Lungs

Deep into the Dust Bowl, farmers would save up tumbleweeds to feed their cattle during the winter. Nana likes to remind us of this every time our station wagon runs over one on the county roads. On this particular drive though, all of us piled in for the long haul to Walmart, she shuts her eyes when they roll past.

We were upgraded to D3 on the drought scale yesterday and there are tumbleweeds everywhere.

Step-dad Paul loads our shopping cart up with water purifiers from the camping section and argues with an employee about the out-of-stock 6-gallon jugs.

“I have two kids and an elderly mother-in-law,” he argues. “We need a backup supply.”

Paul is short and lean like a rodeo star. Next to the stocky 6-foot-something man in a blue vest, it’s easy to remember how much of a bark he can manage.

“Check the stock room or get me a manager.”

Mom nods for me to take my little sister Vi to the toy aisle nearby. I loop my arm around Nana’s and shuffle the three of us toward dolls and Play-Doh.

Vi is nine years younger than me. I don’t remember much of fifth grade but I remember how uncool girl toys were by then. But little Vi doesn't mind that. She likes Barbies and play-pretend. I’m not good at playing dolls but I try for her. When she picks out one with a pretty dress and a big fat smile and says it’s me, there’s not much I can say to that except thank you and of course, we can play when we get home. 

Nana leans on me, focused on something none of us can see. She’s humming low and soft. Not a song. Just humming. Hm, hm, hm.

One time, I asked why she made those sounds. She told me the humming keeps the bad stuff out. I asked what kind of bad stuff. She told me black lung had taken her little brother over the course of three agonizing months. A train in the distance had reminded her of him. I didn’t ask any more questions when she began to hum again.

Nana grew up with a dust much worse than this. Hers had carried death. Mine only carries a threat. Or a dare, maybe. A dare to stick it out, knowing what the land has brought before. Knowing it could bring death around once more. A dare to not be scared of it.

When Mom comes back around and takes us to the grocery aisles, I can tell she’s lost that dare. Cans of vegetables, bags of black beans, pounds and pounds of meat to freeze. We live far from the store but not that far. She’s stocking up like the drought has the power to destroy the roads.

Vi asks for juice. Vi is told no.

I set cinnamon bread in the cart. Mom puts it back.

Paul meets us at the checkout line with three two-gallon jugs and shoulders tensed like a boxer.

Vi coughs.

•

Mom says D3 means we shouldn’t spend too long outside without covering our faces. So I tie bandanas around Vi’s face and mine and we play bandits. She shoots at Paul with her stick gun while he pulls from the well. He’s a good enough sport to raise his hands in surrender every now and then.

When he goes inside, we play explorers wandering outside an abandoned house. We look for forgotten treasures.

“Look,” Vi says, holding up a filthy rock. “They left a diamond.”

I hand her our grocery bag of findings and she drops it in.

She starts to cough and pulls off her bandana. She coughs so hard her body wracks.

“Let’s go get water.”

•

The cough turns chronic. It keeps her up at night and I only get so much rest fetching water and switching the wet washcloths from the fridge.

One evening, when Vi’s coughing fit sends her to another room, I breathe in deep and let Mom and Paul have it.

“She can’t stay here.”

Paul makes a face like I’m stupid for even suggesting that.

Mom shakes her head. “She’s okay. It’ll pass.”

“Like Nana’s brother?”

Mom doesn’t care for that at all. As Nana begins to hum, Mom smacks her hand down on the table.

“Stop it.”

“She needs a doctor.”

“Why? So we spend a hundred on an inhaler she won’t need by the time we pick it up from the pharmacy?”

I point outside. “It’s getting worse. Vi is getting worse. Why won’t you let me take her into town? Or out of this goddamn place entirely?”

“Watch your mouth when you speak to your mother,” Paul warns.

I’m taller than him. I don’t think I could take him in a fight but I’m a little too mad to care right now. My knuckles ache with my frustration.

“I have friends I could take her to stay with until she gets better,” I argue. “Not far, even. Denver or El Paso.”

Mom scoffs. “Yeah, I’m sure the smog will clear things right up for her.”

Vi coughs so hard it stops us all in our tracks. I stare at Mom.

“I can’t listen to her like this anymore,” I tell her.

“Then why don’t you go?”

I push my chair out hard and it skids across the hardwood. Vi coughs louder. Then, a thud. A thud that sinks my heart way down into my stomach.

•

Vi in a hospital bed, wrapped in white sheets and under bright lights, looks like a sleeping angel. But the oxygen cannula pressed beneath her nose and the IV snaked around her arm takes the fantasy away. She is here and human and she is sick.

It’s most likely what’s called hypersensitivity pneumonitis, the pediatric doctor told Mom and Paul. We’ve seen it a lot more lately. Mostly kids and the elderly. Mom eyed Nana. We need to keep her until the inflammation in her lungs goes down.

Every night and every morning, I brush out her hair for her.

“I don’t need it,” she says once, with a bratty tone that reminds me she’s ten.

I need it, I think.

“It’ll get too tangled to brush if you don’t let me,” I argue. “We’ll have to shave it all off.”

Her hands cup the sides of her head. Quietly: “Okay.”

•

It’s three days of saline, oxygen, and prednisone. I’m allowed to stay overnight and sleep on the visitor's chair. It only works if I tuck my legs in. When I wake on the third day, I wonder if my knees will ever forgive me.

I selfishly walk back from the bathroom with heavy footsteps. Vi stirs and the poor girl looks at me with a smile.

“How are you feeling?”

“Better. I think.”

Mom and Paul show up on the dot at nine am with McDonald’s breakfast and tired eyes. Nana’s in tow this time, so we all stand to eat while she sits by Vi. She holds my sister’s hand, humming.

I lean against the large hospital window. The parking lot is encrusted with dirt and the wind is picking up dust devils in the corners of the buildings. Even the sun is bruised a deeper red.

Vi gets better and then what? We take her back out into that?

•

We do get Vi home after a few more tests and an X-ray. Mom made her wear swim goggles and a t-shirt around her nose and mouth outside.

When I bring up Denver again, Mom shuts the door on me to nap. Paul says nothing, only sits in front of the TV with Vi.

I don’t ask again.

•

When the clock next to my bed reaches 5 am that next morning, I make my own decision.

When I graduated high school, my gift was a trip to Jaylee in Denver. She graduated a year ahead of me, taking our dreams of escape and our years of friendship with her to the shiny state of Colorado. She came from enough money to rent an apartment. For two weeks, she took me everywhere she could think to show me. My chest loosens at the possibility of Vi seeing the Rockies.

The trip to Jaylee is what will save my sister from this. I remember the route completely.

Forty minutes to the Greyhound station taking three turns to get there, right by the U-Haul and Arby’s. I have enough cash saved to get us out of this state at least. Maybe as far north as Wichita. I don’t know how but I’ll figure it out from there. I’ll have to.

I nudge Vi awake.

“Pack a bag,” I whisper.

“What?”

“You can’t stay here.”

Vi coughs. “Where are we going?”

“Out of this goddamn dust.”

I have to help her pack. Between her fatigue and her ten-year-old brain choosing only Barbies and a music box, I’m the one who folds her clothes into the suitcase.

It occurs to me that I should leave a note of some sort. Half a statement of why we’re gone and half an apology for taking advantage of how much Vi blindly trusts me. The note ends up on the notepad Mom uses for shopping lists. Under milk and juice is my temporary farewell and a lie that we’re headed for El Paso. Below, in a P.S., I ask her not to send any police after us.

The floor behind me creaks.

It isn’t Vi.

Nana walks up in her nightgown, an empty cup in her hand. I stay still. So does she.

“You’re up early,” I whisper finally.

She sees my suitcase. Vi sneaks out from her room and she sees that suitcase too. Vi gets behind me like it’ll hide her.

“Stay here,” is all Nana says.

I hold my breath, straining to hear if she’s going to knock on Mom and Paul’s bedroom door. Several breathless moments later, she returns with a coin purse. She hands it to me. A wad of cash is folded up inside.

“I don’t agree with your mother but please will you do me the favor of not telling her about this later?” she whispers. "If I could have done this for Thomas, I wouldn't have thought twice."

I nod and fill her cup before we slip out the front door.

The car can only be so quiet as it starts. My stomach seizes. I reach for Vi and brush my fingers through her hair as we pull onto the county road and out of earshot. My body relaxes a little.

The brisk night breeze fogs the headlights with dirt. It creeps up on the road. Creeps up on the windshield.

Vi coughs.

I start to hum.