by Andrew Roe
“Who the fuck’re you?”
A man has appeared, prison-guard scowl smeared across his face. Shirtless. Disheveled and dazed, like he’d just had sex, or, more likely, and judging by his open-mouthed breathing and lightly sweated brow, has been having sex, present tense.
“I’m a neighbor, I live here,” John explains. “I was walking, taking out my trash, and I found her, this girl. She was lost and wandering around the complex. She said she thought her mom might be here. The door was open, so we came in.”
The man squints in incomprehension, scratches his Santaesque belly.
“Kid,” he shouts. “Wake up.”
Then from behind him: out floats a thin, wobbly, distracted woman, no more than twenty-five, hair wet and clinging to her reddened cheeks, and cinching a terrycloth robe that’s way too big and probably the man’s.
“Rachel?” the woman says, reaching for a cigarette in the robe’s pocket. “What’s wrong with Rachel?”
John nudges Rachel so she’ll wake up and explain everything. He expects a film crew from Cops to bust in at any second.
“This guy here,” the man accuses, “sitting on my fucking couch, making himself at home and watching TV, he says she was wandering around outside. Says he found her and brought her back. This is the kind of shit I’m talking about, Alexis. Too many complications. Too many things I don’t want to be worrying about.”
“Rachel,” the mother says, her voice medicated and slow, checking her pockets for a lighter now that there’s a cigarette in her mouth. “How’d you go and get yourself out there? Come here.”
Rachel, groggy but now awake, obeys, and as she walks past him John has the sudden urge to reach out and put a hand on her shoulder and prevent her from going to the mother. He has the rash and ridiculous thought of taking the girl with him, of rescuing her.
“The door was open,” Rachel says. “I was tired of the noises.”
Rachel and her mother disappear into a back room. John looks at the TV again, wondering if there might be anything else on the screen that could blow his mind.
“You can get going now, neighbor,” the man says. “You’ve done your good fucking deed for the day.”
The door slams behind him. And once again John steers through the maze of Desert Piss, this time thinking he may never find his apartment, he could be walking and wandering all night, yet more penance, his mind still replaying the story he’d seen on TV, all the people at his house, the expressions on their faces, the porch, Karen (who had definitely lost weight), Anabelle’s room exploding with statues, stuffed animals, balloons. All this happening without him. But what does he expect? He’s the one who left.
Turning a corner he almost collides with a fellow late-night refugee, another guy who’s shirtless, as well as barefoot, basketball-type shorts dragging down past his knees, the night heat relentless even at this hour. John apologizes: “Sorry, man, sorry, I wasn’t paying attention, my fault, my fault, totally my fault.”
“You all right?” the guy asks, sounding genuinely concerned. “You look like you seen a ghost.”
Ghosts—that’s for sure.
How the past haunts the present. Shapes it. This he knows. This he knows more than he knows anything else.
7
| Anabelle |
TWO DAYS AGO seemed like two years. Was it? Was it last week when Rudy Cisneros rubbed a booger on her back, or last month? Was it this year or last year when she was sick with chicken pox and she was in bed so much her back and legs ached and her mother sat on her bed and sang songs and told her stories about princes and castles and magical spells that turned you into something else? Things kept getting blurrier and blurrier and she wasn’t sure why, why the difference. Her mind was funny that way: it couldn’t sort the difference. It used to. But not now. Something had changed. She could tell. It wasn’t so much about what came first and what happened last. It was about the feeling, the memory of what happened. No longer going from dot to dot but everything going in one big circle, looping around and around and around.
Sometimes she knew when the phone would ring before it actually rang, and sometimes, too, she could make the phone ring. Just by staring. Just by concentrating hard enough, long enough. All her thoughts narrowing down to this one core thing: ring phone, ring. And then it would. Ring. Her mother would answer, or her father would answer, and then she would smile, marvel at how she could think something into the world like that.
Before you knew it, it was Christmas time again and they forgot to put up the lights outside.
They had some things, not many, but no pets. Time went by.
She wondered: What would happen if she had to pick one over the other? If someone showed up at their door one day and said to her: “You have to pick one. Your mother or your father. And you must pick now. And then I’m going to take the other one, the one you don’t pick, away. Forever. You will never see this person again, for as long as you live.”
She wondered about this a lot, what it would be like, how she would act, and when she imagined the details this someone at the door was tall and skeletony and wore a long black overcoat that almost touched the ground. And this someone had a hat and sunglasses. You couldn’t see anything but nose and mouth and hints of veiny earlobes. The voice sounded like a machine. It was not like any voice she’d ever heard in her life, not in movies, not anywhere.
“So who do you pick?” the someone said, waiting.
The choice was not hard. She didn’t have to hem and haw like you do when you pick dessert at a restaurant. She didn’t have to pretend. Because she’d thought of this moment many, many times. She’d thought of what it would be like and who she would choose. And now it had come, this moment, now it had finally arrived like the first day of summer vacation, it might be a dream or not a dream, she wasn’t sure, but it was as real as anything else.
She watched her father leave, and was not surprised, was not relieved or happy or anything like that, but felt the weight of this decision crash upon her like a big giant wave, how it would change everything after, how it was something you couldn’t ever get back, and she didn’t move, she fought the power and pull of the wave and dug in deep and held her ground and didn’t fall over, remained standing in the doorway, and she reached for her mother who was crying and crying and would be crying for some time, until they closed the door and went inside and sat down on the sofa and began to talk about their new lives, just the two of them, and what that would be like in the days, weeks, years ahead.
Then she was sleeping again. Then she was awake. Time went by. Rudy Cisneros’s booger was the biggest, grossest in the whole entire history of boogers. She started walking, her legs solid and firm and thick, like tree trunks. They were good legs. Strong legs. They would never let her down. She kept walking and walking, and she knew she would do this until she was so tired she would just lie down and rest wherever she ended up: the sidewalk, the street, a parking lot, someone else’s driveway, her school, Disneyland, the beach. But that would come later. But now: The sun was high in the sky and it was beautiful and she stared at its brightness and kept walking.
8
Welcome to the Official Anabelle Vincent Web Site
We hope you enjoy your visit. Here you will find information about Anabelle Vincent aka “The Miracle Girl.”
In 1998, seven year old Anabelle Vincent was in a very serious car accident. She almost died. The accident left her a bedridden invalid with practically no hope of recovery. But while her body might be frail and stilled, her voice silenced and unable to communicate, she offers hope to those who need it most. She is a very special little girl and miracles surround her.
Today little Anabelle is the focus of international media attention, her story having appeared in many newspapers and TV shows. Everyday people line up outside Anabelle’s house in southern California to see her and to pray to her. Wonderous things happen in her bedroom, where she is cared for around the clock by her loving mother Karen and
a small group of family, friends, and volunteers. (***NOTE: Because of the large numbers of visitors it is now being requested by the family that people signup for visits in advance. You can signup for the Waiting List by CLICKING HERE. Thank You!!!***)
— If you would like to read articles about Anabelle, CLICK HERE
— If you would like to see Photos of Anabelle, CLICK HERE
— If you would like to sign the Guestbook and share an experience you had with Anabelle or offer a thought, a prayer, or give feedback about this site, CLICK HERE.
— If you are interested in making a donation to the newly-created Anabelle Vincent Fund, CLICK HERE
— If you would like to send Email to the Webmaster, CLICK HERE
Last updated November 17th 1999.
676,381 visitors since this site was created.
Miracles do not happen in contradiction to nature, but only in contradiction to that which is known to us of nature.
~ Saint Augustine ~
9
| Karen and John |
IT WAS A car accident, of course, the most common of contemporary tragedies. And there was no way she could reasonably blame him (the other driver’s fault, totally, as confirmed by multiple eyewitnesses, not to mention a silver-haired judge and an insurance company), but sometimes she did, blame him, later, when exhaustion and doubt got the best of her. He had been the one driving while she stayed at home. He had been the one in control, supposedly, of the vehicle, her car, the crap Festiva, because his was in the shop. He was the one who’d decided, after several discussions that eventually escalated into a half-hearted argument, that they needed a new VCR even though they couldn’t afford it and their current one only occasionally caused videotapes to jitter and jump and distort. He was the one who, on that seemingly inconsequential December day in 1998, opted for the mall rather than BestBuy, which was a little closer and probably even a little cheaper. He was the one who’d spaced on getting gas the previous day and then had to stop at a gas station, which meant the trip took an extra five minutes and required a slight detour from the usual home-to-mall route. Had he not spaced on getting gas the previous day, they wouldn’t have been crossing that particular intersection at that particular time and thus would have avoided the accident and the path of one Matthew Ronald Kimbrough (blood-alcohol level well above the legal limit). And, she thought, he had been the one who’d chosen to make the trip in the late afternoon as opposed to the morning, on Saturday instead of Sunday, because on Sunday there was a game of some kind, and no, he couldn’t tape it because that was another problem with the goddamn, piece-of-shit VCR, which just proved his point even more, he said. And she’d learned that these things—these simple, apparently random things that do not appear to mean anything at the time—have their repercussions; they add up and fuck you and shape your future whether you realize it or not. And why hadn’t he been able to avoid the other car? All crashes are avoidable, aren’t they? His driving skills, when she really thought about it in the aftermath of the accident, had always been somewhat suspect. He was one of those one-handed, cool-guy Southern California drivers who barely grasp the wheel and concentrate more on the scenery and the radio station than the road and the death and horror and destruction looming everywhere. So she wondered: Had there been a brief lapse there, a moment when a bikinied billboard or a Led Zeppelin song he hadn’t heard in years had taken precedence over the safety of Anabelle, their seven-year-old child, their world? Had such carelessness been the real culprit, despite the overwhelming evidence against Matthew Ronald Kimbrough, who’d wept repeatedly in court and didn’t have a child of his own and said he could only imagine what it must be like, and he was sorry, sorry, a thousand times sorry, Your Honor, adding that the one positive to come out of this whole mess was that he’d found God, whereas before his life was sans God and pretty much unfocussed and empty, and sure, like everyone else he’d always been skeptical when he heard of people finding religion in jail, but now he understood; he understood how guilt brings you to God. And then there was the fact that he, her husband, was merely sprinkled with cuts and a few bruises and also a sprained wrist, but nothing that required a hospital stay: in and out of the emergency room, while their daughter fought for life.
* * *
John blamed himself as well. Naturally. He was the questionable parent, always had been. This was how the casting of their marriage went—she the vigilant, suffering mother who had the final say on everything; he the reluctant father who, after they found out Karen was pregnant, had suggested that maybe they weren’t ready and shouldn’t have a baby just yet and as a result felt forever guilty for having committed some basic parental transgression that would never be forgiven. The accident, then, confirming what was already well documented. He hadn’t seen the other car creep out, then accelerate toward them, into them. Hadn’t seen. Their seatbelts were on, secure. So he was covered there. And he was sober. Completely and utterly sober. Still, it was his fault. No matter what the law and the judge and jury had said; no matter how much the settlement had been; no matter how much the doctors and the hospital had fucked up. And it was all so sudden, like a sucker punch that staggers you. He was driving and Anabelle was there in the backseat, and then the tires and the unrepentant roar of metal against metal. He reacted as best he could, turned sharply to the left, locking it up like in a video game, skidding uncontrollably, but there wasn’t enough time. It was too late. Nothing had ever happened so quickly, with such fierce, brute force, so true and final. Immediately he knew it was bad. It was just a question of how bad. The car was flopped around backassward and he’d lost all sense of direction. Where were they? He was OK, basically. His head was a thunderstorm of guitar feedback and his heart a riot in his chest, but not so bad considering. The passenger side of the car, however, had crumpled in on itself like an aluminum can. His daughter was bloody and squashed. That was the word exactly: squashed. The silence afterward chilled him. Such fury, then such quiet—which was worse? He started screaming. For how long he didn’t know. What he was saying he didn’t know either. It was just a primal howl, pure lament. They dragged him from the car (still screaming, he was later told), but they had to wait for the Jaws of Life for Anabelle, and he kept hearing that—the Jaws of Life, the Jaws of Life—and it didn’t really register, what they were talking about; it was that device you saw on the news that they use to pry people out of cars, and it usually meant death, not life. He dropped to the sidewalk. It was happening and it wasn’t happening. Maybe he was more injured than he thought. His wrist throbbed. The left one. The one he’d been driving with, holding the steering wheel. Where was his right hand when it happened? The car that hit them had apparently then rammed another car and then another, though neither as bad as his. There was a man on his knees. The man was saying something. Cops and fire trucks arrived. People hovered stupidly. They seemed afraid to talk to him. He must be the father, someone was saying, and it was his inclination to deny this, to tell them no, he was not the father; he was not worthy of such a title, the way his father hadn’t been, and the way his father’s father hadn’t been, shitty parenting having been passed down from generation to generation, and how can you break a chain like that once it gets going? Waiting, waiting. The concrete warm from the sun. Telling the paramedics not to worry about him. But his daughter. The last time he’d seen his father was a few months before he’d died and they’d had dinner and said very little. Once in the ambulance he got his first real look at her. One of the paramedics talking about head trauma and the lack of oxygen to the brain and how every second counted. My wrist hurts. I think it’s broke, he wanted to tell them, but how could he say such a thing at such a time? A wrist hardly mattered. Clumps of blood clung to Anabelle’s hair. Her eyes were closed. She was strapped in and the ambulance snaked and wailed. He couldn’t really make out her face, recognize her as the girl he’d left home with. Everything was swollen and mangled and red. They had put one of those neck braces on her and n
ow that was bloody, too. Another paramedic cradled her head, as if his hands were all that was holding her skull together. And maybe they were. Up front the driver yelled: “Fucking cars! Fucking traffic! What do people not understand about the concept of flashing red lights?” A group was waiting for them in the hospital parking lot: activity, a lot of words he didn’t understand. They wheeled her away and he followed along and one of the doctors asked if he was OK and he said, “Yes, fine I think,” and the doctor said, “We’d better check you out just the same, to be sure,” and that’s when he told them about his wrist, which was throbbing worse by then. He tracked down a pay phone. He had to call first, before anything else. He almost forgot his own number. Maybe it was shock. He slammed the phone in the cradle because he couldn’t remember the number and people stared and he leaned there against the phone until the sequence of digits came to him, finally. He waited for Karen to pick up. What was he going to say? Where to begin? Shit. What had he done? Later he would wonder: What had Anabelle been saying before the crash? What were her final words? He couldn’t even remember. It was probably nothing out of the ordinary: I’m hungry. When are we going to get there? Can we go to KB Toys? Why was Mom mad at you this morning? When are you going to like each other again? But even that would have been something. His daughter was quiet, mysterious, given to staring out windows and sitting on the sidewalk and mumbling to herself in that weird made-up language of hers. The last words she might ever speak and he couldn’t remember them. His failure was complete.