by Jessica Pack
It had been four years since Amanda had started hiding behind her computer, and she didn’t think anyone she worked with knew who she really was. She was just Ms. Stewartson, a good teacher who worked one-on-one with her students when they needed it and graded fairly. She had phone conferences with her supervisor three times a year. She didn’t go to the in-person training held in Salt Lake City each August even though the company would cover her expenses. She’d never met face-to-face a single person employed by the company for which she worked. She used the picture of a puppy as her profile picture, as though she were bragging of her pet rather than distracting viewers from the fact that she didn’t want to show her face. Isolation was her comfort zone. She was a rock. She was an island.
Once on the street, Amanda shifted the car into drive and headed down Mayfair Avenue, imagining that the press would now descend on her house like ants on a hill.
12
Jaxon
Four years, one month, five days
Jaxon pulled back slightly on the left wheel of his chair in order to turn sharply enough to make the doorway, rolled forward a few feet into the exam room, and then did a quick three-point turn until he faced the nurse standing two feet taller than he in the doorway. “Dr. Kubadia will be right with you.”
“Thanks,” Jaxon said.
She nodded and closed the door behind her. Jaxon backed up his chair so there would be more room for the doctor and unstrapped the fingerless glove from his right hand, then his left—the gloves made it easier to grip the hand rims of his wheelchair and kept his hands clean. He put both gloves in the narrow gap between his hip and the side of the chair, then flexed his fingers to get the blood flowing again. He couldn’t wait for the day when he wouldn’t need the gloves anymore.
Once circulation was restored, he took off the belt that kept his hips in the chair and pushed himself up using the arms of his chair and then back down—six sets of ten reps until his shoulders burned. It was one of a dozen exercises he did every day to keep his upper body strength. His legs, thin beneath the fabric of his jeans, barely moved with the effort—his feet were strapped in so that they wouldn’t go askew. They didn’t even seem like his legs anymore, but someone else’s that had been sewn onto his body.
There was a tap at the door and a moment later Dr. Kubadia came in. He smiled beneath his thick black mustache. Dr. Kubadia was a leading expert on spinal restoration.
Dr. Kubadia shook Jaxon’s hand, then turned to the computer monitor, where he typed in some things. A few seconds later, the blank TV monitor mounted on the wall above the desk—four feet across—lit up with images Jaxon recognized as his x-rays and MRI scans. He looked back at the doctor expectantly.
“I am sorry I do not have better news for you, Mr. Blanchard,” Dr. Kubadia said in his lilting English.
Jaxon closed his eyes and let his chin drop onto his chest. Dr. Kubadia continued to explain his extensive review of Jaxon’s file, sent by the doctor Jaxon had seen in Dallas. He reiterated the severity of Jaxon’s injury and said, as the other doctors had before him, that there was nothing further to be done. Jaxon tried to let the words sink in, but his body and mind and heart resisted.
The doctor stopped speaking and finally Jaxon looked up, hating the sympathetic smile on the man’s face. “I would like to point out, however, what amazing strides you have made these last years. You have managed to improve far more than your initial doctors felt you could. Many paraplegics could find a great deal of inspiration in your story.”
Jaxon shook his head. “I don’t give a damn about inspiring anyone. I want to walk.”
“That is impossible.”
The doctor’s answer was shocking. No one—not one of the six doctors Jaxon had consulted over the year and a half since his first doctor had said he was out of ideas—had ever said that word. “Nothing is impossible,” Jaxon objected.
“Sadly, that is not true.” Dr. Kubadia sat back in his chair, holding Jaxon’s eyes. “I believe in optimism, but I do not believe in false hope, Mr. Blanchard. The facts are that you suffered an incomplete anterior severing of your spinal cord. The fusion of your L2 and L3 vertebrae was necessary to contain the injury and allow the physical therapy that has allowed you the usage you have now, but it limits our interventions. Additional surgeries will not increase your mobility.”
“But the scar tissue could be interfering with—”
“You’ve had two surgeries to remove scar tissue; another one would do no good. You have maximized your potential. You have some feeling in your right leg, correct?”
“Some,” Jaxon said. It was not a victory.
“That is an astounding thing for someone with your injury.”
“It doesn’t do me any good. It doesn’t help me walk.”
“But you can feel if you are developing any skin irritation, which means you can address that before it becomes a leg ulcer.”
Jaxon clenched his teeth. He could feel pain in his right leg—what a gift! “I’ve read up on your stem cell research.”
“Yes.” The doctor nodded as he spoke. “We’ve had great success with compression- and herniation-based spinal injuries, but the bullet partially severed your spinal cord, Mr. Blanchard. Stem cell therapy is not a treatment for your type of injury.”
Jaxon dropped his head again and took a deep breath. His mom had tried to talk him out of coming to Houston for this appointment. She’d said they needed to work on accepting what had happened. He’d come anyway—navigated the city himself to be in this man’s office. For nothing.
“I very much wish I had better news for you, Mr. Blanchard. I understand how difficult this is.”
“No, you don’t,” Jaxon snapped, then pressed his lips together. “I’m sorry, that was rude, but you don’t understand, and I am so tired of people saying that they do.”
The doctor wasn’t fazed by Jaxon’s rudeness. “You are right, I cannot fully understand, but I have a great deal of experience with people in your situation, people who do not deserve to suffer this way and try everything they can to overcome, only to hit a wall.”
I’m not at a wall, Jaxon said to himself. I’ll find another doctor. He raised both hands to his face and scrubbed at his cheeks. He wanted to scream and throw something and . . . run.
Dr. Kubadia continued. “I have seen patients in similar situations go on to live remarkable lives, but I have also seen them give up what life they have left.”
“I’m not suicidal,” Jaxon said, calming down and putting his hands in his lap. “You don’t need to worry about that.” Every doctor asked him if he thought about suicide.
“Because you have had hope,” the doctor said. “I have just told you that there is none.”
Jaxon held his eyes. “My dad was shot, too, in that mall,” he said, grateful that he only remembered flashes of what had happened the day they’d gone shopping for his mom’s Christmas present. They’d already bought a sweater and were heading to another store for a gift certificate. They were talking about grabbing lunch at the Chinese place in the food court when people started screaming while weird popping sounds filled the air. Jaxon remembered a girl falling on the ground in front of them, blood gushing from her neck while she kicked and screamed with wide eyes, her long dark hair tangling around her face and shoulders as it mixed with the blood like a big paintbrush. He turned back to his dad, but his dad was gone; then something hit Jaxon in the hip. The whole experience felt more like a movie he’d watched than something he’d actually lived through. “Dad didn’t make it to the hospital alive. I would never put my mother through another loss.”
“Living for someone else will only last so long.”
Jaxon shook his head. Whatever. This guy didn’t understand.
“You are familiar with the five stages of grieving?” Dr. Kubadia asked. “Depression, grief, bargaining, acceptance.”
“That’s only four,” Jaxon said, trying to remember the fifth one. He’d been taught the theory many times.
“The fifth is denial, and it sometimes takes the form of continued hope even when all options have been exhausted. Denial is a coping mechanism and people can become stuck within that phase to the point that it becomes toxic and prevents them from taking realistic opportunities to improve their lives. Instead, the denial blocks them from the acceptance of their situation that can lead to peace and further development.”
“I am not in denial,” Jaxon said. “I know what happened to me.”
“But you still think you can be cured. That is denial.”
Jaxon let out a breath and grabbed his gloves. He was ready to go. If he got on the road soon, he could get home before dark and save himself the cost of a night’s motel room and the inevitable awkwardness of trying to check in. Desk clerks always panicked when they saw him enter. What he wouldn’t give to be looked at like a normal person again. How dare this doctor take that wish away from him!
“I would like to invite you to attend an event tonight,” Dr. Kubadia said. “It is for spinal cord injury patients like yourself.”
“I’m not interested in a support group.” He pictured a bunch of people in wheelchairs blubbering about their woes. How did that help anyone? He put on his left glove.
“It is not a support group,” Dr. Kubadia said. “It is a fitness group to help people maximize their abilities. The gym was designed by a triple amputee, a former marine, and all the equipment is adaptive to different injury levels. From the looks of your upper body, you have made fitness a priority.”
Jaxon paused. He’d set up a home gym, but he hadn’t worked out today and had never been to an adaptive gym, though he’d seen a documentary about one in Los Angeles. “They meet tonight?”
Dr. Kubadia nodded. “The gym is available for general use every evening at seven o’clock, and sponsored by the medical department if your insurance won’t cover it under physical therapy. If you want to see it first, I can have someone give you a tour—they do specialty sessions during the day.”
“Only for spinal cord patients?”
“And amputees,” the doctor said. “But everyone who attends has some type of functional disability. There’s also a basketball and tennis court available for adaptive matches if you are interested.”
Jaxon wasn’t interested in wheelchair basketball—he’d tried that back in Dallas and thought it was ridiculous. He hadn’t been that good a player before the shooting; he was garbage afterward. But the idea of a fully adapted gym was intriguing. If nothing else, maybe he’d get some ideas on things he could incorporate at home. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to take a look since I’m here.” If he decided to stay, he could manage getting one more night at a hotel. If he decided to leave after the tour, he would have lost half an hour of driving time but could still make it home.
“Very good,” Dr. Kubadia said. He picked up the phone and punched in some numbers before talking to someone about meeting Jaxon at the gym in half an hour. He hung up and then handed a brochure to Jaxon. Jaxon frowned when he saw it wasn’t for the gym; instead it read, “Stages of Grief.”
“Hope for happiness is a good thing, Mr. Blanchard. Hope to overcome obstacles and do the very best you can is commendable and will be an asset to you. Refusing to accept the reality of your situation will prevent you from achieving either. I encourage you to read through this and evaluate yourself honestly.”
13
Amanda
Eleven hours, two minutes
A block from the house, Amanda noticed one of the cars that had been parked in front of the house in her rearview mirror. She wove through the streets of her neighborhood for ten minutes and lost the car, but it was waiting for her when she reached Madison Street. She stayed calm, went through an Arby’s drive-through—the other car waited in the parking lot—then got on the freeway going the opposite direction from what she had planned, drove two exits, and made a quick dive for the off-ramp before the black car could make the same move. Once she was back on I-90 East, she checked her rearview mirror compulsively for the next ten miles. The black car did not reappear and she settled with more ease against the back of her seat and began unwrapping her sandwich with one hand. Eventually she took the 380 toward Iowa City, determined to put as much time and distance between her and Sioux Falls as possible.
The need for fuel and a restroom finally took her off the freeway near Cedar Rapids hours later. Once out of the car the fatigue hit her with the same intensity that the Iowa winter wind froze her bones. She hunkered into her coat—a paltry defense against the wind—as she filled up her gas tank. The sun was setting. Could she drive a few more hours? Should she?
Her son had died today. She’d packed the last of her house today. Exhaustion did not seem a big enough word to describe how she felt. She closed up the gas tank and parked her car in front of the gas station. Robbie used to tease her about how she wouldn’t leave her car at the gas pump when she went inside. “You paid for the gas—that earns you five minutes of parking there.”
“What if someone needs to use the pump and I’m blocking it?” she would say as she pulled forward to the parking spaces in front of the store.
When she reached the glass doors of the gas station she looked back at the eight fuel pumps, only one of which was occupied—the driver nowhere to be seen. Maybe Robbie had a point. Still, it wasn’t hard to drive twenty feet to a regular parking spot. She used the restroom, then stood staring at candy bars for a full three minutes until she decided to do the second half of the drive tomorrow. She’d done enough for today. Her body needed sleep.
She got back into her car and drove toward the Holiday Inn sign that stood bold against the amber-colored sky. A stack of the day’s newspapers on the counter drew her attention as the clerk checked her in. MALLORIE PUT TO DEATH IN SD. Amanda looked away from the paper and wondered where Robbie’s body was right now, or if it “was” at all. Amanda hadn’t liked the idea of cremation when he told her that’s what he’d decided. She worried his request was based on some kind of simulation of hellfire he felt he deserved. In the research necessary to make her argument, however, she learned that some private cemeteries refused burial to executed inmates. Headstones were often defaced and destroyed. In one instance, someone attempted to dig up the body of a serial killer from the cemetery of his small town in Georgia. Amanda had withdrawn her objections to cremation.
Several years ago—long before the shooting—one of Amanda’s fellow teachers at the high school had taken up genealogy as a hobby and talked about it nonstop for weeks during lunch in the faculty room. She had remarked how irresponsible it was when people weren’t properly buried in a place that would keep records. “You have no idea how hard it is to trace family lines when there is no listed burial marker. It affects generations.” Amanda had nodded in agreement, finding it endearing that this woman was so passionate for something Amanda had never thought much about.
At that point in her simple little life, Amanda had fully expected both of her children to be buried decades after her own passing. Next to their husband or wife, where their own children could visit and leave flowers on Memorial Day each year. Their generation would follow hers, and their children’s would follow them. Some genealogist down the line would be so grateful for the forethought as they filled out their pedigree chart in a single afternoon. There was something in the Bible about that—the hearts of the children turning to their fathers. Robbie would have no hearts to turn toward him, though. Not in life and not in death. No headstone, but anyone who wanted to would find his dead end easily enough. Maybe even be grateful that a monster like him hadn’t propagated his broken genetic codes.
“Mallorie?”
Amanda looked up at the clerk staring at her a bit too intently as she held Amanda’s credit card and glanced quickly at the stack of newspapers between them. Amanda usually paid in cash when she went to brick-and-mortar establishments or went through the self-check lines. Mostly she ordered online. She’d tried to get a credit card in he
r maiden name after a cashier refused to ring her up at a grocery store that didn’t have a credit card machine Amanda could swipe herself. The cashier’s eyes had bored through Amanda with such hatred that day. Amanda had looked around as though someone might rescue her. A few eyes darted away from the silent spectacle and then finally Amanda leaned over, picked up her card from where the woman had dropped it, and hurried from the store without her tampons and Rice-a-Roni. The application to get a card in the name of Amanda Stewartson had been denied, and she’d felt too self-conscious to try again. She’d instead focused on avoiding situations where she had to hand over her credit card—like at a hotel.
“Are you—?”
“I’m very tired,” Amanda cut in. She put her hand out. “Can I please have my room key?”
The woman’s face pinched and Amanda kept her expression impassive even though she was withering internally. I will never get away from this, she thought sadly, then felt like a jerk. The families of Robbie’s victims couldn’t get away. Why should she? After a second or two of standoff, the clerk seemed to remember that she worked in the hospitality industry. She gave Amanda back her credit card and room key and with a flat voice told Amanda there would be breakfast in the lobby from six until ten o’clock the next morning.
Amanda thanked her, dropped off her suitcase in her room, then walked to a burger place across the parking lot. She paid in cash and ate her cheeseburger alone in her hotel room while she watched the first X-Men movie. Neither of her kids had gotten into X-Men and maybe that’s why she watched it. She’d indulged in so many succulent memories today, and enjoyed every bite of the past, but, like running a mile after a long, cold winter spent indoors, they were wearing her out. All those moments she’d remembered when she could never have imagined what was coming. So many instances when she’d naïvely believed she had control of her future. That she was a good mother. That her children were safe. That the world was safe from her children. Robbie was dead. She’d wondered again if it would have been better if he’d never been born. The thought still left her hollow inside, mostly because she didn’t know the answer.
