnt see any of this coming. As a gifted editorial writer years ago for his own high school newspaper, Jeff could easily relate to her sense of shock at such a premature accomplishment. Lots of his writer friends had postulated, proselytized, and protested since their college days and still hadnt ever had any real galvanizing effect on peoplea career-ender for most of them in the 60s. And here she was maybe, what, fifteen? Sixteen? And she had the whole town storming the castle. Now only a few feet away from her, he saw for the first time how young she really was: pale, trembling, holding her breath. He decided right then and there he would tell her about his own early writing days and the runaway horse feeling that came with them. But first he had to do something before she started crying. Breathe, he said in a fatherly voice. Slowly. Breathe. Slowly. For the first time, he felt her dark eyes focus on him. Really focus. Raising a shaking hand to her chest, she took a sudden, gulping breath of air as though shed just surfaced from the bottom of a deep, deep pool. Then, panting, she managed to speak. Was I doing that Page | 193

again? The not breathing thing, I mean. Bad habit since Im a little girl. I usually remind myself to start again. But I think today, its good you came along. Rearranging her face into a semblance of cordiality, she smiled and extended her hand in greeting. Hello, Im You must be Reed, he said at almost the same time. Her fingers felt like small twigs in his palm, so he avoided squeezing, but her hand gripped his firmly. Clearly, she was regaining her composure. Or at least wanting him to believe she was. Nice to meet you. Jeff Gold. Sentinel. So youre the culprit behind all of he waved his arm in a sweeping motion toward the angry crowd, this! She dropped her head, so she was looking straight up at him, a move his beagle made when he caught her chewing a chair leg. I would not deem myself responsible for any civil unrest, if that is what you are implying, she answered in a low voice. Ay-yay-yay, a teenager who didnt use contractions. He chuckled. Anyone ever tell you that you talk a little funny? She winced and thought back to the first day she met Polly. That is what she had said, too. You talk funny. At first her feelings had been hurt. But when she saw how hardworking and kind Polly was, she felt differently. She had learned the cooks story and that had provided a new vantage point from a place of empathy, understanding, and un-bias. And as it had throughout her life, it was the story that made all the Page | 194

difference. That, and the facts. Such as where meat on Styrofoam trays really came from. The possibilities of peanuts, not to mention Popes. The meaning of life before and after you found out you were supposed to be born a boy. And then there was Polly. And how her mother got killed at the sewing factory. And even if she would have lived until she got to the hospital, she was most likely poor, too, and would have been shipped off to County where they only had old broken equipment and doctors no one else would hire. Yes! Thats what this was all about. Medical injustice! Cruelty to Polly and all the other impoverished people who were sick or dying and needed help from hospitals that did not care about their welfare! Her head snapped up. As a matter of fact, other people have indeed said that. But it is no concern of mine and never will be. Vocabulary must be exercised like a muscle if you want it to become powerful and dependable. Just look around you. Do you think a page full of puny modifiers and weak predicates could do all this? Do you think a mouthful on monosyllabic words and clichs could ever change anything? And for that matter, has your writing ever rallied an entire town? Well? Has it? Ah hah! Theres the teenager, he thought. All fermisht about the state of the world and ready to straighten it out as easily as a sock drawer. Idealism. Itd been a while since hed walked down that road. But he still had a shoebox full of college essays and editorials he kept like Page | 195

souvenirs and postcards of a place hed visited but would, most likely, never return to. One day, shed have her own shoebox, but for today, it was damn clear she meant to be taken seriously. I meant no disrespect, Ms., uh, Reed. Im just not used to hearing such well-developed phraseology from a person younger than myself. Obviously, you are more of a journalistic peer than I originally assessed and I offer my apologies. May we start again? Reed glanced back at the growing mob. No! I can tell when Im being humored. My poor father is the prototype of male condescension to a woman. But I suppose we will have to collaborate if we are both working on the same story. Indeed. He lifted his tablet to cover his smile. Besides, she added, this is my town. Absolutely. And Im not after a byline here. Im trying to right a wrong. Of course you are. Stop it. Youre doing it again. Okay, look, what do you say we approach some of these people together? That way, we can get the interviews, quotes, and photos we need without stepping on each others toes? Agreed. Jeff extended an arm toward the rally. Ladies first. Reed grimaced. I said stop it! Page | 196

Sorry. Oh for the love of God.

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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Before Jeff and Reed had pushed their way no more than halfway through the crowd, they heard a familiar voice. Or more accurately, a familiar cough. It was Jan, the sick women in the bathrobe who hung out in front of the hospital. Somehow, shed jostled her IV pole straight through the mob and had made her way to the microphones. Reeds first thought was that she was either trying to say something or was choking to death on a chicken bone. For a few moments, they were the only ones to notice her. But when she hacked a wet, crackly cough straight into a mic then let out a high-pitched wheeze like someone whistling through a tissue- paper-wrapped comb, the crowd turned quiet. Everyone stared at her and stood unmoving. That is, everyone except Jeff and Reed, whose compulsive curiosity propelled them quickly to the podium. Right before they got there, a very young woman in a pin-striped aquamarine suit hurried away from the steps and disappeared through the front entrance. Reed recognized her instantly: Barbie the Admission Director. Probably running for patient transfer paperwork in case Jan keeled over and needed to go to County, Reed thought. And no more than two minutes later, a scowling Dick Vinnith crashed through the doors and took the steps two at a time until hed rammed himself in right next to his patient, who was looking sicker by the minute. Above and behind her, even the Page | 198

sky looked bruised. Reed noted Jan was exhibiting the predatory skill of a lizard about to eat a cricket. Shed waited patiently for her prey to come to her. And he had. Hungry for the kill, but preternaturally longsuffering, Jan moved nothing but her eyes, shifting them ever so slightly to the left where Vinnith stood. For a moment, Reed thought she saw the womans tongue flicker in and out. But it was only the sun glistening off a bit of spittle running down her chin. Still perched on the step unmoving, the terminally ill woman was poised and about to strike. And Dick Vinnith never saw her coming. What do you want? Come to re-possess my pole? she quipped hoarsely straight into a mic. Someone in the crowd cheered her on. A few others clapped. Vinniths eyes widened. The sickening awareness that hed walked into a snare gripped him. Worse, he knew it was too late to get away. Jan pushed out her chin to an unnatural angle, elongating her neck. Her jaw went slack. Dear God, Reed thought, she meant to swallow him whole. But no, she just had more to say. Seems we got us here a little predicament, wouldnt you say? Or maybe youd call it somethin else? Like maybe my discharge plan? The onlookers didnt know whether to laugh, cheer, or remain silent. She seemed to be making fun of the guy, but at the same time, they couldnt help but notice all the blackberry-colored, ragged-edged Page | 199

tears in the tissue paper skin of her forearms. The dark orange stains on both ends of her untied bathrobe belt. The plastic hospital bracelet that was the only piece of jewelry on herno wedding ring, no pierced ears, no thin silver chain with a crucifix pendant like most other very sick people usually took to wearing. And so without knowing how to respond, they continued to listen but say nothing as she went on. See, heres the thing. I just wanted to ask you in front of these here people, if you might reconsider giving me a little air. See, cause a month of Sundays ago, the doctor said I ought a be on oxygen. You know, like one of those little tanks of air I can drag around with me. Its got a tube that goes right here in my nose. Remember? No? Well let me help you out. You and the rest a yer cronies went and nixed all that cause I dont got, what dya call it, oh yeah, funds to pay for it. So I was just wonderin if right here afore all these good people if youd like to take a crack at my question one more time. So here goes. She pulled a brown-tinged, wadded up hankie out of her pocket and spit noisily into it, then asked, Mister, are you saying I should just go home and suffocate? All the reporters, including Reed and Jeff, positioned their cameras. Dick Vinnith lurched forward to grab the mic and, in doing so, knocked Jan to the ground. Backlit by the sun, clothed in a long gown, and stretching out her arms to try futilely to balance herself, she had every appearance for an instant of an ascending angel. Every camera Page | 200

there captured the second right before the fall when Vinnith, grimacing and flushed, dropped his shoulder into hers. As well as the next frame when the frail and clearly deathly ill woman wildly flapped her arms in a helpless attempt to save herself. And the final instant during which the CEO glared down at the crumpled heap of his fallen patient and mouthed the words, Serves her right. Within the hour, those photos would be on virtually every noon broadcast in the country and headed to presses for evening newspapers, as well. The crowd at Mercy Hospital didnt wait for the reporters to file their stories. They rushed cussing and three sheets to the wind on adrenalin to the steps. Vinnith beat them to the entrances and hastily locked the front doors behind himself, leaving the injured woman sprawled motionless on the steps. Eventually, the police showed up, broke up the riot, and sent the protestors home with no more than a warning. But not before at least a half dozen hospital windows broke from hurled stones, an ambulance showed up (from County) to transport the victim to the emergency room, and Reed herself got a nickel-size gash on her eyebrow from ducking a rock and banging her face on the wrought iron step railing. She, too, wound up at Countys ER for stitches. When Dr. Browser saw who theyd brought into his exam room, he wasnt surprised. Of course, SHE was at the bottom of all this. Pollys memorial service was at 4:00 in the afternoon so kids from Rockdale High would be able to attend if they wanted to. About twenty or so shuffled into the back of the church and scrunched themselves, gym Page | 201

bags, backpacks, lunch sacks, and purses all together into one pew. Ritchie was with them sitting next to the new chick. It hadnt taking him long after Reed broke up with him to start up with Heather Gromonsky. She was a stoner like Ritchie, for sure, but pretty, blonde, and easygoing. Reed saw them looking at their watches, elbowing each other, and whispering. She decided not to sit with her classmates and, instead, found an empty seat next to two very old women wiping their eyes with wadded up tissues. When she sat down, they mouthed hello and thank you to her which, for some reason, made her feel guilty all over again. The steel-colored casket was closed and covered in a saddle of ghost white mums and dark green ferns that, from where Reed was sitting, looked like moss growing on a big gray rock. Long rows of pale yellow candles flanked either side. The pastor, draped in a black robe and wearing a fist-sized crucifix around his neck, stood like the angel of death next to a marble pedestal holding a framed photo of Polly when she was obviously much younger. Maybe high school graduation. The scene reminded Reed of Halloween and for a moment, she thought Polly might pop up and offer everyone some candy. She recalled Polly offering her a piece of cheese and that brought a tear to her eye. Never in her lifetime would she see her friend again. She ducked her head discreetly to wipe the tear with the back of her hand and when she did, she gazed over at Jora-Lynn. Mary-Gold, her baby daughter, was asleep on her shoulder, her mouth open like a tiny caroler. Jack Jr. was scribbling on the Page | 202

program with a fat, purple crayon. From where Reed was seated, it looked like clouds. Reed thought back to that first day in the hospital when Polly lay as if already dead in her hospital bed: waxy, mottled, and wheezing. Yes, her friend was sick and miserable, true, but at least there was still something that could be done. But now, here they all were in a church, with nothing to do but cry and send flowers and say good-bye. She wished she could tell Polly all the things that had happened since she died. And it was all because of how the hospital had treated her. Rockdales citizens, who were already stirred up by Jeffs news story, were galvanized even more by the report of Pollys death. They were now unwaveringly convinced that the hospital had provided less than adequate care based on the poor womans inability to pay her bill. Try as they might, Mercys public relations staff and in-house lawyers could not convince them otherwise. They distributed bottles of water with the hospital logo on them to the protestors. They faxed statements to The Daily Sentinel with ambiguous responses approved by their attorneys, such as: Mercy Hospital has a long-standing tradition of caring for its patients with our top-notch medical staff, state-of-the-art equipment and technology, as well as dignity and concern. When the Sentinel and Herald printed the statements the next day, the people of Rockdale toasted marshmallows on campfires made with the newspapers. As a last ditch effort, one of the hospitals top attorneys sent a young intern from Page | 203

the marketing team out to the front steps where she stammered, redfaced, through a prepared message. She was so young, she couldve been half the crowds daughter and the other halfs kid sister. Psychologically, the lawyer reasoned, it should have worked to stir empathy for the hospitals position. Or at least guilt over being aggressive toward people as sweet as she appeared to be. And it might have worked except he didnt know that the girls Nana and Pap-Pap were both in the County nursing home and that she would start crying halfway through her talking points because this whole thing had really gotten to her. And that a frail old man would offer her a marshmallow and put his arm around her shoulders. And that Jeff would snap a picture of it and it would run the next day with the caption, Young intern finds mercy outside, not inside, local hospital. So when Polly developed a pulmonary embolism that reached her brain in the middle of the night, it turned out to be a stroke of luck. Her death crumpled the hospitals last bit of resolve to let this all blow over. The horde of angry people in the parking lot tripled by lunchtime the next day. Boom trucks lined up around the block for remote TV broadcasts. Clusters of microphones edged a podium where the young intern had stood weeping just the day before. Around two in the afternoon, a stone-faced Dick Vinnith led a pack of men in gray suits to the microphones. Everyone stopped talking. Cameras zoomed in.

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Reporters hit record. Shutter buttons clicked. Dick Vinnith gave a weak half smile then said what they all wanted to hear. As most of you have heard, I can confirm that Polly Moyer, a dedicated Rockdale High School employee, caring mother, and life-long citizen of our town expired early yesterday morning at approximately three a.m. in the cardiac intensive care unit of Mercy Hospital. He rubbed his forehead with his thumb for a moment before continuing. The cause was an unforeseen cerebral vascular accident, a CVA, or what you might call a stroke. This is an unfortunate, but common and unforeseeable occurrence after vascular incidents such as cardiac arrhythmia and subsequent surgical implantation of a pacemaker. I want to reassure you that the hospital was adhering to all required medical protocol, including the use of anticoagulants and monitoring, at the time of her passing. He wished the legal team hadnt crossed out the next few lines which declared her death to be an act of God. People were glaring at him and this headache was killing him. We are aware that many of our fellow community members have objections to the current policy of this hospital requiring substantial proof that patients can pay for the services they receive at Mercy before approving costly operations, procedures, tests, and hospital stays. In response, Mercys Board of Trustees has authorized the establishment of a new charity trust fund to provide care for financially needy individuals. In addition, Mercy will no longer require disclosure of personal assets as Page | 205

part of our admission criteria. The charity arm of our business will bear the name The Polly Moyer Mercy Fund and it will go into effect retroactively to cover any and all costs of Ms. Moyers care, as well as other current patients who are unable to pay for care. Wheres the money for the charity coming from? one of the network reporters asked. Dick Vinnith startled the crowd with the answer. The first five million in start-up funds is being acquired through the elimination of several senior positions here at Mercy. Including yours? she fired back. He nodded and mumbled, Yes. A few people whistled and cheered, but most just stood there without words for what was taking place. He went on. Furthermore, we learned earlier today that the owners of the former steel foundry have also stepped forward and agreed to donate twenty percent of the proceeds from the pending sale of the site later this year. There is also a forthcoming settlement to the estate of Ms. Moyer of which her daughter has generously agreed to put all but one million back into the fund. Perhaps the good people of this town will also see fit to hold fundraisers from time to time to ensure the vitality of this fund in perpetuity. At this point, the hospital will distribute press packets with additional details. More press conferences are scheduled over the next few weeks. Thank you. With that, he quickly retreated Page | 206

through the front doors, and some people later speculated, ran straight out the back doors to a waiting car and a new life in another part of the country. Some place where everyone liked classical music and played tennis and could pay for a private room at the hospital, they figured. As for Jora-Lynn, she was a millionaire. And much to everyones surprise, she did not rush out and buy a new car, fancy clothes, or liquor the next day. No, it seems she reacted to her mothers death the same way Polly had responded to her own mothers death. Pick up a broom and a baby and get busy. She was the mother now. It was up to her to get dinner on the table, give Jack Jr. his medicine two times a day, and teach Mary-Gold how to eat table food. She was seventeen. There was no one behind her or beside her. Mama was never coming back. She was terrified. So she did what scared people do. She controlled everything she could. Even while planning the funeral, she scrubbed every floor in the house and painted the kitchen a bright yellow, determined to get the best price for the place when it became time to sell and move to a bigger house where she could have a yard and a room for each of the kids. The same night Polly died, she got rid of both good-for-nothing men in her life because they were too damn unpredictable and what she needed now was some organization and definitely no surprises. She directed the hospital to put the million dollars minus taxes directly into the bank. She said she planned to learn how to manage every penny herself through business courses at the community college. She trusted no one. The Page | 207

universe had already screwed her once. But her eyes were open now. It would not sneak up on her a second time. And there she was today, at St. Agnes Lutheran Church, sitting straight and tall in the front pew not five feet from her mothers coffin. Gripping her baby girl, hanging onto Jack Jr.s little arm, holding her family together like shed done it all her life. Jeff couldnt stick around for the memorial service. The Sentinel already had him on his new assignment. Before he left, though, he walked with Reed to the outskirts of town to the Whitmans farm. It was on his way to the bus stop and a few extra minutes in the fresh air would do him good. For some reason, Reed wanted to take some Golden Delicious apples to an old bull who always hung out near a fence bordering a wildflower meadow. He watched her expression as the animal crunched the hard, yellow fruit in her cupped hand; tickled it with his bristly, grey-haired muzzle; and made her giggle. It was hard to believe this was the same girl who had just awakened a nation to holes in the health care system. As he shook her hand good-bye, he handed her his business card, and offered to mentor her from time to time if she pursued a career in journalism. She smiled and said thank you. But from the way she stuck out her chin and looked him dead in the eyes, he knew she would move forward on her own. At the front of the chapel, a few small rows of candles burned yellow: the color of writing tablets, stickers on medical charts, and apples Page | 208

in September. Reflecting off the polished metal of Pollys casket, the light seemed to go on and on. Reed squinted at the flickering, changing illumination. After a minute or two, she relaxed her eyes and reached for her pen.

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