The Mark Read online

“Something’s wrong. I know it is. What about her blood pressure?”

  Dr. Wentworth glanced at his papers again and shrugged. “It’s elevated, but not enough for concern. It’s not unusual after an episode like your grandmother had.”

  I shook my head. “Then it must be something else. What other tests are there?”

  Dr. Wentworth turned to Nan. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  Nan shrugged and before she could answer, I butted in. “Listen, I … I don’t know how to explain it, but I have a sense about this kind of stuff sometimes. About bad things …” I could hear desperation, a whiny, pleading thread in my voice. How could I tell him? If I explained, he’d never believe me. If I didn’t, he’d think just what I could see written all over his face: that I was a hysterical girl, maybe a touch crazy.

  Nan said Dr. Wentworth was a good doctor, so I’d ignored the way he talked to me like I was a five-year-old and never looked me in the eye. But obviously he wasn’t a good enough doctor, because he didn’t know something was wrong and I did. Except I couldn’t tell him how. I felt like screaming, I was so frustrated, and I had to grit my teeth as I watched him suppress a grin.

  “You mean like a sixth sense?”

  I stared right back at him. “Something like that.”

  He stole a quick look at Nan, then Tina. Seeing no humor in either of their faces, he composed himself. “I know how upsetting it is to have someone you love in the hospital like this. It’s natural to be worried, even think that the worst is just around the corner, but your grandmother is fine. Really.”

  I was waiting for him to come put his arm around me, but to his credit, he stood his ground. At least he could read me that well. There wasn’t a chance I was letting him off with a bunch of platitudes, though. “Here’s the thing …,” I said, trying to figure out a way to frame it.

  “Cassie,” Nan interrupted. “Leave it.” She turned to Dr. Wentworth and Tina. “May we have a few minutes alone?”

  “Of course,” Dr. Wentworth said. He patted my shoulder, his big hand heavy on the tender spot where my backpack always rested. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “Don’t leave,” I said, my voice low so Nan couldn’t hear, but urgent. “Please. I still need to talk to you.”

  He patted my shoulder again without answering.

  When the door hissed softly closed, Nan asked, “How were you going to explain it, Cassie?”

  “I don’t know. I’d figure something out. It’s better than just letting him go like that.” I waved toward the door. “He could be leaving the hospital now. And we need him.” I was ready to run after him and actually took a step in that direction, but Nan kept pressing.

  “For what?”

  “To figure out what’s wrong. What’s going to happen.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” How could she ask that? “Because I know and you know, if you believe me, that something’s going to happen to you. Something bad that will … that …”

  She nodded. “That could be the end.”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  She was quiet for a minute and, to me, it felt like time had stopped. I was caught between so many things—wanting to get Dr. Wentworth or shake sense into Nan or soak up every last second with her.

  “Well, if it’s to be today,” she said finally, “so be it. I’m ready.”

  I started to cry. The tears came so suddenly and violently that I couldn’t keep up with them. They ran down my cheeks, gray trails of salt and mascara. “But I’m not,” I squeezed out.

  “Come here, Cassie.”

  I walked to her side, too agitated to sit on my pillowed chair. She stretched out her arms and I leaned in, resting my head on her shoulder. She stroked my hair.

  “I know, honey. People rarely are. But it’s going to happen someday. If not today, tomorrow. If not tomorrow, next week.” I felt her head shake and knew I’d see her crooked grin if I looked up. And if I could see through my tears. “Why people think they can postpone the inevitable is beyond me.”

  “But, Nan, maybe we can. Postpone it, I mean.” I had pulled away and was watching her. “Are you really ready to die?” I flinched at my own bluntness, but Nan didn’t.

  She was silent, looking into my eyes. I’m not sure what she was searching for, or whether she saw it, but she smiled and brought her hand, soft like a worn paper bag, to my face, erasing tear tracks. “Remember what I said about your mother? Was I glad that she died? Never. But was my life better because of it? Not because she wasn’t in it, but because you were? Immeasurably. Maybe today is my day to go so that you can move on to what’s next. The better things ahead for you in life.”

  “Forget it, Nan,” I said. “That’s baloney.” How could she even say that? “How is being an orphan—not just without parents, but without anyone—going to make life better?”

  I thought I saw the sparkle of a tear. “I’m sorry, Cassie. It will be hard, you’re right. But you’re a tough cookie.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “As Tasha would say, ‘Suck it up.’ ”

  “I don’t want to suck it up, Nan. I want to do something about it.”

  “Well, I don’t, Cass. Think about it. Really think. If this is our last day together, do you want to spend it running around after Dr. Wentworth? Having them do test after test, pull blood work, send me in for CAT scans and God knows what else?”

  “I don’t know, if it means it might not be the last day….”

  “But what if there’s no changing things? You’re going to call me crazy, but in a way, it’s a gift to know that we may only have a little time left. At least we can choose how to use it.”

  I didn’t agree with her, but I didn’t know what to do next. Dr. Wentworth was a brick wall. I mean, there had to be other tests they could run, but at sixteen with a morbid hatred of biology, I had no clue what. Nan was watching me. I knew the look on her face. The one she wore when she saw me struggling with a problem that she knew the right answer to, hoping I would choose correctly. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. I didn’t want to look back in a year or five or ten and know that I had made Nan’s last hours miserable. Especially when the mark might be useless. I took another breath, held, exhaled, and tried to let go of everything: worries about tomorrow, about a future without Nan, about how today would end. I focused on the only thing that mattered. I opened my eyes to see her still watching me.

  I pulled my chair close, sinking into the pillows piled high on top, and took her hand. It was birdlike in its lightness, but still surprisingly strong. “I love you, Nan.”

  She smiled then, the creases at the corners of her eyes folding onto one another, well practiced in the art of joy. “Thank you, Cassie. I love you too.”

  We talked. Of things and nothings. School, my mother, the apartment, Nan’s ex-husband, bits of her childhood in an ethnic neighborhood—Greektown, she called it. The day drew on, grew darker, and, though the misty light around her never faded, I started to hope. Dr. Wentworth stopped back, surprising me. We sent him away. Tina came in and out, leaving Nan with a kiss on her final visit, black cloth coat and purse in hand.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Nan,” she said.

  Nan smiled. “Good night, Tina. Thank you for everything.”

  Tina smiled back, but her mouth twitched, a trace of sadness, as she turned to leave.

  Dinner was delivered and cleaned up. Eight passed, then nine, then ten. Nan nodded off, but I stayed there, holding her hand, watching the clock, hope slowly, cautiously growing.

  And then, against all odds and plans, I fell asleep. I was exhausted. I could feel it, but I had counted on anxiety and adrenaline to keep me awake. And it had, but with Nan breathing softly and a TV droning in a room nearby, I felt my lids drooping. I remember thinking I could rest my head for just a minute.

  As soon as I woke up, I knew she was gone. I could feel the cold in her hand. My face was wet before I even raised it from the bed
where it had fallen. She was calm, her face serene and pale and statuesque in a way that made it clear that Nan, my vibrant, strong, loving, solid Nan, was gone. And so too was the light.

  chapter 5

  Agnes’s nephew John drove us to the funeral. I sat in the backseat, a thousand miles away, clutching a sleeve of tissues. My head felt wrapped in cotton. I could barely hear Agnes’s sobbing or John’s attempts at conversation.

  The sun was unnaturally bright, glinting off the metal of car after car lining the neat lanes and perfect grass of the cemetery. The pain of its sharp glare hardly registered as I stared at the people, so many of them clustered around that awful hole. I recognized Nan’s charity friends, her yoga partners, neighbors, a ton of old people I knew vaguely or not at all. Tina and Dr. Wentworth were there too. I could feel Tina’s eyes on me, but I didn’t look at her. We had already spoken the day after Nan died.

  I had been sitting in a hallway at the hospital, filling out endless, incomprehensible paperwork, when I saw motion at the periphery of my vision—Tina, probably making the sign of the cross. I could tell from the look on her face that she was scared.

  “Cassie,” she whispered, coming hesitantly toward me. “I am so, so sorry.”

  I shrugged. “I guess it was her time.”

  She didn’t say anything, just looked at me, her eyes deep brown pools, bottomless. I went back to my forms, angrily wiping the tears that had started again.

  “You knew.”

  She said it so softly that I pretended not to hear.

  “Cassie.” This time she waited for me to meet her eyes. I finished filling in our address for the sixteenth time on the fourteenth form before looking up.

  “What?”

  “How did you know?”

  “It was just a feeling, Tina.” I ducked back into the papers again, ignoring her. She didn’t want to listen when it mattered, and I’d be damned if I’d waste my time on her now.

  “But … you were so sure.” When I didn’t answer, she said, “I’m sorry we didn’t listen. Do more. Help.”

  “Nothing you could have done.”

  She’d thought about asking more. I could tell from the way she lingered, but in the end she said only, “Take care of yourself, Cassie.”

  Dr. Wentworth had been less curious. In fact, acted as if our dialog the day before had never happened. “No way to predict or prevent, I’m afraid. A stroke like that can happen to anyone. Just a coincidence that she was even at the hospital.”

  I stared past them when they offered condolences after the burial. Dr. Wentworth pressed my hand between his and murmured stock phrases. I’m not even sure Tina spoke, her dark eyes still bewildered.

  People from school came too: classmates, teachers, Principal McCarthy. Tasha told me they’d let kids leave early, which explained why I suddenly had so many friends. That’s too cynical, though, because the people I had the heart to talk to honestly seemed sympathetic. More than I could bear. “Thank you for coming,” I told them and everyone else who filed past me and the brown box where Nan lay.

  I had expected those first few days to be the worst—the hospital, the funeral, going back to our apartment—but it was after, when the people and the decisions and the questions receded, when everyone else’s life took on its normal rattle and hum and I was left with quiet and solitude in mine, that it became unbearable.

  I can’t even say what I did those days after the funeral, when Nan was really, truly gone. There were times I’d realize only as I was getting ready for bed that I’d forgotten to eat. Other days I didn’t need to put pajamas on, having never made it out of them.

  People tried to fill the void. Tasha’s parents had me over for dinner as often as I’d come. Agnes dropped by afternoons. She was withered by Nan’s passing and I usually ended up comforting her, passing her tissues or brewing tea “just like Nan’s,” she would say, sprouting fresh tears.

  It seemed weird to me that I was there on my own at sixteen. But with no family, where else could I go? Nan’s lawyer had asked if I needed someone right away, while they sorted out her affairs. I didn’t. There were people I could call if I had to. Still, it was strange to be so alone and I started to hate it in the apartment, those five rooms that used to feel warm and secure.

  To escape their stillness, I ventured out more. Back on the bus, staring, but rarely seeing the scenery slide by. I walked the streets of Ashville, past all my favorite spots: the bookstore, Juan’s newsstand, the square. There was no joy in it, no sense of adventure. I had to force each step and watched footfall after footfall. Not ready to face what I might see on the passing people if I looked up.

  I took one of the sleeping pills someone had given me when I got home each night and sometimes another when I woke up.

  When they were almost gone, I figured I might as well go back to school.

  I’d been afraid being there would be uncomfortable, but Ash-ville isn’t a big place. I’d known my classmates pretty much my whole life. We might not be close, but I was there when Lucy Donato’s mom had cancer and Albert Lee’s dog was put down and when Jolanta Harris broke her leg. Not literally there, on the scene, but in the hallways and classrooms, sitting near them, helping them pretend life could go on until they didn’t have to pretend anymore. We knew how to treat one another in times like this. Going back to school did suck, but not because anyone said or did the wrong thing. Just because life in general sucked right now.

  Tasha was my self-appointed guardian, walking to classes with me, at my locker during breaks. She seemed to get it that it was okay to be near people, but that I didn’t really want to talk. Or look at them, if I could help it. There were times, though, that she was at doctors’ appointments or classes and practices that didn’t mesh with my schedule. It was during one of these that Jack Petroski found me.

  “Cassie!” He broke away from his baseball teammates and trotted over. Final bell had just rung and I was collecting books from my locker slowly, not relishing my solitary trip home to the empty apartment. “Hey,” he said softly, standing tall and slightly awkward at my side. “I wanted to say how sorry I am about Nan.”

  “Thanks, Jack.” I glanced at him, saw genuine concern in his eyes, and looked quickly away.

  “How are you?”

  I shrugged and pushed hard against my locker to secure its bent latch. “Surviving.”

  He nodded and seemed about to go, but then asked, “You heading home?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Want company?”

  “Don’t you have practice?”

  “Nah. Coach is at the dentist. Gave us the day off.”

  I shrugged again. Jack didn’t live near me, but I didn’t have the energy to argue. “Sure.”

  He hefted my book bag, carrying it easily along with his own. Jack was already tanned from hours of practice, and his hair, an earthy brown, lay wavy and rumpled as if he’d just run his hand through it, something he often did. I wondered briefly where Val was and if she’d be angry. Not that there was anything wrong with two friends talking. That’s what we were. Friends. Or had been back when the day’s big challenge was who could climb highest in the maple tree behind school.

  “So, you guys ready for play-offs next week?” I asked as we went down the five wide steps out front. It felt weird to be asking about something so ordinary. Not bad, necessarily.

  “Sure,” he said. “LaSalle’s got some great hitters, but I think we can take them.”

  “Your mom going?”

  “Oh yeah. She’ll be head-to-toe black and orange, and asking the whole time why our school colors couldn’t be something more flattering.”

  “We all wonder that,” I said, smiling. “I hear some of the colleges have been watching you.”

  He nodded, looking more serious. “I think one or two might actually come out for the games.”

  I looked up at him, surprised. “But … that’s a good thing, right?”

  “It is,” Jack answered slowly. “I just wa
nt to, you know, enjoy the game. Have fun. The scouts make it … I don’t know … too real.”

  “I can see that,” I said, nodding. “Where are they from?”

  “Granville and WSU. Both have great baseball programs.”

  “Mm-hmm.” I’d never heard of either, which meant absolutely nothing. The only thing I knew about baseball was that our team was really good and it was mostly because of Jack, the star pitcher. He’d started varsity as a freshman last year and even made the paper a few times. “And, uh, where exactly are they?”

  “Granville’s in Texas and WSU’s in Kansas.”

  “Wow. Far.”

  “Not too many worthwhile programs around here, so I won’t have much choice.” Jack hitched his shoulder, adjusting our bags, then looked down at me. “How ’bout you?”

  “Nah,” I said. “No one’s recruited me yet.”

  Jack grinned, nudging my arm with his. “You know what I mean. Have you started thinking about schools?”

  “A little. Maybe Galein.”

  He nodded. “Great school. You visited yet?”

  “No. Still waiting for their packet.” Before Nan’s death, I had scanned the mail every day for their letterhead. I was surprised to realize I’d actually forgotten to check for a day or so, couldn’t remember the last stuff we’d—I’d—gotten. For all I knew, it was patiently waiting in our little keyed box.

  “Where else are you going to look?” Jack asked.

  “I don’t know. I was thinking maybe Richford and State. I didn’t want to go too far away.” I shrugged. “Though, now, I’m not so sure …”

  He nodded slowly. “I guess a lot seems different for you now. It’ll still be nice to be close to here, though. Your friends and stuff.”

  “Yeah.” I didn’t bother pointing out that when everyone left for school, there wouldn’t be anything or anyone here.

  We were halfway to the apartment already. It was such a relief to have a normal conversation like this—about school, the future. I don’t think I’d had one with anyone, even Tasha, since Nan had died more than two weeks before. I sighed. Jack looked down at me and, seeing it wasn’t a sad sound, smiled.