meat.”
“I’m a cunt!” she screamed and tore at her hair,
ripplingloose the long ginger tendrils.
“Nona–”
She shuddered with self-loathing, sculpted her
hands into quivering hooks. But this time they were
aimed at her own flesh, inches from ripping open
that exquisite face.
I grabbed her and held her tight. She fought me.,
cursing, then exploded into sobs. She seemed to
curl up and diminish in .size, .crying on my shoulder.
When the tears wouldn’t come anymore, she
collapsed aainst my chest, mute and limp.
I carried her to a chair, sat her down, wiped her
face with a tissue and pressed another against my
cheek. Most of the bleeding had stopped. I retrieved
the knife and tossed it in the sink.
She was staring at the table. I cupped her chin in
my hand. The inky eyes were glazed and unfocused.
“Where’s Woody?”
“Back there,” she said dully. “Sleeping.”
“Show me.”
She rose unsteadily. A shredded plastic shower
curtain divided the trailer. I guided her through it.
The back room was sruff’y and dim and furnished
with thrift shop remnants. The walls were paneled
with fake birch, scarred white. A filling station
calendar hung lopsided from a roofing nail. Digital
time beamed forth from a plastic clock radio atop a
plastic Parsons table. On the floor was a pile of
teen magazines. A blue velveteen sleeper sofa had
been opened to a queen-size bed.
Woody slept under faded paisley covers, coppery
curls spreading on the pillow. On the adjacent ght-
BLOOD TEST 299
stand were comic books, a toy truck,.an uneaten
apple, a botde of pills. Vitamins.
His breathing was regular but labored, hi.s lips
swollen and dry. I touched his cheek.
“He’s very hot,” I told her,
“It’ll break,” she said defensively. “I’ve been giv-
ing him vitamin C for it.”
“Has it helped yet?”
She-looked away and shook her head.
-“He needs to be in a hospital, Nona.”
“Nol” She bent down, took his small head in her
arms. Pressed her cheek to his and kissed his eyelids.
He smiled in his sleep.
‘Tm going to call an ambulance.”
ne”
“There’s no pno , she proclaimed with child-
ish triumph. “Go leave to find one. We’ll be gone
when you get back.”
“He’s very sick,” I said patiently. “Every hour
we delay puts him in greater danger. We’ll go to-
ad”
gether, in my car. Get your things re y.
“They’ll hurt him[” she screamed. “Just like before.
Sticking needles in his bones! Putting him in
that plastic jail!”
“Listen to me, Nona. He has cancer. He couldrdie
from it.”
She turned away.
“I don’t believe it.”
I held her shoulders.
.”You’d better. It’s true.”
“Why? Cause that beaner doctor said so? He’s
just like all the others. Can’t be trusted.” She cocked
her hip the way she’d done ‘m the hospital corridor.
“Why should it be cancer? He never smoked or
polluted himself! He’s just a little kid.”
“Kids get cancer, too. Thousands of them each
300 Jonathan Kel ‘lerman
year. No one knows why but they do. Almost all of
them can be treated and some can be cured. Woody’s
one of them. Give him a chance.”
She frowned stubbornly.
“They were poisoning him in that p’laee.”
“You need strong drugs to kill the disease. I’m
not saying it’ll be painless but medical treatment’s
the only thing that can save his life.”
“S’that what the beaner told you to tell me?”
“No. It’s what I’m telling you myself. You don’t
have to go back to Dr. Melendez-Lynch. We’ll find
another specialist. In San Diego.”
The boy cried out in his sleep. She ran to him,
sang a low, wordless lullaby, and stroked his hair.
He quieted,
She rocked him in her arms. A child cradling a
child. The flawless features trembled on the brink
of collapse. The tears started again, in a torrent
that streamed down her face.
“If we go to a hospital they’ll take him away from
me. I can take care of him best right here.”
“Nona,” I said, summoning all my compassion,
“there are things even a mother can’t do.”
The rocking ceased for’a moment, then resumed.
“I was at your parents’ house tonight. I saw the
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