Holding Out for a Hero

by Victoria Van Tiem

  ‘Keep going. You’re doing just fine,’ Dr P. says, then adds something else, but it doesn’t register, as I’m now fully engrossed in memory.

  The light blinded my eyes again. I heard muffled syllables not fitting together in full words, ricocheting from wall to wall. The light disappeared and restored the bouncing spots. There was a beeping noise. I listened to its steady rhythm. Shapes with movement formed all around me. I tried to speak, but it came out gurgled and dry.

  ‘Here, just to wet your lips. Go slow,’ said a kinder, softer voice. Ice tumbled to my lips from a plastic cup. Someone else helped me to sit, but I became dizzy. I put my head back down.

  ‘Get a straw,’ the woman said. ‘Let’s take this slow, OK?’ A pillow under my head propped me up. Someone bent the straw to my lips, so I tried to drink. The icy water felt like tiny shards of broken glass.

  ‘What . . .’ I cleared my throat to get the sounds out right. ‘What happened?’

  ‘You were in an accident,’ the first voice said. I looked round the room. I was in a hospital.

  ‘Welcome back,’ the sharper voice said. ‘Wake her every two hours and keep me updated.’ Then he left.

  ‘I want you to remember three words for me, can you do that?’ The kinder voice belonged to a woman, a nurse with short dark hair and full round cheeks. I blinked.

  ‘Pen, house, ice cream.’ She waited for me to repeat.

  ‘Pen, house, ice cream,’ I said. I’m in the hospital. I was in an accident.

  ‘I’ll ask you again in a few minutes, so try really hard to remember them, OK?’ She smiled then picked up my chart.

  Pen, house . . .

  ‘Libby? Tell me what you see,’ Dr P. sounds so far away, maybe because I am.

  ‘A male nurse woke me later. I was hooked up to IVs and groggy from the sedative that they had given me.’

  The nurse placed a hand behind my shoulders and shifted the pillow underneath. ‘Sorry. I know you’re tired, but we need to wake you every couple of hours. Is this OK?’

  To be even slightly upright made me queasy.

  ‘Do you know where you are, Libby?’ The nurse smiled. Lines formed on either side of his mouth in deep creases, and tiny crinkles by his eyes showed he smiled a lot. I liked him instantly.

  ‘I’m in the hospital; I had . . .’ I cleared my throat. ‘I’m in the hospital.’ My body ached. ‘I’m really sore.’ The words gargled and strained. My throat was dry again.

  ‘OK, honey, I can fix that.’ He grabbed my IV, read the bag, and proceeded to switch it with a new one.

  I had a plastic tube in my arm taped in place. Yellow iodine stains surrounded it. I hadn’t noticed that before. The nurse explained it was to keep the vein open for the IV, and brought me a fresh plastic cup of water and ice. He adjusted the straw so I could reach it. ‘Here ya go.’

  My head was killing me. The round-cheeked nurse from earlier strolled in and the male one smiled, turned and left. It was hard to keep track of anyone.

  ‘I asked you to remember three words; do you remember?’ she asked.

  I looked down. I didn’t remember anything about three words. My thoughts felt fragmented and disjointed.

  ‘That’s all right. We’ll keep playing this game until you can recall them. After all, you took quite a hit, so it’s best to take it slow.’

  ‘Libby?’ Dr P.’s voice sounds like it’s coming from an intercom.

  In my vision I look up, expecting to see one.

  ‘You need to vocalize what you’re seeing. Tell me what’s happening.’

  ‘A nurse is telling me how I hit my head, that it’s called a grade-three head injury.’

  She set the cup back on the small side tray. ‘That means you were unconscious more than conscious, and you’re struggling with a small amount of amnesia.’ She paused, allowing the information to sink in.

  It didn’t.

  ‘Let’s try our three words again, OK? Repeat after me, pen . . .’

  ‘Pen,’ I said.

  ‘House.’

  ‘Ice cream,’ I blurted, because I did remember that.

  ‘Yes, ice cream!’ She smiled. ‘Progress already.’ She used a pen light and asked me to follow it. ‘See? And even this says you’ll be fine. Both pupils are the same size, and you’re tracking the light.’ She jotted down more notes on my chart before she left. Light spots followed my line of sight.

  ‘Libby?’ It sounds like I’ve dropped into the imaginary well and Dr. P’s speaking to me from above. ‘What about the driver of the delivery truck? What happened to him?’

  His question tethers me back, the spots giving way to his office, the metronome, the tick, tick, tick. My chest hurts. Emotion takes every available space, and my lungs can’t expand past them to fill with air. I really can’t breathe.

  ‘Keep your eyes moving back and forth. Do you remember them telling you about the other vehicles involved in the crash?’

  ‘Yes.’ My heart pounds faster. My shoulders tense. ‘The doctor. He sat on the edge of my bed.’ I knew, somehow I knew what he was about to say and couldn’t look at him, instead I focused on my hands. The cuts that marred them.

  ‘What did the doctor tell you, Libby?’

  ‘That the driver of the truck was going to be fine, that he walked away, treated only for minor injuries.’ The doctor had paused then, so I glanced up, and for the briefest of seconds, I saw a hesitation in his expression, confirming my worst nightmare. The one I still live with.

  The tick, tick, tick rotates the other way now, pulling up contents, memories, things long forgotten. Things better left alone.

  I’m drowning. Water swells above my ankles, knees, higher and higher until it’s at my chest, filling my lungs.

  ‘Libby, vocalize the words.’

  I’m rocking.

  ‘Libby, say the words. I need you to say the words.’

  I don’t want to do this. Not again. ‘No.’

  ‘Say the words.’ Dr P.’s tone is stern, loud.

  ‘No!’ Now I’m speaking loudly, almost shouting.

  The scene repeats in fragments. Everything’s in slow motion.

  My hands.

  The doctor.

  His words.

  ‘Libb—’

  ‘He died, OK!? I hit the truck, and the driver lived, but . . . there was a passenger, and he didn’t. He died. I killed him . . .’

  I see the pendulum again. I’m only now aware of the tears that cascade one after the other down my cheeks. ‘It was my fault.’ I whisper the words. ‘Completely my fault,’ I say again softly. My shoulders shake violently, but I’m holding my breath. Only when I can’t any longer, do I gasp for air.

  I’ve been sitting alone in Dr P.’s office for almost an hour, decompressing. He’s allowing me some space. I’m numb, emotionally spent, and tracing the chair’s intricate jacquard pattern with my finger. At least I’m not crying.

  A soft tap at the door and it opens. ‘Can I come in?’

  I nod.

  Dr P. is wearing that face. That face that says I understand, but I don’t know what to say. I’ve seen so many people wear it: the teachers at school when I returned two weeks later; my friends before they started avoiding me to return to the regularity of the everyday; people I didn’t even know. What happened made people uncomfortable. It was too heavy, too much, especially for my friends. I mean, we were kids. Someone died because of me. I get it, but I don’t like that face.

  Dr P. quietly sits with me and actually, if I don’t look at him, it’s nice. Maybe nothing needs to be said. Maybe you just need someone beside you. I take a deep breath and refocus. I’m not sure what to do now. I didn’t know what to do then.

  Dr P. leans close, his tone is soft, reassuring. ‘It’s very important we follow this through. You must be here tomorrow first thing. Say, 10 a.m.? We’re not quite done, Libby.’

  He doesn’t know the half of it.

  I’m at home, not sure what I feel. I’m not crying; I’m not an
ything. I’m numb. It’s not like I didn’t know what happened. I mean, of course I knew, but I had forgotten little details like the roundness of the nurse’s cheeks, the doctor’s tone and the hospital smell. I despise that smell.

  It’s as if the details somehow disappeared, and I chose not to dwell on the fragments that didn’t. I mean, what’s the point? There is none. I can’t change anything.

  Pulling my comforter up over my shoulders, I rest my head on the sofa arm and fumble with the DVD remote. I’ve decided to play hooky for the rest of the afternoon and am watching Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, because, well, I need one. Maybe I really am like Cameron: a neurotic mess, happy living in his own misery. Is that why I can’t get past this? Can’t forgive myself?

  John Hughes based Cameron, and Charlie Sheen’s character, Garth Volbeck – the guy at the police station – on a boy he knew growing up. At the start of the movie in the original screenplay, Ferris gives that boy’s backstory, saying how he stayed over at this boy’s house once and heard him crying in the middle of the night. He explains how there was not one specific thing the boy was upset about. He was conditioned to grief.

  That lost monologue speaks directly to me. I’m conditioned to grief.

  I inhale deeply to force everything down, and closing my eyes, I rub above them, needing the noise in my head to mute and the swell in my chest to ease. For the first time I crave the nothingness of going underwater, but I can’t even cry. I don’t have a single tear to drown in.

  I get that life should have a certain amount of struggle. But shouldn’t there be a hard limit for the amount? An expiration date for the duration?

  There’s a soft knock on the door. I blink.

  ‘Libby?’ More knocking.

  ‘Hang on,’ I say, pushing myself upright and shoving back the comforter. Why is anyone here? I find my feet and stumble from the couch towards the door, almost tripping over my shoes. Rubbing at my eyes, I force them open with splayed fingers and concentrate on the deadbolt –and there, the door swings free.

  Jasper’s standing on the other side. His head’s thrown back. He looks confused. I’m confused. ‘Why aren’t you at the store?’ I sound froggy, so I cough to clear my throat.

  ‘It’s after five. You never showed and didn’t answer any of my calls, so I got worried. You OK?’ His eyes travel down.

  I follow his gaze. Cross-stitched seams line my arms and run along my sides. My shirt’s inside out. Was it like this earlier with Dr P.?

  Jasper leans on the door frame with his shoulder. ‘I wanted to run some things by you, but you’re in no condition to . . .’ He eyeballs me. ‘Anything.’ He steps closer and places a cool hand to my forehead, causing my hair to stand straight up.

  The sensation’s nice. I haven’t had anyone check my forehead since I was little. I’m tempted to throw out a fake Ferris cough, but never get past the thought.

  ‘You don’t seem to have a fever,’ he says, pulling away his hand only to return it to flatten the hair that stayed upright. ‘Have you eaten anything?’

  Have I? I had a coffee before my appointment, and I do remember making toast, but can’t recall if I actually ate it. It may still be in the toaster. And when I sat down to watch the movie . . . my mind blanks. I glance up and shrug, ’cause yeah, I don’t know.

  ‘Well, you need to eat. Let me make you something, OK?’

  He’s already through the door before I can protest or answer, so I meander to the couch to reset the movie I started, but my head falls to the sofa arm and I watch Jasper instead. My cat Lucky brushes up against his leg, and Jas reaches down with a return rub hello. Starr doesn’t like strangers and is probably lurking nearby.

  I can’t help but take him in. The tats, earrings, ripped jeans. Even with all that, he’s a good-looking man – maybe not in the polished traditional sense, but am I? In a lot of ways, we make sense together. Have I ever really considered him? I know the answer, of course.

  Jas turns suddenly, catching my eye.

  I’m emotionally spent and can’t seem to muster the strength it takes to talk, let alone explain anything.

  I wonder what he’d say if I could?

  CHAPTER 18

  ‘Weird Science’

  Oingo Boingo, 1985

  Weirdly comforting

  Wrapped in a sweatshirt, with the sleeves pulled down over my fisted hands, I follow the sidewalk round my apartment complex. I normally don’t take walks. Usually I just watch my neighbours push baby strollers, jog, or drag fussy toddlers in a wagon from my window as I do the dishes. But this morning I need the movement, the fresh, crisp air, the open space. God, I just need to breathe.

  It’s like I’m carrying this oversized box. I have both arms tightly wrapped round it, can barely see over the top, and can hardly manage due to its weight. Both Dr P. and my friends are pestering me to let go and be open to others, but that’s what they don’t understand: my hands are full, and I can’t put it down. It’s my burden. If I don’t carry it, who will?

  My phone chimes to signal yet another text from Dora. Foolishly, and in a moment of weakness, I told her the Basket Case emailed and suggested a date for Saturday. I glance at the phone’s screen:

  DORA: You said yes, right? So now you officially have a date for your party!

  I text back:

  I said NO. I’m already a basket case. Don’t need a nutty buddy.

  Actually, nutty buddy bars sound good. I may have to pick up a pack on my way to Dr P.’s. There’s something comforting in pulling apart the wafers and eating each piece separately.

  DORA: You’ll like this one. Trust me.

  LIBBY: Trust you? Forget it. Project Libby is Alan Parsons Project over.

  Ignoring the next chime, I kick at a rogue piece of chalk left on the pavement where children have drawn hopscotch squares. I’m surprised anyone even remembers this; it’s not hi-tech gadgetry, just a simple, honest game. It also develops neural pathways that become conduits in the brain later in life. Maybe that’s the problem with this generation: kids are raised without movement. Of course, my parents blamed MTV, and their parents said the world’s downfall was due to rock ’n’ roll.

  I jump-hop through once, then turn and do it again with even more bounce in the opposite direction. My mottled brain could use some new sparks of activity. It’s time I figured everything out, and maybe I should reconsider Saturday’s date. I don’t know. I’m at least going to see Dr P. again, which is a huge step. I just need to one hundred per cent commit. Or be committed, because I’m not sure I can do this, even if I want to.

  In order to consider a major move from New York to LA and move forward with my relationships . . . I may need someone to rip the box from my hands.

  The cab ride to Dr Papadopoulos’s office seemed abnormally quick. Instead of the typical morning traffic and delay, every light was made and we zipped right over. It was as if the universe was making sure I arrived on time. Which I did – but now I’m late because I’m outside, leaning against the building, ignoring my ringing phone and talking to myself. ‘I’m coming, OK?’ I say, looking at the screen as if Dr P. can hear me. I’ve been out here for at least twenty minutes.

  The moment it stops, it starts again. Each beat of the Men at Work ‘Who Can It Be Now?’ ringtone plays on my nerves because there’s no question it’s him. ‘Fine!’ I yell, causing the man walking by to look at me questionably. ‘I’m fine,’ I repeat with a glib wave to move him along.

  I can do this. I am doing this. Look at me go. Like the determined and foolish Little Red Riding Hood, I march over the river (in this case a puddle), push through the doors, and into Dr P.’s office I go.

  The minute I walk into the waiting room, he swings open his door. ‘So you finally decided to come in. Good.’ When I give him a confused look he motions to his window and adds, ‘I’ve been watching you stalk around out front.’

  ‘What big eyes you have.’ He doesn’t ask and I don’t explain.

  Dr P. starts c
hatting immediately about anything and everything as I peel out of my jean jacket. This one’s my favourite, with embellished fringe hanging from the front and back seams. Over time, half of the strands have been braided, and the ones that have come free hang crimped from the position. I get situated in the large wingback chair, still holding my jacket, and immediately start weaving the fabric strands.

  Dr P.’s still making small talk. Maybe he’s trying to make sure I’m comfortable. I’m anything but. I’m beyond heavy; I’m spent. My muscles ache with bone-weary exhaustion, one I’ve never quite experienced. He doesn’t bother to ask if I’ve slept; it’s apparent I haven’t, from my lack of effort to hide it. If I was a zombie from Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ video before, now I’m like Peter Gabriel in ‘Sledgehammer’, with the crazy stop-motion roller-coaster hair that spikes out in different directions.

  ‘So tomorrow’s your birthday,’ Dr P. says, as if I needed the reminder. He intertwines his fingers and rests them across his middle as usual while waiting for my acknowledgement.

  ‘Yup.’ That’s all he gets. I’m less than thrilled, so he’s lucky to have gotten that.

  ‘And tomorrow’s also when your store is to be vacated, correct?’

  ‘The timing’s poetic, don’t you think?’ I shake my head. ‘I’m not going over the hill – I’m being launched by cannon.’

  He smiles, slightly. ‘So what are you going to do, Libby?’

  I blink. ‘I don’t know. Guess I’ll just pull from my inner Power Station and “Bang a Gong” and get on with it. What else can I do? I’m screwed either way.’ Lifting my chin, I put everything out there. ‘If I don’t sell, they’ll just replicate the store and call it something else. It’s a clean slice across my jugular. The bleed-out’s slow, but death is absolute.’

  Dr P. leans back thoughtfully, ignoring my morbid state. The chair squeaks in protest. ‘So why not sell? Walk away with a nice payoff? That seems the most logical choice.’