A Hope for Emily

“I’ve been fired from my job. For using some company contacts for Emily’s account, among other things.”

“Oh, Eva…”

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t mind. I didn’t like working there anymore, anyway. And James isn’t speaking to me, not really. I don’t know if he’ll ever forgive me, for betraying him this way. Because that is how he sees it.” My lips tremble and my eyes fill with tears. I didn’t mean to fall apart; I don’t want this to feel like some sort of emotional blackmail, and yet… “Let me come with you, Rachel. Let me do this.” I draw a shaky breath, and Rachel’s glance falls to my hand. Unknowingly, I’ve laced my fingers through Emily’s.

She stares at our joined hands and then slowly she nods.

*

Dear Bean,

Today was a hard day. You were grizzly, getting teeth, and I was feeling bored and lonely and so very tired. We got on each other’s nerves, Bean, but I should have risen above it.

I tried everything to help you settle. I put on our favorite Rod Stewart song—you have a fondness for ‘You’re in My Heart’—and danced around the kitchen with you, doing our little two step. You’d get into it for a second—I could see you thinking about smiling, but then you’d wrench away from me, practically trying to launch yourself out of my arms, and you’d start your grizzling noise that make me think of a grumpy bear.

I can handle those noises. They can even make me smile, because they almost feel like you’re putting it on. But then you started to cry, and I mean howl, and you didn’t want to be held by me, but when I put you down, that made you sadder, and I just didn’t know what to do! Five straight hours of this—up, down, dance around, deep knee bends because sometimes they help, but nothing did. Nothing! And then you got really fed up, and you started screaming. The whole works, Bean—tears, snot, your face as red as a tomato. And you wouldn’t let me comfort you, you just wouldn’t.

In the end I put you down in your bouncy seat and walked out of the room. I just walked away, Bean. I went into the bedroom where I couldn’t hear you and I put my hands over my ears and breathed in and out, trying to calm myself, because the truth is, I felt angry. Not just normal irritated-angry, either. I felt rage, and I didn’t know what to do about it, and I was scared—of myself.

I stayed in that room for six minutes, which seems like far too long. Six minutes before I felt ready to go back and face you. And when I did… oh, Bean! You’d stopped crying. You’d tired yourself out, and you had your fist in your mouth, and your face was covered in tears and snot, and you were making these shuddering sounds that just about broke me.

I picked you up and you snuffled against my neck as if you were trying to fuse into me and I held you and held you, kissing your head, rocking you and singing you songs, and feeling so guilty, so sorry for having let you down.

And even though part of me knew what happened was normal for any mother, another part of me couldn’t forgive myself for failing you… even as I recognized that I would again, and again, because I’m human, and you are too. But I’ll do my best not to, Bean. I will do my very best always.

Love,

Mama

21

Rachel

I open the latticed shutters with a dusty creak, summer sunshine spilling through the windows and bathing my face with its warmth. Below me the narrow, cobbled streets of Bologna bustle with activity—a shopkeeper sweeping his front steps, a boy on a bicycle, two women with clacking heels, heads together, as they walk to work.

I am in Italy. Emily is in Italy. Eva is in Italy. I draw a breath of warm, sun-scented air, feeling almost as if I’m on vacation. Bologna is impossibly quaint, or at least what I saw of it sitting in the front of the ambulance from the airport, with narrow streets, terra cotta-colored buildings, sidewalk cafés and sprawling plazas.

Eva and I flew here on a commercial flight with Emily; when I made the arrangements with the air ambulance service, they told me she was in fact eligible to travel by regular flight, on a stretcher and accompanied by medical personnel, rather than on a privately hired air ambulance.

It meant I saved thousands of dollars, but I was conscious of the speculative and sometimes appalled looks of the other passengers, followed by naked relief that this wasn’t them or their child, as Emily was brought past them, a nurse walking alongside, with her canisters of oxygen and fistfuls of tubes and wires. Her stretcher was placed in the back of the plane, where some seats had been removed.

When we arrived in Bologna, I went with her in an ambulance straight to the hospital, while Eva took a cab here, to the guesthouse.

I was able to see Emily settled into her room at the Centro di Neuroscienza that Dr. Rossi had arranged, before coming here, to this shabby, friendly little place on a tiny side street run by a smiling, round-faced woman who kissed both my cheeks when I told her who I was.

Everything feels good. Hope is overflowing, like a fountain of milk and honey, scoopfuls of it for the taking. Emily managed the trip fine. Fine. Despite Dr. Brown’s grim warnings, and James’ insistence that flying wouldn’t be good for her, she didn’t have any trouble on the flight and Dr. Rossi ran all her checks when we arrived and there have been no problems—no spike in temperature, no drop in heart rate. Her treatment will start the day after tomorrow, when they’ve monitored her long enough to ensure she is truly stable.

Now Eva and I have come here to unpack and get some rest. The last few days have been utterly exhausting, running around, making all the arrangements, making sure all the forms were signed, the provisions made, the money there. The crowdfunding donations topped out at fifty-three thousand dollars. My mother gave me the rest, without any strings, protestations, or modicum of concern about handing over such a huge amount.

“All you had to do was ask. Anytime, any amount,” she said, and I tried not to feel guilty that this was her money, not mine, or that she’d let slip, without meaning to, that she wasn’t on a certain prescription drug for Parkinson’s because it was too expensive.

“Eleven thousand dollars for six weeks’ worth of some inhibitor or other,” she’d scoffed. “I’m not willing to pay that.”

Yet she was willing to give me ten times that amount for Emily.

But I don’t want to feel guilty about that now, not when I’m finally here, and with her blessing. With everyone’s blessing, even James’, more or less. He texted me this morning, wishing both me and Emily a safe journey, and asking me to keep him informed. We’ve reached a truce, an understanding, even if it’s not one borne of agreement.

Andrew and Jake invited me over for dinner last night; they’d bought a cake all covered in pink that almost made me cry. Good luck Emily.