And Then You Were Gone

by R. J. Jacobs

  “Emily? It looked like you were awake there for a second. Are you still?”

  I knew why he was there, and it wasn’t to protect me. I might have done something terrible. Unforgivable. “Hello,” I said.

  He smiled. He was blond, maybe thirty. “Hi. I’m Officer Chapman. I’m with Metro.”

  “What happened?” I asked, my voice falling apart through the last word. I swallowed and tried again. “What happened before I … came here?” My head and eyes motioned up and around.

  I had a memory that was just a flash—more a jolt than an image.

  The cop looked at me kindly but steadily.

  Then I remembered—my hand on the steering wheel, the numb burn of vodka in my throat. Fire. My hand tightened around the top of the bedsheet, so hard that my broken nails began to ache. Maybe none of it had happened, I wished. But it had. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be in a hospital. Talking to a cop. Again.

  “You were in a car accident. Do you remember that?”

  “Oh my God, were they hurt? Was anyone …?”

  He shook his head. “You were the only one injured.”

  My head sank back into the pillow with immense relief. The thought that I could have hurt someone else was a stab to my stomach. I wanted so terribly to not be reckless.

  Then I remembered where I had been going. Paolo’s service.

  I coughed and it hurt. “Did I miss it? The funeral?”

  He nodded solemnly.

  I fell back. My stomach felt empty, but also like I might vomit.

  “What day is it?”

  “It’s Wednesday evening. You’ve been asleep for the last twenty-four hours.”

  Beyond the open blinds was the concrete side of a parking structure lit by the afternoon sun.

  “The officer at the scene suspected you’d been drinking alcohol, so a blood draw was ordered.”

  “I understand.”

  “You weren’t able to sign the citation at the time, and you’re in no shape to be served a warrant at this time.”

  “Served a warrant?”

  “Taken to jail.”

  I had the dizzy feeling of standing on the edge of someplace very tall, of looking out over an expansive canyon. I raised my hands over the bedcovers. Two of the fingers on my left hand were splinted.

  “But you’re going to be in the hospital for a little while longer.” He sat up straight and rubbed his neck. It occurred to me he’d been waiting some time to tell me his news. He smiled again, kindly. “I’ll get your nurse.”

  When he left, I pulled back the cover. My left leg was in a cast from the knee down.

  My heart felt like a stone. The nurse returned and didn’t say much. I didn’t say much, either; I didn’t have anything to say.

  * * *

  The following morning, when my phone lit up with my office number, I knew what was about to happen before I heard my boss’s voice.

  “Hi, Emily.” His voice sounded prerecorded. “I want to wish you the best of luck in recovery and in dealing with all of your legal issues. Unfortunately, I have to fill your position at this time.”

  He’d heard about the arrest. Of course he had. I was sure the news had made its way around. I told him I understood. And I did—what choice did he really have? I knew that the inbox for my work email was a mile long by then; I knew people who were already overworked were covering my cases. Intellectually, I didn’t hold it against him, but inside, I sank.

  He ended the call mercifully, saying that positions opened all the time and who knew what might happen a year from then.

  A year … God.

  I ended the call before I started sobbing and turned the phone over on the blanket. I looked out the windows again toward the visible wedge of blue sky.

  The kids on my caseload. All their stories. My work with them, gone. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t believe it.

  No, losing the job was completely believable.

  That night, my mom sat in the chair by the foot of my bed, her red reading glasses balanced on the end of her nose. She’d come to witness another mess. To clean up.

  The television was a low mumble. She tucked her hair behind her ears in the alternating light, reading a magazine. I pretended to watch the screen, but really I watched her. I wondered for the first time—and weirdly, I thought, even as I wondered it—about whether I would live as long as she had. Bipolar patients, I knew, had demographically shorter life spans. I wondered what of her I’d inherited, and what I’d inherited from my father, whose name I knew not to speak.

  And yet, I almost did speak it. I felt a wave of courage just at that moment, perhaps carried by the momentum of being so low—after all, what else could really go wrong—and I opened my mouth to ask about my father.

  But then, all at once, like she’d been reading an article about that very thing, Mom closed her magazine and suggested that I move in with her for a while.

  Still, I wasn’t sure how much more my ego could really take. I knew she was offering to do me a favor in a way, so I treaded lightly. “I don’t know, Mom. I’m thirty years old; don’t you think that’s going to be kind of weird?”

  “That way, you can minimize your expenses,” she said, sounding practical. Then she paused a beat as she pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. “And maybe watch Andy if I have to go visit Carol.”

  Andy was the border collie Mom had adopted the year before. A first-time dog owner, she hadn’t accurately calculated the time commitment and responsibility involved.

  “Oh my God,” I said, too overwhelmed by everything to give my eyes a full roll. The last thing I needed was the additional task of caring for Andy. I felt a quick sting of resentment, then I swallowed it. What Andy needed certainly wasn’t his fault, and I knew Mom’s offer was fully well intended. But the back of my mind registered frustration—the arrangement seemed like another obstacle between me and finding out what had happened to Paolo.

  * * *

  I left the hospital on two crutches and in a knee-high plastic boot that felt like a cinder block—like the nurses who’d heard about my DUI had made it extra heavy. The walkway toward the car was freezing cold as the air conditioners worked against the autumn sun pouring in through the windows. I plodded along, the boot making a clicking sound with each step as it touched the floor, warm sweat on my neck. It seemed like autumn would never come again.

  Mom walked with me through the parking garage, where I breathed in the first outside air I’d tasted in two weeks. I balanced my crutches and hopped on one foot while she held open the door to her white Toyota.

  “How does your leg feel?” she asked, watching me maneuver around.

  “Like I stepped in a bear trap that’s still attached.”

  The next day, Mom dropped me off outside the courthouse while I went in to be booked. Some things you just don’t want your mother to see. Our family attorney had talked me through what to expect, and the process went the way he’d described—metal detector, long lines, waiting area like a softball dugout. Then, when my name was called, my photo was taken quickly, and I rolled my fingers one at a time over a scanner with backlit green light.

  Afterward, I click-walked back out into the morning, filled with a curious mixture of relief and solitude. The crutches seemed all that was holding me up. The place inside me where feelings were made said I was about to fall into the sharpest depression of my life—the big black. I scanned the metered spaces for the white of Mom’s car.

  Our attorney called later. “Because of the circumstances, they’ve made an offer. You plea no contest to reckless driving. One year probation, one year with a Breathalyzer to operate your vehicle. Plus court costs and a fine. All things considered, it’s a good deal, Emily; I recommend you take it.”

  Part of me recoiled at the idea of Paolo’s funeral being seen as a bargaining chip; another part wanted every advantage I could get as I figured out what had happened.

  And there was relief that I wasn’t headed to jail.
/>   The next day, I went to meet with the psychology board about my license.

  Boardroom, bright lights, sweating, explaining.

  I think because they felt sorry for me, the sanction was light: a year’s probation on my license, provided that I could find a supervisor to oversee any work I did.

  Only one person came to mind.

  NINE

  I watched the bottom edge of my bedroom curtains fluttering like the wing of a stingray in the breeze from the ceiling fan. No idea what time it was. The room was so dark it looked like a nightlight had been switched on as my phone lit up, ringing. I sighed when I saw who was calling. Some people never leave you. In fact, they get closer when life gets hard. Marty was one of those.

  “Hey, Marty.”

  “Hey yourself,” he began, as if I’d been the one calling him and the phone call was a happy surprise. “I’m checking on you.”

  I put myself up onto an elbow and rubbed at my eyes. “I’m not … at my best.”

  Depression feels like being at the bottom of a well. You look at the shapes of people up top and understand that, on the surface, there is a world in which you used to participate.

  His laugh was gentle as a wind chime. I could picture the kind expression on his face as he said, “You can’t lie in bed, my friend.”

  It was morning, sometime. “I know.”

  “Emily.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “I heard work let you go.”

  I’d known it was coming, but it stung anyway. You don’t get reminded of stuff like that when you stay in bed. “How’d you hear?” I asked.

  It didn’t matter. Marty knew half of Nashville. It would have been a surprise if he hadn’t heard.

  We talked through my court date, what the arrest meant in terms of my psychology license. Crazy how transparent your life is sometimes. You think you’re the only one who knows what’s going on.

  “You’re going to need to give the board some kind of a plan,” he offered, intuitively. “Let them know that you’re doing something with yourself, and being supervised.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. And here I am. Across the hall I have an empty office with no psychologist in it.”

  I could picture the building—old, worn but stately. A storybook building, a block off of West End. It was practically across the street from Vanderbilt—the hospital where I’d met Marty under much different circumstances.

  An office in that building, across the hall from Marty, would be impossibly perfect. I wanted it without seeing it.

  “Marty, are you sure?”

  Through the phone, I thought I could hear him shrug.

  “I don’t know what to say. Thank you?”

  “Thank me when you get here.”

  I wiped away the tears in my eyes.

  * * *

  I took the first shower I’d had in three days. I stood on one foot like a crane, kept the water cool, and had the feeling that it was clearing a layer of something tired off my body.

  I felt lighter. I pulled my hair into a wet ponytail, put on a casual dress, and struggled into my boot. My leg was swollen, throbbing like I’d inflated it. The ache radiated from deep inside—the pain of bone fragments asking to be left alone, trying to heal. I pressed it hard into the wet floor until I knew the edge of what I could stand.

  * * *

  My ankle was held together by pins. I’d been hurt before in soccer, but nothing like this. Each step was pain.

  A reminder.

  I’d taken a walking boot home from the hospital that made a crazy-sounding click every time I stepped. I didn’t mind it much the first day. I figured I’d live in my bed, in Mom’s house, forever. But since it now looked like I’d be going places, that click was going to have to get figured out before it drove me completely crazy.

  In the kitchen, Andy licked at my hand while I made coffee. I told Mom I was going to see Marty. Me driving was about to get interesting because of all the restrictions—and because I now had no car.

  Mom was moving toward the door, but stopped short. “You know, you could always use the truck at the cabin.” She paused. “Eventually, you know. When things are settled.”

  “Huh.” I cocked my head.

  I’d learned to drive in that truck—a black Ford Ranger from the early nineties with a broken odometer. I’d done doughnuts in it through the front field when I was fifteen, slammed the side into an elm once, and even tried to jump it over a ditch with my cousin riding shotgun. He’d chipped two of his teeth when we landed. In college, I’d made out with a boy in the cab and we’d smeared ketchup over the interior dome to make it into a “mood light.” There were dried black bits still stuck around the edges the last time I’d checked.

  “I’ll check it out if I get out there,” I told her.

  I found a cane that had belonged to my grandfather in the broom closet. The one he’d used pulling my grandmother out of the river. It was wooden with a carved knob on top, and I tested the strength of it under my weight. It might not have been high fashion, but it beat walking with crutches.

  Beside it were a half-dozen canvases that I’d started in acrylic. A winter branch on a bruised sky at dusk—dark colors, hot ash, gray earth.

  * * *

  At the salon, I told the stylist that I wanted her to cut off all my hair and leave only about an inch.

  “Pixie,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  She raised her eyebrows. The fluorescent light reflected on her scissors as she went to work.

  I ran my fingers over my head when I walked out, and caught a glimpse of myself in the salon window. My hair looked blonder, and stuck up in the way I’d wanted it to when I was younger. Just in that instant, I gave up hope, as they say, for a better past.

  I put my hand again through my sticky—and now short—blonde hair and drew a deep and stinging breath. Then I slapped my own face once, hard. Hard enough that I was sure my cheek was red. I angled my cane on the sidewalk and turned my face to the sun and thought, enough. Enough. There was a lot that I had to do.

  * * *

  Marty had worked in the same building for more than thirty years, having smartly bought it in the midnineties when it had gone up for sale. Someday he’d collect a fortune, but for the time being, he was situated in the center of town.

  Along the top of the building, the trim paint had chipped like shredded white cheddar. The hedges along the front had gone free-range, no longer really decorative landscaping. The iron gate was warm as I steadied myself, its creaking like a sound effect from an old movie. Behind me, the afternoon traffic was a chorus of sighs.

  I wondered if I should have moved to a different city. After the lake, after the accident. There was still time, I thought. I could find a place where I didn’t know anyone—or, more to the point, where no one knew me—and I could start again.

  No, I’m doing this.

  I gripped the wooden handle of my grandfather’s cane and pushed through the gate.

  The walkway was brick, raised at angles by weather and roots like a long row of uncorrected teeth. They were loose—they must have been—because when I turned to close the gate, I kept turning. I spun, and the enormity of the ground rose until my elbows collided with the dust and clay.

  Stunned, then a sharp pain.

  A shadow reached over me. I recognized the crazy outline of white Bernie Sanders hair and the soft clomp of his green-laced, gray tennis shoes.

  “You gonna lay there all afternoon?” Marty asked.

  A drop of sweat fell from my forehead as I smiled. I pressed my knees together and rolled to sit—trying not to flash West End—and looked at the streaks of dirt up my sleeves and at the tiny cuts on my palms.

  “I guess I’d better not,” I said.

  He sat beside me on the walkway.

  “You cut your hair short.”

  “Looks like you’ve got a beard going.”

  He rubbed his hand against his cheek as if to show i
t was real, or that part of its purpose was for the tactile pleasure. He smiled his Santa Claus smile.

  A passing car slowed, its driver curious. Neither of us moved to stand off the walkway.

  “Your candidate might be wondering if she’s ready for this.” I wiped the back of my hand over my forehead, grateful I hardly ever wore makeup. “Or if she should have just relocated. Moved to Brazil or someplace.”

  “Brazil?”

  Or Argentina, I thought. “Or someplace.”

  “They also say only people who’ve been wounded themselves can help other people heal,” he said.

  Nice to hear, sitting on the ground.

  I thought about that for a second. “Well, this wasn’t the entrance I had in mind. Think we ought to go inside?”

  Gratitude can feel obligatory, even anxiety-provoking when it makes you question your worthiness to receive benevolence. But how else could I feel? There’s a kind of agony from being the recipient of too much goodwill, and I was reaching my limit.

  I managed through the front door and started laughing when I saw the stairwell. I considered a quip about ADA accommodations I chose not to make. The stairs would have been a job with both legs functioning and no cane.

  “It’s a little tight,” Marty acknowledged, having read my mind, again. I followed him to the second level, the clicking of my cane and boot echoing over the old surfaces.

  In the hallway, I took a moment to look at the high ceilings and grooved wooden floorboards—the kind that are only in very old or very modern spaces. Marty’s actual office—lined with books and family photos—hadn’t changed since I’d met him. It smelled like old paper, like a library. I couldn’t stop myself from thinking it was what a real psychologist’s office felt like.

  I sank into his couch and rested my cane between the cushions.

  Marty dropped into a chair like we were in his living room. “I’m sorry,” he said. “About everything. I’m sure you miss him.”

  I chewed the inside of my cheek. I didn’t know what to say. Conflicting feelings swirled inside me. I felt guilty at the idea of proceeding with regular life while so much remained unresolved, but I had to—both for financial reasons and because I might lose my mind without the ballast of my professional life.