After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away (6 page)

Later I help Aunt Caroline put Mikey to bed. Next is Becky, who wants to stay up later though she’s tired and fretful. Next is Jenna, who doesn’t actually go to bed, only just quietly shuts the door to her room at ten
P.M
., insisting to her aunt she’s fine.

Except she’s imagining she can hear through several walls her uncle whispering of her
The look on her face, hearing those sirens! For a terrible moment I thought she was going to faint or have convulsions.
And Aunt Caroline
We’ll have to be careful, Dwight. Try to avoid news like that on TV if you think Jenna is close by. It will take adjustment living with my niece. I told you it wouldn’t be easy.

In the middle of the night I’m awake sweating through my cotton nightgown. Must be the codeine painkiller I’m prescribed to take each night before bed has worn off.

For pain
, the label says.

In the middle of the night I’m crouched in the bathroom that opens off my room, anxiously counting how many of the chunky white tablets I have left: only three.

How many refills: zero.

5

…in the dream I’m running. Mom is watching me (I seem to know though I can’t actually see her) and at first it’s the park near our house in Tarrytown, then it’s a track, I am running on a dirt track, it’s a race I am running in, our track team competing with girls from another Westchester school and Mom is watching somewhere from the sidelines, and I’m so happy I’m able to run fast again without wincing at pain in my knees, or in the small of my back, my feet are flying and my strides are long and assured and I can’t see the faces of the other girls running around the track, I’m breathless pushing ahead—ahead!—I’m the front runner!—and in the last stretch my heart is beating hard hard hard and then I’m over the finish line—I am the winner of the half-mile sprint, people are congratulating me, but I need to find Mom, I need Mom to see that I’ve won my race, these other people are in my way and confusing me, I don’t want to be hugged by strangers, but where is Mom, I’m pleading, “Mom? Mom?” and with a jolt I’m awake, it’s a morning of bright acid sun pouring through a window and I’m awake somewhere I don’t know, somewhere I don’t want to be, awake wishing I could sink back into delicious sleep, safely back
into the blue
where I realize now that Mom is lost, but my eyes are wide open now, the codeine has worn off leaving me awake, sickish, and jittery.

Here is the shameful fact: I’ve never won any half-mile sprint in a school competition. For sure not at Tarrytown Day, where I was just barely on the track team. Mom saw me run a few times but never anything spectacular like in my dream. Always Mom was proud of me even if I came straggling in second to last, but sometimes I wouldn’t tell her there was a race, just after-school practice. I loved being on the Tarrytown track team with my friends, but I never cared enough to work really hard like the two or three fastest runners, these were older girls who were sort of fanatics competing for sports scholarships at Ivy League universities, that sure wasn’t going to be Jenna Abbott.

Out of bed, on my feet headed for the bathroom I’m feeling kind of shaky. My right knee hurts, and my head. It’s as though in my dream I was actually running. Like in my dream I was exerting myself recklessly and will have to pay for it now I’m awake.

A taste as of something brackish comes into my mouth: Tomorrow is the first day of school at Yarrow High.

This morning Aunt Caroline is taking me to meet with the principal.

When I check, the codeine tablets are down to just two.

For pain. One tablet at bedtime.

When I first checked into the rehab clinic, I was taking four or five tablets a day. Even so I had a lot of pain. Gradually the dosage has been cut back, and this is the last refill and I’m trying not to be scared about it.

The doctor at Tarrytown Rehab said codeine is a powerful drug, and when my prescription runs out, that’s it. If I have pain, I can take aspirin.
It will be a little tough at first, Jenna, but you’ll get used to it,
she said, smiling at me so I began to tremble, guessing what would be in store.

6

Guessing what will be in store
just stepping into the high school building and it isn’t the first day of classes, only just my appointment with the principal, and already I’m shaking, the palms of my hands are sweaty. Aunt Caroline has linked her arm through mine as if she senses how I’m wanting to run away. “…should have had some breakfast, Jenna. As an athlete you must know…”

We’re early for our eleven-
A.M
. appointment with Mr. Goddard. Staring into glass display cases in the lobby. Brass trophies, plaques. Photos of sports teams. It’s weird how happy people are in photos, mostly always.

Inside, Yarrow High is just a building. Nothing quaint or New England about it. The floor is worn-looking dark tile, and the walls are pale grimy green. The ceiling is lower than you’d expect. The way rows of lockers stretch almost out of sight makes the corners of my eyes pinch.

In Mr. Goddard’s waiting room Aunt Caroline glances at me with an anxious smile. All morning I’ve been quiet. The night before at dinner I wasn’t exactly loquacious. It isn’t that I’m not wanting to talk to Aunt Caroline, but I can’t think of anything that’s worth the effort of saying. I’m wearing clean-laundered chinos and a long-sleeved white cotton shirt and the white sailor cap pulled down on my head, the rim partially hiding my eyes. “Maybe, Jenna, you might remove your hat when…”

I don’t, though. I’m wearing the hat. Mom had one exactly like it, we bought them at a summer place in the Berkshires.

Mr. Goddard is a fattish middle-aged man with a welcoming TV voice. But his eyes are steely, staring at me like he’s been warned
This is the freaky girl who killed her mother.

“Well, Jennifer Abbott! Welcome to…”

My aunt and Mr. Goddard do most of the talking. Yarrow Lake is such a small community, naturally they have friends in common. My aunt seems to like Mr. Goddard, and Mr. Goddard seems to like my aunt: He’s registering that Dwight McCarty is an architect, and Plymouth Street is a good address.

“…transcripts appear to be in order. Tarrytown Day is an excellent school, I’ve been told. And your record is…”

Aunt Caroline asks about advanced placement classes, and Mr. Goddard tells her these have been cut back except for seniors, the Yarrow Lake School District has had to trim its budget. Aunt Caroline seems mildly disappointed yet sympathetic.

“…not a large school, fewer than three hundred fifty students but plenty of talent, brimming with school spirit. Did you happen to see our production of
Romeo and Juliet
last spring, Mrs. McCarty? A columnist for the
Yarrow Lake Journal
compared it to a ‘thoroughly professional production.’…”

Aunt Caroline didn’t see the production but heard “wonderful things” about it.

The adults are looking at me. I think I must have been asked a question. The palms of my hands are sweaty. For a scary moment I can’t think where I am or why. Why has Aunt Caroline brought me here?
Mom must be outside in the car if Aunt Caroline is here.

After tonight, if I can hold off until tonight, there will be just one codeine tablet left.

“…any questions, Jennifer?”

Any questions! My head is buzzing.

When you wear a grimy white sailor hat with the rim pulled low, there’s lots you are spared seeing.

“Thank you, Mr. Goddard. I don’t think so.”

Somehow, I manage to get the words out. My voice sounds gravelly, as if it hasn’t been used in a while. Aunt Caroline glances sidelong at me in relief.

Is the visit ending? The adults are shaking hands. Already I’m out of the office. It occurs to me only now that of course my aunt spoke with Mr. Goddard before this meeting, told him about my mother, my “trauma,” my “split” family. How I was coming to live in Yarrow Lake because there was nowhere else for me.

Outside, I’m too restless to get into Aunt Caroline’s car. Some fragment of my dream of last night returns to me, a memory of running, the way I used to run. A memory of being happy.

I want that time again! I don’t want this time.

Aunt Caroline joins me at the car, smiling happily. What a nice man Mr. Goddard is. How lucky we are that the school district is allowing me to transfer at such a late date.

“Why don’t we celebrate, Jenna? Day-before-school outing? I have some errands to do in town, then I can pick up Becky and Mikey, and we can all have lunch at the Lakeside Inn.” Aunt Caroline’s voice falters just a little, the Lakeside Inn was a favorite of Mom’s.

Quickly I tell my aunt that I guess I want to walk for a while.

I don’t need a ride back to the house, I tell her. I’m feeling that I want to walk.

Need to get away from you. Need to breathe!

Aunt Caroline is trying not to look hurt. Saying maybe she could join me. There’s a lovely wood-chip trail that follows the creek, she could show me. “I need exercise too! Last year I was running fairly regularly, but this year…Why don’t you come back to the house, Jenna, and I’ll change my clothes? I’ve bought new running shoes.”

This is so pathetic. Aunt Caroline practically pleading with me. And I know if I say yes, it will turn out that Becky and Mikey come with us, they’re not going to stay home with the nanny while Mommy and Jenna go running in the park.

“Aunt Caroline, I’d like to be alone for a while.”

I don’t say “I’m sorry.” I don’t say “thanks.”

My sailor hat rim is pulled over my eyes, I can’t see my aunt’s face. Already I’m walking away, trying not to favor my right knee.

I can feel Aunt Caroline looking after me. Hoping she won’t call my name, and she doesn’t.

7

“Hey.”

I look up, and there’s this guy.

This guy I’ve never seen before, in jeans and a black T-shirt, ropy-muscled arms, black stubble on his jaws and throat, staring at me.

“You hurt?”

I’m swiping at my eyes. Afraid to say anything, I might break into tears.

“…need some help getting up? Or…”

No! Don’t need help getting up; really I’m okay.

Kind of twisted my ankle when my knee gave out. He must’ve seen me wobble and fall. Must’ve seen I’m alone on the wood-chip trail, nobody else running up behind me.

This lonely place! Except there are voices somewhere close by, laughter, boom-box music.

For a while I was running okay, sort of slow running like you see some women and older men, panting and puffing and swinging their arms bent awkwardly at their elbows, “jogging” at about a half mile per hour. That’s how I was “running” on the wood-chip trail beside Sable Creek when suddenly my right knee felt like the bones were splintering, both my knees gave out, and I crashed down like a bag of wet laundry and my right ankle kind of twisted and I fell hard. I’m just kind of lying here now, panting and biting my lip to keep from crying, listening to my heart beating rapid and panicked, and angry, feeling some kind of disgusting trickle out of my nostrils I’m hoping isn’t blood.

“Thanks. I’m okay.” My voice sounds like a choked little-doll voice when the battery’s running down.

“Yeah? You sure?”

Is he laughing at me? This guy from out of nowhere. He seems about eighteen. Standing maybe ten feet away, fingers hooked in his frayed leather belt. Unshaven black stubble like quills covering his jaws, he looks kind of scary. A few minutes ago I passed some young guys in the park, some girls with them, loud voices, laughter, like they were drinking beer at midday. Heavy metal rock out of a boom box. Motorcycles parked nearby. This guy is with them? A biker? His black T-shirt is too faded to make out the name of the band (I guess it’s a band) on the front, but I see what looks like a tattoo on one of his forearms. I’m scared of a guy appearing out of nowhere.

I’ve pushed myself up partway, on my knees now. Moving with caution so I don’t wince visibly with pain. I tell myself this is
after the wreck
, what’s a sprained ankle? A throbbing knee? I survived broken bones, a brain concussion, I should be used to pain.

“Now what?”

The unshaven guy is watching me with a skeptical look. Like he doesn’t know whether to be sorry for me or laugh at me.

“What do you mean—‘now what’?”

“Like, what’re you going to do now? You think you can walk?”

“Walk,” he says, like it’s the punch line of a joke. When it looks like I have all I can do to stand up, cautiously.

I don’t have to answer this smart-ass remark. I’m managing to walk, slowly. Trying not to limp or whimper in pain.

“Looks like you sprained that ankle. Maybe you need a ride home.”

No! I don’t need a ride home.

Limping along, away from this guy who’s scrutinizing me too closely. My heart is beating against my ribs. I don’t know if I’m embarrassed, or excited, or angry, or scared. In Tarrytown, which is in close proximity to New York City, if a guy appeared out of nowhere on a trail like this, and a girl was alone, she’d have reason to be scared. Only last year an eighteen-year-old girl jogger was dragged into a wooded area, raped and strangled and left to die in Morningside Heights, near the Hudson River, and whoever did it hasn’t been found.

About twenty feet behind me the unshaven guy is trailing after me, whistling through his teeth. I’m supposed to think he was headed in this direction anyway? Or he’s following me out of kindness, to see that I really am okay? By this time my face is pounding with heat as in the worst, the very worst and most mortifying half-mile race I ever ran, in ninth grade in my first semester at Tarrytown Day, coming in sixth, which was last, before a crowd of hyperventilating parents, one of whom was my mother. Worse yet, there’s a trickle out of my nose (damn, it
is
blood), I’m fumbling for a tissue out of a pocket in my chinos. Can’t let this guy see my nose bleeding! Can’t let him see how ugly I am, how ridiculous. I can feel how I’ve sweated through the back of my long-sleeved white cotton shirt and beneath the arms. Hoping I don’t smell of my body.