“Get Brynn, go to the car.” He disappears into the bedroom, his voice fading.
I walk into the living room; it’s dark, just the way Sarge likes it, and I stand between the TV and the couch.
“Move!” Brynn yells. She’s stroking Chomperz like the evil genius she thinks she is.
“Dad said get in the car.”
She sighs, flops her arms around like a wild octopus. “I’m tired. Do I have to go again?”
I squint angrily toward the little beast. “Are you kidding me?”
“I was there all day. Benny didn’t move once. He doesn’t even know I’m there, and all Mom does is cry over him. It’s boring.”
Sarge mutes the TV and rips the bubble pop from her hands. “Young lady, get in the goddamned car, or I’ll drag you out by your cold, dead body. It’s not a request, it’s an order.”
With a huff, she stomps to the garage and slams the connecting door—something I wish I’d done last night, making sure Benny was inside first. Sarge’s narrow, deep-set eyes—that always seem to look sad even when he’s smiling—are on me now.
I hold my posture tall. “How are you not freaking out?”
He sighs. “Right now, you all need something concrete to ground you, not more chaos. I have to be that. Doesn’t mean I’m not scared shitless, because believe me, I am. I don’t have any magic words. There’s no way around it—this sucks.”
I nod in agreement.
“I know you don’t want to walk in that hospital and pretend you’re not broken, too. Like you don’t deserve to feel pain or sadness, but you listen here—you do. You feel however you feel, damn it.”
I pick at my fingernails now, not sure of what to say. My lip quivers, so I bite it. “I want to fall through the center of the earth and never be seen again.”
“That’s okay,” he says. “If that’s how you feel.”
My stomach gurgles.
“Can’t hide from feelings. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
“I miss Nan,” I say. “She’d know how to deal with this.”
He smiles to hide the tears. “Yeah, me too. She’d tell you to think in terms of two. There’s before, and there’s after. Like life has been split down the middle right along with your heart. You can’t be who you were before. It’s not possible. Nan’s gone. Now there’s only the me, or you, that comes after. I think right now, you’re somewhere in the middle, trying to find your place.”
“What if the person I become after sucks?”
The corners of his mouth turn up, and I see that twinkle in his eyes. “If no one else can stand you, come to me—no one can stand me either.”
He pulls me into him, wrapping his arms around me so tight, I can’t breathe. Because Sarge never hugs, ever, it’s okay, I don’t flinch. I don’t need air. I breathe in the scent of him instead. Dad walks in and clears his throat, forcing me and Sarge out of our embrace. He pulls back, his eyes still full of pain and regret, and salutes me with two fingers. It’s his way of saying good-bye without being too sappy. I salute back, my way of being sappy without saying good-bye.
“Let’s go.” Dad carries a large bag filled to the brim and stuffs it in the trunk. Inside, Brynn has one half of her earphones in, while the other hangs free. She’s blasting music through an old iPod Mom gave her, and I know she won’t put the other half in because that would be too easy. She stares out the window, blissfully soaking in my annoyance. I grab my camera from my car and settle into the front seat. As Dad turns the ignition, he looks at me.
“You and Brynn need to knock it off with the arguing. We’ve got to rally behind Mom. She’s not taking this well.”
Brynn holds the hanging iPod between her fingers. She and I look at each other through the side mirror. Our eyes lock, and we silently agree to do as Dad says, but it doesn’t feel right. This is pretend, a lie. We aren’t the kind of sisters who share makeup and gossip about boys; never will be. Fighting with Brynn has to be the only thing that feels normal right now, and we’re both clinging to it with all of our might. Without it, life feels wrong.
The longer we hold our stare, the more I realize she feels the same way. With Dad’s eyes now glued to the road, she flicks the back of my shoulder, and smiles. I smile back. And everything feels okay again.
The drive feels especially long. I pass the time snapping shots of roadkill along the way, secretly hoping it will spark an argument from Brynn, but she doesn’t bite. When we arrive at the old, brick hospital that towers twenty stories high, Dad checks in at the head nurse’s station near the elevator because we have to get name tags with Benny’s room number on them to go inside the PICU room. The hallways are already decorated for Christmas, and I think back to our bare tree and decide, since it was this time last year Nan died and Sarge moved in, I officially hate Christmas and I will not partake in any festivities. You can put that on the record.
“Two visitors at a time,” the nurse tells us. “Everyone else can sit in the waiting area.” She’s stern, her face made of cavernous wrinkles, so we don’t argue. We agree Dad will go in first, though; Brynn and I follow him to poke our heads into the room. Mom is slumped over a tiny chair next to Benny’s bed. The beeping sounds from his breathing machine are loud, competing with the other monitors and tubes spilling out of his little body. He looks like a science experiment.
Dad sets the bag on the floor, pulls out a teddy bear and a box of milk chocolate turtles—her favorite—and places them on the small table next to her chair. Delicately waking her, he brushes the hair out of her eyes with one careful swoop. The room is loaded with stuffed animals, balloons, and trinkets like the memorial at the base of the hill. I’m afraid to look closer. From far away, Benny doesn’t look like Benny. Things are bandaged and covered, and he’s so frail and lifeless—nothing in the way of my lively little brother who wakes us all up at four o’clock every morning.
Dad’s touch startles Mom awake. “What the hell are you doing?” she snaps.
“Sorry,” he says. “Why don’t you go home for a little bit? Shower, sleep, eat.”
“I’m not leaving,” she says, pushing the chocolates and teddy away. “You know a news crew was here earlier? Wanted a shot of Benny. Said someone has asked to set up a fund—quote—in his honor—like he’s already dead! I told them to fuck off.”
He rubs her back, trying to calm her. “You’re exhausted.”
“I’m broken.” She turns to see us lingering in the hall, but says nothing and turns back to Benny. “They come in every hour, check the same things, rearrange him, tell me nothing’s changed.”
“He looks so small,” Brynn says, creeping closer. “Like a doll.”
“Let’s go get some coffee,” Dad says. Mom looks up at him with these pleading eyes, then to Benny. She can’t let go, not for a second. Letting go means he could die without her right there, beside him. But it’s obvious she’s in need of something. Dad nods his head toward the door where we are standing, hopeful, and pulls her up by the hand.
“Okay, fine. We’ll be right back,” Mom says to us. She touches my back lightly, kisses my cheek, then Brynn’s, and leaves with her purse in hand.
“It’s like he’s gone,” Brynn says, stepping to the side of his bed. “It’s only his body here, and his soul is, like, somewhere else.”
I walk up behind her to look at him from a short distance. His mostly bandaged face is black and blue, broken like the rest of us. His body is cast in different casings, holes grab onto the tubes that ventilate, feed, and soothe him. I want to tell her she’s wrong, that he’s right here listening to us, but I’m not so sure. It feels empty in here.
“Say something to him,” I say. “He can hear you.”
“How do you know? You’re not in a coma.”
“Studies say coma patients show improvement when people talk to them.”
She looks at me like I’m lying, then turns back to him. “Benny, wake up. I miss you.” Then, she waits. “He’s not doing anything.”
&nb
sp; I roll my eyes. “He’s not just going to wake up the second you talk, but he’s probably talking to you inside his head. You just can’t hear him.”
“I wish none of this ever happened,” she says with a quivering lip. “It’s not fair. You know if that car were driving just a little bit slower, it probably wouldn’t have hit him.”
I lay my hand on her shoulder, impressed, something that feels unnatural, and pat. “I know.”
“Where do you think we go when we, you know, die?” she asks, her eyes wide. “I mean, do we go somewhere, or are we just … not here anymore?”
I stop and think, try to clear the scientific answers from my vocab, because Brynn never was at the top of her class. “I hope we’re not just gone. Otherwise, what’s the point of life?”
I can see I’ve got her thinking, stewing, and I wait for some profound response.
“To fight the aliens when they invade.”
I open my mouth, then close it. Because, aliens.
We sit in total tolerance of one another, listening to the harmonious sounds of beeping machines, and reminisce about the day he was born. His thick, dark hair looked like Sarge’s old toupee, but his dimples, those were mine. All the way. Dimples so deep, Dad used to say he could fall in and swim around.
A while later, Mom and Dad come back, coffees in hand, while Brynn and I are laughing about things Mom yelled at Dad when she was in labor. Things we’d never heard of before—things I so wish I could go back to and hear again. Because that would mean Benny was here, awake. We’re joking about all of the happier times and then suddenly our laughter peters out. It’s not often Brynn and I are on the same page, but once the silence settles in, we realize together this is no time to laugh, to feel any kind of joy. Our faces fall flat simultaneously.
“I need a break,” I say.
“Don’t be too long,” Dad says.
“Okay.” I stroll down the hallway where some of the doors are open. Urine smells and murmured cries drift into the open space. In this wing, every one of these rooms holds a small person who might die. The reality hits me, and I want to fall to my knees.
I take the elevator to the second floor to explore the sanctuary. It’s a dimly lit room filled with candles, crosses, and prayer cards. The pews are empty so I grab a seat and bow my head as my insides churn and tear. I grab ahold of my stomach and close my eyes hard as tears stream down my face.
“Please let Benny wake up,” I whisper. “I’ll give you anything.”
I cling to the row in front of me and cry, unaware of anyone else in the room. A hand touches my shoulder, makes me flinch. “You okay, miss?”
I can’t stop the tears. This room almost pulls them from my soul.
“Tell me about your troubles,” the man says. Tattoos shade every visible inch of his arms. He’s clasping a Bible between his hands as he takes the empty seat next to me.
“My brother might die,” I cry.
“Are you seeking forgiveness?” The light hits the top of his bald head and black, thick glasses that are similar to mine.
“More like mercy.”
He nods, flips to a marked page in the Book of Psalms, but instead of reading, pulls the note card out that holds the page and places it in my hand. I look at the man, confused. I offer the paper back to him. He closes my fist and urges me to take it, so I do.
FORGIVENESS BEGINS IN THE MIRROR.
“In other words,” he says, “the only person you need mercy from is you.”
I open the paper and read the words again, my eyes soaking into every letter. When I look up, the man is gone as quickly as he appeared. In that short time, I forgot about the pain, about Benny, about everything I’ve screwed up. Holding the words close, I close my eyes and pray to the lighted chapel where the candles flicker. Maybe someone is listening, or maybe (and probably this) no one is.
When we get home, all I hear is Sarge’s bubble wrap—the pop pop pop—and it’s making me crazy. There’s not even an ebb or flow to the rhythm. I imagine ripping them from his arthritis-stricken hands and tossing them into the garbage. But with his reflexes, he’d probably drop-kick me in a nanosecond, grab the bubble wrap, and flee.
“Has anyone watered the tree?” I call, noticing the needles scattered all over the brand-new ivory carpet. A box of ornaments is nestled up against the wall, the cardboard weathered and frayed. Sarge can’t hear me through the bubbles, and as I get closer to Brynn’s room, where she’s already shut herself away, I hear the swells of bass and treble pour from the cracks. It’s the kind of music that makes me want to bash my head into the wall until my ears don’t work, but I guess it’s her way of blowing off steam, so I deal.
I check my phone to find that Violet sent a few quotes from her Book of Silver Linings (that isn’t the actual playbook but an old notebook she writes affirmations in).
VIOLET: YOU ARE STRONGER THAN YOU THINK.
VIOLET: TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY.
ME: THINK LIKE A PROTON AND STAY POSITIVE.
VIOLET: I DON’T GET IT.
When I’ve finished every possible piece of homework and extra credit, I find Dad at the kitchen table. He’s surrounded by piles of paper and bills, and he’s on the phone talking real loud. In between words, he’s grunting, mumbling to himself. From here, it’s clear how much this has affected him. From his tousled hair to the creased frown lines. I don’t think he’s even changed his shirt.
“Yes, I understand that but—” he pleads. He doesn’t look up to see me, so I grab a can of Coke from the fridge and pull up a chair beside him. “No, thanks for nothing,” he adds. He hangs up and throws his phone across the room, waking Sarge who had drifted off, gripping his bubble wrap. He tosses away the pops that are stuck to his fingers, mutters something about the colonel giving a direct order, and drifts back to sleep.
Dad’s face is pale, not an actual color of white, but like all the color has faded, washed out, from the heavy kitchen lights. I snap open the Coke and take a sip while he stares at the pile of papers that cover the table.
“What happened?” I ask, afraid of the answer.
He shuffles around and grabs a beer from the fridge, twisting the cap with his bare hands before chugging half the bottle. His eyes avoid mine, so I know it’s bad. He falls back into the chair, his hands still locked onto the frosted amber glass, and tells me about our insurance and how they basically want to pull the plug. Benny costs too much.
I hold my stare, try to understand what he’s saying. “He’s not brain-dead. They would’ve told us that. There’s still hope he’ll wake up, right?”
He’s silent, takes another sip of his beer.
“Right? Dad?”
He looks up at me, a ring of redness around his tired eyes, and forces some kind of crooked smile from the corner of his mouth. “There’s always hope, Birdie.”
I ask if we have enough money, and just like a star combusting, he starts throwing numbers around like $3,953 and $101, $9,235 and $8,050, and I get lost in the infinite space of them and all the things those numbers add up to—all the money in the world we don’t have.
“I don’t know how people survive, even when they walk out of the hospital alive,” he says.
“I could start hooking,” I say.
He wants to laugh, but doesn’t. “Still not enough.”
“Ouch.”
Now he laughs. I chug more Coke to chase down that stinging feeling in my throat. The one that’s burning the surface of my eyes. I blink faster, try to ward off any tears. The silence is long. He chugs, too. My eyes find a picture on the fridge of the five of us. We’re smiling, all of us but Mom. I can still taste the hot cocoa from that pumpkin trip, still smell the hay bales, still feel Benny’s hand in mine as I help him walk across the gravel lot.
“So what do we do?” I ask, my voice cracking.
He shakes his head. “Whatever we have to.”
He flips through the papers, hoping to find something he’s missed. I reach my hand over and lowe
r the paper from his face so mine is in his clear view.
“I start at the rink Wednesday. My paychecks are all yours.”
His eyes soften. “How’d you get so unbelievably awesome?”
I shrug. “Born this way.”
“Thank you, Birds. But, you need to save that money for college. We’ll get by.”
He holds my stare, and the words erupt from me like a volcano. “Maybe I don’t even want to go to college.”
His brows furrow as he leans in closer. “Of course you do—it’s all you’ve talked about since you were six.”
With the secret loss of my scholarship, I stop to think about how much money I need to go through with my dreams, but most of all, what I’d be leaving. “People change. It’s called spontaneous evolution.”
He grabs my hand and pats it gently. “It’s called growing up. But you’re going to college.”
We sit in this discomfort, our pain a thick wall between us, until eventually I go lock myself behind the bathroom door, where I can’t hold it in another second. I try to think of Violet’s quotes, of anything else, but my heart bangs against my chest with these sharp, aching pains. I sit here for a while, until my tears stop, then I run a warm shower, let the beads pour over me until I’m clean, inside and out. Before I hibernate in my room, I turn off the television Sarge is snoring to and sneak into Brynn’s room. She’s sound asleep, nestled in one of Benny’s old blankets. I pull her comforter over her and shut the music off—something Mom would normally do.
Chomperz is still in the exact position he was when I left this morning. He looks up at me and yawns like he’s had such a hard day. “You lazy bastard,” I say. As if he understands, he drags his chunky body from the covers and strolls out of my room, not a care in the world as to how my day has gone. “You’re inconsiderate!” I call after him. He does not look back, and I love him even more.
I have my own blanket waiting for me in bed—Benny’s absolute favorite, the one with the blue stripes. It should probably be at the hospital with him, next to him, but right now, I need it more. His smell is buried in the fibers so deep, my every breath is filled with Benny. I don’t know what time it is, I lose count of the seconds. I’m lost in his scent. But some time later, after the moon arches over the trees, I shoot up out of bed with an aching kind of feeling. It’s not Benny. I roll over, and toss, and turn, but it’s a funny thing I can’t explain:
The Inevitable Collision of Birdie & Bash Page 10