“Dad’s been trying to reach you, but you didn’t pick up. It’s Mom. Something happened right after they got to the hospital. We’ve got to go. Now.” Turning on his heel, he hurried away, and I followed, already numb, without a single glance behind me to my teammates. I even left my stuff sitting there. When I got into Jim’s car, I checked the time. Only thirty minutes had elapsed between Dad’s phone call and now. I hadn’t even asked to talk to Mom on the phone when I’d had the chance.
“I should’ve taken her sooner,” Dad said when we ran into the waiting room, his head in his hands, looking hunched and broken in a chair. “I shouldn’t have listened to her. She was in so much pain.”
“It’s going to be okay,” Jim said, putting a hand on Dad’s back.
But we hadn’t seen Mom yet so we didn’t know.
The door to the office opened a crack. My head was down, eyes glued to the table in the office. “Rose?” I looked up as Anna peeked her head inside. “Five more minutes and the doctor will be here.”
A heavy sigh burst from my lungs as if I’d been holding my breath. I nodded to let her know that I’d heard. Without thinking, my fingers felt for the crystal heart pendant, but then I remembered it was gone and I wished for it, for anything that might provide comfort. I could hardly believe I’d left something so precious in Will’s jacket pocket, a last gift from my mother, and he might not even know it was there. What if it got lost? My mind wandered back to this morning, when Will and I were in his truck, and it already felt so far away, like it had been another Rose there, another girl he’d been kissing. With Will I’d slowly worked my way toward the Rose of before, who laughed often, who felt things so deeply, who could move through the world brimming with feeling and emotion. But now she was gone, all over again, that Rose. Somewhere deep inside I think I’d known she wouldn’t last for long.
“Don’t assume the worst,” Anna said, opening the door farther, a triangle-shaped sliver of harsh fluorescent light cutting into the room. “It’s not as bad as you think.” The brightness clashed with the soft incandescent bulbs illuminating the office. “If it weren’t true, I wouldn’t say it. You know I’m always honest, even if the truth is not what a family wants to hear.”
“I know,” I managed after a short silence, my voice hoarse. “I remember,” I said, sinking again into my memories of my mother, because they wanted to come back and I didn’t have the strength to force them away anymore.
The worst moments we endured in this hospital were the times when Mom woke up from her coma. On three separate occasions she returned to us, each one more hopeful than the last. The first time we’d expected it. We were certain it marked the beginning of her recovery, that Mom would magically transform from a limp body on a respirator to her vibrant, talkative self once again.
“Your mother’s awake!” my father said, excited, running into the waiting room where Jim and I had been sitting for weeks, barely leaving even for school. We did all sorts of things to pass the time: playing cards, doing the homework that piled higher each day. When Dad appeared I was painting my toenails a hot pink color, and the bottle nearly tipped as I scrambled to my feet. I raced after my father and brother, down the wide white hallway, the nail polish glistening wet and three of my toes still unpainted. I don’t know what I’d expected, but “awake” turned out to be something altogether different than I’d imagined.
“Mom,” Jim and I said at once, before we’d even had a chance to step into the room and get close enough to see her.
Mom’s eyes were definitely open, but only halfway, her mouth showing two rows of teeth, her jaw slack. The worst were her legs and left arm—they would spasm and skitter across the bed, then fall off the side and dangle there until the nurse would put them back under the blanket, only to have them bounce across and down once more.
“I love you,” we took turns saying in case she could hear us, in case she could understand. The woman who lay there, occasionally blinking her eyes at us, unable to speak and control her limbs, was not the mother I knew. Within hours she was gone again.
A few weeks later, she woke a second time, but in much the same way. There was the initial flurry of excitement from us, the promise, the hope of recovery, the possibility of taking away tubes and unhooking machines, and then the accompanying shock and disappointment when she slipped away. The only thing that changed was how hard we bottomed out when we lost her.
But the third time she woke was different from before.
“Mom is conscious,” Dad said, pulling Jim and me up from the waiting room chairs. His change in description—from awake to conscious—was notable, and I wondered if he’d intended the difference, if we would see the real Mom in that room or still the empty-eyed woman whose only resemblance was that they shared the same body. “Ellie,” Dad said as we raced in to see her, his voice full of emotion.
Mom turned her head toward the door.
She didn’t speak, but it was clear she saw us, she recognized us.
Mom was alive.
To us, this meant her recovery was imminent, that she would fight the cancer with courage and hope just like last time and she would win again. I knew it, we all did. We were so sure.
“Your kids made you these,” I said to her, pointing out the patch of construction-paper tulips taped across one wall of the room. With Mom watching, Jim and I alternated, taking her on a tour of the cards and homemade decorations and mobiles hanging from the ceiling—who they were from, what grade, which teachers, and when they had arrived. We took turns getting into bed with her, making sure to do so on the side where her legs and arm kept falling off, our bodies there to be close to her as much as to prevent her from noticing she no longer could control her movements. Dad, Jim, and I talked over each other, filling in the silence that she couldn’t, telling her everything we could think of from the weeks when she’d been asleep, trying to make her laugh, doing our best to occupy her attention, telling her she was going to get better, that we loved her and were so happy to see her. Her hospital room became the site of a family party.
We stayed long past visiting hours that day.
Finally, Anna came in to shoo us out. “Hey there, beautiful,” she said to Mom—she always called her that, even when Mom was unconscious, and I loved that Anna did this. She checked the tubes and monitors measuring Mom’s heart rate, her breathing, and other vital signs, her voice cheerful. “These people need to give you some rest.”
“We’ll be back first thing in the morning,” Dad said quickly.
“The second we’re allowed to be here,” Jim added.
We were so happy, so excited, that we didn’t mind Anna’s directive to go home. Tonight, we were leaving with real hope in our hearts, with the future in mind, with faith in my mother’s recovery.
Just before I slid off the hospital bed I felt the soft grip of a hand on my arm.
My mother’s hand.
“Mom?” A thrill flew through me. “Dad! Jim!” I called out to get their attention and they gathered behind me, looking at Mom, waiting. She hadn’t yet said a word since she’d woken up, just watched us and listened and spent time being aware.
Being alive.
This time she was struggling to communicate with something more than her eyes. A clear mask covered her mouth, but we could see her lips working as she tried them out. After a long wait and with tremendous effort, she managed to mouth three words.
“I.” Her mouth opened wide and stopped. Then, “Love.” And then, “You,” she said, her lips closing after this last word. She was careful to look at each one of us in the eyes, Dad, Jim, and then me.
“Oh, Mom!” we were shouting. “We love you, too. We love you so much! You are going to be okay!”
That’s when I noticed the tears rolling down her face to the pillow.
I brushed them away, my fingers gentle along her cheek.
By the next morning, she’d slipped away again, this time for good.
The office door opened and I l
ifted my mind from these painful memories. The doctor walked inside and pulled up a chair next to me, setting her clipboard on the smooth wood surface of a side table. For a moment I wanted to reach out and touch the beautiful braids cascading past her shoulders, wondering how long it would take to weave so many and wishing we could discuss this instead. But she started speaking and I had to focus on why we were here.
“I’m Dr. Stone,” she began.
“I’m Rose Madison,” I said, a reflex.
“I know.” Her voice was firm, but somehow reassuring. “Your brother isn’t here yet?”
“I called him. He’s at college. I don’t know when he’ll arrive, though. Maybe in another hour.” If I kept babbling maybe I might hold off whatever came next. “Jim said he was already getting in the car when I was on the phone with him—”
Dr. Stone placed a hand on my arm, as if hitting an invisible pause button. “Let’s talk about your dad,” she said.
“Okay,” I whispered, the word barely audible even in the quiet room.
All that wanted to come out of my mouth was a string of questions: Was he drunk? Is that why this happened? Did he hurt anyone else? Did he kill someone else? Is he going to die? Is he going to die, too, like Mom died?
Dr. Stone looked at me, her brown eyes steady. “What you need to know first, and what you need to remember while we discuss the details, is that your dad is going to be okay. He’ll need recovery time but he will get better.”
“Really?” Hope found its way into my voice.
“Yes,” Dr. Stone replied. “But now we’re going to talk about the circumstances. Okay?”
It felt as if she was leading me down a rocky path in the middle of a brook, little by little, guiding me through each step, waiting, patient, making sure I was ready to place my foot onto the next slippery surface. “Okay,” I agreed.
“Your father’s car hit a tree off the side of the highway,” she began.
Time at a hospital goes by differently, as if on its own clock. A few minutes can sometimes feel like days and vice versa. A week can pass without you realizing it. I had no idea how long I was in that office, maybe hours. When I came out and returned to the waiting room, my eyes narrowed to a squint in the bright hallway, the white flickering glare intense after the soft darkness of the private room.
“Rose.” I heard my name, said by many people at once, and Krupa’s arms wrapped around my waist and her hair, long and soft, pressed against my shoulder.
“I want to go home,” I told her.
“What about your dad?” She watched for my reaction. “Is he okay?”
“There’s nothing to do but wait.”
“Oh, Rose—”
“No.” My voice was quiet and steady. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Rose?” Kecia came toward us, her heels, normally so loud clicking against the floor, silent now, like soft slippers. “Can I do anything?”
“Thanks for coming.” I forced myself to see her, to look beyond Krupa, noticing that Mary and Tamika sat in a nearby row of waiting room chairs. Chris was still here, too. He’d not only waited, he’d called my friends. Will was missing from this group, though. He hadn’t come, hadn’t changed his mind. This thought flashed quickly and was gone. “Has anyone heard from Jim?” The loud sound of my voice cut across the quiet of the waiting room.
Krupa looked at the clock on the wall. “He left around two, and it’s after five so he should be here soon, depending on traffic.”
I sat down in the open seat between Chris and Tamika. Kecia and Krupa took seats in the row across from us.
“Are you hanging in there?” Chris asked, and I stared as if he might be a stranger, his perfect bone structure, his almond-shaped eyes, his face so beautiful. For the first time all afternoon I began to wonder why he was really here, if this was another strange attempt to get me to consider going out with him again. I shrugged in answer to his question since I didn’t know what to say. Regardless of his intentions, I was grateful. I needed someone and he was there for me.
As if he could read my mind, he said, “Just let me be a friend. That’s all I want—I swear—to be here as your friend.”
“Really?” I asked.
Chris nodded, his eyes sad, but I could tell he meant it. Within moments, with just a few words, we resolved six months of uncertainty and hurt and missed connections. I was so unbelievably relieved to have this sudden consolation of closure.
The second hand on the clock ticked in circles, around and around, time passing slowly. All my energy was given over to willing Jim to walk through the door, and that Will, too, would suddenly appear. I needed him to explain how what happened earlier at school had been a mistake, a misunderstanding, that he was ready to be there for me and wouldn’t leave my side, whatever happened next. But my attention was soon drawn from these wishes by the welcome sound of my brother’s voice.
“Rosey!” Jim called from across the waiting room, rushing toward me, and I felt myself being pulled up from the chair, my brother’s arms around me, holding me tight to his chest. It felt so much like home that I started to cry. All day I’d done so well holding back the tears, but now that Jim was here I couldn’t stop them. He let me sob into his sweatshirt for a long time, never lessening his grip. Eventually, when I calmed down enough to speak, I told him what I had decided during those hours in that tiny office. “You need to deal with Dad,” I said. “I can’t any longer. It’s your turn.”
Jim looked at me with confusion.
But I knew this was what I had to do.
Before Jim could say anything I spoke again. “Here is the deal: Dad is going to be fine.” I stopped, making my voice even while I told him this news, as if I was giving him a list of items to pick up at the store and not discussing our father’s fate. “But he has broken bones and a concussion and is undergoing some sort of surgery. They are keeping him”—I paused, gathering the words—“unconscious, but for just a few days, so his body can rest. He’ll come home probably in a few weeks. Maybe three. Maybe four. We have to wait and see.” I needed to backtrack. “No, you’ll have to wait and see. I don’t want to. I can’t. I can’t see him on one of those machines like Mom was. I just can’t.” Tears spilled down my cheeks and I sniffled, wiping my face with my sleeve.
“Rosey.” Jim sounded shocked. “You’re not going to stay? Seriously?”
“I’m not.” I stepped away, as if proximity might chain me here. There was a long silence before he spoke again.
“Was he … had he been … ?” Jim couldn’t even say the word.
So I said it for him. “Drinking?” I had lost my ability to care whether other people heard or knew. “I don’t know. The doctor didn’t say anything. But from the sound of it, my guess is yes. Probably. He didn’t hit anyone else, though, just a tree,” I added, like this was good news, and in a way I suppose it was.
“Oh god. Oh god.” Jim put both hands up to his head. “What should we do? What are we going to do?”
Gently, I touched my brother’s shoulder. “The question is: what are you going to do?” On this last line, my voice cracked and I turned to my friends, the tears streaming down my cheeks, one after the other. “Would someone take me home? I need to go home. Now. Please,” I said, and without looking back I began to walk away, down the hall toward the exit, listening to the footsteps of the others behind me, alternately clicking and padding and shuffling against the shiny, tiled floor of the hospital corridor. I was doing the right thing for me, but maybe it was the right thing for Dad, too. Maybe leaving him here, refusing to see him, would finally make that message sink in, about how if he kept drinking, not only did he put himself at risk, but he risked losing me, his daughter, too. Jim could handle this on his own, at least for now. He’d have to, just like I’d done. Today, though, I wouldn’t be the one to bear this responsibility. Anybody else but me, I thought, as the wintry air rushed right through my sweater as if it was thin as a spider’s web, taking that familiar sour hos
pital smell with it.
33
NOT YOUR YEAR
A week passed and then another, and the rainy gloom of March matched my gray mood. I kept my word about my father and refused to see him. The daily messages he left on my cell I erased before I even listened to them. Aside from the occasional word exchanged with my brother or Grandma Madison, who had come back to stay for the duration, I spoke to no one. I didn’t go to school. Instead, I sealed myself in my room, shades pulled tight to avoid the dreary view of old snow, melting and turning into brown muddy slush, the trees still bare of leaves. Grandma Madison hovered, made remarks about the scraggly state of my hair and my disheveled appearance, but she couldn’t hide the worry knotted through her voice. Krupa called, Kecia called, and I watched the screen of my cell light up with their pictures and turn black again when it rang through to voice mail.
The one person I hoped would call didn’t.
It was as if Will vanished from my life as suddenly as he’d appeared in it. He hadn’t come by once to see me, to explain, to ask if I was okay, or even to check if my father was recovering. I kept going over the day of the accident, how paralyzed Will had seemed, that closed-off look in his eyes, and how he’d let me leave school with Chris. The more days that passed without any sign from him, the more it felt like I must have dreamed everything between us, the nights in his truck and his room, the snowstorm and all that followed afterward. An impossible distance opened between us, one I didn’t intend or create.
I felt helpless.
Jim traveled to and from the hospital with updates on Dad’s condition, whether I wanted them or not. I learned that my father was on the mend, that he would be home in April, but even this news didn’t help me to feel anything. His accident had robbed me of what little joy and security I’d managed to regain. If he hadn’t kept drinking, if he had listened to my pleas, to Jim’s, to Grandma’s, none of this would have happened.
SURVIVAL KIT Page 19
