A Song for the Road by Kathleen Basi (classic literature books txt) 📕

fuzzy, yet still vibrating with awareness. The wind died down, and with it all sense of connection to the world. She sat suspended between heaven and earth, anticipating what, she didn’t know. She only knew her whole being was holding its breath—waiting—waiting—waiting.

There were no dancing lights over the Sangre de Cristo, but every moment, more stars emerged from the darkness. She’d never seen anything like this spangled velvet swath, tinged cream and brown: the Milky Way. How could something so spectacular hide within what had always seemed, to a Motor City child and Atlanta transplant, a threatening darkness?

Blaise would have loved this. While other preschool boys made lists of dinosaurs, he’d listed constellations. They never could afford a good telescope, and the skies around Atlanta were too washed out anyway, but he’d seemed content to join the astronomy club. “I wish you were here to see this,” Miriam whispered.

There was no answer, of course. Below the star-slung sky, the highlands lay silent, save for the hypnotic, metronomic pulse of desert insects and the buzz of Dicey’s breaths. Miriam closed her eyes and let herself drift into the space between.

 38

MIRIAM WOKE TO THE sound of deep, raw gasping, of coughs without recovery time.

Even before her mind processed the sound, Miriam had both arms around Dicey. In her panic, the younger woman’s arms flailed wildly, contacting Miriam’s eye, and for a moment, Miriam did see dancing lights above the UFO watchtower.

As soon as she recovered, she maneuvered behind Dicey and pinned her arms to her sides. “Calm down,” she said, pressing her cheek against Dicey’s to limit her range of motion. The girl’s skin radiated heat. “Calm down, Dicey. Just breathe. Breathe.”

It felt strange, doing this to a grown woman, yet achingly familiar. This had been the only way to get Talia through medical appointments in the early years.

“You never stop being a mother,” Dicey had told her. The truth in those words pierced the darkness with a light that took Miriam’s breath away.

She breathed in and out, letting the air pass over her vocal cords. It was Teo’s lullaby, the wordless ditty he’d sung to the twins when nursing couldn’t settle them, when thunder woke them screaming. She hummed in Dicey’s ear until the younger woman began to calm down, her breath still noisy and labored, but less panicked. It was cold, Miriam realized. She hadn’t noticed at first because of the heat of Dicey’s fevered body, but it had to be near freezing. Above them, the snow-capped mountains were bathed in a star glow that seemed otherworldly. It also illuminated the Wisconsinites, sleeping in each other’s arms in the corner of the platform railing. Miriam felt a moment’s loneliness, but only a moment’s. There was work to do. A mother’s work.

“All right, Dicey,” she said softly. “Whether you like it or not, you’re going to the hospital. Come on. Let’s get you to the car.”

With effort, Miriam got her down the narrow stairs and into the car. But Dicey wouldn’t let her close the door. “Oh two,” she wheezed.

It took a minute to process. “Oxygen?”

Dicey nodded listlessly and waved one limp hand toward her backpack.

Damn it, Dicey. But Miriam had no time to indulge her anger. She dug in the bag and found a small canister. Sick as she was, Dicey moved like a pro, attaching the plastic tubing of a cannula and looping the ends over her ears. She pressed her hands against the tubing, her head falling back on the seat, and the light from Miriam’s phone illuminated the words engraved on the medical bracelet.

Dicey Smith, cystic fibrosis.

The words socked Miriam in the gut. She’d heard of cystic fibrosis, but she knew nothing about it. Only that anything that required a medical ID bracelet and portable oxygen was bad news.

Miriam stalked to the back of the car and popped the trunk. Unzipping the stickered suitcase revealed more oxygen canisters … and a black vest with tubes protruding from it.

So it hadn’t been a dream.

Why didn’t I make her go to the doctor?

Miriam pulled up her mapping app. The nearest ER was thirty miles away. She spit gravel pulling out of the parking lot.

It was one of the longest half hours of Miriam’s life. Every shallow, labored breath Dicey took made her chest ache in sympathy. Dicey needed to cough, but she seemed too weak.

Miriam began singing again. Teo’s melody, and then, flowing effortlessly from it in counterpoint, her own. The one she’d spent an hour fighting with at Hadley’s piano, trying to make it classical. It had found its voice in Teo’s favorite Scripture passage: Be still and know that I am God.

They arrived in Alamosa, Colorado, at two thirty AM. The ER lay quiet and empty except for one woman reading a magazine in the corner and another behind the desk wearing, improbably, Día de Muertos scrubs. Muertos looked up, her eyes widening at the sight of the pregnant woman putting all her weight on Miriam. “Enrique!” she bellowed, and another nurse came out from the door beside the check in window. He removed Dicey’s weight from Miriam’s arm; Dicey held her wrist up to show him the bracelet. His face turned grave. He turned to Miriam. “Do you have her meds? Her oscillation vest?”

“The black vest with the tubes? It’s in her suitcase.”

“We’ll need it. We’ll need everything.”

Miriam didn’t need to be told twice. She ran out to the car and retrieved all Dicey’s belongings. Inside, she shoved them into the arms of the waiting nurse, who turned and headed into the back. Miriam started to follow, but the woman behind the desk stopped her. “I’m sorry, are you family?”

“No, but …”

“Then you can’t come back. I’m sorry.”

Miriam stood there as the door swung closed with an electronic click. Damn, damn, damn!

She sat down in the chair directly in front of the door to wait. Stupid privacy laws!

The only sounds in the ER waiting room were the piped-in Muzak and the guy in a shiny suit