Swansong

by Rose Christo

  I think about how Dad's never going to ruin the tablecloths again. I think about how Mom's never going to sing with the ocean wind.

  Jocelyn's never going to call me at three in the morning because she has cramps and she doesn't know whether she should take Hyland's or Premsyn.

  I cry so hard my eyes hurt; my throat goes dry. I cry because it doesn't make sense, because beauty shouldn't be so easy to snuff out. I cry because I want more time, and God says no.

  * * * * *

  It's been twelve days since my coma. Twenty-five days since the accident. And I can't remember any of it.

  I sit in a wheelchair beside my bed, scribbling furiously in a notebook Judas gave me. Or I think he gave it to me--I can't remember that, either. That's why I'm writing. Dave said it's going to be hard for me to learn new things from now on. My short-term memory's broken. He doesn't know about my long-term memory. I don't know, either. All I know is that I don't want to forget. I don't want to forget Joss' singing in the freshman musical. I don't want to forget the way Mom palms my--palmed my head when she thought I was asleep at night. I don't want to forget Dad watching soccer and calling it football.

  They're too important to forget.

  My handwriting looks like a six-year-old's. It's still mine, but it's shaky and weak. My hands shake when I grip the ballpoint pen. My hands shake when I put the pen down. I'm worried. I got into high school because I could paint. Painting was supposed to take me to tertiary school in two years. I don't have any other talent. I don't know how else to make my way in the world.

  A neuropsychologist drops by for a visit, a small woman, her glasses too big for her face. The pink post-it note on my wall tells me her name's Dr. Veer.

  Judas sleeps in the visitor's chair while Dr. Veer throws math problems at me. I don't understand what math has to do with anything, but I answer them as best as I can. She takes notes. She asks me how I'm feeling; if I'm angry, if I'm sad. "Neither," I tell her. I don't have a name for this feeling. It's the feeling you get when you first dive into a pool of water, the icy pull bathing your body, the color dissipating in front of your eyes. It's the feeling that you can't possibly take a breath or you'll drown.

  "I have headaches," I say. "All the time."

  Dr. Veer adjusts her eyeglasses. "They'll go away."

  Judas stirs awake when Dr. Veer takes the back of my wheelchair. She tells him she wants to take me to a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.

  "What's that?" Judas asks. He doesn't sound eager.

  "We treat the patient with compressed air," Dr. Veer says. "Many patients recovering from TBIs find that oxygen therapy helps alleviate the symptoms."

  "The headaches?" I ask, feeling weak.

  "Facial paralysis, mood swings."

  "But I don't have any of that."

  "Just in case."

  I glance at Judas.

  "I'll go with you," Judas tells me.

  Dr. Veer wheels me out into the hall. The three of us take a sluggish elevator up to a wide, tiled room, blinds covering the big window. A clear, plastic casket stands in the middle of the floor. I could throw up.

  "I'm right here," Judas tells me.

  Dr. Veer helps me out of the wheelchair. She slides open the lid of the casket and it hisses, like an angry snake. I climb feebly onto the padded bed. I suck in a breath, terrified, when the casket snaps closed around me.

  Is this what it's like to die? We die, and they pack us into airtight boxes; they tuck us into the ground, out of sight, out of mind. Is this what's going to happen to Mom and Dad and Joss?

  I should be with them. I don't understand it. I don't understand why I'm the one who gets to live.

  Cool air blows into the chamber, washing over me. My ears feel full and muffled. Judas' face looms over the plastic lid. He looks so tired. He looks so sad.

  He's all I have left. I think I'm all he has left.

  I close my eyes. I pretend I'm on the beach. The noisy air is the ocean wind. Somewhere--a place I can't reach--my mother is singing.

  * * * * *

  Judas stays with me the rest of the day. I almost ask him whether he has a job lined up just yet, whether his boss will be angry with him, but I hold my tongue. I don't want to know. I want him here with me. The blood in his veins is Mom's blood. Dad's blood. I want him here with me.

  At nighttime he slides extra pillows behind my head. He helps me sit up and drink a cup of water. My throat is a desert. An orderly on duty threatens to call security, because don't you know visiting hours are over; and Judas gives him this look, this half-dead look; and the orderly backs off.

  "The doc says you could be out of here by August."

  I try to piece together what Judas is saying. He means I'm stuck here another month. He means I'm going home with him in the end--but home is gone.

  "Thank you."

  I feel the need to say it.

  "Don't thank me."

  He's like Mom, in that small way. Mom never wanted people's gratitude, either.

  "I can't believe this is happening," I echo. It doesn't feel real. Sometimes it does--and then--it just doesn't. How can the world have ended? The world's still standing.

  "Wendy," Judas says. "Listen."

  I listen. But he doesn't appear to be saying much. He reaches into his denim jacket pocket. He pulls out a little blue box, dented, worse for wear.

  It's wrapped in a yellow ribbon.

  He hands it to me without meeting my eyes. I take it into trembling hands and--they must have recovered it from the car, I don't know how, how could they recover this trinket and not my Mom and Dad--

  I pry open the box, my fingers unsteady. I lift out the present inside. I already know what it is; Joss told me months ago. She can't keep a secret to save her salt.

  Couldn't. Couldn't keep a secret.

  A charm bracelet glints at me in the weak hospital light. The only charm hanging on the chain is a tiny swan, wings spread elegantly in flight. Swans are my favorite. When I was twelve, I watched that movie--the animated one--nonstop.

  I swallow. My throat is hot and scratched, my tongue like cotton in my mouth.

  "We were just picking up a birthday cake." My voice sounds like it belongs to someone else.

  Judas rises from his seat. He takes the charm bracelet from my hand. He wraps the chain around my wrist and clasps it shut. My wrist is red and burned.

  "Happy--" Judas stops. "Birthday," he concludes, a noncommittal murmur.

  My eyes fill with tears. The hospital room blurs indiscriminately, gray melding into white. Tears scorch their way down my cheeks. The space around us vanishes.

  3

  Paradidomi

  The girl in the mirror looks like nothing I've seen in my entire life. A purple-red dent decorates her left cheek, the imprint of molten metal. A strip of white discoloration runs down her throat. Her cheeks are hollow and underfed. Her dark blonde hair dusts her scalp in a minimalistic fuzz.

  She can't be me. But she has my freckles.

  "I look like a cancer patient," I say quietly. I turn away from the bathroom mirror.

  Judas is sitting on the hospital bed, his head downturned, his keys in his hands. He lifts his head when I approach him. His face is near-expressionless in its solemnity, but he can't hide the sagging of his mouth, the clouds in his eyes. I wonder how much of him died in prison. I wonder if it's recompense for the life he took.

  It's selfish; but I hope the rest of him doesn't die. I need somebody not to die.

  My brother walks me out into the hall. I don't have any belongings to carry; just the bracelet around my wrist. Judas talks with the nurse at the bulky desk and she pulls up my records on her computer. My scalp tingles, my hands shaking at my sides. I can't stop the shaking. I don't know why.

  It's breezy outside the hospital. My first taste of sunlight blinds me. I don't recognize the town we're in, small and cozy, seated on the edge of a tangled woods. Judas leads the way to a sleek gray car.

  I stop.

>   "What?" he asks, pulling open the driver-side door.

  "You're allowed to drive?" I thought we'd be taking the bus.

  Judas looks at me. "They can't take my license away just because I bludgeoned a guy. That's against the law."

  That’s ironic.

  We get in the car. It smells new. My nerves jump alive. Cold sweat rolls down the back of my neck. I don't remember it--the accident. What I remember is doctor after doctor, nurse after nurse, telling me my parents died in our little blue car. Why do we drive cars? Why do we build them? They're accidents waiting to happen. They're combustible cages. You shouldn't put wheels on a cage. You just shouldn't.

  Judas puts his hand on my head. I jump.

  "Did you know I built this car?" Judas asks.

  "What?" I peer at him, confusion chasing away my panic. "How?"

  "In prison." He puts the car in reverse. "They're not going to just let you sit around in your cell all day. They make you work. I built cars, power plants. Bombs, too."

  "Bombs?" I sputter.

  He smiles a half-smile at the look on my face. "Don't look at me. Take it up with UNICOR."

  Without my realizing it, he's distracted me from my fear. I look out the window. We're already on the road. In and out, in and out, I breathe deeply. My brother built this car with his own two hands. Maybe this one won't explode.

  "You paint?" Judas asks me. His arms are long and scarred. His hand rests on the steering wheel when the traffic light stops us.

  I rub my quaking hands. I squeeze them between my knees. I smile at him, or try. "Yeah."

  "What's the last thing you painted?"

  I falter. It feels like gravity's pulling against me with all its might. "A dolphin."

  "You like dolphins?"

  "No. Joss does." Did. Joss did.

  The light turns green. Judas drives. I don't expect him to say anything to me. But then--

  "Close your eyes."

  "W-What?"

  "Close them," he says. "We're going to pass the crash site. I don't want you to see."

  I close my eyes. I bury my face against my hands. Darkness falls over me. If not for the squealing of tires on gravel, the clicking of the car's lighting system, I can pretend I'm in my bedroom late at night. I can pretend I'm only sleeping. I'm having one very long nightmare, and I can't wake up.

  * * * * *

  Judas drives us right into The Spit. Tall white buildings, bulky and plastic, cast shadows on my window. Big-name corporations have jammed their neon advertisements on every inch of available space: on the bus stops, on the overpasses, on the plastic buildings themselves, a plastic city of plastic values. "Internet too slow? Switch to Phantasma!" "Binder & Gamble, for all your Small Claims needs." The streets are smooth and charcoal gray. I wonder that no one found a way to smother those in advertisements, too.

  "You live in The Spit?" I ask Judas.

  He rounds the corner. We drive past a shiny metal dome--I've always wondered what it's for.

  "You said you go to school here," he responds.

  Then he moved here for me. "I didn't think..."

  I feel dizzy. I don't know what's doing it: the skyscrapers, or the kindness of a stranger. And then I remember that my brain's broken, so likely, it's neither.

  Judas pulls us into an underground parking tunnel. I hold my breath and I don't know why. Dim orange lamps permeate the grungy darkness. He pulls us into a spot beside a stone pillar.

  "C'mon," he says.

  We get out of the car. My heart's beating a mile a minute. We walk the sloping incline up to the sidewalk. I breathe with relief when the muted sun touches my face, blustery, gray-white clouds dancing in the sky.

  Judas' apartment building is right down the block. Smothered in angry graffiti, it looks like it's on the brink of collapse. A dog sits chained up outside, barking at us. He looks underfed. I wish I had something to feed to him.

  I follow Judas in through the weak wooden door, up the stairwell, the banisters feeble, the carpet bloated. It's almost as dark in here as it was in the parking lot. I wish I could hold onto the back of Judas' shirt. But I don't want to be a child; and my brother is a stranger. My brother is a murderer.

  A murderer has custody of me. How did that happen?

  I ask him--in not so many words. He pulls out his apartment key when we reach the top of the landing.

  He answers me. "The justice system gives preferential treatment to biological families. I went away for manslaughter. If it had been murder, you'd be in foster care right now."

  I thank him; and I mean it.

  "Told you not to thank me. Go inside."

  The apartment is hardwood, scantily furnished. The only lights are the lights on the ceiling, and they look as if they belong in a studio. The couch is small and gray. The walls are white and bare. I scan the doors opposite me: bedroom, bathroom, bedroom. The kitchen must be off to the side.

  I want to cry. I want to say Thank you, again and again. I want to go home.

  * * * * *

  My bedroom has no windows--the first difference between the old and the new. A plain lamp stands on the tiny table next to the plain bed. All my paint cans and blank bulk canvases are stacked neatly next to the rolling closet door. I wonder why Judas asked me about the painting if he already knew. Maybe he was trying to make conversation.

  I sit on my bed. I change my mind. I stand up.

  "Jude," I call out. I walk out into the sitting room. "Do you want me to make--"

  He's sitting on the floor, the tiny television turned on. I catch a glimpse of the screen. A wrecked blue car, crushed into a compact heap. Words scrolling across the bottom of the image.

  The strength drains from my legs; the warmth drains from my face. Judas reaches over and shuts the TV off. He jumps up.

  "Let's not watch the news for a while," he decides.

  I make lunch in the kitchen, a shabby room so sad, so gray, I wonder how it is that anyone managed to live here before us, let alone Judas. The cold from the linoleum floor tiles rises right through the soles of my shoes. My fingers shake when I cut the bread and slice the tomatoes. I wanted to give my hands something to do.

  "What are you doing?" Judas asks. He sticks his head in the kitchen.

  "You're not allergic or anything--?" The humming from the rusty refrigerator cuts through my thoughts. I think I should probably go grocery shopping; Judas doesn't have any butter.

  "You already made lunch."

  I drop the knife to the counter with a clatter. I look in the sink, lackluster and aluminum. Two plates sit in the basin. One knife.

  "Oh, God," I manage to say. It feels like I don't have enough breath even for that. "What's wrong with me?"

  Judas walks into the kitchen. He grips my shoulders. I want to cry and cry and never stop. I want to hide my face in his shirt.

  "It's going to be okay," Judas tells me. But his voice is empty, like he doesn't really know, like he just wants to encourage me, and--who is he? Isn't he a stranger? "I'm filling out your prescriptions. They'll help."

  "How many do I have to take...?"

  "Six."

  "Six--" My throat convulses.

  "Come on," Judas says. "Go sit down. I'll put this stuff away."

  "Am I going to get better?" He doesn't know. How could he know?

  "You will." How could he know?

  "Mom and Dad are gone. My best friend--"

  "Go sit down. I promise you, I'll take care of you."

  I trail out into the sitting room, gliding like a ghost. Everything feels so fake. This can't be me. This can't be happening.

  I sit on the couch. Judas sits with me a moment later. He watches me carefully, like an ironworker sitting on top of a girder. I get the feeling he's fine-tuning his argument before he delivers it.

  "You think you'll be ready for school in a month?"

  That must be his argument.

  "I don't know," I mumble. Cavalieri is big, but I can't imagine sitting down in homeroom class
without a Jocelyn sitting next to me. I can't imagine answering questions about how she--about how--

  --I don't know how I can take tests if I'm forgetting things every five minutes--

  "When your social worker shows up," Judas says, "I'm getting you a therapist."

  My head shoots up. "I don't need therapy." A social worker? "Why a social worker?"

  Judas smiles. One side of his face doesn't smile with him. That scar at the corner of his mouth--the knife wound that inflicted it, I guess it damaged the nerves...

  "To make sure I don't kill you."

  He's joking, I realize, chilled. Even so--

  "Why?" I ask. I tuck my shaking hands beneath my knees. "Why did you kill that man?"

  Judas' face is quiet. I know that doesn't make sense. What I mean is, it looks like the type of face you couldn't glean a secret from, even if you took a chisel to it. He's hangdog and dejected and he looks like he's lost everything. And I guess he has. And I guess it's his own fault.

  I know it's his own fault.

  But I feel sorry for him.

  "You have your artwork," Judas says. "Right?"

  I nod, reluctant. I don't know if I have it anymore.

  "What do you feel when you paint?"

  "Alive," I answer. I don't need to think about it.

  "It was the same for me," Judas says. "I wanted to feel alive. Wanted to feel...something. Anything."

  I don't understand. I can't.

  He's my brother. He's a murderer. He's all I have left.

  "What do you feel now?" I ask. He has to feel something.

  "Regret," Judas says. "I ended somebody's life. Killing doesn't end just one life. If he had a wife--children--coworkers--their lives are changed, too. Ruined. I ruined a lot of lives. I ruined Mom and Dad's lives. Don't try and say I didn't. You don't raise a boy and turn a blind eye when he spirals out of your hands. All this shit--stuff, sorry--you don't think about this stuff in the heat of the moment. You don't realize how many consequences your actions are going to have. It's not fun and games. This world isn't a game."