plastic baby jesus (Chp. 2) - [Matthew]

It had started with headaches. Migraines actually, but a healthy, soccer-playing fourteen year-old has no basis for these comparisons.

As it turned out, the migraines were indicative of nothing larger. No creeping, encroaching brain tumor, no pending aneurysms. But the blood test did show something else.

And the downturn followed quickly.

The first attack came around eleven thirty at night. Sal McManus nodded off during the news, his head bobbing up and down like a little toy drinking bird. He had finally descended into a solid R.E.M. cycle when he heard her voice creeping in from around the sides of his consciousness. Then suddenly bolt upright awake. Instincts he had inherited from her mother.

He flipped on her bedside lamp and instantly ascertained everything he needed to know. Her frequent looking up at the ceiling indicated the high intensity of the pain. The worried face when she looked at him indicated fear, which indicated something new. The trail of dried tears indicated she’d been suffering for some time before she called him. Or had she been calling him the whole time and he hadn’t heard her? Sal shook away this possibility.

What’s the matter, he asked. She told him.

Twenty-four minutes and two run red lights later they were in the ER.

[end ping]