No Cell Phones Allowed in the Hospital
I go outside, onto the circular driveway that leads wrecked bodies to Emergency. I start to text Audrey but then I just call her.
“Nat?” she says. I might have woken her.
“Nat?” She has to ask twice because now's the moment I can't make a sound. Now's the moment there's a massive wave of heat and sorrow pressing up from my throat and inside my ears and behind my eyes, like lava. I'm deaf with it and blind and mute. Audrey hears me not able to speak.
“Do you need me to come somewhere?” she says. I shake my head, but she can't see. I press End and sink onto the grass. But only for about a minute because it's damp with dew, or maybe they watered already. I stand up, letting the tide ebb. I text Audrey, later, and I go back in.
Do Unto Others
I'm sitting in the waiting room and Janet Fox sits down beside me.
“Hello, Natalie,” she says. “You've been in to see your sister? How did you find her?”
I could make a joke—I just looked in her room and there she was—but I don't. I want to say, It's the scariest thing I ever saw in my life, but I don't.
“Do you have any questions you'd like to ask?”
“ Nuh-uh,” I say, not meaning to be rude, but still, you know, wanting her to butt out.
“It must be … a confusing time …?”
She's nice and everything, but I think I'm on my father's side as far as social workers go. How are we supposed to suddenly tell stuff to strangers?
“Oh, except…” I've thought of something.
“Yes?”
“It looks … She looks … I mean, do people ever… Is there any chance?”
“Oh dear,” says Janet Fox. “That's one question I don't have the answer for. I can arrange for you and your family to talk to the doctor today.” She pats my hand.
I nod. But she's not going to say what I want to hear.
“If you need anything, there is always a social worker on call, either me or my colleague, Kim Chan. And the chaplain is available, if you'd prefer to see him. There's even a chapel, if that would be of comfort. You just let us know. The nurses can find me anytime.”
I'm wishing Claire were here to witness this woman's body because it's so oddly breastular that we could laugh for days.
Parents Show Up
I want enough time to pass so Trisha will give me another five minutes or else finish her shift. I'm reading the only magazine on the rack, called Your Body, Your Health, when Mom and Dad come flying in.
They are all weirded out that I came by myself while they were napping, as if I'd be less traumatized with them standing beside me.
“Honey, are you all right?”
“ Uh-huh.”
“You don't sound all right.”
“Mom, my sister is in a coma.”
So she cries and I apologize and we sit around.
We take turns all afternoon. Five minutes each time with ten minutes in between each visit. Trisha leaves and there's a Nan and then there's a Florence. The nurses decide not to be in the way after they see we're following a routine.
It Occurs to Me
It's not so shocking now that I've been in a couple of times. I can look right at you and not want to barf.
I look at you and want to cry. It takes a bit of… of peering to find you in there, Claire. The main thing is how still… Even a person sleeping isn't this still.
There are a hundred questions I need to ask you, but you're not giving any answers. So. It's up to me.
I think this is the part in the movie where I tell you what I always should have told you but never could. But you already know I love you. And we've been okay as sisters, right? I mean, better than okay. You get pissy and superior sometimes, but hey. I forgive you. Mostly, I… I… think I'm lucky to have you.
Okay, that part's done. I'm supposed to be talking to you about memories. Trying to kick-start any wires floating around in there. So I was thinking about it, out there in the waiting room. Does that mean reenacting terrible Thanksgiving dinners, like when Gram found out that Uncle Mike has a boyfriend? Or reminding you of when you won the state champion Smart Show-off Teen contest? Oh god. That's weird to think about, eh? How much knowledge is somehow trapped in your… in your hard drive …
Or maybe just if you hear my voice? Which must be the one you know the best, the way I know yours. This is like when I was little, around four or five, and I had the trundle bed that we rolled out from under your big-girl bed every night, in the house on Winona Drive. And you'd tell me a story in the dark about the Explorer Sisters, ClaireDare and NatBrat. You, of course, were the hero, and I was the tagalong. Remember that? I'd fall off a cliff and you'd save me. Or I'd get lost at sea and you'd find me in your hot-air balloon. One time, though—and I've always remembered this, Claire—once, you let me be the one to spill honey all over the bad guys so they'd get eaten alive by fire ants.
Or else we played Tickle Torture. Remember that? Where you would lean over the edge of your mattress and tickle me and I had to lie perfectly still without making a sound? You tormented me!
Oh, time's up. Nurse Nan is beckoning. Oh, that you could see me rolling my eyes.
See you later.
The Rest of the World, However, Moves In
Three casseroles are waiting on the kitchen table when we get home from the hospital, and a banana loaf and a platter of cookies and a basket of grapes.
“Oh dear,” says Mom. “It's like when someone dies.” She says it so quietly, so evenly.
“They're being neighborly.” My father rests his fingers in the center of her back and reads the note attached to a tub of lasagna. Our thoughts are with you, from the Flemings.
I peek under the tinfoil on another pan and see chicken paprika. “We are praying for you all,” I read. “Can we freeze this stuff?”
“Let's eat first,” says Dad.
“I'm not hungry,” says Mom.
“How about a glass of wine?”
Mom shivers and sits at the table. We got take-out chicken Caesar wraps from It's a Wrap on the way home, but they're kind of drippy and nobody wants them. It feels too late to heat up the neighbor food. Mom is just parked beside Dad while I'm the one who finds space in the freezer.
Gina
There's a knock on the back door. It's Mom's friend, Gina, of course. A friend in need. She doesn't usually knock, but… it's a new world.
She hugs me before I can slide away.
“Hi, Natty-pie,” she says. I like Gina, but from a distance. She had a baby who died from crib death about five years ago, her only child. It always gives me the creeps, that she has this tragedy lurking just below the surface, like something more might be expected of me.
“Hi,” I say, thinking now's my chance to escape.
“Sit down,” she says. “I'm here to give you all five-minute neck rubs and a dose of Rescue Remedy.”
Dad seems to squirm along with me, but we submit. Gina is a professional masseuse. It's kind of awesome what two thumbs and a bunch of fingers can do.
Altered Ritual
The kitchen door opens and Uncle Mike comes in. Dad jumps up and I shout, “Mike!”
“Chickie!”
But then we freeze. The way he's been greeting us probably since I was born is that he grabs what he calls a Chickie Head under each arm and then he knocks them together and Claire and I scream and laugh and that's Hello, Uncle Mike.
So the moment turns into this lurch of anguish. I go over and butt my Chickie Head against his chest and he says, “Hey, there.”
Telling My Friends
I finally get to go upstairs and turn on music and not look at Claire's side of the room. Audrey shows up and finds me hiding. “I heard,” she says. “Everyone heard.”
She doesn't mention the zombies in the kitchen. She stands there, awkward, and I realize she's been wondering what to say, even though every day of her life since she was seven she's been showing up and standing in
the doorway of my room and never once considered what she'd say.
I look at her and shake my head. Her face puckers up like a little girl's and she starts to cry. She throws her arms around me and rubs her forehead into my shoulder. Her hair is broom straw in my mouth, dyed a hundred times.
We're not really huggers, so it's only for a second, just to say, Hey, the world is upside down.
“So,” says Audrey.
“Really bad,” I say. “Hard to even tell you, because how could you believe what can happen to a person in a few hours?”
“A few seconds,” says Audrey. “Actually a few seconds.”
“Yeah, but the few seconds didn't make her look like that. The seconds were the catalyst.”
“Oh, Mr. Harrison would be proud,” says Audrey. “All that chemistry pays off. Catalyst.”
“They shaved her head,” I say.
“Totally?”
“Totally.”
“Didn't she just spend, like, eighty dollars on a haircut for the prom?”
I actually laugh. “ Uh-huh.”
“And what else?” asks Audrey.
“Well, I guess she's on some kind of meds that blow her up. Her face is twice the size. Tubes all over.”
“So what do they think? She's in a coma, right? But then what? People wake up, right? Is she going to be okay?”
“They don't know. They don't say anything. Not to me, anyway. My parents are a train wreck, in case you hadn't noticed, and I… I don't know. I feel like I need to talk to Claire, you know?”
“Wanna go out?”
“Out?”
“Just to get out. Walk around. Everybody wants to see you, but they're all freaked out and don't know what to do. The whole town is freaked out.”
“Do you think… Is it, I dunno, disrespectful or anything? What do you think my parents …?”
“Like you said, they're a train wreck. Come on, we'll go to the Ding-Dong.”
“On your night off?”
“It'll be a distraction. It'll be a pleasure to have Fiona wait on me. Let's go.”
So we go.
And it's the Twilight Zone.
They're all sitting in the back booth, Zack and Carson and Leila and this other girl Trina, who's a total anorexic in Zack's grade. Belly is chiseling the grease off the sides of the grill, and Fiona, who is old enough to be our mother and not quite as shapely as she thinks she is, she's flitting around in the Dork costume.
It's just another night at the Ding-Dong. But it's really not. I'm looking at the diner as if I'm wearing my dad's glasses. It's all hypersharp and familiar, but I'm thinking, How can it be the same? The back of my neck goes hot. I shouldn't be here.
(My parents didn't seem to care, actually. They smiled at Audrey, and listened while she said how dreadful, how sorry, how sad. But then they just said, Yes, of course, Natalie, go on out, see your friends. They didn't even say be careful.)
Am I imagining that the place goes dead silent? Except the ching-grr, ching-grr of Belly's spatula.
Zack leaps to his feet and comes running over, lifts me up off the ground, like he's congratulating me instead of condoling. Is that a word, condoling?
“Oh Nat,” he says. “Oh, Nat.”
I can see he's heartbroken, the way Audrey is, nearly the way I am. I have this flash of, Is he upset about Claire or is he sad for me? But then I know it's the same thing. He cares about both of us, but I'm the one here.
So Zack is holding one hand and Audrey has the other, and we walk over to the table in this bizarre formation that would never have occurred twenty-four hours ago.
That girl Trina stands up as we arrive and she says “Ohmygod ohmygod” about six times and puts her hand in front of her mouth as if I'm some phantom food-bearing invader and then she leaves.
“Okay,” I say. “That was awkward.”
There's only room for four in a Ding-Dong booth, which is usually okay because Audrey's working, but now we have to squish in. I can see that Leila is nervous that I might be squished in with her, so I sit with Carson. Audrey and Zack sit across, pinning Leila in the corner. We're all finally settled and it's quiet again.
I breathe a heavy breath, lifting my shoulders to my ears and then whooshing it out. This is only the beginning; these are my best buds, this is where it should be easiest. But how do we start? How do we get to the part where I feel comfort from them?
Whose Idea Was Fireball?
Carson's got this older brother, Murray, who will buy alcohol for the underage crowd. So Carson is equipped with a bottle of cinnamon-flavored whiskey the size of a hydrant. Not normally my favorite activity, somehow it appeals to me tonight, to huddle behind the bandstand in Queen's Park. It's so hot we stick to each other. We take turns swigging Fireball and screaming curses to scare off any couples who might be thinking of hooking up anywhere within earshot. By curses I don't mean swearwords. By curses I mean salutes to our blaspheming ancestors, whose profanities were universally more creative than the F word.
“Thou wouldst betray me?” I holler. “Thou shalt receive a bulging sack of boils and plagues!” “Hey!” yells Audrey. “You vile knave! You lack-brained ninny! You malignant, short-panted cur!”
“Those aren't curses, Audrey, those are insults. Come on.”
“You greasy, horn-mad hedge-pig! Thou shalt suck rabbits ere I speak with thee again!”
“Much better!”
“Thou hast offended greatly! Eat maggot pie, you pribbling swine! Eat until thy belly ripens and thy breath kills!”
“Good one, Zack!”
We could go on all night, once we get started.
Jumping into the Queen's Park fountain does not leave the same elated aftertaste pool-hopping does. Zack walks home with me, both of us sopping and pushing our bikes because after the first time I have to puke from the saddle, the effort of riding is way beyond my ability.
Monday Morning
I guess they've turned the ringer back on, because it's the phone that wakes me. I wonder where my own phone is, it's been so long since I used it. Somehow the whole subject of Claire is something I can't talk about on the phone. Maybe that's a truth about Tragedy that I didn't know until now. What we thought were momentous events before, stuff we could discuss for days, there's no comparison.
I get downstairs and it's the same scene as yesterday: zombies and coffee, and despite the growing number of food donations on every surface, no one seems to be eating anything. Nobody's going to work either, so there's none of that rushed thing going on. Quite the opposite.
“Leight Pharmacy called,” says Mom. That's where Claire was cashier this summer. “To say … they'll take her off the schedule.”
“The police are sending someone over this morning,” Dad tells me. “Can you lose the pajamas, please?”
“Do I have to speak to them?”
“No, darling,” says Mom. “Just look respectable in the background.”
I go back upstairs and put on clothes. Including Claire's black thing under my T-shirt.
Claire's Friends
The doorbell rings and I look at the clock. Not even nine. What am I doing up?
“Nat,” says Kate. Her voice cracks. She hugs me and I let her. She looks as if someone punched her in the nose, that's how dark the circles are around her eyes. Kate's got this amazing hair, like she stole it from an old painting: boisterous auburn curls, more like coils. But today, her hair is pulled back tightly, making her face pale and sad. I open the door wider so she can come in.
I look out and see a crowd of teenagers on the lawn: Carli, Mark, Feinstein, Tony, Stella, Val.
The girls are crying and the boys are glum. What is it about boys and crying? I've cried a thousand times in my life, probably. Or more, since that's only three times a week for about six years. So have all the girls I know. But boys? Maybe if they've just lost the basketball game, they tear up. And they don't want you to see them, so it's embarrassing. Carson cried when he got a three-day suspension from s
chool for lighting the towel dispenser on fire, but that was more about being afraid of his father. And Zack cried when his grandmother died. But he was nine.
Claire's friends are all staring at me. I feel this huge flashing sign above my head: *NOT AS COOL AS BIG SISTER*
I pick up the newspaper lying there and go inside.
“Oh god, Mrs. J,” Kate is saying. “I… I…”
Mom hugs her. “You don't have to say anything,” she says. “I know how hard this is for all you kids.”
Suddenly Mom is a mom again, making Kate feel better. She's one of the moms other kids like, so it takes another kid, maybe, to make her sound normal.
“I went to the hospital to see her,” says Kate. “But they wouldn't—”
“No, sweetie. It's family only at the moment.”
I think about all the times Kate made Claire so mad, the way she needs to be the center of attention. Parents only care if a kid is polite to them. Parents never know about drama. I think, Who's in the spotlight now? but that's too ugly a thought to hold on to.
Work
I had the closing shift at the Y yesterday, but I didn't show up and I didn't phone in. So I call, and Stephanie at the desk says, “Ohmygod, Natalie, are you okay? We heard about your sister and it's just the most terrible thing, are you okay?”
“I guess,” I say. “Under the circumstances.”
“Wait,” says Steph. “Big Doug wants to talk to you. He said if you called to get him no matter what.”
“Okay,” I say.
She patches me through.
“Douglas MacIntyre.”
“Uh, hi, Doug? It's Natalie Johnson.”
“Oh. Natalie.”
Will I ever say my name again, I wonder, without hearing the other person pause and be disturbed?
“I'm sorry I missed my shift yesterday,” I say.
“No, no, Natalie, we completely understand.”
Would You Page 4
