Chapter Thirty-Eight
When the cab carried us up my parents' driveway, they were sitting on the porch eating lunch together. Leighanne and I climbed out of the cab with our bags slung over our shoulders, and my mother was standing at the top step before I'd paid the driver. I walked over to the porch as the driver backed away and my mother brought her hands to her cheeks in delight. "Brian," she gasped, "Oh and Leighanne!" She was smiling ear-to-ear, "I didn't know you were coming -- did you know they were coming, Harold? -- Oh I haven't prepared the guest room and --"
My father stood too and came up behind her, his eyes locked on me. I stared at my mother as she babbeld about needing to go pick up some groceries and change the pillow cases on the beds. My father put his hands on her shoulders, as though weighting her down. "Jackie," he said quietly, "Something is the matter."
"What?" she looked to me. "Nothing's the matter, is there? Is there?" Her eyes were panicked. "What is it?"
Leighanne put her hand on my back and let her fingers trail down my spine. I took a deep breath, stepped forward, and said quietly, "Ma, Dad's right. There's something the matter. But it's going to be okay."
My father guided her into the house, but she reached back and grabbed my hand, squeezing my fingers tightly with her own as we all walked into the front parlor room, their lunch forgotten. The parlor had two small couches on either side of a low coffee table adorned with the family Bible and a spider plant. My father lowered my mother onto one couch while Leighanne and I sat on the other. Leighanne's knee touched mine, the way my father's touched my mother's. My mother kept her grip on my hand with one side and my father's hand on the other. Her eyes were wide, filled with fear and ready to tear up at the slightest hint of terrible news.
A lump rose in my throat.
"When we were here in March, it wasn't just to visit," I said quietly. Looking into my mother's eyes, I wasn't sure how I would ever get the words out, how I could break her like this. I licked my lips, "I saw Dr. Carlsbad about my heart --" my mother started shaking her head rapidly, as though she already knew what was coming but did not want to hear it, "-- and I need a surgery to repair --"
"No..." she gasped.
"--- my heart." My throat burned as tears spilled over my mother's eyes. "He's referred me to a doctor at the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Gordon Danielson, who is going to perform the repair."
"When?" my father asked.
I drew a deep breath, "The 8th."
"That's this week," my father said as my mother pressed her face into his chest, shaking as she cried.
I nodded.
He closed his eyes and rested his chin on my mother's head. "You've known since March and you didn't tell us until today?" he asked, concerned.
"I didn't want to worry her," I said, gesturing to my mother.
He nodded in response.
"I just..." I drew a deep breath, "I wanted... I..."
"We'll come with you," he said quietly.
It took a long while to calm my mother down, and after a few long moments, my father told Leighanne and I to excuse them. We retreated to the kitchen, where I took two bottles of water from the fridge and leaned against the counter. Everything in the house was so familiar, so comforting. I just stared around the kitchen like I was seeing it for the first time, committing it to memory as though I were seeing it for the last time.
I called Kevin and told him where I'd gone. He wasn't surprised. He said that after I'd left Lou had freaked out and flipped a chair over before leaving, too. Nick told them what happened, and what the law suit had been about with his mom, and they'd all agreed that it was time for some huge changes.
"Are you doing the tour?" I asked.
"We're talking about what to do about the schedule," Kevin replied.
"Are you coming to Rochester?" I asked.
He was quiet for a long moment. "Yes," he answered. "We'll be there before you go into surgery. I promise."
That night, Leighanne stayed in my room. It was strange, having a girl behind a closed door in the room that I'd grown up in. We lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling and held each other's hand up on the pillow over our heads. Just having her there made me feel better than I'd felt in a very long time. Knowin that she would be there and my best friends would be there and my parents would be there made the idea of going into surgery possible, made it a little less frightening.
The next day we had breakfast, which my mother cooked with teary eyes at the griddle. I stood behind her and gave her a hug and she sank into my arms and let out a low sigh. "You need to eat," she said thickly, "You're too damn skinny. You'll waste away if you don't eat." She put a pile of eggs onto a plate and turned, pushing it into my hands. "Eat."
I looked at the plate, then into my mother's moist eyes. I glanced over at the table where my father was staring blankly straight ahead and Leighanne was forcing a smile. The air in the room was so heavy, so thick that it could be cut with a knife. "Hey ma," I said, "How did the eggs get to the top of the mountain?"
"What?" she looked at me with confusion. I saw my father and Leighanne rouse to look at me, too.
"How'd the eggs get to the top of the mountain?"
She stared at me for a long moment and a single tear spilled over her cheek, streaking along to her chin. "How?" she asked.
"They just scrambled up," I replied.
She let out a strangled laugh, and I saw a real smile spread on Leighanne's face. My father chuckled, "Where'd you hear that one?" he asked.
"I got a million of 'em," I answered. "To get off a highway they take an eggs-it, for example. And they go on safari when they want to eggsplore..."
Tears streamed down my mother's face freely, but laugh lines had appeared at the corners of her face. "Oh my Baby Duck, you never change, do you?" she asked.
I smirked.
"Tell Leighanne that one you told us," my father said, "When you were eight. About the basket ball."
"I don't remember it," I laughed.
"Something about chickens and the referees calling fowl," he said.
Leighanne laughed, "Ohh he's told me that one before." She grinned up at me, "You haven't gotten any new jokes since you were eight?" she teased.
"A couple here or there," I replied, smiling.
And the whole trip to Rochester went sort of like that. Every time we tensed up, I told a joke from the plethora I had stored in my head, keeping everyone laughing, making sure we all stayed smiling. I couldn't handle that heavy, ominous silence, and the only way I knew to break it, to keep the hopefulness up was the same as I'd always done -- laughter.
At the clinic, we were greeted by a resident on Dr. Danielson's staff, who unfolded a wheel chair and patted the seat for me as my father began working on some of the forms that needed filling out for my admission. I sat reluctantly in the wheel chair (and only because I was told it was hospital policy and I had to) as my blood pressure and temperature were taken and charts were started. My mother clutched Larry Byrd (the stuffed duck I'd carried around when I was a kid) like he was a lifeline of some sort, and Leighanne held my hand.
"Hey ma, know what part of a wheel chair is the laziest?" I asked.
"Which, Baby Duck?" she asked.
"The wheels...cos they're always tired." I grinned.
I was brought to a private room with a window that overlooked the parking lot, where I could only just barely see the small, ant-like people walking around between the cars below. They stuck me on an IV that pumped antibiotics into my system, protecting me from any possible infections, and fluids so that I wouldn't become dehydrated.
"Dr. Danielson will be in to say hello in just a little bit," the resident, whose name was Molly, told me, smiling faintly. She backed out of the room.
"This is a nice room," my mother said, nervously sitting, then standing up and walking to the window. "And a nice view. A nice room."
My father located the TV remote and turned it on.
Leighanne smiled at me, pulling a chair up next to my bed. "How're you hangin' in there?" she asked quietly.
"So far so good," I answered.
My father was flipping through the channels when I spotted them. "Wait," I said, "Go back." He flipped back and I stared up at the TV as highlights from the World Music Awards ceremony, being held in Monte-Carlo, flashed across the screen. It was the fellas. We'd won an award, which Kevin was clutching as the four of them sang All I Have To Give a'capella, without me. The camera closed in on Nick as they sang, and I could tell, the way he held his mouth, the way his lower jaw jutted out, that he was on the verge of tears. And Kevin never once opened his eyes.
"...celebrations for the prestigious award," the entertainment news show host was saying quickly, "were overshadowed in the Backstreet Boys' camp by the announcement that member Brian Littrell has been hospitalized to undergo treatment for a congenital heart defect..."
I looked at my father, "You can change it," I muttered. Something about seeing them there on the screen, AJ singing my parts of the song, made my heart ache even worse than it already was, and I looked away from the screen, out the window.
Leighanne reached up and smoothed the curls away from my forehead. "It's okay," she whispered.
I nodded, "I know."
"They're not replacing you," she added quietly.
I nodded.
When Dr. Danielson came in, he was very kind and gave a hug to my mother, which made me instantly respect him a little more. When he got down to business, though, it was clear that he was not just a good doctor but a brilliant surgeon and the more he spoke of the condition that I had and his plan of action to repair the VSD using my own tissue, the more confidence I felt. "I'm going to order a new chest x-ray and EEG tomorrow, just so I can get the most up-to-date information about your heart. I was looking at your scans from March, and I'm really glad that you're here. We can get this thing fixed and you'll be back on the stage in no time." He smiled.
"What can I expect for a recovery period?" I asked.
"Eight to fifteen weeks at least," he replied. "Every case is just a little bit different."
Eight weeks. There were eight weeks until the first date on the summer tour.
The next day, May 7th, I got a pile of get well cards that had been dropped off by fans. I don't know how they knew where I was, but I received flowers and gifts of candy and teddy bears and even a Nerf basket ball set that I kept on my rolling tray table to have Nick set up when he got there with the fellas. Leighanne and my mother helped me sort through the cards while my dad watched basketball highlights on ESPN and guessed answers to questions on Jeopardy in the corner of the room. Despite all the excitement, though, I kept my eyes constantly vigilent on the door, waiting for the moment when Nick, Kevin, Howie, and AJ would spill through the doors, waiting for when they'd be there. Every time I heard someone walk by I looked up hopefully... just waiting for them to pull through for me.
When I went for the x-ray and the EEG tests, I hoped that when I returned to the room they'd be there waiting, but when I returned it was still just Leighanne, my mother, and my father. I kept reassuring myself that they were on the way, that they were gonna be there any time. But they didn't come. I waited all day and they didn't come.
That night, after my parents had gone to a hotel, Leighanne was sitting beside me, her fingers woven through mine, her head resting on the bed by my side. She stared up at me, pressing our finger tips together.
"They'll come, right?" I asked quietly.
Leighanne sighed, "I hope so," she answered.
"Nick's my best friend," I said, "And Kevin. Kevin's my cousin. We're all brothers. We're family. They'll come, won't they?"
"I'm praying they will come," she said.
"Me, too," I answered.
An older, motherly nurse with a kind face knocked on the door frame, wearing an apologetic smile. "I'm so sorry," she said, a slight Spanish lilt to her accent, "I have to ask you to take a shower." She held up a bag, "There's some special soap that we'll need you to wash up with that will help protect you from infection."
I nodded.
She looked at Leighanne, "There's a waiting room just outside," she said, "I can come get you right after we're done."
Leighanne kissed my hand. "It's gonna be okay, Brian," she said as she stood up and disentangled our fingers. "I'll be right back." She stepped back and started to the door. "I'll be right out here," she added, and she disappeared into the hallway.
The nurse introduced herself as Ramona and she helped me up out of bed and I shuffled, holding my hospital gown closed at the back, into the bathroom. Nurse Ramona helped me out of my gown, and drew a curtain that shielded me from view, but she didn't leave the room. She turned on the shower faucet and lukewarm water sprayed over me. It felt so weird being naked in a room with a woman who wasn't Leighanne, being exposed like this. I was glad, though, that she was a motherly sort of person. It made it at least a little bit less awkward. She handed me the bottle of soap and I squirted it into my palms, lathering my chest and arms. It smelled so strongly, I started coughing.
"It's very strong," she agreed, though I hadn't said anything about it.
When I was done, she handed me a towel and I dried off as best I could before she helped me to shrug my gown back on. I felt humbled and crawled back into bed feeling like a child. I stared at my feet and hugged my knees to my chest. "I'll be back in the morning," she said quietly. "We'll shave your chest and take another shower and insert a central line..." she paused and put a hand over my hand. When I looked up, she said, "You're being very brave."
A part of me was just so tired of being brave, though, that I couldn't absorb the compliment. "I'm scared," I said quietly.
Nurse Ramona nodded, "You have every right to be scared Brian, but it's like they say - it's not brave if you aren't scared. And at least you know that you have something to lose if you are afraid of losing it."
"I don't want my fiance to see me as weak," I said.
Nurse Ramona shook her head, "You're anything but weak, Brian."
The next morning dawned and it was raining outside. Streaks of water ran across the window, like the earth was crying. It's the sort of day to die on, I thought, before steeling myself and reminding myself that I wasn't going to die. I had too much left to do.
But some nagging part of me wasn't so sure.
Dr. Danielson, a resident and a couple interns came in to present my case during rounds and Dr. Danielson ordered that I be prepped for surgery, which included Nurse Ramona's return for a second shower and to shave my chest. This time though, because we were shaving my chest with a special pair of clippers, she was assisted by a male nurse whose name I didn't quite catch who was far less comforting than Ramona was. I have never felt so humiliated in my entire life as I did standing in that shower as he shaved my chest bare.
"I'll come back to check on you later," Ramona told me, squeezing my hand after she'd gotten me back into bed. "I'll be praying for you." She held up a pair of black rosary beads that she had in her pocket for me to see. With a smile, she left the room.
When Leighanne came back in, I looked to her with pleading eyes. "Tell me they're here," I begged.
She drew a deep breath, "I'm sorry, Brian."
I looked at the stupid Nerf basket ball hoop sitting on my table and shook my head. "It doesn't matter," I said thickly, my throat aching. I felt so thirsty, but I couldn't eat or drink, which was frustrating. I tried not to meet Leighanne's eyes. "They'll come," I said. "They'll be here."
She was silent.
My parents came back soon after and my mom was still clutching Larry Byrd, and my brother, Harold, came, too. My family stood on one side of my bed, Leighanne on the other, and we talked for a long time. I told them about the tour in Europe, making it sound a lot more like an ideal vacation experience than it'd really been. I described the Viking Museum we'd visited and told them funny stories about experiences with fans.
When Dr. Danielson came in at one in the afternoon, my chart under his arm, flanked by two residents, he smiled sadly. "Are you ready?" he asked.
I shook my head, "My friends - my friends aren't here yet. They're coming. I need to see them before I go to surgery."
He glanced at the clock. "Okay. We can put it off a little bit longer," he said, "But not by too much. How long do you think they'll be?"
"Any minute now," I replied.
"Okay." Dr. Danielson nodded, and left the room.
Every tick of the clock seemed to be a decade, and as minutes turned into hours I felt my heart slowly but surely breaking in my chest. I shook my head, "Why aren't they here yet?" I whispered, "Their flight must be delayed..."
Leighanne exchanged a worried look with my mother and father, and my father said he would go and see what he could find out. My mother stroked my face softly with the backs of her fingertips and I stared at the door and waited, so certain that they would appear.
After another half an hour had passed, my father returned, a grim expression on his face. He stepped up to the bedside and took a deep breath, "Brian," he said quietly, "They aren't coming."
I shook my head, "Of course they're coming. They're - they're my brothers."
I could tell he was struggling to get the words out. "I just spoke with Kevin," he said quiet, "And they aren't coming."
I felt my throat swell up. "But he promised."
"He said to tell you he's sorry," my father whispered.
Leighanne's hands tightened on mine as I absorbed my father's words. They really were not coming. My four best friends, my brothers, weren't coming. They could fly clear across the globe to collect an award, to sing a song, to make fans smile, but they couldn't come see me off to surgery? I felt a numbing sensation crawl through my body starting at my toes clear to my fingertips. I rolled my eyes up to stare at the ceiling above the TV screen, taking measured breaths, and praying to God to keep the tears inside of me.
Dr. Danielson appeared in the doorway. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, "But it's time."
A couple residents came in behind him with a rolling gurney and my parents were made to move out of the way. Leighanne's grip on my hand was loosened for a moment as they moved me into the new bed and took the IV machine off it's cart. My chart was laid at my feet.
My mother practically threw herself at me, tears streaming down her face. "It's going to be okay, Baby Duck, it's going to be okay," she sobbed. "You be strong."
I reached over and took Larry Byrd from her hands and held him so I was looking him straight in the eyes. "Now you listen to me, Larry Byrd," I said in as serious a tone as I could, though my voice threatened to break with each word, "You take care of my mum and remind her I love her and that I'm going to be A-OK. You give her a hug when she needs it most." I patted the little duck on his head, and handed him back to my mother. She all but collapsed. She ducked into Harold's arms.
My father touched my shoulder. "You're going to be all right, son," he said, "We're praying hard."
"You be okay, squirt," my brother said, "I mean it."
"I'll do my best, Harold," I answered. "I'll do my very best. I promise."
Though, thanks to Kevin, I wasn't entirely sure what a promise was worth anymore.
Chapter End Notes:
The World Music Awards performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ-1zxsC3hY
