After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away (2 page)

One of them was the woman whose voice wasn’t the right voice. I would learn that she was Dr. Currin. The neurologist. I would learn that Dr. Currin-the-neurologist made a crucial decision to go into my skull to reduce the swelling in my brain, and in that way my life was saved.

Saved for what, don’t ask.

5

Maria was my favorite of the intensive care nurses. Maria liked
me
.

It was a confused time. I was floating
in the blue
and frankly not paying that much attention. Balloon faces hovering over me. I guess I was supposed to know them.
In the blue
it’s easier to float happy and serene and smiling at how silly people are, to care about the things they care about, to look worried, to wipe tears from their faces, hey, it’s no big deal, you want to tell them.

In the blue
that was how I felt. I was never sad.

But when I wakened, the air was so raw. I was a raggedy old cloth doll battered and banged and wrung and tossed down. I was so tired and so old. Wanting only to return
into the blue
forever.

Maria called me
Jenna
but did not know who I was or was supposed to be. I wanted to think that Maria did not know about the Tappan Zee Bridge. Maria did not blame me for the wreck.

Maria, who wore a small gleaming gold cross on a gold chain around her neck. Maria, who smelled like sweet hand lotion. Maria, with the thick beautiful eyebrows. Soft dark down on her upper lip. A way of smiling and calling me
Jenna
that made my heavy eyelids lift.

Jen-na. Time for breakfast.

Oh, I was hungry!

Maria laughed, I was so hungry. You could see that she liked me for being hungry and eating the way I hadn’t been able to eat in a while. Maria gave me extra orange juice to suck through a straw. Ohhh, the orange juice was delicious. And lukewarm bouillon, not so great. But the slick quivery strawberry Jell-O
so delicious
.

The kind of food that
before the wreck
would’ve made me gag.

Before the wreck
was my old, lost life.
Before the wreck
was the other side of the bridge.

6

Head trauma. Brain swelling. Amnesia. Facial lacerations, cracked ribs. Visitors came to peer at the weird wizened mummy thing in the dazzling-white bed.
Ohhh, Jenna.

In the blue
I could hear every word.
In the blue
I could hear every thought.
In the blue
I smiled at Mom’s sisters looking so shocked and so sad and silly, like any of it had any meaning, but I could not laugh, such an effort would have torn me open.

Jenna! Oh, honey.

A voice I recognized. Not the voice I wanted.

I wasn’t going to hate Mom’s sisters. It wasn’t their fault Mom was missing from them.

She’s asleep. Poor child, look at her….

But she can hear us.

…should those containers be emptied? The blood is almost to the top, looks so dark…

Her face is so swollen. Oh what if she’s scarred!

She will not be scarred. Those are just abrasions. It was the top of her head that struck the windshield.

Jenna? Can you hear us?

This is Aunt Caroline, honey. And Aunt Katie. You’ve been a very brave girl, honey. And now you’re mending, and healing, and you will be all right.

I wanted to laugh. Floating
in the blue
it all seemed so silly.

A wizened mummy thing in a white nightie, who cares? There’s a flamy red eye, but it’s shut. There’s an eye swollen and blackened like a rotted plum, but it’s shut. There’s an IV tube dripping liquid into the crook of the white-skinned arm. You can’t see it, but the mummy thing’s head has been shaved. All over the scummy-looking scalp are black stitches over which gauze has been mercifully swathed for the sexy mummy look.

What’s really weird is: what looks like two insect antennae dangling from the bandaged ears. Two five-ounce plastic containers fixed to the sides of the mummy thing’s head so that blood draining from the stitched wounds in the head and face can drip into the containers through plastic tubes.

Gross! Except
in the blue
it’s just funny.

The voices went on. Sad voices, cheering-up voices. Foam rubber hands, face. I loved my aunts, I guess, but maybe I resented them, for who was missing from them.

…he’s due to arrive, when?

…tomorrow, I think. If I see him…

…no. That can be avoided.

I didn’t want to hear this. I shook my head, made the blood containers rattle. I yanked my arm free of the IV tube. I laughed at the looks on my aunts’ faces. Suddenly I was flying above them.
In the blue
I’d lost the beautiful snow geese, but I could fly high enough to get away from my aunts and the wizened mummy thing in the bed.
In the blue
I could breathe, almost.

7

From a distance came the voice, a man’s voice. I could barely see him across some kind of ravine, and the wind was blowing his words away.
In the blue
something panicked me, my heart kicked in my chest and I tried to fly away but one of my wings was sprained, I lifted into the air but could not fly, I fell to the ground so heavily that for a long time I could not move.

Faint in astonishment and disbelief came the voice suddenly close.

“Jenna! My God…”

The swollen eye cranked open. There was Steve Abbott leaning over my bed.

On Dad’s smooth tanned face a look like he’d been kicked in the stomach. The way a man would stare at a precious possession of his, a sports car, for instance, that had been vandalized.

“Jenna? You…know me, don’t you?”

Both my eyes leaked tears. Something was wrong with the tear ducts, my eyes sprang tears for no reason.

“Can you…speak? Jenna?”

Just to breathe was such an effort. Just to keep my eyes open was such an effort. To be polite, to be nice. I was so tired. Yet I managed a smile. Some kind of smile. Or maybe not a smile. The look on Dad’s face, he wasn’t smiling back.

Eleven months since I’d last seen Dad, when he’d been in New York City on business and “extended” his stay for two full days to “visit” with me.

Three years since he’d left us. Actually three years, five months, seventeen days. The shock of coming home from school to see the moving van in the driveway, movers carrying Dad’s things out of the house.

Explaining now that he’d have come to see me immediately, within twenty-four hours, except he’d been traveling on business in the East, he’d been in Tokyo and Hong Kong, he was just unpacking his luggage in the Shanghai Omni Hotel when the terrible news came…. Such a long distance, the far side of the earth, and complications had arisen so he’d been unavoidably detained, couldn’t get a flight immediately, which was why he hadn’t been able to get back in time for…

My eyelids were too heavy, I could not keep them open. My bloodshot eyes leaked tears.

In time in time. In time for…

I wasn’t hearing this. Static mostly. Static issuing from Dad’s mouth and static inside my head.

In time for your mother’s—

I wasn’t hearing this! Trying desperately to lift myself, to escape. Except my arm, or my wing, my wing-arm, something was wrong, and it weighed heavy as lead. All that side of my body, numb and dead as lead.

A nursery tune came into my head, to make me smile.

Numb Dead Lead

Say Saying Said

“—and to see you, honey. I’ve been just devastated to hear of what happened to you but—”

His
daughter, this wizened mummy thing?

“—when you are well again. Strong enough to travel. Come live with us, Jenna. There’s plenty of room—”

Us.
Come live with
us
.

“—would you like that, honey? Poor girl, say yes.”

Poor girl!
I felt Dad fumble to touch me, not very convincingly.

“…your room, waiting for you. Our new house is lovely, just a half block from the ocean. Remember, the time you visited you had to concede, La Jolla is ‘awesome.’”

Dad was managing to recover from his shock. Or to cover his shock. Dad, who was Steve Abbott, who didn’t live with Mom and me any longer for a reason he could not explain except
Things happen in people’s lives that can’t be helped
. Dad with his tanned smooth melon face and easy smile. Always well dressed,
a man to turn a woman’s head
my aunt Katie had said of him, admiring even as she disapproved. Even for this hospital visit, Dad was stylishly dressed. A powder-blue silk Armani tapered shirt tucked into dove-gray trousers, open at the throat. His hair was thicker than I remembered.

Now there was talk of La Jolla, where you never needed to wear a coat. Where the sun shone and shone and shone. Where Dad’s “new family” lived. Where my room was “waiting” for me. Where in September I could enroll in the La Jolla Academy, which was a “prestigious” private school. Dad had spoken on the phone with my neurologist, who’d estimated at least four weeks’ convalescence, which included physical therapy in a rehabilitation center. Still, that would give me time to transfer. For it seemed that Dad’s new wife had connections. There was a close family friend or maybe a friend’s close family friend who was a trustee of La Jolla Academy whose “influence” could be very helpful.

Again Dad fumbled to touch me. To take my hand.

It was a raggedy doll hand, limp and chill and unresisting.

It was not a hand that could shut into a fist. It was not a hand poised to hit hit hit.

Saying again how sorry he was oh God! How upset! The shock of such news, unbelievable! His first thought had been of me, of course, his relief that I had not been fatally injured, then the shock sank in, poor Lisbeth. (At last Dad managed to say Mom’s name. It came out hurried and hollow, like a word phonetically pronounced.) An inexplicable, tragic accident, a freak accident it seemed, no real witnesses except the other driver, who was in critical condition…Dad’s words became confused with a ventilator high in the wall above my bed. At all times there was a hum of machines in intensive care. It was a sound of comfort like waves, vibrating air. I was very tired and I wanted to speak to Dad but my throat seemed to have closed up. I was sinking inside the mummy head, where Dad’s words were muffled.
Before the wreck
I had a way of tuning out people but smiling to indicate that I was listening,
after the wreck
it was too much effort to smile.

…past two years, or has it been three…oh honey, someday you will understand. I was not a perfect father, by your mother’s standards certainly. I did not mean to be cruel, it was more that I became confused, thoughtless…. When you are older, Jenna, you will understand, though I am not making excuses for myself, one day you will see how you can fall out of love and it isn’t your fault or anyone’s fault, it is just something that happens when people begin to grow apart in marriage and when they fall in love with someone else, it’s like an accident too, no one’s fault, and honey, it never had a thing to do with you, in fact it was for your sake I stayed with your mother as long as I did, she told me you blamed yourself, now, honey,
you must never think such a thought,
I hope your mother did not encourage you to think such a ridiculous thought, you know your daddy loves you, honey, just get well, honey, please, darling, they tell me you’ve been such a brave girl, I will make it up to you, I promise.

I wasn’t hearing this.
In the blue
I was spared the words of strangers. The shadow of a giant hawk fell upon me. Wide-winged hawks soaring high above the river, spiraling downward to catch their prey. I shuddered and shrank away. Dad was leaning over my bed to kiss my forehead. Not wanting to peer too closely at the IV drip in my hand, my arm bruised and yellow from needles. Not wanting to peer too closely into the bloodshot eyes.

When he kissed me, I shrank from him.

“…touch me! No…”

My voice was a croak. But it was a voice.

The first time I’d spoken aloud since the wreck.

8

In the blue
I flew on outstretched wings.
In the blue
I floated light as a feather.
In the blue
I laughed at the look on Dad’s face.

See, Dad, I don’t need you now. Mom and I needed you before the wreck but
not now.

9

“Jenna, hey. You are one hell of a girl.”

I guess. I wanted to think so. Dragging my leg, which felt like lead. But I was on my feet, the nurses were amazed. Now I was out of the intensive care unit and in a regular hospital room, and the promise was I would be discharged from the hospital soon.

I wasn’t spending so much time
in the blue
now. Only at night.

Everyone marveled at how I was “improving,” ”mending.” Three times a day “up and about” walking in the corridor outside my room to prevent “muscular atrophy.”

Maria’s eyes shone. Maria was my big sister.

Lifting me from the wheelchair, getting me on my feet, and helping me walk. The damn IV needle was still stuck in my arm, had to be pulled along on a pole. Talk about
weird
.

In the corridor we passed other patients up and about pulling their IVs with them. Mostly they were older. Some of them had become soft-looking like rag dolls. Even the men moved with such caution, you knew they were waiting for pain to strike them like lightning.

“Jenna, hello.”

“Why, Jenna, aren’t you looking good?”

I tried to remember their names. Older people, adults, their names just drifted past me unless I kept meeting them or had to know who they were, like teachers.