by Mary Campisi
“She’s ready. Every day, she tells me she wants to come home. She wants to be with her girls.”
“Any mention of Grant?”
“Nothing, and that’s what makes no sense. I’ve spent the past several days quizzing her about stuff we did as kids, asking questions and trying to see if there are any gaps in her memory. She remembers everything, sometimes more than I do.” She shrugged. “I’ve asked her questions about her job, the neighborhood, the girls. You. But she hasn’t mentioned a word about Grant.”
“What does Dr. Shaffer say?”
“That the accident may have blocked that part of her memory.”
“Oh. So, how do we handle that?”
“Tell her. He wanted to tell her a few days ago, but I asked him to wait.” Because Grace had just started to smile two days ago, and yesterday, she’d laughed. A real laugh, full and rich and deep. Like before. The old Grace was close, hovering, ready to emerge like a butterfly from its cocoon. Just a little while longer. If Jenny told her about Grant, she might sink back into that black hole inside herself and never come out again.
“You can’t keep it from her much longer,” Laura said. When Jenny didn’t answer, Laura said, “Jenny?”
“I know. I know.” Of course she knew. It was her responsibility. Her duty. But the knowing didn’t make the job any easier.
“Tell her soon,” Laura said, in a soft voice. “The longer you wait, the harder it will be for her.”
“I know.” Jenny sighed, stared at the suds in the sink. It was not going to get any easier.
Laura put an arm around her shoulder and squeezed. “Tell her tomorrow.”
* * *
“Now remember, girls,” Jenny said as she whisked Danielle and Natalie into the elevator, “soft voices. Quiet talk. There are a lot of very sick people here.” She was really only talking to Natalie because Danielle hardly spoke at all anymore and when she did it was a grunt or one word response.
“Mommy’s not very sick,” Natalie whispered, shaking her mop of dark curls back and forth. The bright pink and yellow balloons in her left hand jiggled. “She’s getting all better. Isn’t she, Aunt Jenny?”
Jenny hesitated an extra second before answering. In the seven days since she’d opened her eyes, Grace had improved. She could now speak in slow but disjointed sentences with only minor gaps between words. The initial awkward maneuvering of arms and legs seemed to be disappearing more each day, leaving her with semi-fluid mobility. And yesterday, with Sally’s help, she’d actually sat in a chair. So, yes, Grace was definitely improving.
But getting all better? Even Jenny, in her most desperate stroke of optimism, could not say that. There was no sparkle in Grace’s eyes, no smile on her lips. Not even a glimmer of one. She stared back with blank eyes that could only be described as empty and soulless, transforming her into a stranger. Where was the Grace they all knew, the one who fed stray dogs and sang silly lullabies off-key? Had her spirit died in the accident, leaving behind a hollow shell?
“Aunt Jenny?” Natalie tugged on Jenny’s shirtsleeve. “Mommy’s getting all better, isn’t she?”
Jenny forced a smile and pushed out the words. “She’s better,” she said. It was what Natalie wanted to hear and she couldn’t disappoint her. Not when they were steps away from Grace’s room. Danielle threw her a sideways glance as though to say, Liar!
The elevator dinged and the door slid open. They stepped out and Jenny pointed toward the left, down a long, white corridor. “It’s this way.” Natalie laced her fingers with Jenny’s and inched closer. Danielle slowed and remained several steps behind.
“Now, remember what I told you. Mommy might sound different when she talks, kind of funny, almost like she’s learning to speak for the first time. And her legs and arms will be a little jerky because she has to get used to moving them around.” Jenny took a deep breath, swallowed hard. “When the doctor operated, he had to shave her head.”
“She’s bald?” Natalie squeaked, freezing in her tracks, her green eyes filling with equal parts horror and intrigue.
Jenny turned to her and shrugged, pretending it was no big deal. “Uh-huh. She’s got a big white bandage wrapped around it, kind of like a large headband.”
“I want to see what she looks like buzzed,” Natalie whispered, her lips curving into a big grin. “I never saw a lady with a buzz cut before.”
“Shut up,” Danielle hissed.
Natalie stuck out her tongue and said, “You’re not allowed to say ‘shut up.’”
“And you’re not supposed to stick out your tongue, you little brat.”
“Girls,” Jenny said in her sternest voice. “That’s enough. We’re here to see your mother, now act like the young ladies I know you are.” She started walking again, taking longer than normal strides to keep them both busy trying to match her step.
“One more thing,” she said, as they rounded the last corner and Jenny spotted the sign for the step-down unit. She stopped and leaned toward them until they were eye level. “Remember, Mommy doesn’t know about Daddy. And we can’t tell her until she’s all better.” She squeezed Natalie’s hand and met Danielle’s hard stare. “Okay?”
Natalie raised her hands and pretended to zip her mouth shut. Danielle dipped her chin. Not great, but at least it was an acknowledgment.
“Okay.” Jenny straightened and cleared her throat. “I’m counting on both of you.” Inhale, hold. Exhale, whoosh. Grace would have to find out about Grant soon enough, but not today. Hearing he was dead would crush her, maybe destroy her resolve to recover. It would be hard enough to watch her mourn the philandering bastard when she was well, but it would be impossible now.
The nurses’ station was directly in front of them. Julie was working today and next to Sally, she was Jenny’s favorite. Nice, plain, young, with a sweet smile and a soft voice.
“Hi, Julie,” Jenny said. “This is Danielle and this is Natalie.”
“Hi, girls.” A smile spread over the nurse’s face, making her appear almost pretty. “Your mother will be so thrilled to see you.”
She will? Grace hadn’t seemed thrilled about anything since she’d come out of the coma.
“Can we see her now?” Natalie whispered.
“Of course.” She met Jenny’s gaze and said, “You know the way.”
Jenny nodded and began the trek to the fourth door on the left. The faint hum of piano music drifted toward them. Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.”
“That’s her music,” Natalie said, pointing to a room two doors away. Her voice dropped. “I think she’s in there.” She jerked her hand away and ran toward her mother’s room.
“Natalie, wait!” Jenny hurried after her, but it was too late. By the time she reached Grace’s room, Natalie was already inside, frozen to her spot, the pink and yellow balloons fluttering along the ceiling.
“Mommy?” The word fell out half-whisper, half-cry. “Mommy?” she repeated, her voice shooting up several octaves.
Jenny rushed to Natalie and pulled her into her arms. “It’s okay, honey. It’s okay.” She ran a hand over Natalie’s curls and hugged her close.
“Mommy?” she whimpered. “Where’s my mommy?”
Jenny glanced at the pale figure seated in the orange vinyl chair. She wore a white hospital gown and sky-blue booties. Her head was wrapped in white and she was staring straight at Jenny. No wonder Natalie refused to believe this woman was her mother. The mother she knew laughed and smiled, built sand castles and Popsicle stick bowls. The mother she knew wrapped her children in blankets of love and safety. This woman was dead and reheated, a ghost of someone, perhaps, but surely not Grace.
Oh, Grace, where are you? How can I make you come back?
Jenny cleared her throat and forced a smile. “Hi, Gracie. Look who I brought to see you.”
Grace inched her gaze to Natalie. Her forehead furrowed into a zillion tiny wrinkles, her eyes narrowed. She opened her pale lips and said, “Na...talie.”
Natalie peeked out over Jenny’s arm. “Mommy?” Her words were a mix of confusion and hope.
“Na...talie,” Grace repeated, her voice soft and filled with pain.
“Mommy!” Natalie wriggled out of Jenny’s embrace and took a few timid steps toward her mother. Grace lifted a hand, and her youngest daughter scrambled forward, throwing her arms around her mother’s middle. “I miss you, Mommy,” she sobbed. Her tiny shoulders shook as she spilled out her grief. “I miss you.”
“Mom?”
Jenny turned and spotted Danielle by the window, clutching the stuffed yellow and white teddy bear she’d brought for her mother. A tiny half-smile wobbled somewhere between hope and fear.
“Dan…ielle,” Grace breathed her name in a two-syllable sigh.
Danielle’s lips trembled, flattened, and she rushed to her mother, throwing her arms around Grace’s shoulders. “Oh, Mom,” she whispered, her voice cracking.
Jenny swiped a hand over her cheeks and sniffed. This was what they needed right now, to be a family again. She needed it, too. Things were different now. Grace was a widow, a single mother with two small children, recovering from a serious accident. Danielle and Natalie were fatherless, with a mother, who through some miracle, had beaten the odds and survived a car crash and a coma. The wounds were still open, some lightly scabbed, others fresh and oozing, and only time could predict the size or depth of the scars.
* * *
“Is Mommy gonna be able to do stuff again?” Natalie asked, scooting out from under her sheet to sit closer to Jenny.
Jenny glanced up from the book she’d been reading her. Had Natalie heard anything since they started the book? Could she blame her if she hadn’t? The adventures of a spunky cat and her worrisome sidekick could hardly replace the picture of Grace in the hospital with her head bandaged and her words stilted and clumsy.
“Is she, Aunt Jenny? Is she gonna be able to do stuff again?”
“What do you mean?” She knew exactly what Natalie meant, but she chose the adult path and pretended ignorance. Ignorance was useful in measured doses. It bought time and on occasion, made the asker rethink the question. Jenny usually didn’t succumb to such ploys, but then again, she wasn’t accustomed to being confronted with such frank inquisitiveness, especially from a five-year-old.
“You know,” Natalie said, playing with the pink fringe on her pillow. “Ride bikes. Play on Mrs. M’s monkey bars.” Her lower lip trembled. “Take us for French fries and chocolate milkshakes.”
“Oh, honey.” Jenny pulled her into her arms. “I hope so.” She rested her cheek on top of Natalie’s curly head. “More than anything in the world, I hope so.”
“Me, too,” Natalie whispered. Jenny heard a sniff and then a long silence with nothing but the hum of the air-conditioning. Just when she began to wonder if Natalie had drifted off to sleep in her arms, the child spoke. “I said a prayer for her tonight, just like Grandma said to do.”
Jenny tightened her hold around Natalie’s tiny waist. “What did you ask Him?”
“To make Mommy’s arms not so wobbly so she can come home.”
“That’s good.”
“And fix it when she talks.”
“That’s a good thing to pray for, too.”
“And one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
Pause. “To make all her hair grow back.”
* * *
Two days later, Jenny loaded Danielle and Natalie into the car and headed toward Elliot Drake’s office.
“I don’t want to talk to the man,” Natalie said in the new whiny imitation voice she’d been using since Jenny told the girls she was taking them to a special doctor to talk about the accident.
Jenny looked at her in the rearview mirror and frowned. “His name is Dr. Drake and he wants to talk to you.”
“’Bout what?” she asked, crossing her arms over her tiny chest.
Jenny sighed. Natalie knew exactly what he wanted to talk about because they’d been over this at least ten times. “About how you wake up in the middle of the night crying. About how you miss Daddy.”
Natalie’s lower lip puckered, then flattened into a thin line. “He lied to me.”
“Natalie—”
“He lied,” she repeated. “He said he’d take me to the store and buy me a pink and purple bike with a white basket and—”
“Stop it,” Danielle hissed.
Natalie ignored her sister. “—and sparkly streamers.” Her voice wobbled. “And he lied.”
“Natalie, he wanted to,” Jenny said, trying to focus on her niece and the road at the same time. “But God took him away before he could.”
Jenny heard the sniff behind her and tried to ignore it. Oh, how she hoped Elliot could help the girls. Elliot. She would see him soon, stand next to him, talk to him, look into those eyes the color of chocolate kisses…and he’d be looking at her the way he had that first day, deep, deeper, as though he could see inside to the person she kept hidden away from the world, sometimes even from herself.
“Are we almost there?” Natalie asked with another half-whine, slicing through Jenny’s thoughts of Elliot Drake and his mind-reading capabilities.
“I think it’s just another few minutes.” Jenny flicked her right-turn signal. “Two more blocks and we’ll be there.”
“I’m tired of being in this car,” Natalie said. “I liked Mommy’s van better.”
“Will you just be quiet and sit still?” This from Danielle.
“There it is, right over there,” Jenny said, spotting the house with its bonanza of bright flowers and green foliage. She pulled up to the curb and parked the car.
“Where’d he get all the flowers?” Natalie asked, peeking out the window.
“I guess where everybody else gets them,” Jenny said. “A greenhouse or nursery.”
Natalie gave her an odd look. “Nursery? The baby place?”
“Not the baby kind, silly, the tree and plant kind. A nursery can also be a place where you grow things like plants and trees and flowers.”
“Oh. I like this kind of nursery. We should get some stuff from there.”
“It is pretty, isn’t it?” Jenny fixed her sights on a bright red burst of impatiens as she got out of the car.
“Yeah, especially the green things hanging over there.” Natalie pointed to the ferns hanging from the porch.
“Aunt Jenny?”
It was Danielle. “Yes?” This was the first time Danielle had actually addressed her since the accident.
“Can I have a piece of gum?” Her voice sounded small and hollow and very far away.
“Sure.” Jenny dug into the side pocket of her purse and pulled out a half-open pack of bubble gum. “One strawberry coming right up.”
“Me, too?” Natalie asked, holding out her hand.
Jenny took out four pieces. “I think we could all use a strawberry boost right now. One for each of you,” she said, plopping a fat piece of gum into their outstretched hands. “And two for me.” She jammed both pieces in her mouth and chewed. “Okay, let’s go.”
10
Twenty minutes later, Jenny drained the last of her lemonade and flipped through another page of Parents magazine. Elliot really needed to rethink his magazine selection. Where was Vogue? Mademoiselle? Elle? All he had were old issues of Time, Newsweek, Parents, and Better Homes and Gardens. Not even one People around. How was a person supposed to learn about the latest Hollywood squabbles, connections, separations, and all the other important details of a superstar’s life?
Jenny closed the magazine when she saw “Diaper Rash Gets Personal” and checked her watch. Again. The girls had been polite but reserved when Elliot first greeted them, but then Natalie had asked him where he got such a weird doorbell because she wanted one just like it. He’d laughed and told her only weird people could get them. That made her giggle. Danielle had even worked up a half-smile.
“Would you like more lemonade?” Eleanor asked from her d
esk in the corner of the room.
Jenny shook her head and stood, stifling a yawn. “No, thank you.” She needed to move around or she’d fall asleep. Her gaze shot to the front porch and the kaleidoscope of color just waiting to be enjoyed. “Would you mind if I took a walk around outside? I want to look at all the flowers.”
Eleanor waved her hand a few times and the extra flesh on her forearm jiggled back and forth. “Of course not, child. Go.” Her face broke into a wide grin, showing off her dimples. “If you want to see real beauty, follow the stone path to the backyard.” Her brown eyes lit up. “It’s glorious,” she whispered. “Simply glorious.”
“Thanks. I’ll check it out.” Jenny slung her purse over her shoulder and flashed Eleanor a quick smile. “Be back soon.”
“Enjoy.” Eleanor’s sweet voice floated after Jenny as she stepped out the door and skipped down the steps.
She decided to take in the backyard first, explore the flowers and maybe get a deeper insight into the doctor. After all, if he was going to be shaping and reshaping the tragic events that would affect them for the rest of their lives, then she wanted to get a handle on him, maybe uncover some quirky behavior patterns or something. If his backyard was clipped, coifed, and weed-free, she might be able to surmise that he was very thorough and precise, which would be a good thing. If, on the other hand, along with that fastidious care, there were hedges and other greenery cut and shorn to the exact same measurement, lending a military appearance, she might think him too rigid, and that would be a bad thing. She had no idea what she was really looking for, only that when she saw it, she would recognize it.
Grace would call her insane for not simply marching into Elliot Drake’s office and studying the diplomas on the wall. She’d get around to that. Actually, she’d already read a few: University of Pennsylvania. Georgetown. But what did that really tell a person? The more schools you went to, the more letters you got after your name? Heck, she didn’t even know what half of them meant. Most people didn’t, but they’d never admit it. Grace would know, though, and if she didn’t, she’d find out. Great, that could be Grace’s job. Jenny’s would be to dig around in the man’s backyard and see what she uncovered.