After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away

by Joyce Carol Oates

  I tell Mrs. Holland it’s all right. I’ll take care of the broken glass.

  Mrs. Holland leans heavily on me as I help her to a chair in a corner of the foyer, sobbing like an infuriated child. The fumes on her breath smell like lighter fluid. I stoop to pick up the pieces of the cell phone, which is now completely silent, and as many pieces of the broken wineglass as I can find, and I mop up the spilled wine with paper napkins. Mrs. Holland doesn’t seem to notice; she’s peering at me suspiciously, asking suddenly, “Who are you? Do I know you?”

  “I—I’m Jenna. Trina’s friend from high school.”

  “But I don’t know you, do I? What are you doing in my house?”

  This is scary. I’m wishing that Trina would come back.

  I don’t even know what to say. Trina brought me here? Why, I don’t know any more than you do, Mrs. Holland.

  Mrs. Holland calls, “Trina? Where are you? Tree-eena!” She’s so drunk, it’s hard to know if she is furious or sad or her heart is broken or mostly she’s just disgusted and wants to blame me.

  “Where is my daughter? Why is my daughter always gone? Who are my daughter’s friends? All that I’ve done for that child, why doesn’t she love me when I love her so much?” Mrs. Holland is gripping my hand so hard, I have to pry her fingers off, trying not to panic.

  “Hey, Mom: chill.”

  Trina comes sauntering into the foyer, the hood of her jacket pulled up so her face is half covered. She’s carrying her backpack, which looks kind of bulky and heavy. “We’re leaving now—g’night.”

  “But—Trina! Don’t you have homework? Both of you?”

  Trina’s walking away, pulling me with her. Like she’s talking to some mental defective in a loud flat voice: “Mom, see, I explained. Jenna’s dad is this engineering genius, he’s got this supernew awesome computer, he lets us use for research? For, like, my earth science class? So—”

  We’re at the front door. Trina opens it, shoves me out into the cold air, which hits my face like a wall. At first my skin hurts; then I’m grateful for the cold, after the hothouse heat of Mrs. Holland’s house. Behind us Trina’s mother is calling plaintively for Trina to come back, has Trina forgotten she’s grounded all this week—

  Trina slams the door shut. Trina’s laughing, so I guess things are okay, but halfway up the front walk she turns on me, angry. “Why’d you do that? She’s not your mother.”

  Not my mother. These words hurt. I’m glad Trina takes no notice.

  On the snowy street we’re waiting for somebody, I guess. Our breaths are steaming. Trina says, relenting, “See, baby, I got the goods.” There are several bottles in her backpack, and she pulls one out: Parrot Bay Puerto Rican rum. Trina screws off the top, takes a long swallow, wipes her mouth on her sleeve the way a guy would do, and passes the bottle to me. The liquid is so strong going down, it feels like flame in my mouth, throat, chest. I’m trying not to have a coughing fit when T-Man reappears in his black SUV with the red lightning bolts on the sides, skidding and braking for Trina and me to climb inside.

  This is the night Trina says, Know what, you guys could help me out real well, and the guys ask how and Trina says, Kill my mom for me, put the beast out of her misery, and the guys are like Whaaaat? not knowing if they’ve heard right, and Trina says, laughing, Just kidding, guys.

  Trina’s my friend, I am never lonely now.

  24.

  Jenna! Come downstairs, honey.

  Mom is calling up the stairs. It’s Christmas Eve!

  Strange that I’m so sleepy. My eyelids feel glued shut. Mom’s voice sounds far away. When I try to answer her and run to the stairs, my legs are tangled in something: bedclothes?

  Christmas Eve! For days Mom and I have been decorating the tree. So many beautiful ornaments, and some I’ve made myself in art class. Last week Mom let me pick out the tree at the nursery, a Douglas fir it’s called. The needles smell so wonderful, like the fresh air of a forest. Beneath the tree are our presents. I love Christmas presents even more than birthday presents because there are so many of them and because of the way they look in their shining wrapping paper. Like the Christmas tree sparkling and winking with glass ornaments, silver tinsel, red and green colored lights. And the fluffy white angel at the peak.

  Each of the presents marked “JENNA” is fascinating to me, like a riddle in one of my picture books when I was a little girl. There are presents from “Mom & Dad,” including a big square box that rattles when I shake it—I can’t guess what’s inside and Mom won’t even hint what it is; there are heaps of presents from “Grandma,” from “Aunt Caroline & Uncle Dwight,” from other relatives. My present for Mom looks kind of small, not much larger than a necktie box. The salesclerk wrapped it in silver paper, but I marked it myself in red ink “TO MOM FROM JENNA.” It’s a purple velvet shawl sprinkled with gold stars. Daddy took me shopping, but I bought Mom’s present with my own money. (Mom helped me buy our present for Daddy, a hand-knit sweater from Scotland. Anything Daddy might really like is so expensive.) So many beautiful shawls the salesclerk showed me, I had a hard time choosing. I asked Daddy to help, but Daddy was talking on his cell phone and didn’t want to be interrupted. Like Daddy has other things to think about that mean more to him than buying a Christmas present for Mom.

  Jenna? is fading now.

  Mom’s voice is fading, and I can’t open my eyes, can’t move my legs. Want to scream, Mommy, help me! Mommy, don’t leave me! but the words are trapped inside.

  25.

  “Jenna? We’re waiting, honey…”

  It’s Christmas Eve, but another year. Not Mom but Aunt Caroline is calling up the stairs to me. Her voice is eager, hopeful. I am not trapped in a dream, I am awake and hating it.

  I can’t. I won’t. I’m not your daughter.

  “BIG Z it’s called: ‘BZ.’ It’s really really cool, but don’t try to swallow it whole—you will, like, choke to death. What I do,” Trina says, “is, like, saw it in four chunks with a knife or a scissors or something.”

  I saw them earlier from the stairway landing. Christmas Eve is Family Time. The house smells of evergreen needles. Becky and Mikey are so excited, they can’t sit still. There was Uncle Dwight jabbing burning logs with a poker in the fireplace. There was Aunt Caroline handing Mikey the first of the heaps of presents to be uwrapped.

  It’s obvious how happy the McCartys are without me.

  I’m a scrawny, sulky girl in patchy jeans, an old Tarrytown T-shirt, and a black pullover. My hair that’s so weird and curly, that I hate, is brushed back as flat as I can make it. Last time I looked in a mirror, you could see scars. Like a giant cobweb scar grown over my face.

  Jenna? Be nice to them, they love you in my place.

  This is what Mom would say. I know.

  In my room on my bureau is a picture I love, of Mom smiling and pretty. Other pictures, I’m with Mom at different ages, but I never look at myself, only at Mom. Sometimes I hear Mom’s voice as clear as if she’s in the room with me. When I run—or try to run—I hear Mom’s voice a lot. Other times I’m not sure what I hear.

  …they love you in my place, Jenna. Please let them.

  But I’m not so sure I want to be loved. You just wind up being hurt.

  This is my first Christmas without Mom. First Christmas after the wreck. I’m lying on my bed feeling like Whaaat? like you’d feel in a car smashed through a railing, dangling over a deep rushing river. Whaaat? like the stunned goofy looks on the guys’ faces when Trina said for them to kill her mom for her, but Trina was only teasing.

  You’d have to know Trina to know that she was teasing.

  You’d have to be really close to Trina to know that she was teasing. Like I am.

  Aunt Caroline is calling my name, wants me to come downstairs for Christmas Eve. If I could reach the door from my bed, I would open it and call down to her, Be there in a minute, don’t wait for me, but I can’t reach the door, it’s too much effort.

  Whaaat? is kind o
f a cool sensation like floating/falling. I’m lying on top of my bed arms/legs stretched wide. I sawed the chunky yellow pill Trina’s friend Jax gave me, for free, into four crumbling pieces with the edge of my scissors.

  I hate being awake. Raw-awake. That hurts. When I tried to tell Trina about Mom and how wonderful it was in the blue where I could be with Mom, Trina got excited, asking about Demerol, if I knew anybody on the hospital staff, or the rehab clinic, who could supply me?

  Better than Oxys, Trina said. What you hear of Demerol, it’s, like, the perfect high.

  Now Uncle Dwight is calling up the stairs: “Jenna? We’re waiting.”

  Becky calls: “Jen-na! C’mon!”

  I’m supposed to be a big sister to Becky, I guess. Too much effort.

  My little cousins Becky and Mikey have been excited about Christmas for what seems like months. I try to think: They’re sweet little kids, I love them. But the thought just fades. I can’t seem to hold on to any thought for very long.

  Took all four pieces of the pill before dinner. Earlier today, three or four extra-strength Tylenols with Diet Coke.

  What I hate is my stomach bloating, but at least I’m not hungry.

  Late afternoon, when I was in the kitchen helping Aunt Caroline prepare Christmas Eve dinner, the phone rang, and it was Dad calling, and I ran away and refused to speak to him, so Aunt Caroline had to, then Uncle Dwight. What Dad wanted to know was did his presents arrive, and why wouldn’t Jenna return his calls?

  When my cell phone rings, and the ID is just CALIFORNIA, I never pick up.

  This big Christmas card came from Dad. On the front was a glossy photo of the awesome new Spanish-style house and the new family smiling in the sunshine amid crimson bougainvillea, looking as fake as a movie set. Inside was “Love from Deirdre, Porter, Dad.” I don’t know if I actually saw this. The card slipped from my fingers onto the floor. Later I overheard my aunt Caroline say to my uncle Dwight, How could Steve be so insensitive? and my uncle said, That’s Steve Abbott.

  Like you’d say, well, a scorpion stings.

  Family Time. I’m supposed to unwrap my presents. Watch them unwrap theirs. I will say I’m sick to my stomach. (This is true. And I can make myself sicker, I know how.)

  Trina hasn’t called for six days. Since that night she took me to her house. Said we’d hook up over the break, some guys were having a party out at the lake, but Trina never called, doesn’t return my calls to her cell. It’s from Kiki Weaver I learned that Trina is in St. Bart’s in the Caribbean (!), her family goes every Christmas, and she won’t be back until after New Year’s.

  Sometimes I hate Trina, you can’t trust her. What she says is just words.

  I miss Trina, though. I bought her a really cool/sexy shimmery-midnight-blue top from Banana Republic and a pair of angora leg warmers, the kind dancers wear.

  Suddenly Aunt Caroline’s voice sounds closer. Must be on the stairway landing, calling up. “Jenna…?”

  I don’t want Aunt Caroline coming into my room, so I quickly say, “I’m okay, Aunt Caroline. I’ll be down in a…” but my voice isn’t strong enough, my words fade like air leaking from a balloon.

  Why don’t they open their presents without me? Nobody really wants me.

  Actually, I bought Christmas presents. I bought presents for my new family: Aunt Caroline, Uncle Dwight, Becky, and Mikey. (I did not buy a present for my father. I will not open the presents to me from my father.) I watched myself at the mall, saw myself in store windows and mirrors, moving like a ghost. Buying things nobody wants, nobody needs. In my room, wrapping presents so that other people can tear off the wrapping paper.

  I still have my present for Trina. Hidden in a drawer in my bureau.

  I miss Crow. I have not seen him for a long time except at a distance.

  Crow was kind to me. I guess. The way you don’t expect a guy to be. Anyway, most guys. Most biker guys for sure. I was the one who was rude, weird-acting. I am so ashamed! I can’t seem to control my emotions. I love Crow is a stupid shameful fact.

  “Why, Jenna. Are you—”

  Aunt Caroline has come into my room. If she knocked on my door, I didn’t hear.

  I’m on the top of my bed where (I guess) I’ve fallen from some height. Arms/legs spread. Don’t know if I am floating or heavy as lead. Trying to say I’m okay, leave me alone, but my voice is slow and hoarse like my tongue is swollen, and my aunt is stooping over me, sitting beside me, touches my forehead with her fingers, so in this instant I think, This is Mom, I’m a little girl again sick in bed with a fever. Mom is here with me. For that moment I feel safe, such a warm sensation in my heart.

  Stupid Jenna! This isn’t Mom, this is my aunt.

  Maybe it was a mistake taking all of the Big Z. Maybe should’ve waited.

  Ohhhh, this heavy-sinking feeling inside my head! Not floating like in the blue. It’s kind of scary, I guess. Seeing my aunt and my uncle staring at me. Wanting to say something, to explain, but I don’t know what I am trying to say.

  I shut my eyes so that they will go away. It’s another time (I think it’s a later time), but somebody is still sitting close beside me on the bed, asking in a worried voice, did I take anything? any drug? and I’m trying to explain I just want to sleep, I’m not sick. Someone is saying it’s Christmas Eve, it isn’t nine o’clock yet, and usually I don’t go to bed so early, something must be wrong with me. I’m trying to push the hands away, trying to explain please leave me alone, I want to sleep, but my tongue is too clumsy, my aunt is saying, “You don’t have a fever, Jenna, but your skin feels clammy cold and you’re so thin! I hadn’t realized…” and I’m trying to push them away, push their hands away, the man’s voice is urgent, asking did I take something, did I take some drug, what did I take, please, Jenna, answer my question, but I’m floating now, floating/falling, I can’t reach them to push their hands away, I can’t scream at them to leave me alone, they are pleading with me to sit up, to wake up, someone is slapping my face, Jenna? Jenna? but I can’t wake up, their voices are faint and fading like you’d hear on a cell phone dropped to the ground, somehow I am being pushed up, I am being made to stand, but my legs are gone, my legs are totally gone, I’d laugh this is so silly, but I guess I’m not strong enough to laugh, somebody is splashing cold water onto my face, but my face is frozen like with Novocain I can’t feel my face, can’t open my eyes, somebody is trying to push my arm through a sleeve, like a coat sleeve, the voices are loud and anxious and intrusive when I just want to sleep, and finally they go away, or anyway I can’t hear them, sinking/falling/floating into inky-black emptiness like in a room that’s dark and no windows and you sort of know that there must be furniture and things, has to be walls, ceiling, and a floor except you can’t see them, for inside this room you are blind.

  26.

  i hate them. i will never forgive them. freaking like that like i’d OD’d on them. like if i’d wanted to kill myself, this is how i would do it: one downer! i am so totally mortified, everybody will know my so-called family called 911 to call an ambulance on christmas eve to have me carried out on a stretcher, taken to the ER to have my stomach pumped!!!

  i guess this is what happened. it’s not like i was there.

  III

  New Year

  1

  Soon as she’s back from St. Bart’s, Trina checks in.

  “Baby, hey. I heard.”

  Her breath in my ear, almost I can feel it.

  “You had, like, a bad trip? But you’re okay now?”

  I tell Trina yes. I’m more than okay.

  I’m waiting for Trina to suggest that we get together, hang out. I can tell my aunt I’m going to the Yarrow Lake library downtown, I can walk. I’ve been missing Trina so. “…see, baby, I told you cut the pill in, like, quarters? Didn’t I? Nobody would take all of it at once, baby.”

  I tell Trina I’m sorry, I must’ve got it wrong.

  “Not from me you didn’t get it wrong.”

  Trina
pauses, breathing into the phone. I’m gripping my cell tight in my hand, I can feel my hand sweating.

  Casually Trina asks, “…didn’t tell anybody, baby, did you? Where you got the BZ from?” and I’m quick to say, “No. Of course not, Trina.” Sounding hurt that Trina would ask such a question, so she picks up on this. “Baby, I know. I know you wouldn’t, you’re like my closest friend. I’ll call you tomorrow, baby. Maybe we can hang out.”

  After Trina’s gone, my hand is still gripping the cell phone like my fingers need to be pried off.

  2

  Tell me about yourself, Jenna.

  Tell me about your feelings.

  Your thoughts. Your fears. Your dreams.

  Smiling. Why is she smiling! Like a fishing line cast out so if I am weak and smile back, the hook will sink into me and Dr. Freer will haul me up like a big, squirmy fish.

  I’m afraid of her. This woman. Afraid of how I hate her leathery skin, brown-pink lipstick, ribbed navy-blue turtleneck, and gray flannel slacks. I hate the gold wedding band on her left hand, who cares? I hate her silly hoop earrings. I hate the framed diplomas on the wall behind her bookshelves, boasting. I hate her fleshy face creased into a smile, no matter, I am not smiling back, am I? Hello?

  Afraid of so much hating! I know it’s wrong, and it’s stupid.

  First session with Dr. Freer I wouldn’t talk. Second session ended after twenty minutes. This is the third, it’s going a little better. I don’t feel so angry. My heart isn’t beating so hard. As long as I can press the sharp edges of my fingernails against the inside of my arm where the skin is soft, I can concentrate on that.