All the Water in the World Read online

  “He’s different now. He gave me a beer. He wanted to talk.” Each sentence I said about Jack made me feel as though he and I were in actual communication. “He’s going to be a scientist.”

  Fiona brightened. “Can I tell Vicky?”

  “No!” Vicky was thirteen and a half when she got her first boyfriend, a sophomore linebacker. There was another one after that, and now Wade, who worked at the Coffee Bar downtown. If Vicky found out, she would never let it go.

  Fiona was staring at me.

  “What?” I laughed. I forced out a solemn look. “What?”

  “Are you sure nothing happened?”

  “I’d rather mention it to Vicky myself, that’s all.”

  “Okay,” she said. “That’s fine.”

  I stared. “What do you mean, ‘That’s fine’?” In days gone by, she would not have stopped there. “What if I told you he kissed me?”

  “Get out! Where?”

  I took a second: architecture or anatomy? “On his dad’s window seat.” It was easy, the move from partial truth to outright lie.

  That look again, like a safety bar coming down. “But, Maddy?”

  “What.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Fiona crossed one leg over the other, chewed her thumbnail, and pumped her foot up and down. “Are you sure he’s a nice guy?”

  It was my turn to stare. “You think no nice guy in his right mind would want me?”

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous!” She flashed me a smile. Not a real one. “You more than any of us, you idiot!”

  “You think a boring nice guy is all I could get?”

  “Just saying . . .” She put on her wheedling voice. “I am your fwend, you know.”

  The elation that came from speaking Jack’s name and making up things about him was gone. So was the coolness I’d felt a moment before. It was the tone of her voice that did it. Her tone told me that no matter how far ahead of Fiona I’d always been when it came to periods and overall polish and style, no matter what we’d been through together as best friends forever, no matter if she came to visit me three times a week, minimum, I was in another category now. This made me feel so hollow and alone I couldn’t at that moment imagine anything good happening to me ever again.

  “No, forget it. I’m talking crap,” she declared. “I’m just jealous. Go for it. Promise you’ll go for it.”

  I stood up so fast that dark spots flashed around the room. Fiona leapt to her feet and steadied me while I groped for the bed and sat down again, bowing my head to keep away the stars. From the corner of my eye I could see Cloud sitting upright on the quilt, ousted from my lap and awaiting instructions. Fiona pretended she had come over just to pet my kitten.

  “Poor girl . . .” She pressed the fur back with her thumbs until she was crooning to the face of a little wide-awake gnome. “Poor baby! Have you lost your place?”

  4

  “Another sip?” asked Grandma, steering the straw to my lips, her voice a wavier version of my mother’s. I sucked in without opening my eyes. Ginger ale. Essence of chemotherapy. It’s supposed to help the nausea, but now the taste itself makes me feel sick. I sipped it anyway, because it also tastes of comfort. My whole life is like that. Nothing is just one thing or the other.

  I opened my eyes. My grandmother’s face was frowning down at me, her hair puffed around it in light brown scallops. My grandparents live downtown, only half an hour away, but they come and stay with us when I’m going through chemo. They were here when we got back from the hospital. I knew my grandmother had gotten a cut and perm for her visit, and this fact alone made me want to cry.

  Funny when people are looking at you at close range. Our heads were practically touching, but what was inside hers and what was inside mine were a million miles apart. Or maybe not. We would never know. I shut my eyes. Light doesn’t help. But my grandmother’s presence does. I think it’s because when she sees me heaving into the bowl and falling back on the bed, moaning from my sore mouth, or bawling into my pillow, she is putting me into a larger picture she has in her mind. I like to think there is a larger picture. Even if it’s her scientifically dubious one of suffering people being rocked in the hands of God.

  “Grandma?”

  Cool hand on my forehead. “Yes, Punkin?”

  She’s called me that forever. I kept my eyes tightly shut. I had to keep them shut in order to squeeze out such a question. “Have you always believed in God?”

  It must be sad for my grandmother, living with heathens. She removed her hand and did not answer right away.

  “No, not always,” she said at last. “Not genuinely.”

  “So when did you start?”

  “When your mother was born.”

  “Why then?”

  “Shall I tell you?”

  “Well, yeah . . . ? I asked you, didn’t I?”

  Grandma gave me one of her looks. She thinks sarcasm is the lowest form of humor.

  “Yes please,” I said meekly.

  “Your grandfather and I were so happy when we found out I was expecting. The pregnancy went fine, the usual morning sickness and so on. But as soon as I went into labor, we knew something was wrong. The contractions would start and then stop. This went on for more than a day. The baby was in distress. They couldn’t find the heartbeat at one point. It was very scary. Then I started bleeding. Turns out your mother had the cord, the umbilical cord—”

  “I know what cord, Grandma!”

  “Of course you do.” I heard the smile in her voice. “The cord was wrapped around her neck. She very nearly died. Actually, so did I, from the hemorrhage—that means losing a lot of blood all at once—”

  “I know!”

  “They rushed me to the operating room. I was out of it by then. And while I was out, I had this amazing experience . . .” She stopped.

  “What kind of experience?”

  She seemed hesitant to go on. “I’m not sure I can explain it to you.” My grandmother put her lips together. “It was like I was not inside myself anymore. I was looking down on the heads of the doctors and nurses, and while I watched them trying to save me and save the baby, there was this . . . presence isn’t quite the right word. Being? No. That sounds like it was all in one place. Anyway, there was something with me that was completely good and generous.”

  “Must have been a dream.”

  She smiled. “Maybe. When I woke up, I couldn’t see any baby and I got scared, so I started talking to God. We came to an agreement that if I lived and my baby lived, I would devote my life to Him.”

  “But how did you know someone was there to talk to in the first place?”

  “He spoke first.”

  I opened my eyes. Grandma was sitting on my bed in her yellow cardigan, the ginger ale glass forgotten in her hands.

  “Not the usual way of speaking,” she said. “It’s mental.”

  “Sounds mental.”

  “Spiritual, then. But that’s not a word your generation uses.”

  “Mental,” I said, “means it’s in the mind. The mind comes from the brain.”

  “Mmm,” said Grandma.

  “So if the brain stops, there’s no more mind.”

  “That’s why we say spiritual.”

  “Spiritual’s not in the brain? Then where is it, exactly?”

  Long silence. “Do you wonder about these things, Maddy?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Of course,” said Grandma, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Maddy,” she went on, “do you suppose that everything around us . . .” Her knobby hand took in my lavender walls, my Snarky Puppy posters, my dresser with its jewelry stand in the shape of a ball gown and its rows of Muji candles, down to my blue fleece blanket, on which Cloud was curled up acting out her name: all the fixtures of my life that I didn’t under any circumstances want to leave. “Not to mention where we come from, where we’re going, what makes you you, is all figured out already? Already known?”

  “S
omeone must know.”

  “How would they?”

  “Have you ever heard of science?”

  Grandma wrinkled her forehead but decided to overlook it. If you have cancer you can get away with lots of the lowest form of humor.

  I turned over with difficulty. Either my muscles were going soft from disuse or the chemo was attacking them too. Grandma helped settle me on my other side and put her hand on my cheek. Where she touched me was the only part of me that didn’t hurt.

  “Science is certainly a powerful way of understanding the world. Never underestimate science. But it’s not all there is.”

  “How do you know?”

  After a long pause, she said: “I don’t.”

  “Oh, great.” I turned my head away.

  “Do you want to come to church with us sometime, Maddy? Your grandpa and I would love it. Remember you used to go to Sunday school when you were little? To our other church?”

  Of course I remembered. Graham crackers and orange Kool-Aid in the basement room. Wooden fire engines. Maps in impossible colors. Sitting on the carpet in a circle around a lit candle, while the lady spoke in an unnaturally gentle voice. I kept my eyes on the candle flame, the only interesting thing in the room. At the end she said: “Now it’s time to change the light,” and lowered her candle snuffer over the flame, trying to fool us into thinking she was only “changing” the light, not putting it out.

  “Thanks, Grandma,” I said. “But I’m not going to start believing in God because I’m desperate.”

  “You mean like I did when your mother was born?”

  “That’s not what I meant!” I shot back. That’s exactly what I meant.

  After a pause, Grandma asked, as casually as if she wanted to know whether I was hungry: “Do you feel desperate sometimes, Maddy?”

  I shut my eyes. “Not really.” The nausea had come back. Both feet were half-numb and prickling painfully, like when the blood rushes in after they’ve gone to sleep. “Does Mom know what happened when she was born?”

  “She knows about her birth, yes. I’ve told her the whole story. Not that she necessarily . . . sees it the way I do.”

  “Mom isn’t into that stuff. She would never change her mind, even if her baby is sick.”

  Grandma laughed. “Your mother has always had her own ideas, ever since she was small. Like you.”

  “I don’t agree with everything Mom says, you know.”

  “Of course you don’t.” Lightly she added: “You have a first-rate mind, Maddy. Don’t dismiss things just because they’re out of the ordinary. That’s all I would say. There’s more of everything than we think.”

  Are all old people so cryptic? More of everything than we think? I liked the sound of it, but I knew liking the sound of something was not enough, and I knew the conversation had to end. It was not just that my feet were hurting and I was ready to sleep. There was something in me that wanted to poke its nose into the world and be seen and be stroked, but if anyone tried too hard to coax it out, it burrowed back inside and hid. I feigned sleep. After a minute or two, my grandmother eased herself off the bed and tiptoed out.

  • • •

  “Long story short,” I announced at dinner, “I’m going to church tomorrow.” Third week postchemo, I was still weak but on the up and up, or at least on level ground with rising potential. As soon as I’m almost myself again, they knock me flat with another treatment.

  “Oh?” My mother glanced up.

  “With Grandma. Dr. O says I can go out if I want.”

  “Are they driving you?”

  “Is that all you want to know? My method of transportation?”

  She laughed. “What do you want me to ask?”

  “What about ‘Why are you going to church with Grandma tomorrow?’ ”

  “Well, why are you?”

  “She invited me.”

  “Good for her.”

  “And there’s this cellist playing Brahms.”

  “Which Brahms?” asked Robin from the head of the table, where he sits to make the point that he is sitting at the head of the table. Robin is a classical music fanatic. He taught himself to play the piano when he was thirty-two, which is pretty impressive. But he never got the knack of learning to read the notes because his brain was too set in its ways. He has to memorize. Whereas I’ve taken lessons since I was eight and I am a great sight reader. Or at least I was when I used to play.

  “I don’t know.” I spread my chicken potpie around the plate to make it look half-eaten. “They’re picking me up at nine-fifteen.”

  “Aren’t you hungry, Maddy?” asked my mother.

  “Not very. Don’t you want me to go?”

  She gave me her mock-exasperated look.

  “Apparently it’s Palm Sunday,” I said.

  “Wasn’t that when he rode through town on a donkey?”

  “You’re the expert. You’re the one who went to Sunday school every week!”

  “I was an expert until ninth grade,” said my mother.

  “Is that when you became a heretic?”

  “That’s when I started having my own ideas.”

  “Want to come?” I said. “We could all go.”

  My mother gave me her everything-under-the sun-is-acceptable smile. “Not this time.”

  “Why not?”

  “Go and have a day out with your grandparents. They’d love that.”

  I fluttered my eyelids at Robin. “Come to church with me? The family that prays together stays together.”

  He glanced at my mother while levering the last of the salad onto his plate. “She’s been reading bumper stickers again.”

  “I do love salad,” I remarked. “Salad is the one thing I’m in the mood for . . .”

  “Oh, sorry, Maddy! It’s yours. Dressing? Garlic bread?” When everything had been offered except what I was really asking for, Robin said in a muted voice: “You know church is not my thing. And I have work to do. Unfortunately.”

  “Thanks for the support.”

  Again they exchanged looks. My mother drained her wineglass.

  “If it’s the C-major Trio,” said Robin, “get ready to cry.”

  5

  As usual, Grandpa was driving. I got in and slammed the door, calling goodbye to my mother, who was waving from the porch in a way that meant she regretted leaving me to face God on my own. Grandpa gave me the almost smile that his face settles into when he isn’t trying to make it do anything special. I used to ask, “Grandpa, why are you smiling?” He always replied, “I’m not.” It became a joke between us. Now I see it as the expression of a good-natured person who wants to be obliging while keeping himself to himself.

  When I was small and we went to their old church, Grandma wore flowered skirts and high heels. Since then she has sharpened up her fashion sense. Today she had on a black jacket with an Aztec design and a teal-colored blouse. Her necklace looked like silver finger bones. She kissed the air in my direction.

  “Hello, sweetie. Nice hat!”

  “Look, we match,” I said, getting in. My knitted beret with the brim happened to be the exact shade of Grandma’s blouse.

  I leaned on my fist and watched the fire station go by, and the public library where I borrowed my books a million years ago, and the lavender house with the yellow trim, next door to the orange house with the white trim. That’s Takoma Park for you, the most original neighborhood this side of the Beltway. I always wondered who lived in those two houses and what they were like. Maybe I would knock on their doors one day without a hat on, and see what happened.

  What is it with men and cars? Women are at least as good at driving, but if there’s a man around, he gets the keys and she’s the one who double-checks the traffic at intersections. Grandma didn’t seem to mind. She had on her own half smile, completely different from Grandpa’s. Hers said: Deep down the world is good and I want to be part of the goodness. She was humming. Maybe she was happy it was Palm Sunday. Or maybe she was happy to have
me in the car. After all, I am her only granddaughter, and I was named after her. Madeleine Rose.

  “Grandma,” I said, sitting up. “Do you mind if I call you Rose?”

  Smiling, she twisted around, her rimless glasses winking. “If you like.” The thing about my grandmother is she genuinely finds me entertaining. “What brought that up?”

  “Oh,” I said airily, “I’m not a baby anymore.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  “Besides, it’s my middle name. I should be able to use it.”

  “Agreed,” she said, turning back.

  “What about me?” Grandpa demanded, catching my eye in the rearview mirror.

  “You already call her Rose.”

  “Very funny.”

  “You can still be Grandpa, if that’s what you mean.”

  “As long as I’m not missing out on anything.”

  “Don’t worry.” I patted his shoulder over the seat. “It’s a girl thing. Isn’t it, Rose?”

  “Absolutely. Oh look, Maddy! A deer. Two of them!” Their big, unlikely bodies loped across the median strip and plunged into the woods on the other side.

  “Whoa!” said Grandpa. “They cause a lot of accidents, you know.”

  “Can you imagine wanting to shoot them?” said Grandma. “I’ll never understand wanting to shoot a beautiful animal.”

  “What if you’re starving?” I asked.

  “That’s different.”

  Cars were backed up near the Metro station and we didn’t move for ages. The first chance he had, Grandpa came off the highway.

  “I need another coffee. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s sitting in traffic.”

  “HashtagFirstWorldProblems,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  He pulled up to the curb a few blocks later and got out and leaned into my window, speaking behind his hand in a stage whisper. “Your grandmother makes terrible coffee. It’ll rot your socks.”

  “Why don’t you make it yourself?”

  He pulled a face and pretended to take off my nose. I watched him stride toward the coffee place, hands in his pockets, whistling. The hair on top of his head looked as though it could easily blow off. It gave me a queasy feeling, seeing him from the back. I trained my eyes instead on the dim sum restaurant on the corner, where Mom and I liked to go for Sunday brunch. The line was already down the sidewalk and around the block. I counted the people so as not to think about the back of my grandfather’s head, or my grandmother humming in the front seat, fingering the strap of her purse, loving beautiful animals. It should be a law of nature that all family members disappear at the exact same time. Then no one would be left behind.