by Gabi Moore
“Doctor, where is my… where is Anthony?” I asked. He gave me the same frown my mother did. I couldn’t summon energy to get hysterical, but it was starting to become obvious that there was bad news, and that it was being deliberately kept from me. The thought alone made something panicky grow at the base of my throat again.
“Please just tell me what’s going on,” I sobbed, and my head panged with my raising my voice. The doctor perched himself seriously on the edge of the bed, and clasped his hands together. My mother and sister hovered by the shut door, looking like they were attending a funeral.
Fuck, I hated this.
“Elinor, you’ve been through quite a lot these last few days. Now, you were shipwrecked on a tiny and uninhabited island in the Pacific called Santa Majella. Your cruise ship sank but rescue missions managed to save most of the passengers. Though they did a scan of the area for days, for some reason they never discovered anyone on your island, and you were presumed dead along with dozens of others.” He spoke clearly and dispassionately, like he was reading from a textbook.
“The gentleman who saved you told us about the other four remaining on the island, and the emergency services were dispatched to retrieve them.” Here he paused and looked like he was choosing his next words carefully. “You were very ill, Ellie. The injury to your foot was serious, and caused a loss of blood supply to the area which deprived that tissue of oxygen. We’ve given you antibiotics but you needed emergency surgery to remove the affected tissue…”
There it was again. The panicky lurch at the back of my throat. I hurriedly threw off the blanket covering me to look at my foot, and cried out in horror at what I saw. Or didn’t see.
“Now, Ellie, try not to panic, we needed to act fast as the infection was spreading very rapidly and could have traveled to your heart…”
His words disappeared as I tried to understand what I was looking at.
My foot.
It was gone.
A thick padding of bandages was bound tightly around it, but it was as clear as it was shocking: the place where my foot used to be was now empty. Just fresh air in the place that should have been my foot. A whole lot of nothing. Completely gone. Missing.
I couldn’t even sob. I’m not sure what happened in those brief moments afterwards, but the doctor must have rushed to give me a tranquilizer and as I collapsed back down onto my pillows, I could see the appalled faces of my mother and sister, their hands to their mouths.
It couldn’t be happening. I had just hurt myself. It was all just a mistake. They had stolen part of my body and this was all just a big, sick, morbid mistake, a joke…
Some traumas are so extreme that they can only be taken in pieces. Some tragedies are so big they need to be broken into smaller tragedies and swallowed one chunk at a time, because at full size the human body and mind simply cannot digest it all.
Over the next few hours, I descended far into a strange pit. I was asleep, drugged up heavily, and would wake up for a moment, confront that bizarre thought again, and then pass out again from the sheer improbability of it all. No foot? How could that possibly be?
The next time I woke and encountered the same nasty, immovable fact, it felt duller than the time before. It took me hours, the better part of a day to look at the nasty fact square on and realize it wasn’t going anywhere. This really was my life now. They had amputated my foot. And it couldn’t be put back on again.
Numb, I somehow found my way through those hours. My mother and sister flitted in and out like angels of death; the doctor came, with medicines and platitudes. The light in the room changed from bright and fresh to dimmer, until the fluorescent lights were turned on and the sickening smells of food wafted in and out of consciousness.
I don’t know how long it was before I could sit up, clear headed, and take a look down at my mutilated body again. Shaking hands pulled off the thin, scratchy bedding. The stump was as I left it. Hideously asymmetrical with my other foot, which now seemed like some kind of mercy. I touched the bandages and found them cold and strange. My brain told me that the sore flesh was still there, even though my eyes gave proof that I no longer had a foot to feel, pain or otherwise.
The sensation was too strange. Lump in my throat, I quickly covered myself back up again and tried to think. This was OK. I could do this. My mind raced with potential futures for myself. All my thoughts seemed lopsided and leaning. What the hell was I going to do with one foot? My numbness started to feel like a protective blanket, and when the pain got too much, I happily retreated inside it. I couldn’t think about this. Not now. I turned on the TV.
I nearly laughed out loud when I saw what was on the screen.
Me.
I turned up the volume and tried to piece together the news segment that I was watching. Footage of unassuming sea water was cut with photos of the front of a hospital and back again to a groomed woman in a studio.
“Onto news about Hurricane Maude now, and confusion around the number of actual dead and injured remains. Authorities have now claimed that last week’s four separate rescue missions sent to Santa Majella revealed no signs of survivors, raising fears that still others may have been missed and stranded at sea. The unnamed pair rescued by leisure yacht Esprit are in critical condition and receiving medical care at Long beach Memorial Hospital. First responders have yet to make a statement about other survivors remaining on the island, but ABC7’s correspondent will stay with the story.”
The little icon in the lower right of the screen was a cartoon coconut palm on an island. The word ‘Stranded’ blazed across the bottom of the screen as the woman shifted in her chair and switched to her next story.
I flicked the off button.
It was a lost at sea story, but it was real, and it was happening to me. They knew about the other four on the island. Were they here in this hospital with me? A million thoughts knocked through my mind.
Where was Anthony? Was Todd OK? What did they even do with my foot, once they took it off!? What day was it? Do you get a refund if the ship sinks? Had I even bought insurance? When last did I eat? If I fell asleep again would I wake up with some other part of me removed?
Another day may have passed, each time with me trying to stomach a little more of the bizarre set of circumstances that had suddenly become my life. It was like walking into very cold water an inch at a time, your whole body trying to pull up and away from it with every step in. I lost track of day or night. But at some point the doctor returned and sat on the edge of my bed again.
“You’re lucky to be alive,” he said eventually, and the words were empty and completely meaningless, like something said in another language.
“A hurricane of that magnitude is rare for this neck of the woods. But they say the vessel had already drifted far enough off course that it caught the brunt of it before the storm broke land. It really is remarkable, how unlucky you were in all this.”
It seemed like an overly personal conversation to be having. I said nothing and hoped he’d just talk about my catheter or send a nurse in to change my dressings.
“Now, Elinor, it’s time we had a frankly unpleasant conversation about a few things. I know you’ve asked after your fiancé. I know you must be sick with worry. The fact is, though, that when the emergency squad arrived at the island, he was already in a very serious condition…”
Anthony’s face popped into my mind’s eye.
I thought of how carefully he’d ironed and folded his shirts before we left. How he double and triple checked our itinerary, and how he had planned everything in his life, and mine, with exactly the same obsession. I thought of his pale legs getting burnt in the sun, and the way he looked at me when he keeled over after Charlie stabbed him. I couldn’t stop a half dozen stinging tears from rolling their way down my cheeks.
“He was suffering from acute alcohol poisoning, Elinor. His liver was failing. It’s not easy for me to be the one to tell you this, but he didn’t make it back to the hospital in time
. He passed away on the trip back to land.”
The air around my ears whined and crackled. I couldn’t swallow. I suddenly felt woozy. The doctor placed one firm hand on my arm and tried to steady me, and I instinctively clasped back.
“He …he’s dead?”
The doctor’s crestfallen face was his only answer. He closed a large hand over mine and gave a consolatory tap.
“He …you say his liver?” I sputtered. I was trying desperately to stop myself from crying, and this was all I could think of: asking for details.
“He had a blood alcohol level of 0.5. It was astronomical. At certain high levels the gag reflex is compromised and the body is unable to throw up anymore. And his wound…”
“Charlie!” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“He had a stab wound,” I said and tried to blink through my tears and focus on his face. The doctor frowned deeply.
“Yes, well, the police are looking into that matter, and it’s not for me to pass comment on that. His autopsy showed acute liver failure. The other matter is being dealt with. Now I realize this is a terribly emotional time so please don’t hesitate to--”
“So it was the alcohol? The reason he’s dead is because of the alcohol?” I said. I could hear my voice getting louder. He looked at me a little alarmed.
“Well, yes. He must not have realized the damage he was doing. He was severely dehydrated. In any case, Ms. King, I must be going and--”
“It wasn’t Charlie’s fault then,” I said. And not mine, I thought silently.
“Well, I won’t say that having a stab wound helped, but it was largely superficial. I realize this can be hard to hear but whatever happened on that island, Ms. Charlie Beaufort is not to blame for your fiance’s death…”
I stared at him. I knew what he was thinking. A sordid lover’s quarrel. A lethal fight. And now, the jealous fiancé, seeking revenge for her murdered partner. I said nothing. It was easier to let him believe that than the real reason I was crying right now.
He rose and made for the door, giving me one last final pat on the arm.
“Your mother and sister are on their way,” he said, and left.
The room was quiet, waiting for me to fill it up again with something. Would I cry? Would I flop down onto the bed and sob into the pillows? Or I would I sit here for a moment longer, staring numbly at the wall, waiting for my emotions to catch up with me?
Chapter 23 - Todd
Eight months later
I looked at my watch. I had about twenty minutes till my next lecture. I put my head down and picked up my pace. The courtyard looked beautiful this time of year – a few of the trees were just changing color and things felt cozier somehow. I hoisted my backpack higher up on my shoulder and got lost in the rhythm my feet found on the paving bricks underfoot.
When I had first put in my official withdrawal of my application to train as a SEAL, my supporting commanders took it as a sign of temporary insanity. After everything that had happened, they kindly told me they’d keep my spot available till I was ready. But I never became ready. They asked me why. Everyone asked me why. But it was hard to put my finger on what exactly made me change my mind so abruptly.
I had dreamt of being a SEAL for longer than I could remember. It felt so natural a choice that I had never even imagined another path for myself. And yet, all of that seemed to evaporate completely in the days after we made it back to California and I could start piecing my life back together. It was something I couldn’t tell anyone, but as the months rolled by, I began to think of the entire wreck as a blessing. I had only been sleepwalking before, going along with a life path that I had never had the guts to question, caught in the momentum of something that felt big and inevitable …right up until it just didn’t anymore.
Sometimes, the only way to move forward in life is to completely destroy everything you’ve done till that point.
I went back to school. My minor celebrity probably helped a little given my less than stellar grades. People never had questions for me exactly, instead they only found it necessary to tell me at length what they would have done in my situation. “Oh, I would have gone absolutely crazy!” they’d say when they realized I was the guy they’d seen on the news, or “If I were you, I would have just stayed out there, huh? Your own little island paradise? Ha ha!”
I didn’t mind. I’m not particularly good with words so I soon gave up trying to explain to people exactly what it had been like for me out there. The media forgot about the whole incident in a month. It was a freak hurricane that no weather models had been able to predict or track, and it was over so quickly people could scarcely believe that yes, an entire luxury cruise ship had gone down into the Atlantic and yes, only a few survivors remained bobbing in the ocean.
There had been events. There were charity benefits and memorial services for those who didn’t survive. But I didn’t go to any of them. Again, I couldn’t explain why. My tragedy felt smaller, and more personal. Like it was only running parallel to this great national disaster that had caught everyone’s imagination, and it felt weird to go out in public and mourn mutually for a thing I felt had nothing to do with any of them.
My feet moved swiftly over the courtyard. Today was my favorite module, and we were doing my favorite topic: genetic mutations and how they play out in that epic dance of life called natural selection. I had always held an amateur interest in ideas like this, but something about the shipwreck made it feel all the more real for me: tiny ‘mistakes’, or accidents, in the DNA can occasionally prove to be so beneficial to the organism that instead of it being a drawback, it becomes a great gift, something that allows the creature to thrive where everyone else can’t. Sometimes, you have to completely break something in order to see what new and interesting possibilities lie just ahead. The shipwreck was a total, unmitigated disaster. But somehow, it was the one mistake that allowed me to thrive in a new idea, a new life I had never even dreamt of for myself up until that moment.
I hadn’t heard again from the others.
That was mostly on purpose.
Carl and Livvy stayed in touch for a while but they lived in another state and had their own busy lives. Last I heard Carl had written a book about it but I decided to leave well alone enough and not read it. I had tried to reach out to Charlie a few times, but she had been reluctant. She gave me a letter she had and wanted me to pass it on to Ellie. But Ellie was the last person I wanted to see. Yet another thing I couldn’t explain, what can I say.
Once I had delivered her safely to the hospital, I was no longer needed. And when I later heard that Anthony hadn’t made it out alive, the remorse I felt was so intense I couldn’t bear to seek out Ellie again. I wanted to speak to her again more than anything, no mistake. To just share a moment again with the one person who I felt truly understood, who would listen to me and not feel the need to say anything in return. I was so hungry for that connection again, for that ease I had found with her and yes, for that that touch. That sweet way that our bodies had fit so well together…
But that was just selfishness. Just dreaming.
Ellie had lost her fiancé. And while he lay hurt and fading on the island, we were thoughtlessly distracted with our own needs. I strongly suspected that she would never want to see me again; that back then she had temporarily lost her mind and that now we were back in the real world, she’d be mortified to see me, to face me again after what we had done together. In truth, a part of me was too afraid to meet her just because I couldn’t bear having her say all of this directly to my face.
I was nearly at the lecture hall when someone called out my name. I must have been hallucinating. I spun around, thinking how dumb it was that I had been daydreaming about Ellie so hard I was starting to actually hear her voice, when I saw her. In the flesh, standing there in the sunshine of the courtyard with her hair loose and a green satchel slung over her torso. It was really her. She looked as surprised to see me as I was to see her.
&nbs
p; “Ellie…?”
She had a crooked smile on her lips as she walked over to me. I hadn’t seen her in the better part of a year.
“How did you find me here?” she said with a shocked laugh.
“Find you? I study here.”
Her eyes widened.
“But I study here!” she said.
We both laughed nervously. God, she looked good.
“This is… this is quite a surprise,” I said. I couldn’t help but grin. The sight of her face just did that to me, even still. She smiled back.
The drama from the months before seemed smaller, and more manageable, now that she was just a girl with wavy hair and a satchel standing in front of me.
“You …I thought you’d be out there doing something heroic on a battleship or something,” she said.
Had she always been this pretty? In all my memories, Ellie was unkempt. Her wild, sandy silvery hair was all windswept, and her bare feet dusted on the bottom with beach sand. Now it almost felt like meeting a strange new family member of hers, one who wore crisp new clothing and had her hair styled and colored.
“Well, that was in another life,” I said. “I’m studying now. Biomedicine. Cool, huh?”
Her face was so bright and alive.
“Biomedicine? Ooh, fancy. I’m studying too. Obviously,” she gestured to the books she had perched on her hip. “I’m finally doing my teacher’s diploma… of finishing it, I should say. Luckily they let me transfer a bunch of credits so it wasn’t a total cold start for me.”
My eyes fixed on her small pink fingernails clasped round her books. I didn’t know what else to say. It was all the small talk I could muster. Was this really the woman I had spilled my guts to on that boat a million years ago?
“Hey, Ellie, isn’t it weird how this is so much more awkward than anything that happened on the island?”
She laughed instantly and easily.
“You’re so right! Actually, I think about that kind of stuff all the time. How life was almost less scary for those few days, you know? Just easier somehow. That’s probably going to sound really bad…”
