Sing Me To Sleep Part 45

"Like a pregnant lady?"

"I'm not a pregnant lady."

"I noticed."

"Turn around. I'll never get back to sleep with you looking at me like that."

I kiss him. "Are you sure?"

"My mom's cot is under the bed. If you don't stop torturing me, I'll make you sleep in it."

"You didn't offer me the cot Sat.u.r.day. I thought she slept in the chair."

"I can't keep my eyes open. Meg upped my morphine." He gets these awful headaches.

"I'm supposed to watch you. This isn't about s.e.x. I thought you knew that."

He manages a drowsy laugh and lies back, closes his eyes, and he's out.

I lie on my side, wanting him, and wonder how I can feel like this when he's so sick.

The next two weeks, I only go to school for tests. Mom manages everything with my teachers. I get way more studying done in Derek's hospital room than I ever did wasting time in cla.s.s. Derek's headaches get worse. He's on so much morphine now-sleeps and sleeps and sleeps. So I watch him and study. And ace everything except econ.

I try to talk to Scott after that test, but he cuts me cold.

The week before Christmas is peaceful. Mom lets me go up for the whole time. Derek's mom takes advantage of me being there to get her shopping done and mail stuff. I help her wrap Derek's presents. I get him black leather riding gloves to match his jacket.

I sleep in his mom's cot. I can't lie beside him night after night and not go crazy. I love him more every day and with that love come other feelings I'm not sure I can control. Not next to him all the long, silent night.

The info-desk guy brings up a steady flow of notes, gifts, and cards from people he can't let up. Amabile-seems like the whole amazing family stops by at one time or another.

Before their Christmas concert, his choir-all those guys in their tuxes-stand in the snow outside his window and sing to the twilight. I open the window a crack to let in the sound. At first they just sing, "Oh," in rich harmony as old as monks and cathedrals. Then they slowly unwind the gentle hymn. Lo, how a Rose e're blooming from tender stem hath sprung! Their harmonies build and dissipate, break into a celebration at the solemn birth and salvation. Then close with a single voice in the night.

O Savior, King of glory, who dost our weakness know ;

Bring us at length we pray,

To the bright courts of Heaven, and to the endless day!

It's the only time I ever saw tears on Derek's eyelashes.

Meg gets me to go caroling around the hospital with a few other nurses. "Last year Derek brought his choir friends and guitar and sang for all the kids."

I think of him back in his room, lying on his bed with his mom sitting in her chair, knitting a scarf out of b.u.mpy purple yarn.

We sing for old people and sick people and sicker people. I don't want to leave the kids. One climbs on my lap and sings along, patting the beat on my cheeks with tiny chapped hands.

My mom comes for Christmas. We're having it in Derek's hospital room. She brings turkey and stuffing, gravy and potatoes. A big pumpkin pie. He makes Meg dial back on the morphine a little so he's more alert for an hour or so. In pain but alert. I kiss him good-bye that afternoon and follow Mom home. It's Christmas. She needs me, too.

Mom lights the fire. It's gas, but it's still cozy with all the snow. We eat hot b.u.t.tered microwave popcorn and watch It's a Wonderful Life. Mom lives for Jimmy Stewart.

We both cry at the end.

It feels so good.

As we watch the credits and blow our noses, Mom puts her arm around me and draws me under her wing. "How is he-really?"

"Alive."

"And the transplant?"

"He's still on the inactive list."

"No change in his resistance?"

I shake my head.

chapter 31.

HOPE?.

The week after Christmas is a disaster. The nasty bacteria in Derek's lungs fight back. For some reason no one can explain, the antibiotic they had him on can't contain it anymore. His lungs fill up and his temperature spikes. He chokes and coughs continuously. I've been there for his therapy so much now that I'm used to him coughing up c.r.a.p. It's nothing like this. Blood. A lot. Cups of it.

They almost lose him twice.

I'm not there, either time. His mom is back at his side, full time. I sleep on the couch in the visitor's lounge down the hall. It scares me to even think of going all the way home.

He's shrinking-no matter how much they pump into him, his weight drops. A little of him slips away from us every day.

They finally get him on something experimental from a European clinical trial. His mom had to move heaven and earth to get a hold of it. At first there's no change.

School starts, but I don't go back.

And then his fever drops. "Beth?" It's a feeble whisper.

I rush to his bed and take his bony hand. "Hey."

"I'm doing this for you."

I kiss him gently and then move aside for his mom.

I go into the bathroom until I can pull myself together. I splash cold water on my face and go sit by his bed.

I hold his hand all night long.

Next morning, Mom picks me up. Derek's mom called her. I sleep all the way home, fall into my bed, and sleep the rest of the day. I haul my b.u.t.t over to the school after it's out to pick up textbooks and talk to my teachers.

"When will you be back?" my counselor wants to know.

"After he-" I pause, clench my teeth. "After his transplant."

It will happen. It has to happen. Derek's mom will make it happen. I'm keeping him alive-as painful as it is. I'm keeping him alive.

Mom won't let me go back to the hospital. His mom phoned in a good report. I collapse on my bed, wake up with a cold, and they won't let me near him.

Two long weeks.

And they won't let me near him.

I'm not even that sick after the first couple days. I go to school, call his mom at the hospital a hundred times a day. He seems to be doing better. His mom lets him talk to me on the cell. All we say is "Hey," and then he starts to cough again.

I make up the work I missed and work ahead.

I notice Scott is with a different girl. He is way too good for this one. Sleaze is putting it mildly.

He catches me on my way out of English. We have it together this semester. "Beth."

I stop and turn to him, can't help raising an eyebrow.

"I hear he's in the hospital."

I nod.

"I'm sorry."

I duck my head and bolt.

When I finally get to go back, Derek's mom is totally exhausted, leaves me on watch. He looks so much better than the last time I saw him. He tugs me down onto the bed with him as soon as we've got the room to ourselves.

It feels so right to have his lips slipping over my face and down my neck, and then back on my lips, responding to my open, hungry mouth with his sweet, soft tongue. He's weak-can't keep it up very long-but he gets me wondering. How hard can it be to take out a catheter?

"You're making me crazy." I chew on his earlobe.

"Sorry. Couldn't help it."

"How much better are you?"

"I don't think it would kill me."

I start to get excited, kiss him long and slow, pressing my body hard against his.

"The trouble is," he finally says, "this medication that's saving my life-makes my extremities go numb." He runs his hands over my shoulder. "I can't feel this."

I capture his hand and kiss his palm.

"That either. No sense violating you if I'm not even going to feel it."

"But I'll feel it." I start to undress but he stops me.

"Save it for Scott, Beth." There's a resignation in his voice that frightens me. "I owe him that much for letting me have you all this time."

"What are you talking about?" I cuddle up to his chest. He doesn't know about my rupture with Scott.

"When I'm gone-" There's anger, pain, and sorrow in those three words that neither of us can bear to admit.

"Stop that. You'll be fine."

"Beth, listen-"

"No. This is going to work. They'll put you back on the active list."

The whole transplant thing makes me angry. They let smokers on it. People who c.r.a.pped up their lungs on purpose and not my Derek. It's supposed to be too risky because they have to give him lots of immunosuppressants after the operation. A lot of patients get infections post-op. If you are resistant to all antibiotics, you die. But what's the alternative? They could try. Why would his new lungs be resistant? I don't get it at all.

"Listen." I draw spirals on his chest. "I've got two lungs with five healthy, pink lobes." At last being an absolute Amazon is a good thing. You have to be mega-tall to be considered as a living donor. "You can have one."

He ignores me. Derek saw me reading those books his mom left. I've gone through them all three times. If I give Derek a lobe, then we'd just need an uncle or friendly giant to give him another one. They usually only do living lobar transplants on small women and children who have small ribcages for the smaller lungs, but wouldn't little lungs be better for Derek than no lungs? "I'm going to get tested. If you don't want it, I'll give it to somebody else."

"No one is cutting you up."

That gets to me. I can't talk anymore or I'll break that promise about losing it in front of him. I don't want him to know there's a lump in my throat too big to swallow. His arms wrap around me, and I relax on his chest. He falls asleep holding me, comforting me. I think he does know.

I don't want to move. He'll wake up. I can't sleep. What if I relax my grip, and he slips quietly away? I lie there, hour after hour, listening to him fight through each breath. Meg and another nurse come and go all night like I don't exist. This is strange. What aren't they telling me? They up his oxygen flow, put a new bag on his IV, plug his feeding tube in the slot in his stomach, punch up his morphine pump.

All this stuff that keeps him alive-it used to scare me.

Now I love that IV. I love the tube. I should be nervous they want to cut him open and take out his lungs, but the only thing in my heart is hurry, hurry, hurry. Make him active again. Ship him to Toronto. Let's do this thing. Take part of me if it helps.

At four in the morning, he stops breathing.