Being Audrey Hepburn

“Don’t go off the rails,” she had said. “You’re the only dependable one left.” In my head, I couldn’t stop hearing her say that over and over.

My mind was in a fog. I felt like I had to do something. I decided to ask to see my mother as soon as possible, but as I stood up a doctor approached me before I could say anything.

“Lisbeth Wachowicz?”

“Yes?”

“You mother is being evaluated for hepatocellular carcinoma,” said the doctor. He seemed barely five years older than me. Had his mother wanted him to go to medical school? Did he want to become a doctor? Was he glad he did? His name was stitched into his starched white coat, Dr. Ke

“In English, please?” I asked. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and paused a moment.

“Liver cancer. We know she has severe cirrhosis of the liver and we’re trying to rule out cancer,” he said.

“From drinking?”

“Ten years or more of heavy drinking can cause the cirrhosis to form, but there are a number of factors such as how much a person drinks, what they drink, how their body handles alcohol, their underlying medical condition, medical history, genetics. Women who are heavy drinkers are at a higher risk than men.”

“So, yes?”

“Yes,” he responded grimly.

“But she’s been drinking forever. What happened? Why now?”

“Your mother was on her second shift when she became disoriented and confused,” he said. “We have a number of safeguards here, and I pulled her in for testing. The liver detoxifies your body, and if the liver isn’t functioning correctly, toxins can be released into your bloodstream. It’s usually the high ammonia levels that cause confusion and behavior changes,” he said. “That’s what we tested her for.”

Jeez, I guess going to med school pays off.

“Is she in pain?”

“No, actually there are no nerve endings in the liver itself,” he said. “Once we normalize her blood levels, she’ll be her old self again, up to a point.”

Was that a good or bad thing? I wondered.

“Listen,” he said. “I know this is tough, but your mom has a lot of friends here. There isn’t a nurse or doctor at this hospital that at some point or another your mother hasn’t helped.”

As he spoke, I saw some of the nurses gathered at reception, and it seemed as though they were listening and nodding to what Dr. Newton had to say. The woman he was describing didn’t sound like anyone I knew.

“You’re talking about my mother?”

“Yes, Ella headed up the patient-advocacy task force that focused on seniors and has always given one hundred percent to every doctor and patient on the ward,” he said. This was from the woman who never visited her own aging mother.

“Do you actually know my mom?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied in the same calm tone as he had started. “Ella was probably the first person I met here. She runs the orientation program for all new doctors. It is a privilege to take care of her. Let me put it this way: if I were sick, I would want your mom to take care of me.”

“You guys … like her?” I asked, wondering what he made of my astonishment.

“I can only speak for her at work. At home she may have behaved very differently. It’s clear now your mother was a very-high-functioning alcoholic. That may have had serious ramifications for you at home, and we have counseling that we can make available to you and your family, but as for the hospital, she couldn’t be in better hands.”

“Can I see her?”

He signaled the nurses, who were already waiting to take me to her room.

As I walked away from him, I nodded thanks.

I already liked Dr. Newton. I had never known as much about my mother as in that short talk with him. No one had ever laid it on the line in such a matter-of-fact way. I realized that these doctors and nurses knew her better than I did.

“Right this way, hon,” the nurse said. She had a gristled voice like Mom and was wearing the same pale-blue scrubs Mom wore home every day. I noticed the name Bry

With a hiss, the pneumatic doors opened. Gurneys glimmered in a line down the corridor. As we passed the nurses’ station, almost everyone stopped to watch us walk by. I don’t know why, but it made me feel like crying.

In my mother’s room, I couldn’t stop myself. My chest was shaking uncontrollably. I couldn’t hold back the tears. Mom was lying with her eyes closed on her back, a tube in her nose, a finger heart-rate monitor, a catheter in her arm, and a tube in her wrist hooked up to all kinds of machinery.

“Mom?” I said, trying to focus myself. She didn’t move, though I could see that she was breathing.

“She’s sleeping,” Nurse Bry

“Can I … can I just sit here for a while?” I asked.

“Of course, hon, you go ahead. I’ll come back in a few.” As Nurse Bry

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry about your calls. I’m sorry about school. I’m so sorry that I let you down.”

All the while, Mom just lay there, her chest moving up and down with the machinery. The hums, beeps, and clicks were the only sounds as the medical equipment tracked her vital signs, more in sync with my mother than I ever was.

41

Nan and I hugged for so long I lost my sense of time. When I lifted my head, there was only darkness outside her window. It chilled me to think of Mom sleeping in the hospital with tubes coming out of everywhere.

“They love her so much,” I said. “I could see it in their eyes. They knew about her drinking, but they still loved her.” I felt weepy again. So did Nan, her soft little hand holding mine in an iron grip.

“I always knew she had it in her,” Nan said, shaking her head. “But with me she was so angry, and her drinking made everything impossible.” She wiped a tear from her cheek.

“It’s wonderful she’s with friends,” Nan said, firmly patting my hand and straightening herself on the couch. Nan had tried to visit three days earlier when they admitted Mom, but Mom wouldn’t see her. I couldn’t even process how that must have felt to Nan.

“Are you okay?”

“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “Your mom and I will be close again some day. I’m sure we will. As you know, things can be very difficult between mothers and daughters.”

“Do you want to talk about it at all? I mean, what happened between you and Mom? You don’t have to,” I said.

Nan regarded me in silent sadness.

“You have been my shoulder to cry on for so long, you can cry on mine, too.”

“I don’t know,” Nan said, trailing off into her own thoughts. We sat there for a while, holding hands, stuck in the sadness of it all, until I felt Nan stir. “I guess we were unlucky,” she began. “There is a history in our family of rebellious daughters. I certainly know that. But the time just ran away from us. And we grew further and further away from each other.” Just like me and Mom, I thought.

“Did you ever try to stop her from drinking?” I asked.

“Of course, and unfortunately that was another unlucky part.” Nan looked so sad as she said those words. For the first time, she seemed old to me. I knew she was old, of course, but I never thought about her that way until she started talking about Mom.

“What did you do?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t pushing too hard. But with Mom in the hospital, I wanted to know.

“You know, it’s not like on those reality shows they have on the television about intervention where nine times out of ten they seem to succeed,” she said. “I’ve read quite a lot about it. Many times, the percentages aren’t really very good.”

“So you and Grandpa actually did a full-on intervention?”