Left Neglected (13 page)

Meditation has been added to the list of rehabilitation techniques that may or may not help me return to my old life. So I meditate. Well, I try. I’ve never had any inclination to meditate, and even beyond that really, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to. To me, meditation sounds a whole lot like doing nothing. I don’t do nothing. I pack every second of every day with something that can get done. Have five minutes? Send an email. Read the school notices. Throw in a load of laundry. Play peek-a-boo with Linus. Got ten? Return a phone call. Outline the agenda for a meeting. Read a performance evaluation. Read a book to Lucy. Sit with my eyes closed and breathe without planning, organizing, or accomplishing anything? I don’t think so.

So when I envision someone who meditates, it isn’t anyone like me. Most often, I picture an old, bald Buddhist monk sitting erect on a bamboo mat in an ancient temple somewhere in Tibet, his eyes closed, his expression wise and serene, like he holds the secret to inner peace. While I admire my imaginary monk’s ability to achieve this apparent state of contentment, I’ll bet my right side he doesn’t have three kids, two mortgages, and four thousand consultants to manage.

But now I don’t have any emails, phone calls, school notices, or laundry to deal with (no laundry being one of the few perks of living in a rehabilitation hospital), and the kids aren’t here. Baldwin’s no Buddhist temple, but I’m still sort of bald, and I’ve got buckets of time. Plus, I’ve started to worry that too much daytime television might be damaging the rest of my brain. So I’m giving meditation a try.

Heidi says it will help to increase my concentration, which I could definitely use more of. Before the accident, I could focus on at least five things at once. I was a multitasking genius with plenty of surplus brainpower to spread around. If concentrating on five things at once before the accident required five gallons of brain fuel, one gallon per thing, now I need four gallons of brain fuel to simply be aware of the left side, leaving only one gallon of fuel to concentrate on only one thing. And then I’m completely out of gas. So I could use some more focus. And meditation might also help to reduce my blood pressure and anxiety levels, both of which are unhealthily and unproductively high.

So here I go. I close my eyes.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Focus on my breath. Breathe. Nothing else. Focus. Breathe. Oh, I have to remember to tell my mother to put a few blankets under one end of Linus’s crib mattress to help him breathe. Bob says he’s got a horrible head cold. I hate it when the kids are sick, and they don’t know how to blow their noses. How old were the other two when they learned?

Poor Linus. He’s probably going to be sick with something from now until May. I swear, once the winter coats come out of the closets, someone in our house is always sick. All those kids in school and day care sneezing and coughing all over one another, drooling on the toys, wiping their runny noses with their hands and touching each other, touching the water bubbler spigots with their mouths, sharing toys and snacks and germs. So gross.

Poor Linus. I should also tell my mother to run the shower as hot as it can get and let Linus breathe in the steam. That’ll help. I miss our shower. The one here barely has any pressure and doesn’t stay hot for long enough.

I miss our bath towels. Thick, soft, luxurious Turkish cotton. And they smell like heaven, especially when they’re right out of the dryer. The ones here are thin and stiff and smell too strongly of industrial bleach. I should ask Bob to bring me a bath towel.

Wait. What am I doing? Stop thinking about bath towels. Stop thinking. Quiet. Breathe. Observe your breath. Meditate. I’m having a hard time with this. I’m having a hard time with everything. I don’t think I’ve ever worked this hard at anything and not succeeded. I’m not succeeding. I’m failing. I’m not accepting and adjusting. I’m just failing. I can’t let Bob see me fail. Or work. How will either of them tolerate me if I don’t get back to the way I was before this? I have to recover from this. Work won’t take me back unless I recover from this. I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t take me back either.

What about Bob? Will he take me back? Of course he will. He’d look like a real jerk if he left his brain-injured wife. But he doesn’t deserve a brain-injured wife. He married his partner, not someone he has to dress and provide for and take care of for the rest of his life. He didn’t sign up for this. I’ll be his cross to bear, and he’ll resent me. He’ll be stuck with a brain-injured wife to take care of, and he’ll be miserable and exhausted and lonely, and he’ll have an affair, and I won’t blame him.

Wait, can I even have sex with this? I think I can. I should be able to. All the necessary parts are right down the middle. Thank God I don’t have a left vagina to try to find. But will Bob even want to have sex with me like this? Sometimes I drool out of the left side of my mouth and don’t know it. That’s real attractive. And I can’t shave either armpit or my left leg. I’m a drooling, hairy Chia Pet who can’t walk. Bob and I were barely having sex before this happened. What’s going to happen now? What if he stays with me out of obligation, and we never have sex again?

Sarah, stop. Stop all this negative thinking. This isn’t helping. Be positive. Maybe the average person doesn’t recover, or maybe even most people don’t recover, but some people do. You can do this. Remember Attitude. Fight. You can get better. It’s still possible. Don’t give up. Breathe. Focus. Clear your thoughts.

You’re right. Breathe. Focus. Breathe. Who am I kidding? I’m so far from better. Better is a tiny village buried somewhere deep in the Amazon rain forest, not on any map. Good luck getting there. Good luck getting anywhere. I can’t even walk yet. Linus is more capable than I am. Bob says he’s already cruising around the coffee table. And I’m still dragging myself between the parallel bars as Martha commands my every labored move. Linus is going to walk before I do, and I’m not going to be home to see him take his first steps. Not that I was there to see Charlie or Lucy take their first steps. I was at work. But still. I want to go home.

Stop thinking! You’re supposed to be meditating. You’re not going home now. You have nowhere to go and nothing to do. Just be here. Breathe. Think of nothing. Blank wall. Picture a blank wall. Breathe. Didn’t you always dream of having this kind of downtime to relax and catch your breath?

Yeah, but I didn’t dream of having a brain injury in order to have the chance to sit and think about nothing in the middle of the day. That’s kind of a high price to pay for a little R&R, don’t you think? I could’ve just gone to a spa for a weekend.

Sarah, you’re wandering again. You’re all over the place.

Is this what it feels like to be Charlie? I bet it is. Bob took him to the doctor yesterday without me. That was hard, to not be there. I can’t believe he’s being evaluated for Attention Deficit Disorder. Please don’t let him have it. But I almost wish that he does have it. At least that would explain why he’s having such a hard time. And if he has it, then there’s something we can do for him other than yell at him all the time. Yeah, but that something is to medicate him. We’re going to drug Charlie so he can pay attention. I don’t even want to think about it.

Hello? Don’t think about it! You’re not supposed to be thinking about anything. Stop thinking.

Sorry.

Don’t be sorry. Be quiet. Turn it off. Picture turning off the switch.

You’re right. Stop thinking. Breathe. In. Out. Good. In. Out. Good, I’m doing it. Keep doing it.

Okay, stop cheering for yourself, though. You’re not your mother.

Thank God. How long is she going to hang around? Why is she here? Doesn’t she have a life to get back to on the Cape? Probably not. She checked out of her life when Nate was six and drowned in the neighbor’s pool. So why does she suddenly want to be a part of mine? She can’t just suddenly decide to be my mother and pay attention to me after all these years. Where was she when I needed her before? No, she had her chance to be my mother when I needed one. But I really do need her now. But I won’t. As soon as I’m better, I won’t need her, and then she can go back to the Cape where she belongs, and I can go back to my life where I belong, and we can both go back to not needing each other. And that will be better for everyone.

I open my eyes. I sigh. I grab the remote and click on the TV. I wonder who’s on
Ellen
today.

It’s just after 10:00 a.m., and I’m already having a really bad day. I tried calling Bob a few minutes ago, but he didn’t answer. I wonder if he knows.

I’m in the gym, sitting at the puzzles and games table, tasked with transferring the red plastic beads from the white cereal bowl on my right to the invisible cereal bowl on my left with the spoon I’m holding in my left hand. My right arm is bent at the elbow and wrapped in a sling, immobilized against my chest. Constraint-induced therapy is supposed to help me resist the urge to use my right hand, and because we’ve eliminated the competition, this is supposed to help me feel more comfortable choosing to use my left hand. But mostly, it just makes me feel like a woman with no arms.

Even before I had to face straitjacket therapy, I was feeling upset and utterly demoralized. After some meeting my medical team had without me earlier this morning, it was decided that I will be going home in three days. It actually wasn’t so much decided by them as it was ceremoniously rubber-stamped. My insurance carrier figured out long before my accident through some cost-benefit outcome analysis, not unlike the kinds of analyses many of the Berkley consultants are likely running on Excel spreadsheets for various companies right now, that I’d be going home in three days. It was predetermined by the intersection of some billing code and the code for my medical condition, with only marginal consideration given to my progress or lack thereof. Or maybe it was determined all along by the intersection of Venus retrograde in Scorpio. Whatever the faceless bureaucratic or mystical reason, this is my fate. I’m going home in three days.

While my medical team delivered the good news to me in super-cheery voices and faces dressed in community theatre smiles, I sat silent, stunned, expressionless. Here I am, sitting in a rehabilitation bed in a rehabilitation hospital, working hard every day in my rehabilitation sessions, all the while thinking I would be here until I was rehabilitated. As it turns out, this was never the case. And the joke’s on me.

Here’s what I learned this morning. In the world of rehabilitation hospitals, if a patient’s condition is slipping downhill, the patient stays. Everyone believes,
We must save her.
Alternatively, if the patient is making significant strides toward wellness, the patient stays. Everyone hopes,
We can still save her.
Acceleration either up- or downhill means more rehab. But standing still with nothing but miles of flat terrain on the horizon means the patient is going home. Everyone agrees,
Don’t waste your time. She can’t be saved.
If the road to recovery plateaus, insurance will no longer pay the bill, which, by the way, is about as steep as the hill I’ve been trying to climb.

I should be thrilled. I’m going home in three days. In time for my wedding anniversary and Christmas. I’m going home. I’ve been praying for this day. I should feel triumphant. But instead, knots of terrified uncertainty are pulling tight inside my stomach, and I feel like throwing up. They’re done with me here. My insurance company has deemed that my rehabilitation effort here is no longer a wise investment.
She can’t be saved.

This can’t be it. There has to be more for me. I can walk on my own, but barely and only if I use the cane they gave me. The cane they gave me is one of those hospital-grade, stainless steel granny canes, the kind with the four rubber-capped feet. My cane is wearing Crocs, for God’s sake. Not cool. There’s nothing subtle about my quad cane. It’s a cane that screams,
Look out, I have a serious brain injury!
I hate it, and I want to learn to walk without it.

I still can’t read the left side of a page without lots of correcting and prompting and reminding to use my L-shaped red bookmark.
Scan left, find the left margin, keep going until you find the red bookmark.
I’m still not getting dressed without assistance. I need help with brushing my teeth and showering. How am I going to take care of my kids and my house? How am I going to do my job? I can’t even release the spoon I’m holding in my left hand without professional coaching. I want the insurance analyst who determined my length of stay to come over here right now and look me in the eye while I point my spoon at his head and threaten, “Do I look rehabilitated to you?”

Martha explained to me that I’ll continue working at home on the techniques I’ve learned here. Heidi assured me that I’ll meet with other therapists doing the same kind of work on an outpatient basis. Dr. Nelson, the doctor here who oversees my care, said,
The brain’s a funny thing. You never know.
And he went to medical school for these words of wisdom.

None of what they’re telling me sounds like good news. It all sounds a bit vague and dismissive, less intensive, less committed to my progress, less committed to a belief in my progress. It sounds like I’m no longer on the road to recovery. It sounds instead like I’ve been detoured onto some slow, crappy dead-end road that leads to an abandoned, boarded-up building where everyone has given up on me.

The knots inside my stomach twist and squeeze. I lose my concentration and spill a spoonful of red beads. The beads spin and bounce and roll off the table. As I listen to them scatter across the linoleum floor and consider the thought of scooping out another spoonful, the twisting and squeezing dissolves into an acidic hot anger, scorching a hole through my stomach, seeping into every inch of me. I can even feel it burning into my left hand. I want to throw the spoon, but I can’t undo my own kung fu grip, so instead I squeeze the spoon as hard as I can, and I feel my fingernails dig into the tender palm of my hand. It hurts, and I think I might even be bleeding, but I can’t unfold my hand to see.

“I’m not doing this anymore. I want to go back to my room.”

“It’s okay. Just load another spoonful. You’re doing great,” says Martha.

What’s the point? How is this ridiculous task going to change anything? Why don’t I just go home today? What is three more days in this prison going to do for me? Nothing. It’s been determined.
She can’t be saved.

My face is flushed and sweaty, and hot tears fill and sting my eyes. I want to wipe the tears away, but my right hand is unavailable and the best I could hope for from my left hand would be a poke in the eye with a spoon.

“I want to go back to my room,” I say, my voice cracking.

“Come on, let’s finish this first. You can do it.”

“I don’t want to. I don’t feel good.”

“She doesn’t look well,” says my mother.

“What doesn’t feel good?” asks Martha.

“My stomach.”

Martha checks her watch.

“It’s almost lunchtime. You think food will help?”

No, I do not think a crappy cafeteria lunch will help.

I shrug.

She checks her watch again.

“Okay, with the time we have left, how about you walk back to your room with your cane and your mom, and I’ll go get you an early lunch and meet you there.”

That sounds great. I’ll spend the next twenty minutes walking a length of corridor that should take me thirty seconds.

“Helen, will you help her out of the sling and guide her back to her room?”

“Sure,” says my mother.

Martha eyes my hand still clutching the spoon.

“I’ll get you some soup.”

My mother works my right arm out of bondage, hands me my granny cane, and we begin the journey back to my room. I have no more positive attitude. No more fist. No more fight. I have no interest in accepting or accommodating. I have a brain injury that has not healed and no promise that it ever will. I used to have a full and successful life. Now what do I have? I have a granny cane in one hand and a spoon in the other. And three more days.

“I
DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT’S WRONG,
Sarah,” says my mother.

We’re now back in my room, my mother in her chair, me in my bed.

“I’m fine,” I say.

“This is great news. It means you’re not in medical danger.”

“I know.”

“And you’ll see, you’ll do much better in your own home.”

“Uh-huh.”

I am looking forward to saying good-bye to this place. In three days, I will have been here for five weeks, and I never wanted to stay one second longer than I had to. I won’t miss this uncomfortable bed, the weak shower, the coarse towels, the bland food, the pervasive smell of hand sanitizer and disinfectant, the gym, the miserable view of the prison, Martha. I especially won’t miss the creepy nocturnal hospital sounds that shake me awake and hold me wide-eyed and unsettled every night—the moans of unbearable pain, the panicked and wild shrieking of someone waking from a nightmare, probably reliving whatever gruesome accident precipitated admission here, the coyote wails of the young mother deprived of language and her newborn, the code blue announcements delivered over the intercom carrying their unspoken, chilling message that someone—maybe someone in the next room, maybe someone with a brain injury like mine—has just died. No, I will not miss this place at all.

But I imagined leaving on much different terms. According to the scene that I’ve been directing in my head for weeks, my exodus always went something like this: With joyful tears in everyone’s eyes, I would hug and thank each member of my medical team for their role in my full recovery and promise to keep in touch. Then, accompanied by the theme song to
Chariots of Fire
and while waving farewell with my left hand, I would walk with confidence and without a cane through the lobby, which would be packed with applauding therapists, physicians, and patients. The staff would be overwhelmed with pride, the patients would be filled with hope, and I’d be an inspiration to everyone. At the end of the lobby, the automatic doors would peel open, and I’d step through into a clear, sunny day. Into freedom and my old life.

And, conveniently forgetting that my car is in a junkyard, I even pictured driving myself home in my Acura. Sitting in my room now with three days left, involuntarily gripping a spoon in my left hand as I wait for Martha to come back with soup, exhausted from the embarrassingly short and granny cane– dependent trek down the hallway, I feel beyond ridiculous for ever constructing and then believing in such a far-fetched fantasy.

“And I’ll keep helping you with the therapy,” says my mother.

This is not an offer or a question. It’s an assumption, a foregone conclusion. I stare at her, trying to figure her out. She’s wearing black elastic-waist pants tucked into black imitation Uggs, a white cable-knit sweater, black-rimmed glasses, dangling red Christmas ornament earrings and lipstick to match. I can still see the young woman that she was beneath the makeup and old age on her face, but I have no actual sense of what she looked like in between.

I remember the shade of peachy pink rouge she used to wear on her freckled cheekbones, her favorite powder green eye shadow, the wisps of fine hair by her ears that never stayed in her long ponytail, how her nostrils bounced in and out when she laughed, the sparkle in her pale blue eyes, the smell of her lipstick (plus or minus Marlboro Lights and Juicy Fruit gum) that lingered on my mouth after she kissed me.

I’m pretty sure she stopped wearing any makeup or doing anything to her hair after Nate drowned. I know there were no more nostril-bouncing laughs and no more smelly kisses. But I have no specific memory of what she looked like or how she changed after 1982. When did she start getting crow’s-feet? And how does someone get crow’s-feet if she never laughs or leaves the house? When did her hair begin turning gray, and when did she cut it chin length? When did she start wearing glasses? When did she quit smoking? When did she start wearing lipstick again?

And I can’t imagine that she has any specific memories of me and what I looked like or how I changed after 1982. She didn’t spend even one of the thousands of tedious minutes of the last month sharing nostalgic stories of my childhood. Because, for the most part, after 1982, she didn’t witness my childhood.

After burying their only son, my mother then buried herself in her bedroom, and my father buried himself in construction work whenever he wasn’t at the firehouse. While my mother did nothing but feel the loss of Nate, my father felt nothing at all. Stoic and emotionally distant before Nate died, now he was emotionally gone for good. But physically at least, my father eventually came back to his job as my parent. He mowed the lawn and took out the trash, he did the laundry and the grocery shopping, he paid the bills and fees for my after-school activities. I always had food on my plate and a roof over my head. But no part of my mother ever returned. And it was always my mother whom I needed most.

She didn’t notice if I went to school wearing dirty clothes or clothes that were two sizes too small. She didn’t attend my soccer games or parent-teacher conferences. She didn’t guide or comfort me through the year and a half that I obsessed and lost myself over Richie Hoffman. She didn’t tell me about safe sex or good sex. She forgot my birthday. She didn’t praise my perfect report cards or celebrate my admission into Middlebury or Harvard. She preferred to be alone after my father died when I was twenty, and she didn’t welcome Bob into what was left of our pitiful little family when I was twenty-eight.

I suppose I resembled Nate enough to be a constantly throbbing reminder of inconsolable grief. I suppose I can understand, especially now having kids of my own, the paralyzing horror of losing a child. But she didn’t have one child. She had two. And I didn’t die.

My childhood after Nate died wasn’t easy, but it made me who I am today: strong, fiercely independent, driven to succeed, determined to matter. I’d managed to put my past behind me, but now my past is sitting in the chair across from me, telling me she’s going to be sticking around. She feels me studying her. A nervous smile tiptoes onto her red lips, and I want to slap it off.

“No, this is it. I’m going home, so you’re going home. Everybody’s going home.”

“No, I’m staying. I’m staying to help you.”

“I don’t need your help. I don’t need anyone’s help.”

Martha is now standing in front of me holding a lunch tray, eyebrows raised.