by Edith Pattou
and popcorn.
Before I can react
she is on my couch,
TV remote in
her hand.
Come on in, I say, still standing by the front door.
Yeah, well, thing is, Maxie, Emma says, I hear you’re like a total recluse. And me, I’m sick of my friends being so fake nice all the time. And I know all they want to do is get back to normal, go out, and get drunk on a Saturday night. So I thought maybe you and I could hang out.
I look at her, my arms crossed
over my chest.
We don’t have to talk, Emma says.
Okay, I say, and sit beside her on the couch. What’d you bring?
So we settle back,
eat popcorn,
and watch a movie
about time travel.
We don’t talk.
It isn’t until the movie’s over
and she’s getting ready to go,
that I blurt out,
Have you seen Brendan?
She doesn’t speak,
just stands there
leaning on
her crutches.
The silence hangs
between us.
No, she says finally.
Do you know anything, how he is?
No, she says again, her voice flat. And yes, I’ve heard the rumors, too, that he’s brain dead in some Chicago hospital.
Her eyes suddenly fill
with tears.
I start to go to her,
to hug her,
but she puts up a hand
to hold me away.
I’m fine, she says.
But she isn’t.
And how could she be?
Whatever’s happened to Brendan
happened because he was
trying to
save her life.
Monday, October 11
CHLOE
“Spirit Week”
Before ghosting I loved Spirit Week,
the whole gung-ho, rah rah,
support-your-school thing.
Coming up with silly, over-the-top outfits
while still trying to look cute.
But when I get the schedule
for this year’s Spirit Week
I feel sick to my stomach.
MONDAY—Tie-dye
TUESDAY—Rock band/Concert T-shirts
WEDNESDAY—Patriotic
THURSDAY—School Pride (scarlet and yellow)
FRIDAY—yellow ribbons to honor shooting victims
I mean that’s great,
everyone showing their sympathy and support,
but what good are a bunch of cheap little yellow ribbons
going to do for
Faith,
Emma,
Felix,
and
Brendan?
Friday, October 15
MAXIE
Poor Rita Bell.
Rita,
cheerleading captain,
vice president of student council,
queen of community service,
not to mention
friendly green eyes,
tumbling black curls,
wide smile,
whitest teeth.
In a normal year,
a year with
no ghosting,
no Walter Smith,
Rita would’ve been
a shoo-in for
Homecoming Queen.
Sure, Emma and Chloe
would’ve come close,
but no more than second and third,
probably in that order.
But because of
that night,
poor Rita
comes in a distant third.
Even though Emma
told everyone not to
vote for her
since she wouldn’t even
be in town for Homecoming,
a third surgery,
in Boston this time,
she comes in
second anyway.
It’s Chloe
who is crowned
Homecoming Queen.
By a landslide.
And she looks luminous,
a simple white dress,
her honey-colored hair
hanging loose,
her face pale,
standing beside
the Homecoming King.
Brendan.
In his wheelchair.
BRENDAN
Homecoming King.
What a fucking joke.
I wave to all the faceless,
clueless people in the stands.
Then my eyes light on Bobby,
sitting in the front row, between our parents.
He’s got this huge smile, beaming like I’m
some kind of hero. And that’s what I am, right?
The guy who stepped between Emma
and a bullet. Except for one thing.
I’m also the asshole who fired off Daddy’s gun
and got us shot, maimed, almost killed.
But hell, in this country
we like our messed-up heroes.
So here I sit in my wheelchair,
Homecoming King.
Got my khakis, button-down shirt,
red tie, hair neatly combed.
Right smack dab in the middle of the field
I used to play lacrosse on.
But it doesn’t matter,
none of it fucking matters.
Then Chloe leans down
and whispers soft in my ear.
This sucks, doesn’t it?
I look up at her in surprise.
Yes, I say. It sucks.
EMMA
If someone takes a bullet for you,
saves your life,
what do you owe them?
Everything?
Or the truth?
BRENDAN
I’ll never forget the moment
when my dad realized.
When the last expensive doctor
spelled it out for us in black and white.
That no amount of money,
no number of pulled strings,
no browbeating or foot stomping,
yelling or bullying,
that no ramped-up brand of positive thinking
would get him a son with legs that worked.
We were sitting in the office of the best orthopedic
surgeon in the United States of America.
I am very sorry to have to tell you, Brendan, Mr. Donnelly, Dr. Wyamussing said, looking at each of us in turn, but there is nothing that can be done to reverse the paralysis.
My dad went all quiet.
Then the doctor’s pager beeped.
Sorry, I have to take this, Dr. Wyamussing said, after a quick look at the pager. Take however long you need.
I can’t say it was a big shock.
I think I knew it that first moment.
When I woke up in the hospital
and couldn’t feel my legs.
But the finality of the doctor’s words,
the cold, hard fact
that I would never walk, run,
play lacrosse, swim, ski,
that I would never do
any of the things you do with legs . . .
Well, it gave me this sick, frozen feeling
that made it hard to breathe.
Okay, Dad says. So now we know.
I had closed my eyes,
and was taking deep breaths.
I felt his hand on my shoulder
and opened my eyes.
His eyes were bright,
almost as if there were tears in them.
But he was also wearing this
wide, manic smile.
What do the Donnellys do with lemons, son? he said.
I stared back at him, my entire body feeling
as if it had turned to ice.
Make fucking lemonade, I said.
T
hat’s my boy, he said.
Wednesday, October 20
FAITH
It has
been
almost
two months
since
that night.
Front stoops
in the
neighborhood
are dotted
with orange
pumpkins,
and ghosts
made of white
bedsheets
hang from
tree limbs,
fluttering
in the autumn
wind.
We’ve
just
finished
dinner,
and Emma
and I have
hobbled out
to the
backyard
with Polly.
It is one
of those
mild nights
you sometimes
get in
mid-October,
and we’re
lying,
side by side,
on the
hammock,
with our
matching casts
on our
right legs.
I mean,
what are
the odds that
two sisters
would have
fractured
bones
in the
same leg?
One from
jumping out
of a car
and
the other
from
a bullet.
Turns out
Emma’s was more
complicated,
fractured in
three places.
Mine was a
cleaner break,
but the scar
on my leg
is ugly,
a great
puckered
dent in
my thigh.
They said
that I
can have
plastic surgery
later,
which will
make it look
a lot better.
Emma likes
to tease me,
calling me a
psycho nutjob
for setting out
that night
on my bike
to save
our family.
I don’t mind
her teasing.
In fact,
I call her a
psycho nutjob
right back
for jumping
out of a
speeding car.
We have this
running joke
about which
one of us
got it worse.
And tonight
on the
hammock,
we start up
again.
Okay, Polly, you decide, Emma finally says, reaching over and rubbing Polly’s ears.
And Polly
looks from
me to Emma
as we make
our case.
I came this close to dying, I say, holding up my thumb and forefinger with barely a sliver of space between them. Twice.
I’m gonna need at least three more surgeries, Emma says.
I’m gonna need one more, plus I got a cracked skull and a burr hole, I say.
I got a concussion, Emma says.
I’ve got four pins in my leg, I say.
I’ve got five pins and three screws, Emma says.
My thigh looks like one of those sinkholes in Florida, I say, plus I lost twenty percent of my blood.
No more soccer scholarship at Penn for me, plus I may never play soccer again, says Emma.
I look
sideways
at her.
That’s bull, I say, I mean about never playing soccer again.
We’ll see, she says looking up at the night sky.
Polly barks
then,
and lays
her head
on Emma’s
thigh.
See, I win! Emma laughs.
Still the same old Emma, I say, grinning at her.
Her smile
fades.
No, she says. Not the same old Emma.
EMMA
One thing that’s happened is
I think a lot about death.
I never used to, but now I do.
Faith told me about the white birds
and the quiet, peaceful feeling
she got when she almost died.
I felt jealous when she told me.
And I find myself wondering if it’s
different for each person.
Maybe someone good and true like Faith
is worthy of the quiet and the white birds.
But someone like me, not so much.
Because all of it—Brendan in a wheelchair,
Felix in a coma, Faith almost dying
is my fault.
I’ve always careened through my life,
full speed, doing exactly what I want,
without thinking about the consequences.
And see what happened.
So I think about death
and I keep wondering:
Is it really white birds and quiet?
Or maybe it’s a dark hole
you get sucked into.
Or a place of fire.
Or maybe it’s just
nothing.
The scary thing is that
these days
nothing actually sounds good.
Tuesday, October 26
FAITH
One day,
eating
peanut butter
sandwiches
in the kitchen,
I tell Emma
how floored
I am by
my friends,
how amazing
they’ve been,
all those
paper cranes.
You deserve it, she says. That girl Francesca, the one with the tattoo on her ankle, she’s the one who organized it all, right?
Yeah, I say.
Emma hobbles
to the fridge
for more milk.
Em, I blurt, what’s going on with you and Brendan?
Her back
gets stiff.
Then she
turns to me.
I . . . I don’t know, Faith, she says, her face sad. And that’s the truth. I’ve seen him a couple times and he acts the same, like nothing’s happened, nothing’s wrong. But it’s all on the surface, with lots of jokes about the wheelchair, like he doesn’t care.
She comes
back to
the table.
I don’t even know if I’m his girlfriend anymore, she says.
Do you want to be? I ask.
Tears come
into her
eyes.
Oh, Faith . . . The thing is, and this sounds like bullshit now, but I’d been planning to break up with him, once school started. But now . . .
And she
starts crying.
I pull my
chair next
to hers
and put
my arms
around her.
It’ll be all right, I say.
She shakes
her head.
I don’t see how, she says.
And the
hopelessness
in her voice
scares me.
Thursday, November 11
BRENDAN
The worst times are when
I realize I can’t do something.