by Amy Marie
A wave of patchouli drifted over me as I heard my mother’s voice soften. “Finally, someone reasonable,” she said, thanking Caitlin. It was laughable. I knew my mother hated her but didn’t understand why. My best guess was Mom was keeping her enemies close. It was probably smart. Caitlin wasn’t exactly a pushover. But neither was my mother. “I promise to do this so you don’t get into any trouble.”
I wanted to hit Caitlin for agreeing to it. It was easier when they were at each other’s throats. On top of being a germaphobe, the last thing I needed was another line of strange men coming in to kiss me as some stupid way of breaking a curse that wasn’t even a real thing. But then, no one was listening to me and I wasn’t exactly talking.
“Great. We have a deal then. I’ll leave you two alone, but I need to get Bella’s vitals. Why don’t you give me like ten minutes, get yourself something to eat, and check on Match.com. You don’t want to miss any potential matches, ya know?”
Now I wanted to laugh. The idea that a stranger nurse had already picked up on how to talk to my batshit mother was nearly hysterical enough to get me to wake up. But the situation I was in was impossible too, so I was the last one to question it or why Caitlin was even trying.
“Perfect. I haven’t eaten all day. Merna says it’s like being in an airplane. I have to take care of myself first to take care of Isabella. I think I forget that. Thank you for your help, urr, what was your name again?”
“Caitlin.”
“Mmmmph. I should know that. I’ll be back. Do you want anything? I could get you coffee.”
“No, I’m okay. Just take care of yourself. Your friend is right. Bella is in for the long haul so you need to keep yourself strong if you want to be here for her.”
My mother mumbled something about keeping Merna around as she finally walked out of the room. Forgetting to push my hair off my face and kiss my forehead like she’d done every time she left my room for the last however long I’d been sleeping, she just left. For a second, I missed her. But not for long.
I felt her before I heard her words. Caitlin picked up my arm and said, in a cheerful voice, “Moms. Can’t live with um, can’t live without um.”
She was the only nurse who talked to me like I was actually listening. The rest, after hearing of no brain activity, never said a word to me directly. Some hid out in my room to make calls to husbands or boyfriends. Others burped in front of me like it was no big deal because the girl forever sleeping couldn’t hear anything anyway. But not Caitlin. When she was with me, it was like visiting with an old friend – only the conversations were entirely one-sided.
“She means well. I just don’t know how you handle the curse crap. But I didn’t grow up in Salem like you, so maybe it doesn’t bother you?”
I wanted to jump out of the bed and stomp my feet. I wanted to tell her how I’d been forced to bring family spell books in for show and tell as a kid and how no one understood why my mother insisted we lived in a two-hundred-year-old house that should have been condemned. I was anything but okay with it. I’d busted my ass to get out of Salem. Yet, here I was, closer to Beantown than New York City and only because it was close enough for Mom to get back home at night after her daily visits.
Per usual, Caitlin’s breath smelt like peppermint as she leaned in to check my trachea tube. “This hurt? Looks like it’s getting infected,” she said. “Don’t worry, I can let the doctors know. We can get you a topical that will clean that right up.”
I wanted desperately to thank her, tell her I was nothing like my psycho mother, and apologize for months of sponge baths and catheter changes. I owed her something. A thank you note? A trip for her and her friends? Something. I tried to tell myself that Caitlin loved her job, but I also knew it was a lie. She’d complained enough to me about the doctors’ egos and how the charge nurse hadn’t been laid in years. She’d told me about the horrible day someone in the drowning wing had referred to her as a ‘dike.’ But again, my body kept me silent. No matter how hard I tried to move my lips around that tube, I couldn’t even let out a grunt or sound to let her know I was thankful.
Open your eyes! Let her see you are still inside. Let her know you aren’t worried about the stupid infection around the tube. It’s not like you can feel it. Ask her to pull the plug. Tell her there is no curse and you’ll never get well. Tell her it was just a fluke: shit happens and then you die. …But you’ll never die. Mom won’t let you. She’ll keep you stuck like this until she finds the perfect rich guy to rescue you. Like any man would want a vegetable for a wife. She’s delusional and this hasn’t helped. It’s all your fault, Bella. You should have just come out.
I tried to push the thoughts that haunted me away. But it never happened that way. They’d never leave for as long as I was stuck in this half-alive, half-asleep state…
Chapter 2
“Go on. Kiss her. She won’t bite. Just a quick kiss on her forehead. See how beautiful she is?”
I wanted to scream. I knew that I was again wearing the stupid blue dress that made me look like I was going to the prom or something. Because that seemed right, a chick in a coma laying in a hospital bed with roses sprinkled around her. But that was my mother. She was sure my one true love would somehow overlook the tubes and monitors and see me as a modern day sleeping beauty—sure. I probably looked like a clown. I felt bad for the guy—her latest victim.
This one smelt like patchouli. My mother was probably hoping for him. His long, scratchy hair I could only assume was dreads touched me first. It landed on my neck as he bent in to get a better look. I felt like a freak show oddity. It would not surprise me if, at any second, some circus ring master announced over the microphone that for a mere buck, they too could get a look at the forever sleeping girl. Only I wasn’t. I was as awake as they were.
As match ninety-one, by my best count, leaned in to kiss my forehead, he lingered too long at the base of my neck, scratching it with scruffiness even my mother would oppose. Unable to itch nor protect myself, I prayed it would soon be over.
“She’s perfect,” he said, as his warm lips made contact with my skin. He wasn’t slobbery like the last two had been but, still, I felt nothing more than irritation that a stranger was in my hospital room for a peek at me. I wondered what they stood to gain from it. It wasn’t like they were locked up in prison and had no access to other women. Yet, time and time again, these single men my mother insisted were the best catches in all of Massachusetts and even New England would show up to kiss me. I wondered when she’d take out a newspaper ad and spread the search across the country. I could see the documentary crews coming in and my mother doubling up on the roses by my head. The whole thing was sick.
“She is. And such a fashion sense,” Mom said, her voice deflated. She always got this way after their strange kisses did nothing to help me open my eyes. Within minutes, this guy would be banished from my room and she’d be on to her next one. She’d spend an hour assuring me that he wasn’t worthy and that Merna said not to give up.
I didn’t care what Merna said. I didn’t care what either of them said to be honest. Instead, I had basically lost all sense of what I wanted other than to be unstuck. I could hardly remember walking and even my old job as a newbie in the design department. My old goals were now replaced by visits from Caitlin and the other nurses who watched over me. It was surreal how much things had changed in only a few short years – if that was how long it had been. I couldn’t be sure. There was no way to track time other than to remember. Sure, Caitlin read the date to me at the beginnings of her shifts. But she never said the year and I always wondered if that was on purpose.
“I’m sure she was great,” the stranger said in a voice that—I had to give it to Mom—was actually kind of sexy.
My heart sunk at the word ‘was.’ I liked that he was a realist but hated the reality of his implication; that I’d never be great again. He wasn’t wrong. At least he wasn’t filling her up with the bullshit the rest of them did.
<
br /> “Okay, well, thanks for coming. I wish it had worked out different,” Mom said, her voice moving from the right side of my bed toward the door.
“I could try it again. Maybe she needs one more?”
“True love’s kiss. It’s only one. It’s just not a match. I wish that it was but, sadly, it isn’t. Thank you for coming though,” Mom said, digging in. At least she would not put me through the torture of an extended stranger danger visit. It could be worse.
It only took a few minutes for her to get rid of him. Then, plopping down by my bed and sighing, Mom did something she’d never done before. She blamed Merna.
“Maybe she just doesn’t know what she’s doing. She’s the one who got the last three in. And you should have seen him, Isabella. A scruffy mess. Fat too. Not for you but I figured it was worth trying. I’m trying so hard. What am I doing wrong? Maybe I need to stop listening to Merna.”
Maybe you need to give it the fuck up and realize there’s no family curse at all. Maybe my luck is just shit.
“I know I can do this. I just have to think on it a little more,” Mom said, pulling a rose she’d planted in my hand. I imagined what I must look like. I’d seen it when I’d floated out of my body before. In the ridiculous gown, and surrounded by flowers, I looked basically dead. I looked like a pretty girl in a casket.
Mom began to gather my hair. On days suitors came, she always left it down and spread across my baby blue pillow. But the minute they left, she regularly made quick work of collecting it into a tiny ruby-colored bun. I never wondered why she did this; I knew. In high school, I’d won two superlatives: most artistic and best hair. Artist was gone so my mother was doing all she could to preserve my best attribute. She’d take it down again tomorrow night, brush it out, and spread it across the pillow before the next match arrived like some kind of invitation or temptation. In reality, it was frustrating. I wished she’d chop it off and send it to Locks for Love. But nobody was asking.
“…wake up and things would get better. You could go back to the city and get your old job back. I know they’d love to have you. Bob called to check up on you last week and Emily said she can’t wait until you see the new line.”
I cringed, wishing I could explain to her that it was my life. I could not imagine my crazy mother in a conversation with Emily Swinn. The top designer at Hot Treads, Inc, she’d agreed to be my mentor and had had big hopes for me after winning the quarterly fashion demo in my final semester. Sure, Ma. I’ll just jump right up and design something A-line. I’ll make it blue and ridiculous too. I’ll accessorize with silly pink roses and call it the dead girl collection. That’ll go well. Maybe you could get me on the news too – ya know, beg for a man to love me. If I play my cards right, he can buy me the roses instead of you…
Chapter 3
I hated that our conversations were always so one-sided. I could imagine me and Caitlin as great friends long before I fell into this ridiculous state of helplessness. I tried to smile as she ranted about her aunt and how she would not be surprised if her cousin attempted suicide. I couldn’t say I didn’t agree. In fact, I wanted to tell her about the kid I met at a PRIDE parade who’d asked me—of all people—to help him come out to his father. But per usual, I was stuck. Unable to agree with her or even twist my lips upwards, I focused on her words. I knew that, if anyone, Caitlin knew I was still inside and listening to her. At least, I hoped so. She was basically my only true companion and the one person who bothered to ask how I was doing every day; as if one day I’d suddenly answer.
“I have the mind to tell her off. I’m serious. Just march right in there and ask her who she thinks she is. So what if he’s demi? Why is it anyone’s business?”
I hadn’t heard the expression before, but from what I could gather, her cousin wasn’t interested in sex. Demi was a new term for asexual, as far as I could tell. But that didn’t matter. I got her point and knew too well why she was so pissed off.
“You’d think he killed someone. You’d think he won’t be successful. It just pisses me off. Anyway, I’ll shut up. You don’t need to listen to it. How’s your day, beautiful Bella? Did you sleep well?”
I wanted to laugh. For a girl doctors told everyone was in a state of eternal sleep, I sure didn’t get much of it. Yes, there were times I drifted off. But it wasn’t the kind of sleep I used to get before the seizure that set all this off. It was a day I’d never be able to forget. One minute, I was listening to Emily Swinn bark at the head of the manufacturing plant, the next, I was writhing all over the concrete floor. Like a fool, of course, my first thought had been of the embarrassment. It hadn’t occurred to me until waking up weeks later to hospital machines, that something a hell of a lot bigger was wrong.
I’d never had a seizure before. In fact, I’d been in perfect health until the whole rotten luck chain of events took off. What started as a diagnosis of Gullian-Barre Syndrome quickly moved through more ending with locked in syndrome—cause, NOS. In short, I was locked inside myself and no one had any idea what triggered it. Worse, what would fix it? Aside from my mother and Merna of course.
“You look tired,” Caitlin said, pulling hair from my eyes and reaching across me to mess with the machines. I wished I could see what she looked like. I imagined her to be a natural beauty. For a chick like me, who spent an hour each morning contouring before work, it was something I admired. I could not fathom wasting that kind of time on the little things. Instead, and from what I’d seen when floating, she was the practical type who spend even her off time in scrubs. I made a mental note to try to get closer the next time I left my body. Maybe, if I focused enough, I’d get a better look at her. Outside myself, it was difficult to make out features, let alone if a person had on eyeliner; not like it mattered.
I couldn’t imagine what I looked like. Tired was only the start. My hands, locked in tight balls from lack of use, and my toes, which curled backwards under my feet, weren’t the only things that needed daily physical therapy. I was glad that Emily had never come to visit me. I couldn’t imagine her or anyone from my life before seeing me this way. And yet, here my nurse was calling me ‘beautiful’ while she herself was having a horrible day.
It was amazing how much perspectives changed when everything was taken from a person. I didn’t need to communicate or ask anyone else in the rehab building if they went through the same. I knew they did. The other patients here, who were rolled, tied to beds and other forms of medical contraptions to the rehabilitation room, they knew too. In various states of sleep and functionality, they were like soulmates who knew what only a select group of us knew. Mom should have them kissing me instead. She’d have a better shot of waking me. No able bodied person could ever be my soulmate. Not anymore.
Able bodied people. I both hated and admired them. They had something I’d never have again and took it for granted. Yet, even the sounds of Caitlin moving sure about the room made me want to watch her. It was the hardest part, not being able to open my eyes. I knew I wasn’t blind. I didn’t care what the doctors said about brain function. I could see the spots of white and black light that fluttered about under my eyelids at various times of day. I could catch shadows if I concentrated hard enough too. But no one was asking me. They hadn’t in a really long time.
“Ready to clean up?” she asked, as if she meant wash my face real quick. In reality, and for as good as she was at her job, this would mean a two-hour sponge bath, shaving my legs, and getting me dressed. Several times a day, nurses on their respective shifts came in to brush my teeth or wash up my face. But when Caitlin gave me a bath, she went all in. The feeling of the warm wash cloth and bubbly soap she snuck in always felt better than the scratchy hospital brand the others cleaned me with. And the same way I felt about the able bodied, I felt about myself. I hated that she had to do it. Yet, without me and the others, she’d lose her purpose.
I could hear it in her tone—how it got lighter when her work was done. I could picture her standing over me, arms
folded on her chest, just to admire her handiwork. Once a make-up artist at a funeral home, my favorite nurse took great pride in making people look their best. There were so many things I wanted to ask her about working with the dead. It was ironic, really, considering that without the machines, I’d be dead too.
Chapter 4
“She looks pinker than last week,” Merna said, as if I was deaf or she had any shot at all of my mother believing her. My mother wasn’t blind. And while I couldn’t see myself from the inside, I knew I’d floated off more this week than I had since becoming locked in. I was leaving my body; outside of it more often than in. There was no way it wasn’t showing on my skin. I’d rubbed it raw trying to get to the red door to learn my final destiny. I was out of my mind. The sleeping girl gone crazy. If only I could take the mirrors with me…
“Yeah, well, don’t believe it. Caitlin was on last night.”
My pulse quickened, sending a steady beep through the monitors.
“Why does it do that?”
“No idea. Those machines are going off all the time. Her heart is fine. It’s only when it gets in the red that people start freaking out.”
“Why would Caitlin have anything to do with her tone?” Merna asked my mother.
“Make-up. She’s sick. I wish they would transfer her. Sally Jenson, Renee’s mother in room nine? Know what she said? She said Caitlin has this warped fetish for the dead. Worked in a funeral home and everything. Doesn’t shock me with her last name. You know what they say about…”
“Really? She seems so, I don’t know, caring. You know better than to care about family names,” Merna said.
“She did the make-up on corpses and didn’t even flinch. Sally said she’s only here to watch the long term care patients rot away,” Mom leaned in and pet my head. “But I won’t let her hurt you, my beautiful girl. I’ll get her moved. Don’t you worry.”
