by Tracey Ward
“What wheelchair?”
“They rented you one,” Jenna said softly. Her shoulders slumped as she looked up at me. “They wanted to have one waiting for you at the airport to get you home.”
“I don’t need a wheelchair,” I replied coldly.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t know,” Karen interrupted hotly. “He’s barely walked since he woke up and he was out for weeks. The doctors agree with me that he doesn’t have the strength to walk around airports all day. It’ll only wear him out and he’ll never heal.”
“Mom, he’s right there,” Jenna said, and I suddenly remembered her saying it before.
“I’m aware of where he is, Jenna.”
“Then don’t talk about him like he’s not in the room.”
“I’m not!”
She was, but this was the same shit on a different day. She’d never change and Jenna would only end up being yelled at. I couldn’t take it.
“Karen,” I said calmly, “I appreciate the concern, but I can walk. I’ll be fine. Thank you.”
She chewed on her lip for a second, staring down at me. I knew what I looked like. I was smaller than I’d been in years. My body was shrinking out from under me. My skin was pale, my nose had been busted yet again, and there was a cut on my lip that wasn’t going to heal all the way. She and Laney had mentioned plastic surgery to fix it when we got home, but I hadn’t even addressed that. I’d only listened and watched an episode of Wipeout on the TV behind their heads. When they asked me what I thought, I pretended to be zoned out and unable to hear them.
“I worry,” Karen whispered now, her eyes going watery.
I worried too – I worried we were on the brink of another crying session, so I smiled at her brightly. “I know you do. But I’m fine. Really. I’ll prove it to you tomorrow. Deal?”
She grinned and sniffed sharply. “Yes. Deal. I’d love to see you prove me wrong on this.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Good.”
It didn’t happen. I was weaker than I thought and the next day when they took me to the airport I was exhausted before we even made it past the ticket counter. Karen and Laney watched me like hawks, searching for signs of weakness so they could swoop in and help me. It was irritatingly thoughtful. Every time Laney touched me to help me, I felt the urge to shake her off. My skin itched with annoyance and I felt that old familiar caged feeling creeping in around me.
“Jenna, help me find someone who works here,” Karen told her on the way to our gate. “We need to get him a wheelchair. Or have them come by with one of those golf cart kind of things to take him to the gate.”
“No, I’m fine,” I lied, wishing it was true.
I was sweating. I was breathing hard. I was woozy, and all from walking. It was humiliating.
“Baby, you’re exhausted,” Laney cooed, running her hand up and down my arm.
I put my hands up in the air, knocking her touch away and pleading for them to give me room. Both Karen and Laney looked at me with wounded eyes, making it all a million times worse. “Just give me a minute, okay?” I asked as gently as I could. “It’s hot in here, that’s all.”
“You know what you need?” Jenna asked with a small smile. “Crème glacée.”
I smiled gratefully at her. “Oui.”
“What?” Laney asked.
Jenna pointed back up the terminal to where a Baskin Robbins glowed in the distance. “Ice cream.”
“Oh, okay,” she said awkwardly. “I’ll go get it for you. What flavor do you want, baby?”
I shrugged, throwing out the first thing I thought of. “Cookie dough.”
Jenna snorted.
“What?” I asked her.
“Nothing.”
“What’s wrong with cookie dough?”
“Nothing, other than the fact that it’s made with chocolate chip cookie dough.”
“Right,” I muttered, remembering I hated chocolate chip. “Shit.”
“Language,” Karen scolded.
I sighed, counting to ten and begging God above to give me the strength to make it through that airport without shouting at someone.
My palms began to itch.
“I have to pee,” Jenna suddenly proclaimed loudly, casting me a pointed look that screamed, Go with it!!!
“Me too,” I agreed immediately.
“Okay, well, why don’t Kel and I go pee and Laney, you and mom go get everyone ice cream. Strawberry?”
I did not give a shit. I was already on my way toward the Men’s Room where they would never try to follow me. “Sounds good to me,” I hollered.
Jenna caught up to me, putting her hand through my arm. “I don’t have to pee,” she confessed quietly.
“Me either.” I glanced over my shoulder to make sure we were alone. “Thanks, by the way.”
“No worries. I’ve grown up in it. I know a smothered look when I see it.”
“Was it obvious?”
“Not to them. They only want to help.”
“I know that,” I admitted reluctantly. “But too much help can start to hurt after a while.”
“Amen to that,” she said heartily, lacing my arm through hers and surreptitiously letting me lean on her a little. “Let’s ditch ‘em. We’ll take the moving sidewalk and get some ground under our feet. Effort free.”
“They’ll be mad.”
She grinned at me, her eyes bright and full. “You get used to it.”
We rode sidewalk after sidewalk with me leaning against the railing and her leaning into my side to support me. It didn’t feel half as emasculating as a wheelchair. When we were close to our gate and there was an empty bank of chairs near the sidewalk, we stepped off and took a seat. I immediately slouched down in my chair, spread out my legs, and rested my eyes.
“I put money on your phone first,” I predicted lazily, feeling comfortable for the first time in days.
Jenna scoffed. “No way! You’re the invalid. They’ll call you first.”
“But I’m helpless. I’m ‘baby’,” I said scathingly, pulling my baseball hat down low over my eyes.
“She’s always called you that.”
“And it’s always bothered me.”
“Why haven’t you ever said anything?”
“Never seemed worth the fight.”
“And it does now?”
I opened my eyes to look at her from under the bill of my hat. “A lot of things do now,” I said deeply.
She held my eye for only a second before shrugging lightly. “Well, good luck to you. Girl’s a brawler.”
“So am I.” I closed my eyes, remembering the voice in my dream that I now knew was hers. “I’m a fuckin’ fighter, right?”
She didn’t respond and soon her phone was beeping frantically in her hand.
“Called it,” I mumbled, throwing my hand triumphantly in the air.
“Yeah, you’re a genius,” she joked absently.
“Probably not anymore.”
“What?”
“Me no think good anymore,” I stuttered.
“What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t you hear? I probably lost some brain cells. I can’t even do Sudoku anymore. It hurts my thinker.”
“You’re having trouble solving puzzles?”
“And thinking about tough stuff in general. Remember that whole lawyering thing I was planning on doing? The thing I worked my ass off for years to achieve? Probably not gonna be able to do that anymore.”
“Well, shit,” she said sadly. “That… that sucks.”
“Yep.”
“Are you sure?”
I opened one eye to look at her. “Am I sure I’m stupid now?”
“No, ass,” she replied impatiently. “I mean are you sure it’s not temporary? Are you sure it’s the end of your career?”
I closed my eye and shrugged. “I wouldn’t really cry if it was.”
“If it was temporary or the end of your career as a lawy
er?”
“Guess.”
Correct answer was no, I didn’t care if I wasn’t able to be a lawyer anymore.
There’s a certain amount of clarity that comes with knowing you died. Twice. And I may not have been able to remember the last hour or so before the accident, but I remembered how I felt that afternoon with Jenna in the park. I remembered how I’d felt about Laney that morning at the hotel. And the night before. And the day before that, and three weeks before that, and a month, a year before that. I’d felt sick. Sick with my life. With where it was going. With what I was doing.
With what I was missing.
Chapter Thirty
Jenna left me. She went straight from the airport to the shop to check in at work while Karen, Dan, and Laney took me home. To their home, not mine. I wasn’t trusted on my own.
“You could get hurt,” Karen told me again and again. “What if you fall?”
“And I can’t get up?” I asked dryly.
“Exactly!” she cried, missing my sarcasm. “Who would be there to help you? No, you’ll stay with us for a while, just until you get back to your old self. It won’t be long. A few weeks at the most.”
That was an overstatement. The doctors had told me that since I was an athlete and my body was accustomed to exercise and rebounding, I could be feeling stronger in a matter of days if I did it right.
“Where is Kellen sleeping?” Dan asked, standing at the bottom of the stairs with all the luggage.
Karen pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I don’t know. One of the guest bedrooms, don’t you think?”
“They don’t have their own bathroom. He might want that privacy.”
“You’re right.”
“Put him in my room,” Laney said, flopping down on the couch next me. “It shares the bathroom with Jenna’s room and she’s not going to be staying here while he’s here. He’ll have it all to himself.”
“What about you?” Dan asked.
“I have to get back to school,” Laney replied, as though it were obvious. “And I need to get back to my apartment. I’ve been wearing the same clothes for weeks. It’s gross.”
Laney was going to school part time at the Art Institute of California in Orange County, working on becoming an Interior Designer. She lived in her own apartment near the school about an hour away. It was a different campus, but the same college that Jenna was going to up in Los Angeles. The two biggest differences were Karen’s approval on Laney’s major and the fact that Jenna, even though she had started two years later than Laney had, was almost graduated.
Dan frowned at Laney. “What about Kellen?”
“He’s going to be here with you guys. He’s fine.”
“You don’t want to stay and help out?”
“He’s fine,” she repeated irritably. “You guys don’t need me here all the time. I’ll check in, I promise.”
“Laney,” Karen began to protest, “he just came out of a massive coma. Maybe don’t abandon him?”
“I was actually only in a coma for a few days,” I corrected, laying my head on the back of the couch.
“You were in a coma for a month!” Laney snapped at me.
“Days,” I repeated. “I was in a minimally conscious state for most of the month. That’s not a coma.”
“Whatever, Dr. Who.”
“I’m a Time Lord now?”
“What. Ever. Do you need me to stay here with you?” Laney asked me pointedly.
I shook my head decisively. “Nope.”
“See? He doesn’t care.”
“Not even a little.”
She shoved me playfully in the shoulder. “Alright, don’t get too upset I’m going.”
“I’ll try to keep it together.”
Karen shook her head, frowning at Laney. “Help me make everyone some lunch at least. That is, if you have time before running off to rejoin your life.”
Laney groaned as she stood up. “Don’t be so dramatic, mom.”
“Well, you’re being a little obnoxious.”
“We’ve all been cooped up together for weeks. Don’t you want some space? Jenna did. She left as soon as she could.”
“I guess so.”
Laney hugged her mom briefly. “I’m not leaving right away. I’ll help you make lunch.”
“Thank you.”
“So what are my orders here?” Dan called after them as they disappeared down the hall.
“Laney’s room!” Karen shouted back.
Dan looked at me questioningly. “That okay with you?”
I shrugged, standing slowly to follow him up the stairs. “I’ll sleep anywhere.”
“You want some help getting up these stairs?”
“No, thanks. Consider it physical therapy.”
I held on tight to the railing as I followed Dan slowly up the stairs. He obviously made it there ahead of me, even carrying my suitcase, and when I hit the landing I was exhausted. I walked down the hall slowly, dragging my hand along the wall for balance. When I passed Jenna’s room the door was wide open and I paused to look inside. It seemed so empty. All of the drawings she’d done and plastered her walls with were gone. The bookshelf was bare. The comforter was the same one I remembered – a swirling pattern in a rich, royal purple color – but most of everything else had changed or disappeared. I knew Laney’s room looked like she still lived here every day, a sure sign that her apartment was a temporary situation and that this house was her home, but Jenna was straight up gone. Moved on to the next chapter of her life, leaving only a ghost of herself behind.
“You okay?” Dan asked quietly.
I jerked my head toward him. “Yeah, sorry. Spaced out. I needed a breather.”
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” he asked, nodding toward Jenna’s room. “Her being gone.”
“Yeah.”
“The house isn’t the same without them. Karen goes a little crazy without Laney and I—well, I miss both my girls.”
“Jenna especially?”
He grinned faintly. “Jenna in a different way,” he conceded. “I got you all set up in here. Your suitcase is open on the bench at the foot of the bed. Bathroom has toilet paper. That’s crucial.”
“Thanks.”
His phone beeped, making him scowl slightly as he fished it out of his pocket. “Uh oh.”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s from Karen. They’re making soup. Chicken noodle. Vegetarian.” His scowl deepened. “How the hell?” he muttered.
“How is that possible?”
“I don’t know,” he grumbled, stowing his phone, “but I guarantee it involves soy of some kind. Sit tight. I’ll make a run out for some real food and smuggle it in.”
I literally sagged with relief. “Thank you. I’ve been eating nothing but bland hospital food for a week.”
“That’s no way for a man to live. You go lay down, get some rest. I’ll fix this.”
Once inside Laney’s room, I shut the door, killed the light, and stretched out on the bed. The room was dark. It was cool. Most importantly, though – it was silent. No beeping of machinery. No feet moving outside in the hall. No one in the room coughing, snoring, or eating. No eyes on me. No monitors. Just me and the beautiful, perfect sweetness of silence.
I pulled out my phone, a new one Jenna had gotten for me the day before we left the hospital since mine was destroyed in the accident, and I pulled up her contact info. I hadn’t seen it until now, but she’d entered her information herself and her avatar was a picture of her flipping off the camera, just like the one she’d sent me on her first day of high school. I chuckled quietly to myself as I typed out a message to her.
How could you leave me like that? They’re making me soup, Jen. Chicken noodle! Like I’m a kid with a cold.
It only took a minute for her to respond and when she did, I nearly burst out laughing.
Beware the thermometer. It’s not going where you think it is.
You’re heartless. Come back and save me.
You’re doing a tat? Send me a pic.
Not doing a job right now.
Draw me a tat then.
What do you want?
I thought about it long and hard. If I did finally get a tattoo, what would it look like? I didn’t know. I couldn’t think of anything that didn’t feel cliché or pointless. I would want something that was meaningful to me. Something like Jenna’s compass.
Something for my mom, I told her finally.
It took her about five minutes to do a quick sketch. I was disappointed to see that it was something she’d done on her phone, because her digital drawings were never the same. They were a little cold, the lines a little too perfect, but when the image sunk in, it didn’t matter. What technology had robbed from her skill, she had replaced with meaning. And it didn’t mean anything to her – it was one hundred percent about my mom. About me.
I stared at the Celtic cross she’d drawn with the intricate French scrollwork that reminded me of the doodles on a love letter I’d helped her write so long ago. It felt like my mom, an incredible feat considering Jenna had never met her. She’d only heard me talk about her a handful of times, but still she managed this. It was perfect. Like finding a memento I’d thought I’d lost forever but now there it was, more incredible than I remembered and I never wanted to lose it again.
Tomorrow, I immediately told her.
Tomorrow what?
Tomorrow I’m coming to your shop and you’re doing that tattoo.
Are you sure? You’ve never gotten a tat before.
I think it’s about time I did.
I laid there in the dark room, the glow of my cell phone the only light, and I stared at the image. Not of the tattoo, but of Jenna. I refreshed it over and over, tapping my phone to keep it from going dark, until finally my eyes were drooping, her face going blurry, and I let it fall asleep.
I followed immediately after.
Chapter Thirty-One
According to my GPS, Jenna’s shop in Bakersfield was just over two hours from Ranchos Palos Verdes. Too damn far. I barely made it through breakfast with Dan and Karen this morning without falling asleep. No way would I be able to drive that far.