by Jen Waite
Now, Thea felt her mother’s warm palm against hers and squeezed back. This would be her third brain surgery and her second attempt at resection. The first resection, almost three years ago, didn’t work—her mom explained to her afterward that when the surgeon got a look at her brain, it didn’t look like he thought it would and he decided to stop. Thea noticed that her mother no longer promised that they were going to find a cure for her seizures. She had heard the doctor’s ambiguous responses to her mother’s questions, heard them change their diagnoses and treatment plans multiple times. Thea was tired of the medicine that made her feel sluggish all the time, tired of being in and out of the hospital, tired of the EEGs and the blood tests and (these were the worst) the MRIs. But she also felt like her and her mom were on a mission and they couldn’t give up yet. She trusted her mother completely, and even when she cried because she was just so tired all the time, she had an underlying and unwavering faith in . . . she didn’t know what exactly, she just knew it was all going to be ok.
“I’m ready, Mom.” Thea looked up at her mom and smiled. The surgery was important to her mom and, it had been explained to her dozens of times, important so that Thea could “live a normal life” when she was a grown-up. Right now, though, she didn’t care about living a normal life, she couldn’t imagine a normal life. She was too tired to care about anything other than trying to ease her mom’s mind; she knew she had to be brave and let her mom know she wasn’t afraid, even though, of course, she was. Imagine you’re in a movie, she told herself, and this is the big scene right before the end. That made it easier because she could pretend she was playing a role and that the whole plotline was already mapped out. She didn’t have to be afraid; the happy ending was already written. The surgeon would cut into her brain, take out the seizure part, and she’d wake up and get to run the whole length of a basketball court and watch entire movies and not have to hold her breath every time she walked down a staircase (after that one time when she seized at the top of the stairs and her left leg gave out and her mom caught her right before she fell).
“Dr. Haddad believes that the focal point of your seizures is in a nonessential area of your brain, but that it’s very, very close to an essential part of the brain. She thinks they’ll be able to go in and get it this time. And she’s the best—she’s the smartest and the best, so we’re in really good hands.” Her mom was whispering, though there was no one else in the room, but it did seem like a room one should whisper in, so Thea responded in a whisper as well, “How long will I be awake? It won’t hurt, right?”
“It won’t hurt at all. You won’t feel anything. You’ll be awake for about an hour but it will only feel like a few minutes. The whole surgery will take a few hours. You’ll go to sleep and then you’ll wake up and the doctor will ask you to move your left arm and leg—and then you’ll go back to sleep and then—”
“I’ll be cured.”
“Exactly. You’ll be cured. And I’ll be right by your side.” Her mom laced her fingers through Thea’s just as there was a soft knock on the door. The door opened before her mom could say anything and Dr. Haddad slipped into the room, carrying a manila folder.
“Hello, hello.” Dr. Haddad’s voice was bright and warm. “Thea, how are you feeling?”
“I feel ok. How are you, Dr. Huda?”
Dr. Haddad laughed her nice, throaty laugh. Thea liked Dr. Haddad. She didn’t seem like a doctor, more like a favorite teacher or aunt. She had told Thea to call her Dr. Huda during their first appointment. Dr. Huda Haddad. It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?
“Ok, guys.” Dr. Haddad looked from Thea to her mom. “Let’s go to the operating room, shall we?”
* * *
—
Her mom’s face came into focus slowly. “Thea. Hi. Shh. Shh, don’t try to speak. You’ve been asleep for a bit. Take your time waking up, ok?”
Thea’s eyes fluttered open and closed. She licked her lips and coated her mouth with a thin layer of saliva. “Ice.”
Her mom put an ice chip in her mouth and she sucked its coolness down into her throat. “Did they get the seizures?” There was a deep pounding inside her head. She opened her eyes again and saw her mom’s face. “Mom, are you crying because it didn’t work?” she whispered.
“No, baby, no, the surgery went as well as it could have gone. Dr. Everett and Dr. Haddad both said you did amazing—better than any adult they’ve ever seen. They think they got it, love. Dr. Haddad and Dr. Everett both believe the surgery will be curative. No more seizures, Thea.” Her mom’s voice cracked like she was trying not to cry, and Thea didn’t understand why she was sad if the surgery worked.
“That’s happy, Mom,” Thea said, her eyes closing.
Her mom laughed. “Yes, that’s happy, you’re right. Go back to sleep and I’ll tell you more when you wake up, ok? I’m so, so proud of you.”
Thea smiled and closed her eyes. As she drifted back to sleep, she remembered that morning, a few hours before the surgery. She was in Dr. Haddad’s office with her mom, waiting for Dr. Haddad to come in and talk to them about the awake craniotomy. She felt the seizure coming before it started in her body. The air felt staticky and then her mom was pressing lightly on her arms and side. She heard her mom whispering in her ear, telling her it was ok, and then, the words she always said, over and over: “Don’t fight it.”
THE CABIN
ANNE
It had been two years since Anne had seen Thea seize. She watched as Thea’s body transformed: her eyes rolled to the side, her left arm jerked into a crook and vibrated, her leg went limp, and she slid to the floor. This looked like a seizure from when she was five or six years old—the ones that the doctors thought were grand mals. For a millisecond Anne was mesmerized by her daughter’s body and how realistic the movements were—if Anne didn’t know the surgery was curative, she would have believed her daughter was really seizing. And then she snapped her head up. The man was frozen, too, his eyes ran over Thea’s body wildly, unsure how to proceed. One hand still held the neck of her coat, but he had stopped pulling. Anne watched as the other hand, the gun hand, dropped from the side of her daughter’s head. NOW! screamed the voice inside Anne’s head. She felt for the rock in her pocket and at the same time pulled herself from her knees onto her feet. Her chest was on fire. If she thought about the second snap that had just occurred within her rib cage, she was afraid she would collapse, so she concentrated on the rock between her fingertips. The shape was nothing like a softball—it was pointed and narrow at the end, widening into a flat line at the base—but she pulled her arm back anyway, like she did in high school, the same fluid motion, left foot forward (barely an inch because of the shoelace that bound her ankles), right hand behind her head. The man didn’t see her do it until it was too late; his eyes were still on Thea shaking on the ground. He must have seen the motion of her arm out of his peripheral vision because right as he turned his head, the rock made contact with his gun hand. It hit exactly where she was aiming—his knuckles—his hand automatically opened and the gun flew out, skittering across the floor. She didn’t have time to celebrate this small victory, to track the movements of the gun—she had begun shuffling toward the man and Thea as soon as the rock left her hand and now she was there. Her chest and stomach screamed at her to stop but she ignored their voices and lunged at the man. For a brief second she was reminded of two hours ago, when their bodies made contact over the snow. This time Anne had much less momentum, but it was enough to knock the man, already destabilized by Thea’s seizure and the hit to his hand, off his feet. She was on top of him, but she knew that for everything that had gone right in the past thirty seconds, he would overtake her soon, and so she yelled “Run!” to Thea as she brought her closed fist down on his cheek. She ripped into him with her fists and it felt good to connect with his eye, nose, ear, before he jerked her off and threw her against the ground. The man mounted her and put his h
ands around her throat; she knew that he would easily kill her. She rolled her eyes to the side and saw the dark flash of her daughter’s coat by the front door, just as the man released her throat and his fist connected with her nose. “Run, Thea,” she said one more time, though Thea probably couldn’t hear her, no one could hear her, because his hands were back around her neck, squeezing hard now, and the air was leaving her body, but it was ok because Thea was running. Something in her throat crushed and then all she saw was darkness even though her eyes were open, but nothing hurt anymore; she had left her body and she wished she could tell them, Mom and Thee, that it didn’t hurt. And then she was back in her body, back in the pain, gasping for air. The man was gone. Far away, she heard the cabin door slam; he was going after Thea. She tried to lift herself from the floor to her hands and knees but she collapsed. Blood dripped down, the room came in and out of focus, so she was not quite sure if there was someone really crawling past her, until her mother said, “It’s ok, Anne, I got it.” Anne couldn’t speak because her throat was burning, so she couldn’t ask Rose what, what did she have? The last thing that she saw, before it went dark, was the gun, hanging from her mother’s hand.
THE CABIN
THEA
When Thea heard her mother’s words, the same ones she had heard thousands of times before, her muscles responded almost immediately. The left side of her body slumped and convulsed, her head moved in jerking motions, her eyes lost focus. For a moment, she wondered if she was having a real seizure. She un-balled her left hand and flexed her fingers. No, she was in control; the realization gave her energy and the movements grew stronger. She felt the man loosen his grip on her shoulder and then everything happened quickly. She heard a yelp, like a wounded animal, and the man was a blur, careering backward.
“Run!” Her mom’s voice, close, but when she scraped herself off the floor, she didn’t see anyone, just the front door. She turned her head back as she limped toward the door and saw her mom on top of the man, thrashing, her face and body contorted. For a moment, Thea was stunned—she had never seen this person before, raw with anger and hatred, in the form of her mother, and it scared her, almost as much as the man—she pivoted her eyes to take in the rest of the cabin and saw her Mimi on her hands and knees on the floor, not moving. Thea hesitated by the front door; she had to help Mimi and her mom. The man was on top of her mom now and Thea screamed as his fist came down hard. She heard her mother’s voice again, this time desperate, “Run, Thea,” and so she turned and kept moving away from her family.
Thea pushed out of the cabin and a blast of cold air hit her square in the face, causing her eyes to water. She wanted to shrink from the cold but she steered her head into the wind instead, like a bull. She heard her mom in her ear on repeat, Run, run, run, and she forced herself forward, down the steps, and into the clearing. The air whipped her body, and she saw tiny snowflakes scatter and melt into the ground. It was dark, but not so dark that she couldn’t see a couple of feet in front of her. Her head, specifically her temples, still pulsed with a sharp pain, and she didn’t dare to turn her head quickly for fear of becoming dizzy, so she kept her eyes down and watched her boots striding one in front of the other. She heard something over the wind and realized she was croaking out the word “Mommy,” a word she hadn’t used in years, and she clamped her mouth shut. A thud sounded behind her and she heard the word “Fuck” over the wind. She turned her head quickly; her vision blurred for a moment and then focused. The man stood outside the cabin, looking. Thea dug her boots into the hard earth and started to run, a quarter speed at first, testing out her legs, her lungs, her head, and then she gained speed as she trampled into the woods.
She threw herself through the woods, closing her eyes against sharp branches that lashed at her face, leaping over roots that appeared only a moment before in the half-dark, and in her head she concentrated on the voice, Run, Thea, run.
THE CABIN
THE MAN
The man was excited. He hadn’t expected the girl to convulse like that and he had forgotten about the rock. He sat on top of the mother and squeezed her neck, not hard enough to snap; he was so careful. He didn’t want to do anything that might upset the girl. He got up slowly, scanning the floor for the gun. He didn’t see it. The mother wouldn’t be moving anytime soon and the grandmother was frozen in the corner of the cabin. He made his way to the front door. He had to get to the girl, that was all that mattered. He understood now that this was all for him. He had mistakenly thought that his redemption lay in that parking lot, in that single bullet, but, as he stood on the cabin porch searching for movement, the realization hit him: Everything that had unfolded since the parking lot, everything that was happening now, was to make up for all the times he had been thwarted, misunderstood, rejected. The girl would more than make up for all he had suffered. The backs of his eye sockets filled with the pressure of tears, and the most pleasant sensation flooded his body as he walked to the edge of the porch. The stairs were slick with falling snow and the heel of his boot slipped going down; he landed with a thud on his tailbone and yelled into the air. The fall jolted him back to what he had to do, and the warm feeling was replaced by purpose. He pulled himself up and stood for a moment on the bottom step, listening.
The girl had disappeared into the woods, the back of her long, dark coat the last thing he saw from the porch. He jogged across the clearing and stood at the edge of the woods for a moment, listening again. If the wind wasn’t twisting through the trees, it would be dead silent and he would hear her thick steps clearly. As it was, he had to stand still for longer than he wanted to, ears straining to hear through the wind into the woods. Right as he was about to head blindly in, there it was, the snapping of a branch, ahead and to the left. Smart girl, he thought—admiration lifted his mouth into a smile—she was heading in the direction of the main path. The man broke into a run, and for the second time in his life, he stopped struggling inside his own body and mind.
His body moved clunkily over the ground, through the branches, and he fell, puncturing his hand on a rock, but even so, he felt strong and it was only a few minutes before he saw the girl; in the dark she looked like a shadow twisting through the trees. He pushed himself faster, he felt like he could run forever, like he was superhuman. He caught up to her and grabbed the back of her coat; she screamed as she careened to the ground. He pinned her down, holding her wrists tightly. She kicked up but she was weak and the blows felt good.
“Thea,” he said, over her cries. “It’s ok. It’s me. It’s me. Look at me.” He held her face with his thumb and pointer finger. “Open your eyes. I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “I just want to talk to you. We’re the same, me and you. I finally found you.”
“No.” The girl looked at him and as soon as she met his eyes, he saw that he was mistaken. She hated him. She was terrified. Just like the others.
“No. No. No.” The words increased in volume and she jerked her head out of his fingers. Her body wriggled under him and she kicked again, a sharp kick with more force.
He picked her up, draped her over his arms, just like before, it couldn’t have been more than a couple hours ago, except that this time she was screaming.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” A pause. “I’m not going to hurt you,” but even while the words were dripping from his mouth, he couldn’t be sure what he was going to do. I am calm. I feel nothing. He turned into the woods and they walked back toward the cabin.
THE CABIN
ROSE
Rose shoved her shoulder into the front door of the cabin and pushed. The man had slammed it closed behind him and the door wouldn’t budge. She pulled back and heaved into the door again, throwing all her weight behind her. “Arghhhh,” she panted as it flew open and banged against the outside wall of the structure. Her wrists were still bound together tightly with the shoelace, and she held the gun awkwardly at her pelvis. “Thea!” she yelle
d into the night. She marched down the steps and walked briskly into the clearing. “Thea!” she boomed again. Rose squinted; she could barely see a thing. It was not quite pitch-black, but she was nearsighted without her glasses, a new development after turning sixty. She spun around looking for something sharp to rub against in order to free her hands. She didn’t want to waste time, but it was crucial that she was able to hold the gun properly. She was bent over, eyes on the ground, when she heard the crunching of boots from inside the woods. The man emerged into the clearing, Thea in his arms; she aimed the gun awkwardly. The man stopped when he saw her.
“Put the gun down, Grandma,” he said.
Her grip was off, due to the shoelace that dug into her wrists and kept her hands too close together, but what threw her confidence the most was what happened next. The man lowered his neck and brushed his cheek against her granddaughter’s tenderly. “Don’t shoot, don’t make me do something I don’t want to do,” he said.
Rose took a step forward, the closer she could get the better.
“Keep moving and I will have to hurt her. I don’t want to, but I will. Don’t make me do this. I said I didn’t want to hurt her.” He was screaming now, face contorted. “Why are you making me do this?”