Flying Changes (22 page)

Obviously I can’t buy her an actual cheeseburger and I don’t want to face her without one, so instead I end up driving all over hell’s half acre on the recommendation of the ex-girlfriend of the teenage son of the night manager until I find The Red Onion, a restaurant that promises to offer up a reasonable facsimile.

“And this is vegan, right?” I say, as a young freckled thing in Heidi braids hands me a brown paper bag. She has a small gold ring in each nostril and another through her eyebrow.

“Yup,” she says, smiling.

“Even though there’s cheese. And a burger,” I say, peering closely at her, looking for cracks.

“Soy. And texturized tofu.”

“And the mayo?”

“Eggless.”

“You’re sure?”

She laughs, revealing a tongue stud. “Of course I’m sure. Everything we serve is vegan.”

“Thanks,” I say, snatching the bag from her hands.

When I get back to our room, Eva is sitting cross-legged in the center of her bed. She’s watching yet another episode of
Fear Factor.
It seems to be on twenty-four hours a day.

I toss the bag at her, and then follow it with a loose handful of ketchup and mustard packets.

She looks up in surprise. After a pause of a few beats, she reaches for the bag. She unrolls its top slowly, peers
in, and then reaches for the cardboard container. She opens it, stares at its contents, and then sets it on the bed in front of her.

“It’s not too late to change your mind,” I say. “Because I could still go get you a house salad from the restaurant. Or a bowl of soup. Cream of cauliflower, with not a drop of cream in sight.”

She removes the bun and looks more closely. The corners of the orange “cheese” sag around the edges of the patty, melting pretty convincingly. Eva leans over, sniffing. Then she pries off the slice of pickle.

“Is this a Klaas?” she says, letting it dangle between thumb and forefinger.

“I have no idea.”

Eva swivels at the waist and tosses it neatly into the garbage.

“Gee, thanks. Maybe I wanted it,” I say.

“Did you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” It’s just dawned on me that I was so wrapped up in my quest for a vegan burger that I neglected to get any dinner for myself.

On the television, a barefoot woman is grimacing and stomping a tub full of worms. Beneath her, a wineglass catches the resulting unfiltered nectar.

Eva grabs a ketchup packet, squirts it across the slice of cheese, replaces the top half of the bun, and goes to town. She stuffs so much into her mouth I’m afraid she’s going to choke.

I watch, both horrified and fascinated.

“Man oh man,” says Eva, speaking with her mouth crammed full and juice running down her chin. “This is
so good
. You have no idea how much I’ve missed meat.”

The woman on the television has climbed from the wooden tub of squashed worms. She is holding the glass of red-brown worm guts and taking deep breaths. As the show’s host urges her on, she plugs her nose and starts gulping. I turn from the screen.

“Aaaaah!”
I squeal, plugging my ears. “My God! Do you think once—just once!—we could watch something that doesn’t involve pigs’ eyes or water buffalo penises or rancid cow’s blood? Where’s the clicker! Give me the clicker!”

When it doesn’t appear, I glance over at Eva’s bed.

She’s staring at me, stone cold.

“Pffffft,”
she says. Then she grabs the clicker and tosses it across the divide. “It’s just worms, Ma.”

“And that’s just cow, Eva.”

She freezes, crouched over the burger with her pinkies extended. Her eyes grow wide. Then her hands begin to shake.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaayiiiiaaaaaaah!”
she shrieks, throwing the burger overhand at the wall. It sticks impressively before sliding slowly down, leaving a brown trail along the wallpaper. Eva looks at the carton in her cross-legged lap and upends it, sending fries and lettuce and ketchup flying. Then she jumps backward and off the bed. She stands a few feet away, trembling with her mouth and eyes open wide.

“No! Honey! No! It’s okay!” I say, scrabbling to get to her. I leap from my bed, cross the three feet to hers, and then scootch across it to the other side. “It was fake! Completely fake! I mean, vegan!”

Eva’s eyes turn and lock on mine. She is silent for a moment. “Huh?” she says through ragged breaths.

“Your burger. One hundred percent vegan.”

She stares at me, chest heaving.

I swipe an
X
across my front. “I swear to God, Eva. It’s vegan. That’s why it took me so long to get dinner.”

She keeps staring, huffing like a horse who’s been stung and doesn’t know what the hell hit it.

“Eva?”

I grab her shoulders.

“Eva! I swear to you by all I hold sacred—I swear to you on your grandfather’s grave—that burger was one hundred percent fake.”

She blinks at me. “Yeah?” she pants.

“Yeah,” I say.

She stares at me for another couple of seconds and then falls against me, weeping like a five-year-old.

I sigh and pat her back. What else can I do?

In the morning, we leave the hotel with Eva once again packed in suitcases and me packed in plastic grocery bags. I argue only halfheartedly when the desk clerk explains that we have to pay for tonight as well because we didn’t meet the cancellation requirements. And then we’re on our way.

The drive home is predictably long. Neither of us is in the mood for conversation, although we’re going to have to have one.

Before we left the room, I tried one last time to persuade Eva to attend the final day, but it was no use. The really stupid thing is I don’t believe she was making a decision about whether she wanted to remain in the program. I think she was simply too embarrassed to show up. I tried explaining that Nathalie would inter
pret that as a decision, but since that was obviously causing Eva to dig her heels in even further, I desisted.

My secret hope is that I can change her mind during the drive. My other secret hope is that Nathalie will be receptive to taking her back.

“Eva, look,” I say, leaning over and patting her leg. “When we get around that curve, you’ll be able to see the Old Man.”

“So what,” she grumbles.

“No, here. Look! Look!” I say, pointing as we round the curve.

I look up expectantly. And then I continue staring in disbelief and incomprehension.

“Ma! Watch where you’re going!”

Eva’s warning comes just in time to prevent me from ramming the car in front of me. It, and a great many others, are stopped right in the center of the parkway.

I yank the Camry onto the shoulder and look back at the rock face.

He’s gone. The Old Man of the Mountain is gone. There’s nothing but a shapeless hollow where he used to be. His face has fallen off, is nothing now but great cubes of Jell-O granite lying on scree at the bottom of the hill.

“Ma! What is it?” squeals Eva, I assume because I’m staring out the window and hyperventilating through peaked fingers. “Ma! What?”

I scrabble out of the car and stare, leaving the car door open. There’s no point in asking what happened, although I find it impossible to comprehend. Immediately I begin wondering how we’re going to fix this, how we’re going to put him back up. And almost as quickly I realize that we can’t. The Old Man is just gone.

A news crew is making its way up the parked cars on the shoulder, shoving their microphone in front of hapless New Hampshire faces. Some have dropped jaws. Some stare in bafflement, shaking their heads. Others cry.

Eva joins me beside the car.

“Is this him?” she says, her voice filled with worry.

“It was,” I reply.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. I guess he fell off,” I say.

Hearing the words, even saying the words, appears to have no actual influence on understanding.

I hear gravel crunching under feet. The news anchor, in her yellow raincoat and golf umbrella, is making her way toward us. She marches purposefully, followed by a handful of crew members. She’s only a dozen feet from my car.

“Get in the car,” I say quickly.

“But—” says Eva.

“Go through my side.
Do it!
”

Eva scrambles in and across. I jump in and lock the doors just as the news anchor arrives at my side. I drop my head on my steering wheel, trying to look unavailable.

She raps sharply on the window.

I lift my head and turn.

“Excuse me,” she says, leaning over and smiling broadly. Her makeup is thick, and when she smiles, cracks form in her foundation. “I was wondering if you would mind—”

“Buckle up,” I mumble to Eva, starting the engine.

“Hey! Excuse me!”

I lay on the horn.

The news anchor jumps back with a horrified expression and I gun it out of there, weaving around the vehicles that are stopped right in the center of the pavement.

I’m blubbering hopelessly within a minute. I stop for gas in Whitefield, whimpering at the gas pump. When I go inside to pay and the cashier asks if I’m okay, I tell him what’s happened. He looks stricken, almost as though he, too, will burst into tears.

By the time we reach Lancaster, I’m so desperate to get home I’m driving almost twenty miles an hour past the speed limit, zooming past the cherry blossoms.

Eva finally speaks. “I don’t see why you’re so upset.”

“No, of course you don’t,” I say, without offering to enlighten her.

“Well, why is it then?”

I turn quickly to look at her. “Because I loved him. Because he symbolized New Hampshire.”

“
Pffffft,
that’s just dumb,” she says. Then she chortles.

“What?” I croak.

“Dumb?” she says, pointing at a sign for the town of
Dummer.
“Get it?”

I take a deep breath. “Eva, do me a favor—just keep your mouth shut until we get home.”

“Hey! That’s not fair. It’s not my fault some old piece of—”

“I said, shut it!”

She drops back against her seat and crosses her arms, her brow furrowed so deeply I bet she’s nearly cross-eyed.

When Maple Brook finally comes into sight, I sigh with relief. I turn down our drive, puffy-eyed, having cried on and off since Franconia Notch Park.

As I pull the car around behind the house Mutti comes out the back door. She has a blue sweater clamped around her shoulders. Her arms are folded in front of her, and her face is drawn. Obviously I don’t have to explain to her what the Old Man meant.

I climb from the car. “Oh, Mutti—” I say, hugging her.

“So you know,” she says grimly. “How?”

“My God, I passed right by it.”

Mutti’s body tightens. Then she pushes me away. Her eyes search my face. “What are you talking about?”

“The Old Man. He fell off.”

“The Old Man…”

“The Old Man of the Mountain. What are you talking about?” I ask as it sinks in that she’s upset about something else.

Mutti closes her eyes for a moment. Then she says, “Eva, I want you to go in the house.”

“Why?”

“Eva, please!”

“Sheesh, all this for some stupid old rock face…” she grumbles, slamming the car door and stomping up the ramp to the back door.

Mutti watches her until the door is shut behind her. Then she turns back to me. She has a hand on each of my shoulders.

“Roger and Sonja were in an accident.”

“An accident?” I repeat.

Mutti doesn’t say anything else.

“Mutti? Are they okay?”

Mutti’s eyes flicker. A quick shake of the head.

I gasp, searching my mother’s eyes.

“Sonja is dead.”

I cry out. Then, in a shaky voice: “And Roger?”

Mutti glances quickly at the house. “In critical condition,” she whispers hoarsely.

“Oh God,” I say. Then I close my eyes, afraid to even ask the next question. “And the baby?”

“Stable.”

I am silent for a moment, trying to take this in. “Where are they?”

“At the hospital in Lebanon.”

“They’re here? In New Hampshire?”

Mutti nods.

“Oh no.” The back of my throat constricts. “Oh no, oh no. We thought they didn’t come.”

I blink at Mutti, trying to process all of this. Then I say, “Roger has no family.”

“I know,
Schatzlein
. I know.”

“We’ve got to go.”

She nods.

After a moment, I turn and stare at the house.

A few hours later we’re back on the road. Mutti is driving, I’m in the passenger seat, and Eva is directly behind me, beside the heap of plastic bags that hold Mutti’s and my clothes and toiletries.

If I lean slightly forward I can see Eva in the side-view mirror. I do this occasionally and carefully because I don’t want her to catch me. I think she’s handling this all right, but who’s to say? So far we don’t even know the extent of what we have to handle.

We pass the covered bridge, the library, the school buses. I catch sight of Percy’s Peaks in the side-view mirror, spread out behind us like the breasts of a supine woman, and all I can think of is were we here or there, passing this or that, when the tractor trailer ripped off the front of Roger and Sonja’s rented car, leaving the baby and the rear half spinning on the highway, and barreling forth with Roger and Sonja impaled on its grill.

Somehow it’s important for me to know where we were when it happened. It seems absurd to me that Roger’s life could be shattered so completely in such
proximity to me and I didn’t pick up a signal. For better or worse, I spent almost twenty years with the man. You’d think I’d feel some kind of sympathetic vibration, like a drone string. If not actual pain, a zap, a ping—something.

But I didn’t. I felt nothing. Eva and I could have been discussing painted frogs at the moment Roger was carried forth next to his dead, smashed wife.

As we join the traffic that crawls past the faceless and fallen Old Man, I think back to the voice message I left on Roger’s machine and am filled with eviscerating shame. I didn’t know. How could I know? He’d disappointed me before; it wasn’t outrageous for me to think that he’d do it again.

And now I want to slither down and melt in my seat for making excuses because I know damn well that Roger disappointing me is one thing—and a mitigated thing at that—and Roger disappointing Eva is quite another. I should have known by his absence that something was wrong.

I will explain to him, probably before he even hears the message. I will beg his forgiveness, and he will understand because I was angry for Eva’s sake. Perhaps I can even persuade him to delete it without listening.

I sneak a look at Eva. She stares out the window, her forehead leaning against it. Her eyes are hollow and red-rimmed, but dry.

When Mutti and I first told her what happened she burst into horrified tears, but quickly gained the same stunned focus that drove Mutti and me in our hurried preparations as we located Joan and arranged for her to stay at the house. I have this feeling I should be trying to talk to Eva, to prepare her, but I don’t know what to
say. I won’t know what to prepare her for until we get there.

Dead is dead, but critical can mean anything—I’m not even ready to go there yet. For that matter, so can stable. You can be in stable condition after having your face ripped off—or, say, breaking your neck. Stable means they’re hedging their bets. They don’t think you’re exactly at death’s door, but they’re also not making any guarantees.

And so we drive, silent, grim, united. There was no question that we had to go. And there’s no question that we’re driving toward family, even though the only person in the car related by blood to either Roger or the baby is Eva.

The hospital is huge and sprawling, a complex of new buildings attached by various walkways. Fortunately, the lobby leads straight to an information desk, a semicircle of burnished wood that is directly in front of a waterfall. It is flat, and takes up the entire length of the wall. The water trickles sweetly down, engineered to be comforting. It reminds me of the environment at the spa, and I am hit with a wave of nausea. Roger and Sonja were probably packing and chatting while I was having stupid little lines painted across the tips of my fingernails.

The elderly volunteer gives us directions to the ICU. Eva and Mutti turn and rush off while the woman’s hand is still outstretched, pointing. I call a thank-you over my shoulder, and jog to catch up.

The nurses’ station is a central island with a wall of monitors behind it. I scan them quickly, trying to iden
tify which one is keeping track of Roger’s vital signs. I can’t tell, but the variation in heart rhythms is sobering.

“Excuse me,” I say, coming to an abrupt stop with my chest against the desk. “We’re here to see Roger Aldrich.”

“And Jeremy Aldrich,” Eva says quickly.

“Yes,” I say. My throat is tight as a tourniquet. “Roger and Jeremy Aldrich.”

The nurse looks up at us. “Are you family?” she says.

“Yes, this is his daughter. Roger’s, that is. And I’m his ex-wife. Please, can we see him?”

The nurse stands up and comes around the other side of the station. She lays a hand on my elbow. “Will you ladies please follow me?”

She leads us into the hallway and through a door into a small waiting room. The lights are dimmed. Airport chairs of padded Naugahyde line three walls, bolted to beams. There are two end tables, made of the same false wood as Dan’s coffee table. On one is a fanned spread of magazines—
Golf Weekly, Family Circle, Parenting.
On the other is a box of tissue and a brochure about organ donation.

The nurse turns and addresses Eva. Her face is broad and kind, the skin beside her eyes creased. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Eva.”

“And you’re Eva’s mother?” she says, turning to me.

“Yes. I’m Annemarie Zimmer, and this is my mother, Ursula Zimmer.”

“My name is Chantal,” she says. “I’m one of Mr. Aldrich’s nurses. Why don’t you have a seat, and I’ll go find one of the doctors.”

“How is he?” I say. “Is he going to be okay?”

“And my brother? Is he here?” Eva says quickly.

Chantal pauses by the door. “One of the doctors will be in shortly to fill you in. And Eva, I’ll see what I can find out about your brother.” She smiles in sympathy and leaves.

Fifty-five minutes later, we’re still waiting. My frustration builds, and every time I hear footsteps or voices outside the door I want to leap up and tear it open, shouting for attention, for information, for anything.

Eva sits across from me, perched like a bird with her legs up and her arms wrapped around them. Her chin rests on her knees. She’s carrying a load far too heavy for someone her age—she’s not just scared to death for her father and brother, she’s mourning Sonja. And for all I held a grudge, I have to admit that Sonja was good to Eva, always welcomed her into their home. I was secretly grateful for that, and am stunned with something like grief myself. It seems inconceivable—as the result of a split second, a minute miscalculation in distance, Roger is without his wife, and Jeremy, without his mother. She was twenty-four years old.

I’m sitting beside the brochure on organ donation, hoping Eva won’t notice it and wondering whether I can flick it discreetly behind the table. I’m also trying hard not to dwell on the fact that this is a private waiting room. My family has a long history with hospitals, and private waiting rooms don’t bode well.

Mutti stands by the door with one arm folded across her chest and the other pressed to her chin. Occasionally she crosses the room, but she always returns to the same spot.

The door opens. I jump to my feet. When I realize it’s just Chantal, I sigh in irritation.

“Has anybody been in to see you yet?” she says.

“No, they haven’t,” I say. “It’s been nearly an hour. We’ve heard nothing.” I know I sound bad-tempered, but don’t they realize how desperate we are?

“I’m sorry for the wait. I’ve let them know you’re here but as you can imagine, things are sometimes unpredictable on this unit. Can I get you something while you wait? Coffee? Juice, or something?”

“No,” I say. “Please—just tell us how he’s doing. Please.”

Chantal presses her lips together, considering. Her eyes flit from me to Eva, and back again. She comes to some sort of internal resolution and turns to Mutti. “Are you ladies from out of town?”

“Yes, we are,” says Mutti.

“Have you found a place to stay yet?”

“No, not yet.”

“The hotel right across from the west entrance has a special rate for patients’ families. I know they have rooms, because I just called over there for another family. Mrs. Zimmer, why don’t you take Eva on over there and get yourselves settled before it gets too late?”

Mutti and I exchange startled glances.

I nod.

“Come, Eva,” Mutti says, gathering her jacket and purse. “Let’s go get a room.”

“I want to see Dad,” says Eva.

“You will,” says Mutti. She walks over and pats Eva’s raised knee. “We’ll come right back after we check in.”

“And where’s Jeremy? Why won’t anybody tell us
anything?” Eva says crossly, letting her legs drop to the floor. Her voice is querulous, but she reaches for her jacket and hauls herself to her feet.

“He’s on the children’s ward,” says Chantal.

“I want to see him.”

“And you shall,” says Mutti. “You will see them both. But it will do nobody any good for us to sleep in the back of the car. Come, Eva.”

Eva lets her shoulders drop forward and frowns.

As she passes me on her way to the door, I grab her and pull her to me. She melts against me, a warm and heavy weight. Her bristly scalp tickles my nose as we clutch each other.

“It’s going to be okay,” I say, although I know no such thing.

“All right,” she says in a tiny voice. She sniffs and pulls away. She’s crying again, but there is no heaving, no hiccups.

Chantal reaches out and rubs her shoulder. “Thank you,” she says softly as Mutti steers Eva from the room.

Chantal closes the door behind them and smiles sadly. Then she gestures toward one of the rows of chairs. “Please, have a seat.”

I do, and then wait for her to speak, with my hands steepled and trembling in front of my face.

She takes a seat opposite, perching right on the edge of the chair and inclining toward me. “I’m glad you made it. We weren’t sure anyone was coming,” she says.

“We didn’t know. My daughter and I were at a horse show. And besides, we didn’t find out until today,” I say too quickly. When I realize I’m proclaiming our innocence, I stop.

“How old is Eva?”

“Sixteen.”

Chantal nods and purses her lips. She clasps her hands in front of her. “That’s about what I thought. I think you’re going to want to see Mr. Aldrich yourself before Eva does.”

“Why? Can you please tell me what’s going on?”

“Hang tight. I’ll be right back with the doctor,” she says, rising.

“Please—do you not know what this is doing to me?” My voice is raised. I cannot help it.

She leaves anyway. The door shuts, whisper-quiet.

I turn to look at the muted abstract wallpaper, frustrated and scared.

A doctor in blue-green scrubs enters almost immediately. His hair is in a cap. A paper mask hangs around his neck. Chantal follows him in and closes the door.

“Mrs. Zimmer, I’m Chris Lefcoe, one of your husband’s surgeons,” he says, extending his hand. I watch mine rise and perform the familiar ritual. Somewhere in my brain it registers that he called Roger my husband, but I don’t correct him. At this point it’s irrelevant.

“I’m sorry for the wait, but Mr. Aldrich was just getting out of surgery when you arrived,” he says, sitting in the opposite chair. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands with his fingers interlocked. His eye contact is steady, and, I fear, practiced.

Chantal sits silently beside me.

“Surgery…” I repeat.

“To relieve pressure on his brain.”

I am mute, silenced by an overload of imaginings.
After a while the silence becomes conspicuous. I realize I’ve let my eyes wander to Dr. Lefcoe’s feet. When I look up, he’s still staring earnestly, lines of concern etched on his forehead.

“How?”

“We removed a piece of skull to allow room for the swelling.”

The utterance that comes from my throat is somewhere between a word and cry. I sit ramrod straight, my fingertips pressed to my mouth. “Is he…?”

Chantal’s hand appears on my back. She leans toward me, letting her knee touch mine.

“Mr. Aldrich was in a very bad accident,” Dr. Lefcoe continues. “If he makes it, life will be very different.”

“If he makes it?” I say. “Oh God…”

“He is in grave condition. A lot depends on the next few days. He suffered massive injuries.”

Grave condition—a degree worse than critical, namesake of the unspeakable. I can’t absorb this. It’s like I’m watching from outside my body, and the person we’re discussing is certainly not Roger.

“What are you saying? Are you telling me he’s going to die?”

The doctor drops his gaze to the floor and then raises his eyes back to mine. “The imaging showed extensive brain damage,” he says. “We don’t know how much function he’ll recover.” He pauses. “I’m sorry. We attempted to minimize swelling by inducing a coma, but the trauma was too severe. It happens with this sort of injury. His brain continued to swell after the accident.”

“I want to see him.”

Dr. Lefcoe nods.

“Are you ready?” says Chantal, and I nod curtly. I’ve never been less ready in all my life.

I step into the doorway anyway. I feel like a blind person suddenly sighted, disoriented by color and form as my eyes seek the bed.

When they find it, my knees give way. “Oh,” I whimper.

Chantal catches my elbow, supporting me. I grasp the doorway with my other hand and look down, letting my eyes flutter shut.

“Are you all right now? Do you want to sit for a moment?”

I stand still for a few seconds, focusing on the floor tiles, trying to keep from sliding down to them.

“No,” I say.

As I regain my balance, she tentatively lightens her grip. “You steady now?”

“Yes,” I say. I breathe heavily, and then lift my face to my richest horror.

The bed is surrounded by monitors and equipment that blink and beep. The body in the bed is not recognizable. The head is wrapped, the face beneath it puffy and mashed, the eyes taped shut. It is bloated, swollen, apparently boneless.

(Not it. Him. Him.
Roger.
)