Гейл Форман - If I Stay

We caravanned to Kerry’s hometown with a bunch of people, squeezing into a car with Henry and Willow, who was so pregnant the seat belt wouldn’t fit over her bump. Everyone took turns telling funny stories about Kerry. Kerry the avowed left-winger who decided to protest the Iraq war by getting a bunch of guys to dress up in drag and go down to the local army recruiting office to enlist. Kerry the atheist curmudgeon, who hated how commercialized Christmas had become and so threw an annual Merry Anti-Christmas Celebration at the club, where he held a contest for which band could play the most distorted versions of Christmas carols. Then he invited everyone to throw all their crappy presents into a big pile in the middle of the club. And contrary to local lore, Kerry did not burn the stuff in a bonfire; Dad told me that he donated it to St. Vincent de Paul.

As everyone talked about Kerry, the mood in the car was fizzy and fun, like we were going to the circus, not a funeral. But it seemed right, it seemed true to Kerry, who was always overflowing with frenetic energy.

The funeral, though, was the opposite. It was horribly depressing — and not just because it was for someone who’d died tragically young and for no particular reason aside from some bad arterial luck. It was held in a huge church, which seemed strange considering Kerry was an outspoken atheist, but that part I could understand. I mean where else do you have a funeral? The problem was the service itself. It was obvious that the pastor had never even met Kerry because when he talked about him, it was generic, about what a kind heart Kerry had and how even though it was sad that he was gone, he was getting his “heavenly reward.”

And instead of having eulogies from his bandmates or the people in town who he’d spent the last fifteen years with, some uncle from Boise got up and talked about teaching Kerry how to ride a bike when he was six, like learning to ride a bike was the defining moment in Kerry’s life. He concluded by reassuring us that Kerry was walking with Jesus now. I could see my mom getting red when he said that, and I started to get a little worried that she might say something. We went to church sometimes, so it’s not like Mom had anything against religion, but Kerry totally did and Mom was ferociously protective of the people she loved, so much that she took insults upon them personally. Her friends sometimes called her Mama Bear for this reason. Steam was practically blowing out of Mom’s ears by the time the service ended with a rousing rendition of Bette Midler’s “Wind Beneath My Wings.”

“It’s a good thing Kerry’s dead, because that funeral would’ve sent him over the edge,” Henry said. After the church service, we’d decided to skip the formal luncheon and had gone to a diner.

“‘Wind Beneath My Wings’?” Adam asked, absentmindedly taking my hand into his and blowing on it, which is what he did to warm my perpetually cold fingers. “What’s wrong with ‘Amazing Grace’? It’s still traditional—”

“But doesn’t make you want to puke,” Henry interjected. “Or better yet, ‘Three Little Birds’ by Bob Marley. That would have been a more Kerry-worthy song. Something to toast the guy he was.”

“That funeral wasn’t about celebrating Kerry’s life,” Mom growled, yanking at her scarf. “It was about repudiating it. It was like they killed him all over again.”

Dad put a calming hand over Mom’s clenched fist. “Now come on. It was just a song.”

“It wasn’t just a song,” Mom said, snatching her hand away. “It was what it represented. That whole charade back there. You of all people should understand.”

Dad shrugged and smiled sadly. “Maybe I should. But I can’t be angry with his family. I imagine this funeral was their way of reclaiming their son.”

“Please,” Mom said, shaking her head. “If they wanted to claim their son, why didn’t they respect the life he chose to live? How come they never came to visit? Or supported his music?”

“We don’t know what they thought about all that,” Dad replied. “Let’s not judge too harshly. It has to be heart-breaking to bury your child.”

“I can’t believe you’re making excuses for them,” Mom exclaimed.

“I’m not. I just think you might be reading too much into a musical selection.”

“And I think you’re confusing being empathetic with being a pushover!”

Dad’s wince was barely visible, but it was enough to make Adam squeeze my hand and Henry and Willow exchange a look. Henry jumped in, to Dad’s rescue, I think. “It’s different for you, with your parents,” he told Dad. “I mean they’re old-fashioned but they always were into what you did, and even in your wildest days, you were always a good son, a good father. Always home for Sunday dinner.”

Mom guffawed, as if Henry’s statement had proven her point. We all turned to her, and our shocked expressions seemed to snap her out of her rant. “Clearly I’m just emotional right now,” she said. Dad seemed to understand that was as much an apology as he was going to get right now. He covered her hand with his and this time she didn’t snatch it away.

Dad paused, hesitating before speaking. “I just think that funerals are a lot like death itself. You can have your wishes, your plans, but at the end of the day, it’s out of your control.”

“No way,” Henry said. “Not if you make your wishes known to the right people.” He turned to Willow and spoke to the bump in her belly. “So listen up, family. At my funeral no one is allowed to wear black. And for music, I want something poppy and old-school, like Mr. T Experience.” He looked up at Willow. “Got that?”

“Mr. T Experience. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Thanks, and what about you, honey?” he asked her.

Without missing a beat, Willow said: “Play ‘P.S. You Rock My World’ by the Eels. And I want one of those green funerals where they bury you in the ground under a tree. So the funeral itself would be in nature. And no flowers. I mean, give me all the peonies you want when I’m alive, but once I’m dead, better to give donations on my behalf to a good charity like Doctors Without Borders.”

“You’ve got all the details figured out,” Adam said. “Is that a nurse thing?”

Willow shrugged.

“According to Kim, that means you’re deep,” I said. “She says that the world is divided into the people who imagine their own funerals and the people who don’t, and that smart and artistic people naturally fall into the former category.”

“So which are you?” Adam asked me.

“I’d want Mozart’s Requiem,” I said. I turned to Mom and Dad. “Don’t worry, I’m not suicidal or anything.”

“Please,” Mom said, her mood lightening as she stirred her coffee. “When I was growing up I’d have elaborate fantasies about my funeral. My deadbeat father and all the friends who’d wronged me would weep over my casket, which would be red, naturally, and they’d play James Taylor.”

“Let me guess,” Willow said. “‘Fire and Rain’?”

Mom nodded and she and Willow started laughing and soon everyone at the table was cracking up so hard that tears ran down our faces. And then we were crying, even me, who didn’t know Kerry all that well. Crying and laughing, laughing and crying.

“So what now?” Adam asked Mom when we’d calmed down. “Still harbor a soft spot for Mr. Taylor?”

Mom stopped and blinked hard, which is what she does when she’s thinking about something. Then she reached over to stroke Dad’s cheek, a rare demonstration of PDA. “In my ideal scenario, my bighearted pushover husband and I die quickly and simultaneously when we’re ninety-two years old. I’m not sure how. Maybe we’re on a safari in Africa—’cause in the future, we’re rich; hey, it’s my fantasy — and we come down with some exotic sickness and go to sleep one night feeling fine and then never wake up. And no James Taylor. Mia plays at our funeral. If, that is, we can tear her away from the New York Philharmonic.”

Dad was wrong. It’s true you might not get to control your funeral, but sometimes you do get to choose your death. And I can’t help thinking that part of Mom’s wish did come true. She went with Dad. But I won’t be playing at her funeral. It’s possible that her funeral will also be mine. There’s something comforting in that. To go down as a family. No one left behind. That said, I can’t help thinking Mom would not be happy about this. In fact, Mama Bear would be absolutely furious with the way events are unfolding today.

I’m back where I started. Back in the ICU. My body, that is. I’ve been sitting here all along, too tired to move. I wish I could go to sleep. I wish there was some kind of anesthesia for me, or at least something to make the world shut up. I want to be like my body, quiet and lifeless, putty in someone else’s hands. I don’t have the energy for this decision. I don’t want this anymore. I say it out loud. I don’t want this. I look around the ICU, feeling kind of ridiculous. I doubt all the other messed-up people in the ward are exactly thrilled to be here, either.

My body wasn’t gone from the ICU for too long. A few hours for surgery. Some time in the recovery room. I don’t know exactly what’s happened to me, and for the first time today, I don’t really care. I shouldn’t have to care. I shouldn’t have to work this hard. I realize now that dying is easy. Living is hard.

I’m back on the ventilator, and once again there’s tape over my eyes. I still don’t understand the tape. Are the doctors afraid that I’ll wake up mid-surgery and be horrified by the scalpels or blood? As if those things could faze me now. Two nurses, the one assigned to me and Nurse Ramirez, come over to my bed and check all my monitors

They call out a chorus of numbers that are as familiar to me now as my own name: BP, pulse ox, respiratory rate. Nurse Ramirez looks like an entirely different person from the one who arrived here yesterday afternoon. The makeup has all rubbed off and her hair is flat. She looks like she could sleep standing up. Her shift must be over soon. I’ll miss her but I’m glad she’ll be able to get away from me, from this place. I’d like to get away, too. I think I will. I think it’s just a matter of time — of figuring out how to let go.

I haven’t been back in my bed fifteen minutes when Willow shows up. She marches through the double doors and goes to speak to the one nurse behind the desk. I don’t hear what she says, but I hear her tone: it’s polite, soft-spoken, but leaving no room for questions. When she leaves the room a few minutes later, there’s a change in the air. Willow’s in charge now. The grumpy nurse at first looks pissed off, like Who is this woman to tell me what to do? But then she seems to resign, to throw her hands up in surrender. It’s been a crazy night. The shift is almost over. Why bother? Soon, me and all of my noisy, pushy visitors will be somebody else’s problem.

Five minutes later, Willow is back, bringing Gran and Gramps with her. Willow has worked all day and now she is here all night. I know she doesn’t get enough sleep on a good day. I used to hear Mom give her tips for getting the baby to sleep through the night.

I’m not sure who looks worse, me or Gramps. His cheeks are sallow, his skin looks gray and papery, and his eyes are bloodshot. Gran, on the other hand, looks just like Gran. No sign of wear and tear on her. It’s like exhaustion wouldn’t dare mess with her. She bustles right over to my bed.

“You’ve sure got us on a roller-coaster ride today,” Gran says lightly. “Your mom always said she couldn’t believe what an easy girl you were and I remember telling her, ‘Just wait until she hits puberty.’ But you proved me wrong. Even then you were such a breeze. Never gave us any trouble. Never the kind of girl to make my heart race in fear. You made up for a lifetime of that today.”

“Now, now,” Gramps says, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“Oh, I’m only kidding. Mia would appreciate it. She’s got a sense of humor, no matter how serious she sometimes seems. A wicked sense of humor, this one.”

Gran pulls the chair up next to my bed and starts combing through my hair with her fingers. Someone has rinsed it out, so, while it’s not exactly clean, it’s not caked with blood, either. Gran starts untangling my bangs, which are about chin length. I’m forever cutting bangs, then growing them. It’s about as radical a makeover as I can give myself. She works her way down, pulling the hair out from under the pillow so it streams down my chest, hiding some of the lines and tubes connected to me. “There, much better,” she says. “You know, I went outside for a walk today and you’ll never guess what I saw. A crossbill. In Portland in February. Now, that’s unusual. I think it’s Glo. She always had a soft spot for you. Said you reminded her of your father, and she adored him. When he cut his first crazy Mohawk hairdo, she practically threw him a party. She loved that he was rebellious, so different. Little did she know your father couldn’t stand her. She came to visit us once when your dad was around five or six, and she had this ratty mink coat with her. This was before she got all into the animal rights and crystals and the like. The coat smelled terrible, like mothballs, like the old linens we kept in a trunk in the attic, and your father took to calling her ‘Auntie Trunk Smell.’ She never knew that. But she loved that he’d rebelled against us, or so she thought, and she thought it was something that you rebelled all over again by becoming a classical musician. Though much as I tried to tell her that it wasn’t the way it was, she didn’t care. She had her own ideas about things; I suppose we all do.”