Give Me Your Answer True

by Suanne Laqueur

  “I’m here,” someone whispered.

  She didn’t know here and couldn’t put a name with I.

  “I’m here, Dais. I love you.”

  Dais dropped into the center of her head like a burning star and her thoughts began to swirl around it like a galaxy. Dais was the you.

  She knew herself now.

  And her self was tired.

  She held the hand, settled into the tight strength at her side. She breathed in its scent.

  And slept.

  SHE WOKE TO HER MOTHER’S hands on her face.

  “Hello, darling.” The voice like wind chimes. “It’s all right. Mamou’s here.”

  Her lips pressed into Daisy’s forehead, a waft of face powder and a little perfume. Her mother leaned over her. Daisy realized she was in bed, not her bed. But Mamou was here. That was good.

  “Hi,” Daisy whispered. The exhaled syllable took no effort. She pressed her lips together, trying to push the M. She couldn’t. Her mouth was dry.

  A man’s hand now on her face. A bass note of aftershave. Spearmint chewing gum and a little cigarette smoke in his cuff.

  “Dézi.”

  “Da,” Daisy said. It fell out as she separated her tongue from the roof of her mouth.

  “Sweetheart,” he said.

  Her head turned right and left and she summoned the will to make her mouth say what she needed. “Thirsty.”

  A bustle of purposeful activity and a woman appeared by her father. She was dressed in pink. Daisy stared. Her brain turned over like a rolodex. Finally it plucked a single card with a single word and turned it up: nurse.

  She was in a hospital.

  Open-mouthed and parched, Daisy stared as the pink woman gave over a paper cup with a spoon sticking out the top. Her father took the spoon and offered it.

  “Here, sweetheart.”

  A single ice-cold jewel in her mouth. A wet diamond melting. Her eyes closed in relief. Her tongue danced through the silver cold. Too soon it disappeared. The dry heat took over again. She opened her mouth. Her father gave her another jewel. Cobalt blue cold.

  “Nice and easy,” her mother said. “Don’t rush.”

  She didn’t rush but her mouth devoured the ice. Seduced and ravished it, leaving only the barest trickle to find its way down her swollen throat.

  A third cold spoonful. Two pieces this time. She kept one on her tongue and sent the other immediately back and down. The relief. She could swallow now. She could breathe.

  She could think.

  “What happened,” she said.

  Over her head, her parents exchanged glances.

  “Mamou.” She tugged her mother’s sleeve. “What’s happened?”

  Her father’s hand on her cheek. “Do you remember anything, Dézi?”

  Her brain turned again in a waterfall of cards but none were revealed. She opened her lips for another piece of ice which she held in her mouth, wrapping herself around its cold clarity. Remember. To remember meant to know what came before now.

  What was before now?

  “What day is it?” she asked.

  “Monday,” her mother said.

  Monday. Now the rolodex got excited and dealt a bunch of cards. Monday was intro to music theory at eight and early French literature at nine. Then she had advanced ballet technique class followed by partnering. Then lunch and a little bit of down time before she was due back in the studio for folk and character dance. Then it was over to the theater because this week was tech week for the dance concert and—

  A flurry of faces, feet, bodies and music.

  “Rehearsal,” she said. “I have rehearsal tonight.”

  “It’s all right, Dézi.”

  She tried to sit up, only now aware of the rest of her body. As if with the hydrating of her mouth and throat, the rest of her life came back to her. And her life was bound up in her body. She had rehearsal but instead of being in the theater, she was in this bed. Her parents were here for some reason and a pink nurse was handing out ice chips. Where were her legs?

  “What’s happened?” She clutched her mother’s cardigan in both hands. “Mamou, did I fall down?” It was the only reason she could think of for being here. But if she fell, she would remember, wouldn’t she?

  And why were her parents here?

  How bad did she fall?

  Everything was in context except herself.

  What came before now?

  “Darling, something happened in the theater yesterday.”

  Yesterday. Sunday. She would have had rehearsal. She couldn’t remember dancing yesterday. She squeezed her eyes shut, reaching into the black behind her lids and trying to pull it back. Faces to the bodies. Names to the faces. Her friends. Sitting in the rows of seats in the theater. The curved rows like a comb, embracing the apron of the stage. Sloped slightly downward from the rear of the theater. The lobby doors propped open and the tall glass windows of the lighting booth where—

  I just want to ditch this rehearsal and go back to bed with you.

  Her eyes flew open. “Erik?”

  “He’s fine, darling,” her mother said, her hand gentling along Daisy’s forehead. “Erik’s fine, he’s safe.”

  “But what’s happened?” Daisy cried, again trying to sit up.

  “Dézi, listen to me.” With a clang her father put down the bar on his side of the bed and sat on the mattress next to her right hip. “Yesterday, someone came into the theater with a gun.”

  She stared at him.

  “Someone had a gun and they opened fire on the rehearsal.”

  He took her hand in his, and Daisy noticed then the IV line snaking from the top of her hand to the drip bag hanging overhead. The rough cotton gown she was dressed in. Her leg, the one by her father, looked small and slim beneath the thin covers but her left leg was…

  She looked back at her father.

  “You were shot yesterday, Dézi.”

  “You and Will,” her mother said, her hand spread wide like a starfish on the crown of Daisy’s head. “He’s fine, though. You’re going to be fine, Daisy. I promise.” Her voice betrayed her on the last word, fraying like a bent stick of green wood. Daisy’s eyes flicked to her mother’s face. Then down to her own legs. The covers over her left leg looked domed. Some structure underneath held them aloft over her leg.

  She pushed up on one elbow and reached.

  “Dézi, no.” Her father’s hand stayed her. “You’re not strong enough yet. Not yet. It’s going to be all right. We’ll fix everything, I swear to you, sweetheart.”

  She looked at him. Closed her fingers around the sheet.

  And pulled.

  “Dézi…”

  Above her knee, her thigh was swathed in gauze. Out of the gauze fed another tube, filled with an evil yellow fluid.

  She kept pulling.

  A wire cage, like a wigwam’s frame, arched over her calf.

  Her teeth pressed together. Her fingers clenched hard.

  Her calf was flayed.

  “It looks worse than it is, darling,” her mother said, sliding arms around her. “Look at me. It’s not forever. It will heal, I promise.”

  Daisy looked only at her leg. From knee to ankle on both sides, they had sliced her calf open. Diamonds of angry flesh and muscle. Red meat bulging from the edges of her skin which were hard and yellow in some places, black and blood-crusted in others. Her flesh was falling out of her leg. They ruined her.

  She pushed her teeth together hard, feeling her eyes grow bigger.

  Her parents were talking. They explained she was shot in the thigh. The bullet severed her femoral artery. The initial surgery seemed to have been a success but complications set in. Pressure began to build up in her leg. They had to cut her.

  They took turns, finishing each other’s sentences, slapping words like inadequate band-aids on the bleeding mess that was Daisy’s life.

  “To save your leg, Dézi,” her father said, taking her face in his strong hands. “Look at me, swee
theart.” His voice was quiet and commanding. A soldier. He wasn’t afraid of anything.

  Almost anything.

  He heard too much in the jungle nights. Saw too much. He still hadn’t turned around and looked at his daughter’s leg.

  Daisy turned her head out of her father’s grasp and put her free hand over her own mouth. She stared down at those red diamonds on her leg and wanted to scream. It was either scream or die.

  “Where’s Erik?” she said through her fingers.

  She felt her parents exchange looks once more.

  “I’ll get him.” The bed rocked gently as Joe got up and left.

  Francine gathered Daisy’s head close. Her clothes smelled of lavender. “I promise,” she said. “You’ll dance again. I promise, darling.”

  The door to her room whispered open, followed by the squeak of sneakers on linoleum. She smelled him first. Skin that wafted a little warm like lime, and a little cool like mint. He sat where her father had been. Said nothing as he put his hand on her hip and followed her eyes to her flayed calf. She heard him pull his breath in but not let it out.

  Mouth still squeezed up tight in her fingers, Daisy looked at her mother. Always they had understood each other. Worked in tandem to keep her father’s demons at bay. Now Daisy bored her eyes up into her mother’s pale face and thought, take him out of here.

  Francine’s head tilted. Her eyes closed a moment. She hugged Daisy’s shoulders hard, reached to cup Erik’s chin. She left the bedside, putting her arm through Joe’s and coaxing him out into the hallway.

  Daisy was crying before the door closed.

  She fell back, hands to her face. Her throat was caving in. Her eyes were melting. Thick, molten despair and rage boiled up in her stomach and flooded her chest in a lament that couldn’t escape. She wept but it wasn’t enough. It barely penetrated. They cut her leg to release the pressure. Nothing could release her grief now. Her fingers dug into her face. Her nails found her skin and pressed. Ten hard crescents. Looking to punch a hole in the shock, puncture the fat balloon of loss swelling in her chest and head. Her eyeballs and eardrums bulged. Her teeth threatened to fly out of her gums. Her ribs strained against it. Something had to give.

  Erik took hold of her. Finger by finger he peeled her hands away from her head, then took her wrists and put them up around his neck. He leaned down, making a wigwam frame over her body. His clean-clothes smell over citrusy skin. His arms and chest wide and strong. She buried her face in his sternum and screamed.

  He didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. His arms were tight. She screamed again, down in the dark warm cave of his chest and arms. He didn’t shush her. Didn’t soothe her with words. Didn’t make promises or swear. He held the frame. Stayed still and domed over her body as she drew in another ragged, terrible breath. Loading the catapult and setting it alight.

  She exhaled, sliced the rope and yelled her bones apart.

  The ramparts crumbled, the turrets fell and the moat flooded everything. It all came up from the depths of her and then she was choking on it. The pink nurse made it just in time, seizing a basin and sliding a strong, competent arm under Daisy’s shoulder blades. They got her to sit up as the heaving waves exploded. Hot acid scorching her throat and nose. She was on fire now, her blood roiling and burning like lava along her limbs. She couldn’t get a breath. Couldn’t stop it. They cut her leg. She would never dance again. It was over.

  The carefully-laid connections and context started to unravel. Without Erik over her to fix her place in the universe, Daisy was cut loose and drifting. She was falling down. Erik ran a cold cloth over her face and she clung to the sensation. He spooned her some ice chips. More cold jewels but it didn’t help. She was falling. She was dying.

  Erik set his hands on her shoulders and pressed her back.

  “Look at me,” he said.

  She fought to focus. On the other side of the bed, the pink nurse fiddled with the IV line and a syringe.

  Erik turned her face toward him. “No, look at me. Look only at me.”

  Blinking rapidly she put her eyes on his. He stared back. His pupils widened, eclipsing the honey brown. They shrank. Then widened again. She saw her face reflected in the black. There she was.

  “There we are,” the nurse said.

  “Look at me,” Erik said.

  Daisy felt her chest start to smooth out. The distant edges of her mind grew blurry as she looked at her reflection in Erik’s eyes.

  “I see me,” she whispered.

  “Look only at me.”

  “Only at you,” Daisy said. The edges were crumbling and drifting away like stardust.

  His hand slid against her face, his thumb gliding beneath one eye. Warm like lime. Cool like mint. She barely blinked now. Her chest rose and fell easily. The last layers of her mind peeled away.

  “Only me,” he said.

  Only you.

  “This.”

  This…

  She slept.

  A DETECTIVE CAME INTO HER ROOM and asked her questions about what happened in the theater. She couldn’t help him. She didn’t remember. The brick wall across her memory frightened her. She tried to scale it, digging for toe holds and crevices to jam her fingers in.

  “Who was it?” she asked.

  James, he told her.

  James shot her. James tried to kill her.

  “Do you know why he would target you?” the detective asked.

  “No,” she said. “I was water in the desert…”

  She grew frantic and hysterical under the questions. She wanted Erik. He wasn’t there. She needed to know where he was. It was dire. A tickle at the edge of her memory which became a scrape. Then a slice. She couldn’t remember. She began to call for him. Then scream for him. The detective rang the bell and the pink nurse came to inject something in the IV line.

  Daisy didn’t fall gently into sleep. She was sucked down into a black void, clawing and fighting. It was so dark behind her eyelids. So big, with no frame to support it. It would implode, collapse, crush her in an airless vacuum.

  Where are you? The words coiled into a whirlpool. The gelatinous black curved around her with sharp edges to peel the rest of her skin off.

  Where are you…?

  HER MIND AWOKE and her awareness unfolded. The silence leaned against her ears and she smelled Erik. Her eyes slowly opened.

  “Hey,” he said. He leaned one forearm on the mattress by her shoulder, rested the other palm on her cheek. She closed her eyes. Opened them again. She could see herself in his pupils.

  “Feel better?”

  She nodded, looking at herself in him. Her chest was serene. She felt no pain. She even managed to lift the corners of her mouth in a weak smile before thinking What am I going to do? The smile faded. Erik’s hand continued its gentle path over her face and hair. She shut her eyes, moved her forehead into the cup of his palm. He held her still.

  She breathed him in, listened to the sound of nothing.

  What will I do?

  Her eyes opened. Breathing deep, she stared down cross-eyed at his arm, not seeing.

  And then seeing. Beneath the heel of his hand a blob of color swam into focus.

  Her hand took his wrist, slowly drew it away from her head. She stared at the tattoo. While she was sleeping he had a daisy inked under the heel of his hand.

  Her fingertips came up to touch it. Touch where the skin was still pink and puffed around the black outlines and the yellow eye. A hint of white in each of the petals. One of them was slightly tattered.

  “Erik…”

  He said nothing. His fingers folded loosely onto his palm and then opened again. Like petals.

  “Does it hurt?” Her voice broke apart. Her heart swelled in her chest, squeezed the tears out her eyes.

  “Yes,” he said.

  She pulled his wrist against her neck as he leaned over her again. She nestled the daisy tattoo against her as she pressed her wet face into the safe warmth of his chest. His love was a frame
around her. A dome over her. It was warm and cool and it held still.

  I am here. In him. I will forever be in him now. In his eyes and in his skin.

  “Nobody loves me like you,” she said.

  Under his tattooed hand she fell into beautiful, soft sleep.

  THEY MOVED HER OUT OF THE ICU onto the main ward. Visitors were allowed and with the visitors came more pieces of the story.

  Lucky came to her. She scooched onto the narrow border of mattress snug to Daisy’s side, held her tight and told her Aisha Johnson, Taylor Revell and Manuel Sabena were dead.

  Daisy cried hard, her face pressed into Lucky’s spiral curls, in equal parts grief and confusion. She still didn’t understand what happened, still couldn’t came to grips with the gaping chunk of time ripped out of her memory where such violent and irrevocable things took place. Her friends were dead, her leg was sliced, Will was shot, Marie was in a coma.

  But Lucky was here.

  “You saved my life,” Daisy said. Everyone said so: Lucky’s EMT training and quick, level-headed thinking helped save both lives and limbs in the theater.

  Lucky’s hands were ice-cold. She trembled next to Daisy. “I was so fucking scared,” she said.

  “Where were you?”

  “In the wings with Opie. He pushed me down and threw himself on top of me. But there’s no exit on that side of the stage. We were penned in.”

  Daisy held her tight. “Opie would have done something.”

  “Jesus, is he a fucking prince or what?”

  He was. John thoughtfully brought Daisy a book—Stephen King’s The Eyes of the Dragon—and a big bag of Swedish Fish. One of his cheekbones was badly bruised. When he threw himself down to shield Lucky he hit his face against one of the boom stand bases. Daisy touched the greenish swelling and he gave a wincing smile but his eyes wouldn’t meet hers. He seemed upset and fretful but unable to articulate if it was any one thing or simply everything. After a few sweet but awkward minutes, he slipped away.

  Kees came. He was shot in the shoulder and his arm was in a sling. He took her hand and gently told her Marie Del’Amici died. He held Daisy’s head against his chest as she cried, then tenderly set it back on the pillow as she dipped and drooped back into exhausted sleep.