Many Waters

by William Woodall

  Chapter Thirty-One - Cody

  I had a quiet vacation, for the most part. My last day at work was the twenty-first of December, and I got back to Goliad late the next afternoon.

  I was glad to be home, gladder than I’d ever felt in my life, to tell the truth, but I can’t deny that things were different. I felt like an empty shell of myself, nothing at all like the kid who left Texas four months ago. I didn’t see the world in the same way anymore, and I didn’t think I ever would.

  Mama could see it the second I walked in, of course, but, being Mama, she only hugged me and fussed over me for a while without mentioning it. But after things settled down, she pulled me aside for a talk.

  “You look sad, son. What’s wrong?” she asked. I knew better than to tell her it was nothing; she’d shoot that down without blinking an eye.

  “I guess I’m still a little messed up about Lisa, that’s all,” I said, truthfully.

  “Yeah, I thought that’s what it might be,” she said.

  “Can’t blame me, can you? I mean, after everything that happened,” I added, and she looked troubled.

  “No, I don’t blame you for anything. But if you’re still missing her so much, why don’t you give her a call?” she finally suggested.

  “I don’t know if she’d even talk to me, after the way things went last time. Besides, she’s with Marcus now,” I said, scandalized.

  “She’s not married, is she?” she asked.

  “Well. . . no,” I admitted.

  “So call her, then. Even better, go see her. You know where she lives. If you tell her how you feel and apologize for some things, you might get her back, you know,” she said.

  I toyed with the idea for a minute, but the wave of pain and sadness that came over me when I thought about Lisa was more than I wanted to deal with.

  “It’s better if I leave it alone, I think,” I said.

  “Why is it better?” she asked.

  “Because it is,” I said, and realized that was no explanation at all. I didn’t really have an explanation, other than the fact that after you’ve finally managed to close the covers on a painful and messy episode in your life, you’re not usually eager to reopen that book all over again, not even for the sake of improving the outcome.

  She searched my face, and she must have seen that my mind was made up.

  “I can’t make you talk to her if you don’t want to, Cody. But I think you’ll be sorry someday if you don’t at least try,” she said.

  “I’ll think about it,” I finally said, just to get away from the uncomfortable topic.

  And I did think about it now and then, sort of, but I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do or whether to talk to her or not. It wasn’t that I thought we’d have a big, nasty fight or anything. Quite the opposite. I was sure we’d both be perfectly civil to each other. We’d probably say all the proper things, telling each other that everything was just fine and burying the hatchet at least in words. But even though we might say all that, I didn’t really believe it. I was inclined to think nothing could ever be right again, after all that had happened.

  I didn’t have much choice but to talk to Marcus occasionally, awkward as that was. But we kept it brief and strictly businesslike; two coworkers who didn’t much like each other. I didn’t think that relationship could ever be the same again, either. Losing my best friend made me sad, too, and there were times when I got the feeling Marcus was hurt almost as much as I was. But what else did he expect?

  It turned cold a few days after Christmas, with snow flurries off and on for most of the next week or so. Everybody kept moaning and groaning about freezing to death, and I sort of smiled patronizingly. After you’ve lived in Alaska for a few months, even the harshest and most frigid weather Texas ever gets seems balmy and tropical in comparison.

  I was out in the barn fiddling with the tractor on New Year’s Eve, wearing nothing but jeans and a t-shirt in spite of the fact that it was snowing again outside, when Mama showed up in the doorway.

  “What is it, Mama?’ I asked, looking up.

  “I just heard on the radio there’s been a wreck out on the Longview highway, down by the river. It sounds like a bad one. Two cars flipped over in the ditch, blood everywhere,” she said.

  “Yeah, it’s probably because of the ice,” I agreed, wondering why she felt compelled to come out there just to tell me that. She usually wouldn’t have, unless there was something else on her mind.

  “I don’t mean to upset you, son, but I think it’s Lisa,” she said, and I dropped my wrench on the ground.

  “Huh?’ I asked stupidly.

  “I heard them mention some names. Not all of them because there was a lot of static, but I know I heard Lisa Stone. I thought you might want to know,” she said.

  “Is she all right?’ I asked, surprising myself at how anxious I was.

  “I don’t know. It said they were taking everybody to the hospital in Longview. You might call them,” she suggested.

  I tried, but of course she wasn’t there yet and they probably wouldn’t have told me anything even if she had been.

  Sitting at home wondering would have been unbearable, so I got in the truck and drove down to Longview myself, quite a bit faster than it was really safe to drive on the icy roads. I passed the place where the wreck had been and recognized Marcus’s truck immediately, even though it was crushed gruesomely. I saw a blood stain on the back glass, and that only scared me even more.

  I finally got there not long after the ambulance did, apparently, because they were still trying to deal with a hysterical Lisa who was fighting them tooth and nail. I ran back there without asking, and even though her eyes were open I could tell she didn’t recognize me. She was covered in blood and so far out of it she probably didn’t even know what planet she was on.

  “Can’t you knock her out?” I yelled.

  “Who are you?” one of the nurses demanded, and that stopped me cold for a second. Who was I, after all, that they should pay any attention to what I thought?

  “I’m her brother,” I lied through my teeth, knowing they’d kick me out if I said anything else.

  “She won’t stop fighting us, but we’ve got to get her into surgery so we can stop her from losing any more blood,” the nurse said.

  “Then hold her down and knock her out!” I said, exasperated. They were in the middle of doing that very thing anyway, and as soon as they had her out they immediately hustled her off to the operating room to do whatever it was she had to have done.

  I knew better than to follow them. Even family members aren’t allowed into operating rooms. I soon found myself standing alone in the hallway, at a loss for what to do.

  I bought a Dr. Pepper that I didn’t really want, and went back to sit in the waiting room for almost two hours until eventually a nurse came out to tell me that Lisa would be okay. She just needed to sleep for a couple hours, but I could go sit with her if I liked. That was a huge relief, but there were a couple of other things I needed to know.

  “What about Marcus Cumby, the boy who came in with my sister? Can you tell me anything about him?” I asked.

  “He’ll be fine. Cuts and bruises, mostly, and a ruptured spleen. We had to take that out, but he’ll be okay. He’s in room 326 if you want to go see him, too. Do you have any preference about which funeral home you’d like to use? For your mother, I mean?” she asked, and for a second my mind skidded. Then I remembered I was supposed to be Lisa’s brother.

  “Uh. . . we should probably wait and ask Lisa about that when she wakes up. We’ve got different mothers,” I said wryly.

  “All right. But make sure to ask her. We need to know as soon as we can,” she said.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  There was nothing I could do for Lisa at the moment, but nevertheless I made my way up to the third floor to sit with her. She looked pale and sick when I got there, and she had cuts and bruises in seve
ral places. I pulled up a chair beside the bed to wait.

  “Are you sure she’ll be all right? She looks awful,” I asked again when another nurse came into the room. She sure didn’t look like she’d be all right anytime soon.

  “She’ll be okay. She’s had a pretty rough time, I’m afraid. Do you know if she’s been in contact with any cats, lately?” the nurse asked.

  “Cats?” I asked, mystified.

  “Yes. She’s got a severe case of toxoplasmosis. Kind of rare, but it usually comes from cats,” she explained.

  “Not that I know of,” I said, baffled.

  “Has she done any gardening work or anything like that recently?” she asked.

  “Well, yeah, she does raise vegetables,” I agreed.

  “That’s probably it, then. Stray cats like to use gardens as litter boxes because the ground is soft,” she said.

  “She’ll be okay, though, right?” I repeated.

  “Yes. She probably won’t feel too good for a few days, though. She’ll need to take it easy for a while, and y’all need to make sure she finishes her antibiotics. We’ll probably let her go home tomorrow sometime, if everything goes all right,” she said, and I nodded.

  They left me alone with her again after that, and for a while I simply watched her sleeping. She looked fragile and weak, and all kinds of thoughts went through my mind as I sat there. I let my mind drift back to the summer, to mimosa crowns and passionate kisses, and to wordless promises on a mountain beneath the stars. I hadn’t been all that wise since then, and maybe she hadn’t either, but whatever might have happened in the past, I knew in that moment that I still loved her. I didn’t know what she’d say to that or if she still felt the same way about me, but I wanted to give it a try if she did.

  But there was someone else to be considered in all this, and since Lisa was still sleeping, I decided it was a good time to go see him. I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, knowing she’d never know, and then slipped three doors down to Marcus’s room.

  He was awake, not-watching a game show on TV and looking like he was in a good bit of pain.

  “Hey, Marcus,” I said softly, and he smiled, more or less.

  “Hey, Cody. Didn’t expect to see anybody today, with the roads so bad,” he said.

  “Yeah. . . I had to come check on y’all,” I said, sitting down in the chair beside his bed.

  “How’s Lisa?” he asked, and I quickly gave him a rundown on her condition, finishing up with the words I’d mostly come to say.

  “I don’t know what she’ll say, but I’m fixing to ask her if she wants to get back together, Marcus. Just so you know,” I told him.

  Marcus didn’t say anything about that at first, but finally he gave me a crooked little smile. A tired and pained one, to be sure, but still a smile.

  “Yeah. . . I think you should, honestly,” he said.

  “I’m surprised you’d say that,” I said, raising an eyebrow at him.

  “I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, in the back of my mind. Me and Lisa never really had anything together except just friends, you know. I’m tired of pretending. We both almost died out there today, and I guess maybe that has a way of making you see things a little different. So yeah, go talk to her. I think y’all are better off together, no matter what happens. I always did think so,” he explained, sounding sad.

  The speech didn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense, but I decided it wasn’t the time to grill Marcus about what it all meant. I had my answer about Lisa, and that was all I really cared about at the moment.

  “Well, good, cause if you didn’t say it was okay, then I was gonna have to pound you as soon as you got home,” I told him jokingly, and Marcus laughed.

  “Aw, don’t make me laugh, Cody. It hurts too much,” he said, putting a hand on his left side, presumably where they took his ruptured spleen out.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “It’s okay. They say they’ll let me go home in a couple days, hopefully,” he said.

  “That’s good. But I guess I better get back down there and check on Lisa. I’ll come back in a little while, okay?” I said.

  “Thanks,” he said, and I gave him a rough hug, or at least the best one I could manage without hurting him.

  “Get well, boy,” I told him.

  “I’ll do my best,” Marcus agreed.

  I went back down to Lisa’s room after that, to see if she was awake yet. She wasn’t, and for a long time I sat there in the chair looking out at the snow and watching her breathe. I didn’t know how to get hold of Jenny, so there was nothing I could do except keep watch while she slept.