Author's Note: So, I thought this chapter would cover the entirety of Sunday, but then Lance started talking to his mom and things got carried away in a not quite unexpected direction, but I went into more detail than I thought I would (I don't know why I keep being surprised by that). I like where it's going. I hope you do too.
Chapter Sixteen: Long Distance
Keith slept soundly and well the rest of the night, and Lance knew that because he did not. He sacrificed his comfort for Keith's, straining to keep Keith securely in his arms and against his chest. He found that if he maintained this position that Keith would lie quietly, no crying, no uneasy murmuring. Lance watched Keith's racing heart slow to 78 beats per minute there in the dark, a physical indication that Lance was not wasting his efforts.
Abbie came to check on them several times throughout her shift. When she first caught them together in the bed, she paused at the door, her hand reaching toward her throat in surprise.
"Oh, I was supposed to bring you a cot!" She whispered in distress, ashamed at having forgotten. "Should I bring it now?"
"I think it's too late," Lance replied, not unkindly, gesturing at Keith. "We're fine."
But she had fussed enough that Lance compromised in allowing her to take down an extra pillow from an upper cabinet above the sink, propping it somewhere under his head and between where his shoulder was scrunched against the guardrail. Then she'd removed the empty iron IV bag, adjusted the gravity feed on the remaining solution, and promised to return in a while. Lance started telling time from Abbie's dedicated rounds. Each time her silhouette appeared in the doorway, Lance knew he'd given Keith another ninety minutes of peaceful rest.
Meanwhile, Lance was dying inside. Being so tall meant that he struggled for comfort in a regular bed on his own. Sharing a triage room hospital bed was a unique blend of torture. Keith kept his hand secured in Lance's shirt, his head resting on Lance's diaphragm. It would have been endearing if Lance had been able to get situated before Keith had decided he was never moving again, but he hadn't thought at the time that once Keith had settled it would be forever. Keith's body burned into Lance, miserably hot, and it felt as though each time Lance tried to shift, it irritated the bruised scrape all down his back.
Moving not only hurt his back, it also disturbed his patient, so Lance did his absolute best to keep his fidgeting to a minimum. He switched his neck side to side a lot as if that would do anything, did what he could about pressure points on his hips and tried not to think about how Keith's weight was crushing the ribs on his right side. He breathed the way Keith had done before – long draws in and then holding it as long as possible as he monitored what Keith's respiratory cycle was doing. And he waited and waited and waited for morning.
He couldn't say that he didn't sleep at all, though. He knew that he drifted off from time to time, but when he did sleep, it was never for very long. Somehow, the tiny cycles of rest made the night go on even longer. He was in the middle of one of these little naplets when his phone rang, dragging him awake.
The triage room hadn't changed; it was still as dark as it had been when they'd tried to go to sleep, and for a minute, Lance wasn't sure he'd heard anything real. When his phone buzzed a second time, and then a third, he began desperately attempting to free himself from under Keith. It wasn't as difficult as when he'd slipped out from under him on his couch yesterday, mostly because he did manage to get Keith to let go of his shirt this time without waking him or taking it off, but by the time he'd rolled himself over, off the bed and into a crouch on the floor, the phone was quiet again. Three rings. Sunday morning. Lance knew exactly who had called him.
His family didn't have a phone in the house, but the pastor of La Iglesia Santa Elvira allowed them to use the one in his office on Sundays before Mass. So the McClains would leave early, walk into the city, and the priest would unlock the office for them. Then they could dial Lance's number, let it ring three times as a signal, and hang up. He would then return the call so the church did not incur any ridiculous long-distance charges. The only reason Lance could call them back was because Pidge had given him an old phone still connected to her mom's international plan at a fee far less than if he'd tried to get one on his own. She'd said it didn't matter, but he demanded to pay his share every month. Before he'd met Pidge, his only correspondence with his family was through email and handwritten letters. Not all of his family members were always present every Sunday, but there had never been a week go by without those three rings at six in the morning.
Lance quickly put on his shoes, intending on taking his phone out so his conversation wouldn't wake Keith, but he'd forgotten to plug it in last night. His battery was at seven percent. He'd have to talk while attached to an outlet, doing his best to keep the volume down.
Keeping an eye on Keith, Lance dialed the familiar number, waiting for the phone connection to bridge the 1300 miles from Chicago to Cuba. He closed his eyes, picturing them all in the office. His brother Marco would be sitting on the priest's desk, trying but not necessarily succeeding in not touching anything. His wife, Isabel, would be standing, leaning between Marco's knees with baby Diego, who Lance had never seen in person, in her arms. Lance's eldest brother, Luis, would stand sheltering Lance's mom, holding her shoulders supportively in his hands, his two boys on either side of her, faces eagerly turned up as if that would help them hear better while their mom, Paloma, would be seated patient and graceful in the priest's chair. Lance's only living sister, Veronica, closest to him in age, would stand in a corner, arm across her body, one hand lifted and perpetually adjusting her glasses. And Lance's mother would stand, one hand gripped tight on the phone, the fingers of her other just barely brushing the top of the desk. She would stand with her eyes closed too, imagining Lance. Picturing where he was standing. Creating a vision from his words of his surroundings. Remembering his face.
"Lance!" The jubilant chorus of voices greeted him, and he breathed the word in as though it had been an embrace.
"Hi, guys," he returned, his lowered voice almost cut off from how much he loved them. His mother noticed immediately.
"Why are you whispering?" She asked. "We can barely hear you."
Lance debated on how to answer. His entire immediate family listening in had proved to be the most effective lie detector test Lance had ever taken. Tiny shifts in his voice that his brothers wouldn't notice would be picked up immediately by Veronica. He had yet to come up with a tone neutral enough that he could get something past them all. There was usually no point in trying to keep anything from them, and they'd already read into the pause.
"My friend's still sleeping," Lance let them know. "And I can't take the phone out. How are you all?"
"Friend?" Veronica double checked him. "In your room? What kind of a friend?"
"Did you have a girl stay overnight, Lance?" Marco teased.
"Lance, you didn't?" His mother, who had undoubtedly removed her hand from the table to clasp it over the cross pendant hanging from her neck. Lance wished he were physically with them so he could glare at Veronica and shove Marco off the desk. Were they trying to get him in trouble?
"No, Mom," Lance tried to keep his voice steady, mature, innocent. "I'm not even at the apartment. One of my friends had to be taken to the hospital yesterday, and I stayed with him." The fact that they had shared a bed was completely irrelevant.
"Oh, the poor thing," her whole demeanor flipped in an instant. "Is it your roommate? The one with the birthday coming up? The one I sent the package for?"
"Hunk? No," Lance answered, setting himself a mental note to ask about that package. It hadn't arrived yet. "I'm here with someone else; his name's Keith. I don't think I've ever mentioned him to you before." At least, not by name; Lance might have complained about him last week when he was still trying to pin him down for their assignment. Back when that was the biggest inconvenience in his life.
"Is he all right?"
"He will be," Lance said, as if he could will it to happen with only his own conviction. "But he does need rest, so I've got to stay quiet. So tell me what's been going on?"
A deluge followed, voices leap frogging over each other, a whole week's collection of news that they had been saving for him. Someone would start a story, then someone else would contradict a fact, or be too excited not to interrupt and tell their favorite part. The speech patterns wove around each other, with plenty of "guess whats" from Lance's little nephews. He sat hunched in the chair near the bed, elbows on his knees, resting his forehead on the quilt, eyes still closed as he translated the changes that were happening at home from the scattered sentences that came across to him. He learned that his favorite goat had just had twin babies. He answered English grammar questions and gave a list of tetanus symptoms to watch for after hearing that Luis's youngest son had cut his arm on a barbed wire fence crossing a field. He heard about the mango trees and how Mateo had taken the goat cart to the playa by himself for the first time. Lance now knew which of his neighbors had gotten married, who had been born and who had died. Businesses opening and closing. He heard about the weather there and tried to explain what lightning did in a snowstorm to people who had never seen snow in their lives, who couldn't fathom what negative temperatures felt like.
For the grand majority of these chats, Lance felt a closeness to them. Felt wrapped by their voices, warm in their love. But it seemed as though they couldn't let a week pass without some little dig, some verbal disappointment about where he was and how he could remain gone so far and so long. This week it took the form of a seemingly playful remark by Marco about how big baby Diego was getting and how it was a shame that Lance had never seen him. How Diego wouldn't recognize him when they were finally introduced. He heard the judgement when Luis pointed out that Mateo was much younger than Lance had been when he took the goat cart out onto the playa. The words were subtle enough that Lance wasn't sure if they were meant to hurt him or if it was his own guilt doing it on its own. Either way, he could hear it loud and clear. If you were only here – the family wouldn't be struggling as hard. If you hadn't gone away. If you.
Whether it was there or not, Lance's mother could always hear when it was getting to Lance. When his answers grew shorter as his heart and conscience weighed him into silence. At this point, she would send everyone out of the room so she could speak to him in private. This was both Lance's favorite and least favorite part of the call. As the youngest son, he always treasured any time he could have his mother all to himself, but on the other hand, he felt as though he had to be on his guard. That he couldn't tell her all he might want to tell her. Because he could never make it seem as though coming here had been a mistake. Her first reaction to any discomfort of his would be to tell him to come home, return to his family. He didn't want her to ask him to do that. Because he could neither do what she wanted and abandon all he'd built here, nor could he disappoint her in any way. Whatever he said would have to be both the truth and the most positive bits of his life. Most of the time, he didn't have a hard time doing that. But that had been before Keith had walked in and ruined everything.
"Now," Eva McClain invited in the quiet pause after Lance's other siblings left. "Tell me all your secrets." Lance smiled, sadly, wishing he could. He lifted his head, checking Keith who had begun to shift, almost waking, the hand that had been clinging to Lance's shirt pawing around the pillow, as if looking for him. Lance rested his hand over Keith's to reassure him, hoping he would stay asleep just a little longer.
"You go first," Lance prompted. "How are you?" His question had many levels, and he wanted his mother to answer them all. He knew it wasn't fair that he expected her to disclose things to him when he didn't always return the favor, but then again, he knew he could handle it.
"I'm the same," she replied, casually. "I live between the extremes of missing you and wanting you back and being so proud of you that I can't help but talk about you to strangers at the restaurant. I served a couple from, oh, what did they say? Minnesota? Is that close to where you are?"
"It's two states over," Lance said, pulling up his mental map of the US. He knew his mother would have no idea that those states were several hundred miles across. That all of Cuba could fit into Florida, the very tip of this country. "You could drive there," he tried to orient her a little more. He didn't know how long it would take to drive to Minnesota, nor how far of a drive it would be from the southernmost border to the northern one, but his answer was enough for his mother.
"I thought so," she preened, and Lance gave a huff of amusement, watching Keith slowly but undoubtedly waking up. His mother seemed to believe that the US was the sort of place where all Americans knew each other. "They'd heard of your school. They said it was a very good one."
"It is a good one." He felt he needed to confirm that for her. An MD from this place would allow him to give her a life he hadn't even known he wanted. He hadn't been capable of imagining it. But now that he lived here. Now that he'd seen it, he wanted to share it with her, show her this country – how big it was, how incredibly rich in just about everything. He wanted to tear her away from every hard thing and every bad memory. And he wanted to do it soon.
Keith was definitely awake now, groggy and puzzled, beginning to look around to orient himself. Lance kept hold of his hand, squeezing it a little and causing him to turn toward Lance, blinking up at him rather adorably.
"Hang on a second, Mom," Lance paused his conversation, switching from Spanish to English. "It's all right, Keith. We're still in the hospital. You can go back to sleep if you want."
Keith shook his head, twisting onto his back with remarkable grace for someone who'd just woken up attached to an IV and an EKG machine. He pulled his hand out of Lance's so he wouldn't be dragging Lance's arm across his torso as he moved. As Keith resettled himself in his new position reclined on his back, Lance took his hand again without thinking – the left one this time. Holding it and stroking his thumb along the top. Keith watched him, but he didn't move and he didn't speak.
"Do you need to go?" Eva asked, hope and sorrow drenching the question.
"No, not yet," Lance told her. "My friend just woke up. He can't understand what we're saying."
"Perhaps you should go then," Eva protested. "That would be rude to be on the phone with me when he can't even understand you."
"No, Mom," Lance denied, watching Keith close his eyes, not to sleep, just to listen, his hand putting encouraging pressure on Lance's. The corners of his mouth were slightly turned up, the softest smile Lance had ever seen. "I won't get to hear your voice again for a week! Besides, he doesn't mind. I think . . . I think he likes listening."
"Did you just meet him recently? Is that why you've never talked about him before?"
"You'll probably hear more about him from now on," Lance guessed, though he knew it was too early to really tell her things like that. But right now, sitting here holding hands together as he spoke with his mother, it just felt as though Keith had come into his life to stay. "Want to say hello to him?"
"Oh, I don't know, dear. My English."
Lance understood how self-conscious his mother was about speaking English. She did it when she had to at the restaurant, but there it was limited to a specific vocabulary surrounding the menu and it happened in person. Speaking over the phone presented its own challenges. But Lance wanted them to talk to each other. He wanted to share his mother with Keith, who had never had a real one. There was no comfort like Eva's voice, no matter what language she was speaking. It was unique in all the world.
"I'll help you," Lance encouraged, switching the call to speaker without waiting for her to consent. "You can speak whatever language you want. Just say hello to him, please; he's having the worst time right now and he doesn't have a family."
"What happened to his family?" Eva asked, and Lance heard the compassion in it. Lance looked at Keith, who still had his eyes softly closed even now that Eva could be heard plainly in the room. He knew that Keith couldn't understand them, but it still felt odd to say this out loud where he could hear.
"His mom left him when he was a baby," Lance informed her. "And his dad died when he was four."
"Oh, Lance, the poor boy!" Eva exclaimed, the shock and pity clear enough in her voice that it roused Keith. His face hardened into concern as he opened his eyes, removing his hand from Lance's as he weakly tried to sit up. He looked to Lance, trying to figure out what had happened in the last couple seconds, reading his expression to determine how much he should be worried about what Lance and Eva could be talking about. "How horrible! Who's been taking care of him?"
"Different people," Lance responded, calmly but hearing bitterness in his voice. Eva didn't know the half of it. "It's been me for the last couple days."
"Lance?" Keith whispered as Lance gently pressed against Keith's chest, pushing him back against the bed. "Ok?"
"Everything's fine," Lance answered. "I'm talking to my mom. Tell her hello."
Keith shrank away from the phone, confused and unsure about being thrown into a conversation like this.
"I don't know how," Keith excused himself, while Eva sat quietly on the other end of the line.
"She'll understand you; just speak slow," Lance instructed.
"Lance, are you still there?" Eva asked, in Spanish still.
"I'm here, Mom. Keith and I can both hear you now," Lance informed her, then looked at Keith, switching languages again. "Say hi."
"Um, hola," Keith said, almost too quietly, glaring at Lance for putting him into weird social situations before he was really awake. "Señora?" Lance felt his eyebrow lift without conscious effort. Keith's accent was atrocious, but the words were recognizable.
"Those are the only words I know," Keith answered the question that Lance hadn't asked out loud. He looked a little panicked.
"Hola, cariño," Lance's mother responded kindly. "I'm sorry por . . . ah . sorry. .Lance, no puedo hacerlo. No sé que decir."
"You always know what to say, and you can use whatever language you want," Lance reminded her, keeping his hand on Keith's chest. Keith looked afraid, like he'd done something wrong. "I can translate."
Eva muttered something that Lance actually couldn't translate because he couldn't hear. But he did hear her take a deep breath, and then they all had a strange, extremely short, conversation where one of them would say something and Lance would repeat it. Polite introductory phrases filtering through Lance as he tried to force a bond that was natural to him but completely alien to them.
"I'm so sorry you're in the hospital," Eva told Keith via Lance. "I hope you feel better soon."
"Thanks? I'll be fine. Lance is helping me."
"How did you meet Lance? Do you work together?"
"No, we take a class together. English."
"Ah, I see. Do you like it?"
"Um, it's ok?"
They went back and forth a couple more times. Talking about the blanket that Keith was using. Lance putting in a comment here and there when the conversation lagged too long.
"Lance, please, no more," Eva begged suddenly after a very long pause, and he caught himself just before translating it. "I just can't."
"What's wrong?" Lance asked her, oblivious. Keith tensed up at the tones he was hearing, but visibly relaxed as Lance turned a little away from him, as if making the conversation private again.
"It's too much. I know what you're trying to do; it's just like you, but it's not fair to ask this of either of us."
"But. . . Mom," Lance struggled, wondering how she knew what he was doing when he wasn't completely aware of it himself. "I just thought. . . I wanted to give him." He's been alone so long.
"I know, my love, but I'm your mother, not his. Speaking to him doesn't mean the same thing as me talking with you; we are strangers." What Eva was telling him made perfect sense, but that didn't mean he liked it. "Now, I know you're very busy. We will call you again next Sunday."
"What? Mom, wait. You don't have to go yet," Lance protested, wishing he'd never thought to introduce her to Keith if it meant that she was going to stop talking earlier than she ever had before.
"It's all right, mijo. I understand. You have things to do over there. It's important." She said she understood, but Lance could hear that she was disappointed and sad.
"I don't, though! We're just waiting for the doctor right now; it's still early here."
"I will pray for you, my love. I'll pray for you both."
That's what Eva said at the end of all their conversations. The way she said good-bye. Lance wasn't sure what he'd done; how something so innocent as an introduction could have hurt his mother's feelings to the point where she wanted to cut their conversation so short. And she did sound hurt.
"Mom?" Lance tried one last time to keep her here with him a little longer. Figure this out. But then he heard the click that meant she'd hung up. She had actually hung up. Lance clung to the phone in both hands, staring at it with his mouth open, as if on the verge of making one more plea to her. What just happened? He tried dialing the number again, but this time no one answered.
"Lance?" Keith said his name tentatively, moving uncomfortably on the bed, but Lance wasn't paying complete attention. He pulled the phone closer to his chest, holding it, feeling disconnected and empty. "Lance, is something wrong?"
"She had to go," Lance murmured, staring at the floor, overwhelmed with a strange kind of grief. A mourning for someone who wasn't actually lost, just missing. It was a feeling he knew well; it happened almost every time he'd finished speaking to his family, but Eva's abruptness sharpened it considerably. Lance squeezed his eyes shut to prevent any tears from falling, hating how often he felt like crying lately.
"Lance, seriously," Keith continued as Lance tried to gather his energy to take a little walk. If he was going to feel this alone, then he wanted to actually be alone. "Are you ok? Ugh, I can't . . . damn this stupid stuff! Lance, come here."
Lance sniffed without meaning to, risking a side glance at Keith who was straining against all the lines connecting him to machines on the opposite side of the bed, reaching for Lance, but not being able to get close enough to touch him.
"What?" He asked Keith, wondering what he needed, what he was trying to do.
"Put down the damn phone and get over here," Keith ordered, voice not quite as strong as his words. Lance let the phone drop gently onto his coat, still plugged in and charging. He didn't know why he was obeying Keith when he'd originally intended on leaving the room. Maybe because Keith made it sound so threatening.
"Do you need something?" Lance asked quietly, kind of hoping he did. Hoping that Keith wanted something that Lance would have to go out the door to get for him. Please send me on a mission, Keith. Give me something else to think about. Make me as busy as my mother seems to think I am.
"No, you do," Keith told him, a little bit frustrated, beckoning with his non-IV hand. "You are not making this easy."
"Maybe if I knew what you wanted," Lance suggested, watching Keith from the chair, feeling as fragile as a soap bubble. Now that his hands were free, he'd curled both arms around his ribs, holding himself tightly.
The phone started ringing again. Lance grabbed it from the floor, recognizing the country code, almost answering it directly before he remembered about the long-distance charges. He let the three rings complete, ignoring Keith's questions in the background about what he was doing staring at a ringing phone.
"Mom?" Lance asked, a little desperately, after he'd called back and someone picked up.
"What did you say to her?" It wasn't Eva. It was Luis.
"Nothing. Why? What's going on?" Lance asked, feeling extremely far away from them.
"She's sobbing in Veronica's skirt! What happened?"
"I don't know – she's what? Go get her; put her on," Lance demanded. Keith's hand appeared in his peripheral vision, still reaching for him as he sat there, furious and miserable, staring at the floor, at the rumpled pile of his coat and backpack. He needed to talk to her, needed to figure out what he'd done to make her so upset.
"I don't think so," Luis denied his request. "In fact, I don't know if it's a good idea that we keep doing this; Mom's always a mess after she talks to you." This was news to Lance. He'd thought that his mother enjoyed their private Sunday conversations. She'd seemed so excited about it when Lance wrote her with the plan and instructions on what to do.
"What are you talking about?" Lance challenged. "Just go get her; I need to ask her something."
"You've done enough already," Luis snapped at him, rather harshly. "She tries so hard to support this . . .this thing you're doing. The least you could do is respect her when she calls. She said you didn't have time for her – that you're getting too busy for us. What the hell is that about?"
"I am not too busy; I'm right here! I'm begging you to let me talk to her!" Lance had to stand up now; he was too mad and Luis was too far away for Lance to actually get in his face. The only thing he could do was try and vent the energy, but Keith grabbed his wrist before he could start pacing, tethering him to the bedside. Lance forced himself not to rip his hand from Keith's fingers. He hadn't done anything wrong.
"Lance, what is it?" He heard Keith murmur, his voice also far away. Everyone seemed so distant from Lance right now. Like he was too far to do anything productive for anyone.
"Did you ever think about what you were doing?" Luis demanded. "Leaving us like you did? You know you're Mom's favorite – after losing Rachel, she can't stand thinking about anything happening to you. She's worried she's losing you, that you'll never come back home."
"Luis, please," Lance begged, hearing the tears in his voice before he realized his face was wet with them. "That's not true. Please let me talk to her." Keith was pulling on him; he also felt that only vaguely. His entire focus was the voice on the phone, the crushing distance.
Luis sighed, and Lance could feel his anger dissolving. "Lance, we miss you," he admitted.
"I didn't mean to hurt anyone," Lance defended himself. "Luis, let me apologize to Mom. Please. I can't go another week leaving it like this." Especially not right now. "You don't have to protect her from me. Come on."
"Veronica," Luis called, his mouth away from the phone receiver, and Lance dropped in an exhausted heap on Keith's bedside as he realized that his brother was going to do what he asked. "Lance wants to apologize."
Keith shifted as close as possible next to Lance, dragging all his cords and tubes with him, breathing hard at the effort. Lance sat with his head hanging, waiting for Veronica to bring Eva back into the room, grateful that Luis hadn't just hung up on him again.
"What is it, mijo?" Eva's sweet voice back again, but Lance could hear that Luis was right. She had been crying and was doing her best to hide it. Lance knew he wouldn't be able to hide either.
"Mom, I'm sorry," he sobbed remorsefully into the phone. He never wanted to be responsible for his mother's pain; he was devastated to learn that he hurt her every time they spoke to each other. He hadn't even known. "I'll never be too busy to talk to you. Don't ever think that."
"I don't want to bother you," she responded.
"You could never! Do you want me to come home?" He asked, surprising himself. He'd never been direct about that before, but if that's what it took, then that's what he would do. He would work in the orchard or in the tobacco fields; whatever she needed him to do.
"Darling, every day. I always want you to come home, but I know that what you're doing is the right thing for you, so it can't be about what I want."
"You know it's for you, right?" Lance checked, needing her to understand this. "I'm doing this for you – all of you. I'm going as fast as I can. Mom, if you only knew –" If you only knew what this country could be for us if I can only get through and finish what I started here.
"I do know that," Eva assured. "But I'm still your mother, and I still miss you. I guess I just wish that you missed us a little too."
"Mom, you have no idea," Lance gushed out the words in another sob. "I think about you all the time." He had never suspected that in trying to save her from any pain he experienced while away from them, he was actually making her think that he liked it better here, that he preferred it to what he'd had at home. Some things were better, but nothing could replace the security of being with them. "I'm going to take care of you. It's really hard, but it's going to be so worth it, Mom. You can't even imagine what I'm going to be able to do."
"I'm sure," Eva said, and Lance finally heard the smile in it. The pride.
"What do you need from me?" Lance asked her, willing to do anything to ease the separation for them. "Should I call more often? Write more? What can I do so you aren't crying after we talk to each other? I don't want that, Mom."
"I told Luis not to tell you."
"Well, he did, and I'm glad he did. So what can I do?"
"I don't think there is anything more you can do. You're already working hard."
"Send us pictures," Veronica suggested from the background. "We've kind of forgotten what you look like."
"Mom?" Lance checked.
"That . . would be lovely, yes," Eva agreed. Lance had yet to send them a picture, but he didn't know why not. It would be something Eva could hold, could hold in front of her eyes and clutch to her heart. He hadn't shown her the gothic castle-like campus that was the University of Chicago, the way it had looked covered in autumn. She had no idea what Pidge or Hunk looked like. The frozen lake. He should be sending them millions of pictures.
"And when you call, make sure that we have your full attention," Luis said, with just a hint of lecture in his voice. Lance looked down at Keith, feeling guilty. That's what had brought all this out into the open – forcing his mother to use her time to speak to a stranger when she had called to talk to him. Lance hadn't been thinking.
"So we are going to keep up with the calls?" Lance asked, making sure that Luis wasn't going to take this away from him.
"Of course," Eva responded readily, and Lance understood that she had never thought about discontinuing them, despite how hard they were for her. He knew that feeling. How he could want something so much even though it hurt afterward. "I look forward to this all week long."
"I do too," Lance agreed, wishing they could see him, see how he'd practically clawed himself out of bed and dropped to the floor to get to his phone this morning. He wished that they knew that he was going to walk four miles in the ice and snow to get his charger so he wouldn't miss this opportunity. "I love you." If only you knew how much.
"I love you too, mijo. I can't wait to see the photos."
"Are you ok now, Mom? No more crying?" Lance checked.
"I'll be fine. And you?"
"Sure, I'm –" but Lance paused, sensing Keith next to him, remembering what Luis had said. He wasn't helping them by keeping his struggles a secret. "I'm going through some hard things right now. I don't think we have time for me to explain them all, but I will tell you all about it next time. I promise. Nothing's wrong; I'm fine, but I learned some things yesterday and I'm sort of confused. I want some more time to think, but then I want your opinion."
"Of course!" Eva said, more brightly than Lance could remember in all the times they'd spoken since he'd arrived in the US. Because she still wants to be needed, he realized. "Let me help you."
"Thank you, Mom. I'll send you pictures of me in the snow in the next couple days, ok?"
"And photos of your friends?"
"Definitely. And we'll talk next Sunday."
"I'll pray for you."
There came a shuffling on the line. Lance pictured Veronica walking with Eva out of the room. Luis must not be finished with him yet; that was the only explanation Lance could think of for why the connection was still active.
"That's better," Luis acknowledged. "She's smiling at least."
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" Lance accused.
"She asked me not to, of course. Didn't want to bother you. But it was so bad today I had to say something. Probably lit into you a little harder than I needed to, though."
"That's nothing new," Lance said before he thought too much about it. He heard Luis sigh again.
"Lance, I'm sorry. I'm just trying to keep us all together now that Dad's gone, you know?"
"You're doing a great job, Luis," Lance consoled him.
"Doesn't feel that way. Hey, listen, do you think you could ever come back for a visit sometime? How hard would that be to work out?"
"Good question?" It had been so difficult for Lance to get into the US that he was timid about ever leaving it again before he was done. Or ever if he could manage a green card. The paperwork and medical examinations had been ruthless for him to get a student visa. The flight had been paid for by a sponsorship connected with his scholarship grant. The process and expense seemed too daunting to even attempt a second time. "I'll ask my friend Pidge to help me figure out if it's possible."
"That'd be good. I know you're busy, but I think you should try." Lance knew that, but he wondered if a visit would somehow make it worse. Wouldn't it just hurt the entire time, knowing that every minute he was with them was one minute closer to when he would have to leave again? "Look, Lance - Mom won't tell you, and she'd kill me right now if she were here, but there's something else I think you should know."
"Luis?" Lance said his brother's name like a warning, but he wasn't sure what kind. What other secrets was his family keeping from him? "What is it?" Because it sounded serious.
"You remember before you left we all had to go in for that TB test?"
"Sure, they needed to clear the household before they'd let me leave the country. We all tested negative, so I got my visa."
"Mom didn't test negative – just latent."
"What?" Lance forced his brother to repeat what he'd just said. Because he remembered the questionnaire, the medical form. The consequential testing after he'd put down that there was a family history of the disease. He tried to remember what they said. He'd been cleared; he assumed that since he was allowed to go that everyone had returned a negative result.
"She didn't want to tell you."
"Why are you telling me now? Is she sick?" Lance asked, his mind switching into high gear to hear this. Because no, not now, not yet. He needed more time; he wasn't even close to the point where he could do anything.
"She's fine. Like I said, it's dormant, but I don't know what we're going to do if that changes."
"Is there anyone else?" Lance demanded, angry that Luis would keep something this big from him. How bad it could have been. "Luis?"
"No, Lance. I swear. Everyone else is clear. I've been meaning to tell you, but this was the first chance I've ever had to really speak to you alone."
"How long have you known?"
"Not very long. I promise. But Lance? None of the others know; Mom begged me not to say anything. It's our secret for now, ok? I just wanted you to know in case you need to come home quickly."
"Right. Thanks, Luis."
"See what it'll take to come back. I'll keep you informed. Whatever I know, you'll know."
"Ok," Lance responded, quietly, overwhelmed by this week's phone call. On top of everything else that was already going on. He really wished the biggest thing they had to talk about was the new baby goats and the lightning on the lake.
"And Lance? I'm sorry about what I said. I know what you're trying to do, and . . . I'm proud of you for getting so far. It's just weird having my baby brother so far away at college. You know you're the first one to ever do that."
"I know," Lance repeated, a strange sort of weak calm rendering him almost paralyzed.
"I don't want you to worry," Luis cautioned him, hearing what he'd done to Lance by giving him this information. "Like I said, it's latent. It's something we may never have to deal with."
But Lance didn't hear that part. He was already thinking ahead, thinking of what he would do if something happened to his mom. Thinking of how he could get her what she needed if it turned out that she did need anything. Tuberculosis infections were curable, but only with almost three years of consistent antibiotics. An expensive treatment that wasn't always available to the regular Cuban citizens. The McClains had already lost two family members to this disease because those treatments were so hard to get. Lance was not ready to lose anyone else.
Lance wasn't sure how much longer he spoke to his brother. He couldn't even recall when Luis hung up. He only noticed because Keith plucked the phone out of his stiff hands for him, dropping it once again onto the soft cushion of Lance's coat on the floor.
"Lance!" Keith grabbed onto his sleeve and shook him back into the present. "What the hell is going on?"
Lance could only shake his head, not sure where to start, not sure how much he wanted to share. It wasn't fair to unburden this onto Keith; he had his own problems.
"Is this what it's like every time you talk to them?" Keith demanded, unbalanced. "I mean, you're still crying."
"My brother just told me my mom has tuberculosis," Lance heard himself say, quietly, way too calmly, without even meaning to say anything. But it felt like he had to repeat it because it didn't feel real. Or maybe it felt too real.
"Oh. That's . . . is there a cure for that?" Keith asked, still uncertain. He was sitting up, but now that Lance turned to face him, he could tell that it was too much of an effort. Keith was trembling, blinking too much.
"Keith, I'm sorry," Lance apologized for what seemed like the hundredth time that morning. He was just letting everyone down today and the sun was barely up. "I'm not taking very good care of you, am I? Come on, lie back; you're shaking again." And his heartrate was back up to ninety-four.
"No, I'm ok," Keith insisted in continuing an obvious lie. "What about your mom though? Is that why you were yelling?"
"That's not why," Lance returned, still feeling spacey as he replayed the conversation over again. How could his mom think that he was getting too busy for her? Did she live in fear that one Sunday morning she would let his phone ring and he wouldn't respond? That he would forget about them in the thrill of his new college life? How? How could she ever think that? How could he prove to her it wasn't true?
He felt sudden, deep pain on his back and flinched away from it instinctively before realizing that it was Keith, awkwardly trying to comfort him by running his hand up and down Lance's spine, not knowing about the bruising. Keith immediately pulled his hand away at Lance's extreme reaction, his expression wounded as he folded his arms over his chest, turning his face to the wall.
"No touching, got it," Keith muttered, shaking his head. Lance didn't know he could feel any more miserable, but somehow seeing Keith misunderstand why he'd shied away from him sank his spirits even lower. Lance scooted closer so he could put a hand on Keith's chest, covering his heart. Keith rolled his eyes over, a defensive film of anger shining across them.
"You didn't do anything wrong," Lance told him, defeated, wishing he could communicate better. "It just . . it hurts."
"Hurts?" Keith repeated, then something clicked inside his head. He pushed himself upright again, leaning behind Lance and tugging at his shirt the way he'd tried to lift it yesterday when Hunk had asked about it. "Oh shit," Lance heard him hiss, and he gave up. He let his head fall forward into his hands, his elbows resting on his knees as he sat hunched over, allowing Keith to pull his shirt all the way up to his shoulders. "Lance, what did you do?"
"Tried to catch you when you passed out yesterday," Lance answered. "I kept you from cracking your head open, but we crashed into the coffee table. The corner got me on the way down. It looks worse than it is."
"How do you know?" Keith accused. "Your whole back is . . . it looks pretty awful."
"Better my back than your face," Lance returned. "You could have snapped your neck if you landed on it just right."
"Lance," Keith began, but didn't seem able to say anything else. Lance wriggled until his shirt fell back, covering the damage. He twisted toward Keith, tucking one of his legs, knee bent, up on the bed so he could sit more securely, holding tight to his ankle. Keith was now hunched forward, braced on one hand while the other rested against his chest.
"I'd do it again," Lance promised, not really knowing what to say.
"A couple more days with me and you'll be the one in the hospital," Keith muttered bitterly. Lance tried to smile, tried to make Keith's statement a joke instead of a comment of despair.
"Lobito," Lance started, desperately thinking of something else they could talk about that wouldn't be quite so heavy.
"Hunk's right," Keith cut him off, lifting his head with effort, a tiny smile quivering at the corners of his mouth as he met Lance's eyes. "You did get your accent back."
Just like the last time Lance tried to laugh about this, he ended up breaking down. He brought both hands up to cover his face, fire flickering into his lungs as he held his breath to keep quiet. He couldn't even hear it, hadn't noticed that he'd changed the way he spoke in automatic imitation of his childhood language.
He felt Keith shift, panting with exertion from trying to move a few inches closer. He felt fingers closing carefully in the fabric near his shoulders, gentle pulling that Lance submitted to. He leaned in to Keith, resting his chin over his shoulder, letting his hands fall loose into his lap. Keith's skin was hot, and for the first time Lance noticed the scent of the fever on him, a distinct musty sort of smell that accompanied illness. It reminded Lance that Keith was still sick, still struggling with incredible physical difficulty. Lance shouldn't be falling to pieces on him like this. Doctors are supposed to be in control.
"Am I hurting you?" Keith asked softly. Lance couldn't respond vocally. Instead, he slowly reached around Keith's waist, clasping his hands together at the small of Keith's back, on top of where his lumbar puncture scars were, clinging to him selfishly for support. He so wanted something to hold onto right now, and Keith was the only one here. "Is your mom going to be ok?"
"I don't know," Lance confessed. A full multi-year course of antibiotics for TB would cost anywhere from thirty-four to one hundred and ten thousand US dollars depending on how resistant to drugs the disease happened to be. Eva would be placed in a queue for treatment, and she would receive it if the government funding to the hospital didn't run out. Or if Lance could somehow manage to save up the money before Eva started showing symptoms. That would be the only way to guarantee that she would get all the medication she needed. And while Lance had been saving everything he could, his stash was growing much too slowly to be of any use.
"She sounded ok," Keith said, trying to be reassuring, still holding gently onto Lance. "Maybe it's not too bad?"
"Her infection is dormant," Lance explained, reluctantly pulling back to save Keith the effort of maintaining the position. Keith's expression resembled an abandoned wolf pup, indicating he hadn't been quite ready to let go, but Lance wanted to get his head down. "I want you to stop shaking," Lance said as he helped Keith lean back against the bed. "You need to rest a while."
"What does that mean?" Keith pressed, ignoring what Lance had just said but allowing Lance to force him down. "Dormant?"
Lance took a deep breath. He was going to talk about this, and he was going to do it like a professional. "It means the bacteria is present, but it's not causing any symptoms and it's not contagious right now. It also means that it could wake up at any time and turn into an active infection."
"But there's medicine for it now, right? People don't still die from this anymore, do they?"
"No, they do," Lance whispered, voice choking up. "My dad and my twin sister both died from it."
Keith grabbed on to Lance's hand. "Lance, I'm sorry."
"Do you remember your dad at all, Keith?" Lance asked, wanting to change the subject, even though his question was just shifting potential pain to someone else.
"Not really," Keith answered after a pause. They weren't looking at each other anymore; they were both looking at where Keith's hand covered Lance's. "I can't remember his face, but I have a little of what his voice sounded like. I remember his smell when I'd sit with him. He, uh, he was a firefighter, so he always sort of smelled like smoke and . . well, I always thought he smelled like dusty sunshine, but I know that doesn't make sense. But you know when you can see the dust in a sunbeam? If that had a smell – that was his smell. What about you? How old were you?"
"We lost Dad three years ago, so I have a lot of good memories," Lance said, grateful that he could still see his father's face, hear his words of advice, replay the days when he would dance with Eva in the yard.
"And your sister? Your twin?" The way Keith said the word twin reminded Lance of how special that had been to be part of a set. How sometimes it seemed the cells of his body remembered Rachel more than his mind could. He dreamed of her sometimes.
"She died when we were two," Lance heard his own voice from behind a fog of passing years, speaking of a pain that somehow belonged to another person. "I don't remember her at all, but I've seen a few pictures of us. Mom says if she dressed us the same, we could have passed for identical." Lance had no memory, but Eva told him that after Rachel was gone, he had cried for her for weeks, searching the house and the orchards, calling for her, asking for her, screaming for her. How every night for years, Eva would coax him into his own bed but by morning he would have slipped in with someone else. Whoever was sleepy enough to either not notice or not care that their little brother was crawling into bed with them. After Rachel disappeared, Lance could not tolerate being alone.
"I don't understand," Keith confessed. "How could that happen? I thought there was a cure for that now."
"There is," Lance said. "It just takes a long time. You have to take antibiotics for years, and if you stop, even a dose or two, it can make the bacteria even harder to get rid of. It's expensive, and so there just wasn't enough of the medication where we live. My family couldn't get it when they needed it. But that's not going to happen to my mom. I'll . .. figure it out. I'll work harder."
"Wow," Keith said suddenly, and Lance raised his gaze. "Congratulations."
"What?" Lance asked, puzzled.
"Your life is officially more complicated than mine."
"I –" Lance began to protest, but discovered he couldn't. There was no way to say anything that wouldn't somehow downplay their challenges.
"I get why you want to be a doctor now," Keith said, as if he were sorry for being flippant about Lance's difficulties. "You're going to be amazing at it, so I'm sure you'll be able to help your mom."
Lance heard himself choke, unexpectedly touched by what Keith was telling him. How Keith sounded as though he truly believed that Lance could do anything. Lance wasn't quite so sure, but he had to make it happen. There was no one else.
"And how are you doing?" Lance asked after swallowing, more than ready to talk about something else. "You're still shaking."
"I can't even tell," Keith replied, tired, not really wanting to talk about himself as usual.
"Does anything hurt?" Lance checked, wanting something to do, something to take his attention. All of it.
"I just feel heavy," Keith tried to explain. Lance nodded, understanding, pulling his quilt higher over Keith. All the movement from this morning had left it in a disheveled heap, almost falling off the side of the bed. Lance took his time adjusting it, brushing it smooth.
"That's the medication and the iron. It'll get better," he promised, meeting Keith's eyes, finding them full of pain and sympathy. Seeing in them a longing, a loneliness that he recognized. Something he'd seen in his own reflection. He let his hand rest on Keith's chest again, bowing his head. "For both of us."
"Lance?" Keith started, and Lance waited expectantly, ready for anything that Keith might need.
"Lobito?" Lance invited. What?
"Morning, boys," Shiro's voice at the door, breaking them from each other as he let himself in. Lance smiled one more time at Keith before turning to help Shiro whose hands were full of Keith's file, coffee, and fast food bags. "How's everyone?" Shiro asked, monitoring the atmosphere, noticing that he'd walked in on something.
Both Lance and Keith shrugged.
Author's Note: Oh my goodness – so much sadness kids. Boys! Oh we have a long Sunday ahead of us. How are we doing? I know I took a lot of liberties with Lance's family, but we don't have a whole lot of information about them, and hey, this is my story now. And I have so many scenes I want to share with you. What are you looking forward to?