Between Here and Forever (10 page)

twenty-seven

My family has breakfast together every Sunday
morning. My father makes pancakes, and my mother makes bacon and usually scrambles a few eggs too.

When Tess was younger, she would get out cookie cutters and turn Dad’s pancakes into hearts and stars. Sometimes, if she was upset about something, she wouldn’t, and a few times, right after she stopped talking to Claire, and then again when she started worrying about college so much she’d basically stopped sleeping, she’d refuse to come down for breakfast at all.

She’d lie in splendid, solitary misery in her room, Mom trying to tempt her downstairs and my father eventually carrying a tray up to her. I’d pick it up later, the food untouched and Tess lying in bed watching the ceiling. She could be poisonous then, responding to my footsteps with icy glares or worse, acting like I wasn’t there at all. Looking through me like she looked through Claire.

We kept up the breakfasts after Tess went away to college, although Dad started experimenting with his pancake recipe (the gingerbread ones were a hit, the cornmeal ones—not so much) and Mom switched to turkey bacon and “egg product” after her last doctor’s visit.

We kept them up after the accident too, after we knew Tess wasn’t coming home right away, though the pancakes had bits of eggshells in them for the first few weeks and Mom tended to forget the bacon until it started to burn.

This morning, Dad’s made peanut butter pancakes, and I get out the strawberry jelly and smear it on one, watching it thin and ooze, trickling across my plate.

“You should come see Tess with us today,” Mom says, depositing two pieces of turkey bacon on my plate.

“Is this because of what happened last night?”

“What?” Mom says.

“Never mind,” I mutter, but it’s too late. Mom sits down across from me and says, “Abby,” in her tell-me-everything voice.

I tell her, and she glances at Dad as I finish talking, then looks back at me. “We know you want Tess to wake up, and we want that too. But there hasn’t been any indication—”

“I know what I saw.”

“We—” Dad says, and Mom looks at him, shaking her head slightly.

“She has a right to know, Katie,” he says, sitting down with his own plate of pancakes. “We sometimes see—sometimes we see things that look like movement too,” Dad says. “I—we saw them more before, back when—back when she was first hurt. But the doctor says she isn’t responding, not like you think. Her brain activity is … minimal.”

“Minimal,” I echo, my appetite gone. Tess has been in the hospital long enough for me to learn its language, and minimal brain function means the doctor thinks Tess—the Tess I know, the Tess whose books and clothes are waiting for her upstairs—is gone. The doctor thinks all that’s left is a shell.

“We thought you might go with us today because—well, your father and I have decided to transfer Tess to a …” Mom presses her hands together, knotting them so her knuckles meet in a straight, white-edged line. “To a long-term-care facility. It’s out past Milford, in Oxford Hill.”

“What?” I say, stunned, and stare at Dad. “Why?”

He looks down at the table. “Our insurance won’t—they have to go with the doctor’s assessment, or say they do, and we can’t afford to keep her in the hospital for much longer.”

“How much longer?” I feel like I can’t breathe, but I know I am, I am still speaking.

Still living.

“About a week,” Mom says. “Maybe a little longer, but we’re not sure. We have to wait for the paperwork for the home to be finalized.”

“What if she wakes up?” I say. “No one will be there. She’ll be all alone and—”

“She won’t be alone,” Dad says. “Your mother and I are still going to go see her. That won’t change.”

“And me? How am I supposed to ride my bike out to Oxford Hill? It’s like twenty miles from the ferry, and I can’t—” I stop, swallow the words.

I can’t say what I want to. I can’t say, “I can’t do this.” I can’t say, “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life here or in a room with Tess.” I can’t leave my parents alone when the one person we all know would make a mark on the world is locked inside her own mind.

“I—I’ll have to start visiting her with you again,” I say. “I can come meet you after you get off work, like I used to.”

“No,” Dad says.

“No?” Mom and I say at the same time.

“You have school,” Dad says. “You need to start thinking about college, about the SATs. You have things you need to do.”

“Dave,” Mom says. “If she wants to see Tess, we should—”

“I gave up everything to sit by John’s side,” Dad says. “You—look at what you did for your brothers, for your mother. I don’t want that for Abby.”

“She’s not doing that,” Mom says. “She’s visiting her sister. She’s not—she’s not you, Dave. She’s not me.”

“When’s the last time you went out?” Dad asks me, and then looks at Mom. “We both know she doesn’t go out, Katie. She goes to school, she goes to the hospital, and she comes home. We let her keep doing that, we keep Abby with us, and before you know it she’ll be where you were when you were eighteen. Where I was after John died.”

Mom’s face pales, but she says, “If she wants to see her sister, I don’t think you or I should tell her—”

“Three times a week,” Dad says. “That’s it. After Tess—after she’s moved out of the hospital, that’s the most she can go.”

“You don’t get to decide that. She’s not you, David! She’s not going to shut down and turn her whole life into one big—”

“She won’t spend all her time rattling around the house or at the hospital?” Dad says, cutting her off, and Mom’s eyes flash full of something that looks like memory and fear. “She doesn’t yell at people when we aren’t around, doesn’t sit hunched over like she is now, like she’s miserable?”

“Stop!” I say.

And then I say it again, louder, my voice echoing in the kitchen, and the words just pour out of me. “She’s not—stop talking about Tess like she’s gone. Stop talking about her like she’s not here. She is here, and she’s going to wake up. We can’t … we just can’t think she won’t.”

Weirdly, Mom’s face falls. I’m agreeing with her; I’m telling her that I know I need to be here, that I understand how important Tess is. But she’s looking at me like I’ve hit her.

“Abby, I—honey, Tess isn’t going to be the same,” she says. “Not ever. You do understand that, right?”

Dad shakes his head at her, like he wants her to stop talking, and I should be happy that he’s giving me what I’ve secretly longed for. That someone, finally, believes I need a life that isn’t all about Tess.

I’m not happy.

I’m not happy, because it’s like he doesn’t believe that Tess can wake up.

Like he doesn’t believe she ever will.

“I don’t understand you,” I tell him, and get up, walk up to my room. I don’t slam my door. I close it gently, like Tess would.

No one comes after me. I hear my parents talking. I can’t make out what they’re saying but hear the murmur of their voices, and when I hear nothing but silence I go back downstairs.

They’ve left me a note. They’ve gone to see Tess. They love me. They’ll be back soon.

I crumple the note and go back upstairs. I stand in Tess’s room.

“Wake up,” I say. “Just wake up.”

I want to believe that she will. I want to believe that she hears me now, that she hears me when I’m with her. But deep down, I’m afraid she doesn’t. Deep down, I don’t think she hears me. Deep down, I’m afraid she’ll never wake up.

I want her to come back, I do. The thing is, I can’t picture it anymore. Not like I used to. What was so sure, so clear, has become hazy.

Has become something I can’t quite see.

I don’t talk to my parents when they get home. They don’t seem to notice, though, because they are clearly angry with each other. So angry they aren’t even speaking to each other.

So I am silent, we are silent, and I think about what has happened. What has been said.

And on Monday, after school, I head for the hospital. For Tess.

twenty-eight

I’m in the bathroom on the ferry. It’s tiny and
stinks, but it has a mirror over the sink and so I’m standing here, holding my breath and combing my hair.

I tell myself I’m not doing it because I’m going to see Eli.

But I am. Of course I am.

He’s been the one thing I haven’t let myself think about since Sunday morning. My parents and their ongoing silence, I’ve wondered about all through school. Tess would have known what to say, would have been able to get them talking. She could always get them to, either just by saying “What’s wrong?” until they answered, or by having some problem they could step in and fix, some upset that needed soothing. They’d consoled her when she was furious with Claire, and made arrangements to take her to an admissions counselor when she was worried about college.

Tess could fix things now, and I can’t.

I’m so tired of knowing that. Of being reminded, over and over again, that I’m not Tess.

But it’s not like I get a break. At school, everyone asks about her. People in my classes, teachers, and even the cafeteria workers want to know how she is. I know people are being nice, I know they care, but it’s just more reminders of what’s happened. Who I am. What I can’t do.

And even on the ferry, surrounded by people I know who are going to work, or coming home, or doing who knows what, there are questions. A “How’s your sister?” or “Tell your parents we’re thinking about them and praying for Tess,” or “It seems like just yesterday Tess and I were in the same English class/at a party/did something amazing and/or fun together. I miss her. Tell her that, will you?”

By the time the ferry docks, I’m beyond ready to get off, like I always am, and I ride to the hospital as if a ghost—a shadow—is chasing me.

I guess, in a lot of ways, one is.

When I get to the hospital, I lock up my bike and go find Eli. I don’t look at him at all as we head to Tess’s room. I force my mind and heart to see Tess waking up. Picture it: She breathes deep once, twice, and her eyes flutter. They open. She sighs. Smiles.

Sees Eli, and smiles more.

My heart cramps, a painful twist, and I force myself to keep looking. To see what should happen. What will happen.

“I know you’ll say that you’re fine, but are you all right?” Eli says, and I nod, remembering years of Halloweens with Tess. Remembering how I used to want the same costumes she had until I realized the smiles I got were always fainter versions of the ones she received, that they were sad with knowledge I hadn’t quite yet gotten. Smiles that knew I wasn’t Tess. Smiles that knew I wasn’t ever going to be Tess.

“Sure,” I say.

“It’s just—I came over here yesterday afternoon,” he says. “And I didn’t see you.”

He was here?

He was looking for me?

“I—I wasn’t here yesterday,” I say, punching in the code for the unit. “My parents were, though. I guess you met them, right? While you were talking to Tess and everything.”

I wonder why they didn’t mention it, and then remember how icy silent and tense everything was last night. My parents weren’t talking about anything, and they probably assumed Eli had seen Tess and had fallen for her.

That thought hurts more than I want it to.

“No,” Eli says. “I just—I was out here, looking for—seeing if you were here, and I saw them through the doors and figured they had to be your parents. Plus you look like your dad.”

The buzzer sounds, signaling that we can go in and almost drowning out my startled bark of a laugh. “I look like my dad? Are you sure you were looking in the right room? Because Tess has my dad’s hair and his eyes and—”

“Yeah, I’m sure. You both have this—you both have this way of looking at someone like they’re the only person in the world.”

“That doesn’t sound like me.”

“The other night, when you and I were talking, I …” He pauses and I stop, looking at him. My heart is pounding.

“What?” I say, and I want it to come out like I don’t care, like I’m just asking a question, but my voice is hushed. Hopeful.

“I was thinking it’s exactly how you look when you’re talking to Tess,” he says.

My heart sinks—stupid, so stupid, did I think he was going to say he wanted me to look at him that way?—but I nod like I understand.

I don’t, though. First Mom says I act like Dad, and now Eli says I look like him. Or at least can make the same expression.

Does that mean Dad sees Tess like I do? Feels all the things I do? The worry/anger/love?

It’s too freaky to think about, and so I push it away, head into Tess’s room.

“Hey,” I say, plopping into my usual chair. “I’m here. And so is Eli.”

“Hey, Tess,” he says, and looks at me. I pretend I don’t feel his gaze, but I do.

“I … uh, I don’t have any sisters or brothers,” he says. “I used to have a dog, but he had to be put to sleep when I was ten because he had cancer.”

That’s sad—really sad—and when I look at him and say, “I’m sorry,” he smiles.

He smiles and everything—even my toes—goes all trembly.

I clear my throat and look back at Tess. “So, I guess you and Eli have something else in common—he likes dogs too. Remember how you tried to talk Dad into getting you a puppy after you found out about C—well, back when you were in high school?”

“Oh, I don’t want another dog,” Eli says. “After having to see—when Harvey died, I—” He rests his hands against the arms of the chair, fingers tapping. “I can’t get another dog.”

“But maybe one day, you might, right?” I say, pointing at Tess.

“No. I like dogs, but watching someone you love die is—” He clears his throat and looks at me. Really looks at me, straight into my eyes and everything. I force myself to look back and only blow out the breath I’m holding when he glances at Tess.

I force myself to be happy he’s looking at her.

“When you love someone you’ll do anything for them,” Eli says to her. “Right before Harvey died, I slept in the laundry room with him. He wasn’t supposed to go anywhere in the house except my room, and even then it was only during the day, but I didn’t like to think of him all alone. I wanted … I wanted him to get better, just like Abby wants you to.”

He takes a deep breath. “Abby really wants you to wake up. I’ve never seen anybody believe in someone like she believes in you. The nurses all talk about her. How she comes here all the time, how she reads to you. Stuff like that. Supposedly she even yells if someone doesn’t come in fast enough when one of your … well, when something in here starts beeping. You—you’re really lucky, Tess.”

Tess’s eyes don’t move but I’m having to force mine not to. I’m having to force myself to not look at him, to not stare in amazement at what he’s just said.

No one has ever said Tess is lucky to have me. Not ever.

“Oh, now you have to wake up,” I tell her, hearing my voice crack a little and hoping Eli doesn’t. “You’ve got to tell him how I used to try and listen to you and Clai—your friends talking when you were still living at home, or about the time I said the person who tried to flush their broccoli down the toilet was you.”

“You don’t like broccoli?” Eli says, and Tess doesn’t move at all.

“No, she does,” I say. “Weird, right? When you wake up, Tess, I’ll make a whole bunch of it for you and bring it in. You and Eli can eat it.”

“Sorry, I can’t eat broccoli even for you,” Eli says, and I finally glance at him, knowing I should be happy he’s caught up in learning about Tess, that he’s talking to her like she’s here, like she’s going to wake up. I’m not, though. Not like I should be.

And when I look at him, he isn’t looking at Tess. He’s looking at me. He’s talking to
me
.

“Tess can be very persuasive,” I say, but my voice comes out faint, all flustered-sounding, and when a nurse walks in I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding and squeak out, “Hi, how are you?”

“I need to check on a machine,” the nurse says, pointing at a monitor near Eli. “I think that it’s—oh, damn. We need to get a new one of these in here now, and you two need to—” She makes a sweeping motion toward the door.

“What is it?” I say, looking at Tess, trying to see if something’s changed, if she looks worse. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no,” the nurse says, her voice curt. “I just need to get a new machine in here, and I need you out of here to do it.”

I get up, and Eli does too.

“Did I—did I break it?” he asks, but the nurse doesn’t reply, is too busy fiddling with the display and gesturing for another nurse to join her.

For all that they sometimes drive me crazy, the nurses here really are pretty impressive, because in just a few seconds me and Eli are maneuvered out of Tess’s room and they are clustered around her, faces calm as they move in an intricate dance involving wires and machines and IVs and Tess’s still body.

“Well, we can try going back in a while,” I say, heading out into the waiting room and flopping onto one of the chairs. There’s an old guy sitting in the one closest to the television, head listing to one side as he snores loudly.

I turn to ask Eli if he wants to go somewhere else and see something is wrong with him. Really, really wrong.

He’s sitting down too, but his hands are tapping against the chair so fast it’s like he’s—I don’t know. Trying to push his fingers into the chair, or something. And the look on his face … it’s like he’s going to run away screaming, or throw up. Or maybe both.

“Are you all right?” I say, and then remember his question to the nurse. “Hey, you know—you know you didn’t mess up that machine, right?”

He nods, but it’s stiff, jerky-looking, and then he bolts for the door. I hear what I think might be “Be back,” or “Bye,” but whatever it is comes out in a rush and is barely audible over the old guy’s snoring.

Weird. Maybe he’s sick. Or sad. He was just talking about his dog dying, and it hurt me to hear that. Should I try to find him, make sure he’s okay?

No. If I do anything, I should find Clement and tell him what’s going on. I don’t want to get all worked up over what could be wrong with Eli because he’s just a guy. He isn’t special to me in any way.

Except he is, because I’m an idiot. A full-blown idiot who should know better—and does—but yet still goes looking for Eli anyway.

It doesn’t take me long to find him. I head into the stairwell and he’s right there, sitting on the step in front of me.

“Hey,” I say. “Do you—do you want me to get Clement?”

“No,” he says, so strongly it’s almost like a shout. “I mean, no. I’m okay.”

I know I should say, “All right, see you later,” and leave, but I don’t.

I stay.

I say, “Are you sure?” and sit down next to him.

“Yeah,” he says. “I just—we didn’t get buzzed out like we’re supposed to, and I started thinking about how I might have taken my first step out of the unit on my right foot and not my left, and then I couldn’t stop thinking about how something terrible was going to happen even though I’ve been trying really hard to not think like that, and—”

“Wait, what?” I say, totally confused.

“I—I have this thing,” Eli says. “I … sometimes I think things have to be done a certain way and if they aren’t I, um—” He breaks off, drumming his fingers against his legs and then curls them into fists, tight ones like he’s trying to hold his fingers in. “I get upset and think awful things are going to happen and—oh, hell.” He looks at me. “I’ve got OCD.”