Cold Creek, Where One Day Lasted a Year

The monitor began screaming before my mother had finished asking whether I wanted another blanket. I was on the emergency department bed with my school uniform still on, one shoe missing, and a chemistry quiz crumpled in my coat pocket. My heart hammered in a way that didn't belong to me. The ceiling tiles slid in and out of focus. "Mom," I said, but the word came out thin. My mother gripped my hand. "I'm here, Nora." The nurse moved quickly. Someone called for a doctor. I felt a cold adhesive patch pressed to my chest, then another. The alarm kept shrieking. My mother's fingers tightened around mine until they hurt. Claire arrived twelve minutes later. I knew because I watched the clock between the bursts of light. She was still wearing her work clothes, a gray sweater and black slacks, and her hair had come loose from its clip. She came straight to the bed. "Hey," she said. "Look at me." I looked at her because it was easier than looking at the monitor. "I'm looking." "Good. Keep doing that." The medicine they gave me made the room feel distant. The pounding eased, then stumbled, then settled into a slow, unfamiliar rhythm. I was too tired to ask what had happened. I let my eyes close. When I opened them again, I was in a private room at Marlowe Regional, with my mother asleep in a chair and Claire standing by the window. Her phone lay face down on the sill. "Did I die?" I asked. Claire turned so fast she struck her hip against the windowsill. "No." "Did I almost?" She took a breath. I knew that look. It was the one she used when she was choosing which truth I could manage. "The doctors got your rhythm under control," she said. "That isn't what I asked." My mother stirred in the chair. Claire came to my bedside and sat down. "You had another episode," she said. "The cardiologist wants to talk to us in the morning." That night, I slept in scraps. At dawn, Dr. Bell came in with a tablet and a careful expression. He'd been my cardiologist since I was eleven, when a fainting spell in gym class had led to tests, then more tests, then a diagnosis with a name long enough to fill a line on the page. "Your heart has a narrowing that's becoming more dangerous," he said. "We've managed it with medication and activity limits, but it's progressing." "How long?" I asked. My mother stared at her hands. Dr. Bell lowered the tablet. "Without an intervention, the risk of sudden failure rises sharply. I can't promise you'll reach seventeen." The number landed between us. I was sixteen years and four months old. I had a list in my desk drawer of things I planned to do before I graduated: drive, go to a concert, kiss somebody who wasn't a character on television. I'd made the list as a joke. Now it seemed like a document I should have kept private. "What intervention?" Claire asked. Dr. Bell explained the procedure he could offer. It might help, but my anatomy made the usual approach too risky. A more complex operation would mean traveling several hours to the coast, and even then, he said, the outcome was uncertain. "Is there someone there who does it?" Claire asked. "I can send your records for review." "Then send them." Mom leaned forward. "Claire, we've been through this. We can't just chase every doctor who says maybe." "I'm not asking to chase anyone. I'm asking for a review." "I'll make the referral," Dr. Bell said. "But I need you to understand that this isn't a guarantee." Claire nodded. "I understand." I didn't. Not really. I only understood that she was already fighting over a future I hadn't decided I wanted. After the doctors left, I asked Mom to walk with me to the little courtyard. Claire stayed behind to call the specialist's office. The courtyard had a narrow stone path and a fountain that didn't work. Beyond the hospital wall, a creek ran through a strip of winter trees. The water looked dark and cold. "When you were little," Mom said, "you used to call that kind of water jade." "I did?" "You said it looked like green glass." I watched a brown leaf spin in an eddy. "Maybe I knew it was a bad idea to drink it." Mom gave a small, unsteady laugh. "Maybe." I could hear Claire's voice through the partly open window behind us. She was giving someone my birthday, the name of my diagnosis, the dates of my last three hospital visits. For the first time, I understood that she had been keeping all those dates in her head.