She and Kesha are fine. I can put them to bed here if it runs late. Marcus looked at her. Elena, I'm not saying it to be impressive, she said. I'm saying it because it's practical and you need to go.
"I'll call Ranata," he said., "Ranata is 40 minutes away on a Thursday night. " Elena said, ""I'm here. Let me be useful. "" He looked at her for one more moment. Something passed between them, not romantic, not complicated, just a man in a difficult moment looking at a woman who was choosing to be present in it. And feeling what that actually means. Thank you, he said.
Call me when you know something, she said. He went. The drive to his mother's house took 22 minutes. Darnell's car was already outside when Marcus pulled up. He went in without knocking.
His mother, Patricia Reed, was sitting at her kitchen table with a cup of tea and the specific expression of a woman who had expect this and already preparing her defense. She was 61 years old with her hair silvered at the temples the way it had been going since she was 50. And she was wearing the green cardigan she wore when she was trying to seem comfortable and casual, which meant she was neither. "I'm fine," she said before anyone spoke. "Mama," Marcus said., I told your brother not t mama.
His voice was quiet and firm and he sat down in the chair across from her and looked at her the way he had learned to look at her over 35 years, which was directly because Patricia Reed could deflect anything that came at her sideways, but had more trouble with direct. "Tell me what's happening. " She wrapped both hands around her mug. "It's probably just stress," she said. "Describe the pain," Marcus said. Marcus, describe it, she exhaled.
It's not pain exactly. More like pressure. Right here, she touched the center of her chest. On and off. Sometimes when I walk up the stairs, sometimes just sitting.
It comes and goes. Darnell was leaning against the counter with his arms folded and the expression of a younger brother who has been on trying to get their mother to do something reasonable for 20 minutes and is relieved that reinforcements have arrived. "How long has this been happening? " Marcus asked. "About a week," she said. Then before he could respond, "I didn't want to worry you.
You've got Zoe. You've got the job. You've been I heard from Ranata you've been seeing someone and I didn't want to Mama. Marcus stood up. "Get your coat. " Marcus it's 9:00.
"Get your coat. " He said we're going to the emergency room. They're going to run an EKG and blood work and you are going to let them and we are not going to debate this. Patricia Reed looked at her oldest son for a moment. Then she looked at Darnell. Darnell shrugged with the eloquence of a man who had tried.
She got her coat. The Cedar Falls Memorial emergency room at 9:30 on a Thursday night was what what emergency rooms always were. Too bright, too loud, too full of people experiencing the specific misery of unexpected crisis in a waiting room. Marcus checked his mother in while Darnell parked the car. And then the three of them sat in the waiting area with the exhausted solidarity of a family that had spent too many hours in rooms like this over the years.
It was in this room 15 years ago that Marcus had sat and called Elena's number four times and heard Briana's voice instead of hers. He did not say that out loud. He texted Elena at the ER with my mom running tests. You okay with the girls? Her response came in under 90 seconds.
We're fine. Zoe is asleep. Kesha almost. Don't worry about us. How's your mom?
He wrote back. Don't know yet. Waiting. She wrote. I'll be here.
Two words. He stared at them for a moment and then put his phone in his pocket because his mother was watching him with a particular interest of a woman who has just figured something out. "Is that her? " Patricia said. The someone Ranata mentioned. Mama focus on the I'm sitting in a waiting room.
Marcus, I have nothing to do but focus on everything else. Is that her? Darnell on Marcus's other side said nothing but shifted approximately one inch away from the conversation with practiced sibling wisdom. "Her name is Elena," Marcus said. Elena Brooks, his mother said.
Her voice changed on the name. Got quieter, more careful. Marcus looked at her. "You know she came back to Cedar Falls? " Ranata mentioned it. Patricia said she was looking at her hands.
I've thought about calling her mother. To apologize. Marcus went still. For what? Patricia was quiet for a long moment.
The ER waiting room moved around them. A child crying somewhere across the room. A television mounted too high on the wall showing a weather report. Nobody was watching. When you left, his mother said, "That night, I knew you were going to leave.
And I knew you hadn't called Elena, and I should I I should have called her myself or made you call her before you left. I was so focused on Darnell, on getting through that night, that I told myself you'd handle it, that you were 19 and you'd figure it out. She looked at Marcus. I have carried that for 15 years, baby, that I let you leave without fixing that. Marcus stared at his mother.
There was a specific feeling that comes when you discover that the story you thought had two or three players in it actually had more when you realize that the thing she shaped your life was witnessed by someone who stood near it and didn't quite reach in time. Not blame, not anger, just the complicated grief of things that could have gone differently if any one of several moments had bent a different way. Mama," he said. "I'm sorry," she said. Simply, ""I'm sorry I let that happen. "" Marcus put his arm around his mother's shoulders.
She leaned into him the way she had leaned into him since he was old enough to be leaned on, and they sat like that for a while, the three of them. In the two bright room, the EKG came back at 11:15. The doctor young, tired in the precise way of someone doing excellent work under difficult conditions, came to find them in the waiting area and delivered the news with the calm professionalism that Marcus appreciated because it meant she was not minimizing and not catastrophizing. Just telling them what was true. Patricia Reed had an irregular heart rhythm, not a heart attack, not immediate danger, but something that needed to be monitored.