by Edith Pattou
And people around me
try to do it for me.
I even yelled at Bobby once for that,
which made me feel like shit afterward.
Getting the car with hand controls
made a big difference.
I mastered it pretty quick
and right away felt more independent.
And I’m still good at faking most people out,
in order to get what I want.
The main thing I want right now is to numb the pain
and I figured out a good way to do that.
The only other thing
I care about is Bobby.
Don’t want him freaked out by
his crippled big brother.
So he’s my first passenger
in the new nifty handicapped car.
I can feel him watching me closely
as I work the hand controls.
I take him to his favorite fast-food place,
drive-through, which is a godsend for crips.
We sit in the car, munching french fries.
And it feels good.
I wanted to go to the hospital, Bobby says suddenly.
It’s okay, I start to say, but he interrupts.
Dad didn’t let me.
I think about that.
And I guess Dad was protecting Bobby.
Which could be the one thing
that he and I agree about.
I think Dad was hoping he could make me better before you saw me, I say. But it turned out he couldn’t.
But you’re going to be okay, right? Bobby asks.
Yeah, I say, with a reassuring grin. Not exactly what I was planning. But I’m good.
Are you still going to college?
Dunno, I say. You need some more fries?
He shakes his head. I heard you tell your girlfriend once that you really wanted to go to college in Colorado.
You did? I ask, surprised.
Yeah, he says, and I think you still should, even if you can’t ski anymore.
I reach for his fries.
’Sides, Bobby says, persistent as ever, I looked it up on the Internet and there is some way people in wheelchairs can still ski.
I feel some weird lump in my throat,
like I may throw up or cry.
That’s bullshit, I say, my voice coming out rough and angry.
Bobby shuts his mouth then,
looking at me with a confused expression.
I swallow hard,
trying to dislodge the lump.
I’m sorry, Bobby. It’s just that sometimes I get tired of all the pretending, I say.
I wasn’t, he protests. I did see it on the Internet.
I’m sure you did, I say, feeling suddenly exhausted.
So, he says, his words halting, does this mean you won’t be taking me ice-skating this winter?
Before, when I wasn’t in this chair,
ice-skating was one of our favorite things to do.
We’d go every winter,
just the two of us.
No, I mean, yes, of course, I’ll take you ice-skating, I say, forcing enthusiasm I don’t feel. Are you kidding.? I wouldn’t miss it.
His face lights up and we high-five,
me with a big fake smile on my face.
Like I’ve just made a promise
I intend to keep.
Tuesday, November 16
MAXIE
Ever since
that night
I’ve been going to
the hospital,
regularly,
to visit Felix.
Still in a coma,
hooked up to machines.
I sit by his bed
and read to him.
Felix’s mom is there a lot.
She’s very friendly,
likes to chat,
and I learn that
Felix’s dad came home
from Afghanistan
right after the shooting.
But then he went back
when it looked like
Felix wasn’t going to wake up
soon.
She says he had to go
because they need the money.
She’s had to quit her job
to be with Felix.
But she seems okay,
strong even.
Not the depressed mom from before
who couldn’t get her act together
to pay bills
and cook meals.
Now she’s more like the mom
I remember from when we were
kids.
When his mom isn’t there
I read to Felix.
At first I read him
random things,
like homework
assignments, but then
I remember
those Joey Pigza books,
his favorites
from 5th grade.
I get all four books
from the library
and after I finish
the first one,
I decide to read them
all straight through.
And I begin to have this
superstitious belief
that Felix will wake up
when I come to
the last word of
the last book.
I get my hopes up
way too high.
And keep looking at him
after practically every sentence
during that last chapter.
But he doesn’t
wake up.
The machines just keep
whirring.
So I pick up the very first book
and start over,
from the beginning.
Tuesday, November 30
EMMA
One afternoon I go to
visit Brendan and he is
playing a video game.
It’s the kind where you
track people down
and shoot them.
I can’t believe he’d want to play
a game like that, not after
that night.
Seeing the splattered blood,
hearing the muted death cries,
makes me feel sick.
I struggle to tune it out,
cold sweat prickling my skin.
I ask how his Thanksgiving was.
It was okay, he says. Though I passed when it came to the whole what-have-we-got-to-be-thankful-for routine. For obvious reasons. Patting the arm of his wheelchair, he gives me a sweet, dimpled smile.
Then he blasts a guy in a tan raincoat
and blood fountains out onto the sidewalk.
My breathing gets ragged. I want to go.
But I find myself wondering;
is Brendan imagining that each of these
guys he’s blowing away is Walter Smith?
Before that night I would have asked him,
I would have made him tell me
what’s really going on with him.
But I can’t now. And I don’t know why,
except I think it’s because I’m afraid,
afraid of what I’ll hear.
Brendan sets down
the game controller and
wheels himself around to face me.
So, Emma, he says, looking me straight in the eye, it’s really nice of you to make the effort to come see me. It’s more than a lot of kids have done. And I do really appreciate it and all. But I’ve been thinking, it’d be better for me, if you didn’t, anymore.
I stare at him.
I’m sorry to be so blunt, but I . . . I mean I guess it’s just not working anymore. Guess I need time.
Okay, I mumble, if that’s how you feel.
It is, he says, picking up the controller again.
Brendan, I blurt out, are you okay?
Which, the minute I say it,
sounds so unbelievably
lame.
He looks at me,
and his mouth twists up into
a smile.
And for a minute I see something dark,
a deep black rage,
underneath that smile.
Then he just turns back to his video game
and blasts some guy in a cowboy hat
to hell.
Thursday, December 2
MAXIE
It’s a quiet Thursday afternoon
and it must be somebody’s birthday
because a couple of
Mylar balloons are bobbing
over the nurses’ station.
And a dark-haired nurse
gives me a cheery smile
as I walk by.
Felix looks the same as usual,
the right side of his face
swathed in gauze,
covering his
missing eye.
The machines are whirring away,
the IV bottle doing its continual
dripping thing.
I sit down,
staring at the steady
rise and fall
of his chest,
and suddenly I am
overcome with
sadness.
What if Felix
never
wakes up?
Tears prick at my eyes
and, determined not
to cry,
I pick up Joey Pigza,
and start where I left off
the day before.
Then I come to
one of my favorite bits,
when Joey Pigza’s dad talks
about the bad stuff he
did in the past when
he was
drinking
too much.
Joey’s dad says, “My past. . . gets sort of scary and ugly and to tell you the truth I’d just rather have, you know, the new times to talk about. The now times. I’d rather just show you Storybook Land and play baseball and work on making new memories.”
And I can’t help thinking about
my dad
and his beers this summer and
also about
Felix’s dad
and what he did to Felix’s mom,
and then about MoonBuzz and
the bad things that happened
that night.
And I begin to start wondering
if there can ever
be any
new now times
to replace the
old bad ones.
Tears come.
Blinking them back,
I take a few deep breaths
and start reading again.
But all of a sudden
I hear
a little
noise.
I automatically look
at the machines
hooked up to Felix
to see if something is
wrong,
but they’re all
humming along,
same as usual.
Then I look at Felix
and his eyelid,
the one that isn’t
covered with bandages,
is
twitching
all over
the place,
which I’ve never seen
it do before.
Then the noise
comes again
and I see his mouth
move
and that the noise
is a little grunt
coming from
HIM.
My heart starts
hammering.
Felix?
FELIX
joey pigza and i are walking down the sidewalk, past bonnie’s sweet shop, and he’s bouncing along, like a springy crazy rubber ball, like he might bounce himself straight up to the sky.
but i pull him back down, and tell him we need to talk, about what happened, and he turns to me, all serious, and says he doesn’t want to talk about the past.
The past is messed up, Joey, he says.
i get confused because i’m not joey, he is.
but then he’s telling me about his drinking, about how when he drinks too much he does stupid stuff. and now i’m really confused, because he’s not joey, and i’m not joey. instead, he’s my dad, or else he’s joey’s dad.
then he says:
I’m sorry.
and that’s when i wake up.
MAXIE
Felix is really groggy
and confused,
like he has no idea
why he’s in
the hospital.
Max? he says in a hoarse raspy voice.
Yeah, Felix, I say, my heart ready to burst out of my chest.
I know I should be calling
the nurse,
or
Felix’s mom,
but for
just this moment
I want to gaze back into
that open,
wide-awake,
no-more-coma
eye.
Then,
even though it’s like
a line out of
a dumb movie,
I can’t help myself
and say,
with a big, beaming
smile on my face,
Welcome back, Felix.
And guess what.
Felix looks at me
and smiles.
Friday, December 10
FELIX
when i woke up my whole body ached. and my vision was weird. i couldn’t figure out for a while that it was because my right eye was gone.
mom went nuts when she came in the hospital room and saw i was awake. and max’s smile couldn’t have been any wider. so even though my body felt weak and useless, like all my muscles had been vaporized, it still felt good, to be back.
here’s the amazing thing, though. i have no memory of that night. zero. zilch.
i remember getting high in the suv outside that party, hearing anil’s telescope story and max talking about her day at the beach with the sea glass and sandcastle. but after that, nothing.
mom and the doctors didn’t tell me right away what happened. just said there had been an accident. i assumed it was a car accident. but when i got stronger, when i wasn’t so freaked out about my eye, mom told me the whole story.
it was unreal. didn’t even sound familiar, or like it could actually be true. i mean, i believed her. i had to. but faith almost dying, brendan in a wheelchair, and a guy named walter smith in jail awaiting trial, i couldn’t wrap my mind around it.
the doctors said that my amnesia about that night was completely to be expected. and that most likely i’d never remember any of it. it kind of bothered me to have this big fairly crucial chunk of my life be missing, along with my eye. but max said i was lucky.
max even said she’d give anything to have that night wiped from her memory, forever. and seeing the pain in her face, i realized that maybe i am lucky.
at least about that.
CHLOE
“One Thing I Wish I Hadn’t Seen”
When I’m doing
my volunteer shift
at the hospital
sometimes I spot
Brendan in his wheelchair,
arriving for, or leaving after,
outpatient rehab.
One day I see him chatting up
Suzie, this cute young nurse
with curly brown hair.
They’re laughing
and flirting and
I’m thinking it’s really nice
to see Brendan smiling
