by Carrie Arcos
I really don’t want to do this.
“Maybe we should come back later,” I say to Audrey. She grabs my hand and pulls me along.
When Christine’s mom spies us, she smiles and hugs Audrey first, then me. “Thank you for coming. Christine will be happy to see you.” She lowers her voice. “She really needs her friends right now.”
Christine’s mom says good-bye to the others in the hallway, thanking them for coming, she’ll let them know what she needs, and so on. Then she ushers us into the small hospital room, where there are tons of flowers and cards. A gray-and-yellow balloon already losing some of its helium hangs halfway in the air in the corner by the window. Christine sits up in the bed when she sees us. Her short black hair is pulled back from her face in a couple of clips. The left side of her face is bruised as if she was hit across her cheek and jawbone. Like me.
“Hi,” Audrey says, and walks over to give Christine a gentle hug.
“Hey, Christine,” I say.
“Hi.” Christine smiles at us.
I avoid looking directly at her right arm, but in my periphery, I can see it’s bandaged and appears shorter than her left.
“How are you?” Audrey asks.
Christine shrugs and tears fill her eyes. “Well, I’ve moved past the stage one anger into stage two, feeling sorry for yourself.”
“How much longer are you in here?”
“I actually get to go home today.”
“That’s great!” Audrey says a little too brightly.
“Yeah. Spending a week in the hospital sucks. The best part is I’ll finally get out of this gown.”
The gown is the same as I wore, what my mom’s wearing now. Standard light-blue hospital chic.
I stand there next to Audrey, who sits on the bed.
“Zara.” Christine turns to me, as if noticing I’m there for the first time. “How is your mom?”
“She’s still in a coma. But my dad is hopeful, so—”
“And how are you doing?”
“I’m fine. This”—I refer to my cheek—“will heal, I guess. A few stitches on my back . . . Fortunately I didn’t . . .” I’m about to say get really hurt, but it seems insensitive and stupid in front of the girl who just lost her arm, so I stop midsentence.
Christine’s mom pokes her head in and says, “Audrey, can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Sure.” Audrey exits the room, leaving me and Christine alone. My eyes keep darting to her arm. Just like people have been doing to me, with my face. I guess it’s impossible not to.
After a moment I can speak again. She knows what it was like, being there. It feels okay to ask. “Does it hurt?”
“You know what’s crazy—I don’t remember it hurting when it happened. They say I was in shock. Now I’m on tons of meds, so I’m not sure what it’s going to feel like when I’m off them.” She extends her good arm and flexes her hand. “It’s true, though, you know, what they say about that phantom limb stuff. At first, I literally had no idea that it was already gone. And even after the surgery, I felt like it was still there at first. I still kind of do. It aches.” She rubs the end of her bandaged arm. “Does your cheek hurt?”
I shrug. “It’s okay. It looks worse now than it actually feels.”
She nods. “Can I see your back?”
I hesitate. I’ve only shown the doctors and Dad. Not even Audrey has asked this of me. But there’s something in Christine’s eyes, something that says she needs to see that I suffered too. That even though I still have my arm, I’ve also been maimed. That she isn’t the only one. So I turn and slowly lift up my shirt.
“That looks like a lot of stitches.”
“Sixty-seven.”
I lower my shirt.
“Painful, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Where were you standing when it went off?” she asks.
I’ve been asked this question many times. Shouldn’t the answer come easier by now? A moment later, I remember.
“Over by the candy, you know, the saltwater taffy and licorice. You?”
“We were on the other end, just leaving. Actually, I’m the one who wanted to wait in line for a juice. My mom wanted to go.”
“We must have just missed each other.” Though I wonder, if I had seen Christine, whether I would have called out to get her attention.
“If we weren’t still there waiting, we would have gotten out of there. We would have been in the car, driving home.”
I’m quiet. I can’t speak to another person’s feelings because I’ve got enough of my own to deal with.
“I didn’t even like it,” she says.
“What?”
“The juice. It was a green one. Something you’re supposed to get because it’s all healthy, but what I really wanted was the shake.”
I nod. “Their shakes are the best.”
Christine’s eyes well up with tears. “Now I’m a freak. Who’s going to want to date a girl without an arm? Travis hasn’t even come to visit me.”
Travis, her boyfriend for a few months toward the end of this past school year. They broke up not too long ago. I knew him from the beach. His family had a bathhouse one aisle down from us. We grew up seeing each other most summers.
“He’s probably just scared,” I say.
“Yeah. Because I’m a freak.”
“No, because he doesn’t know what to say. It’s the same with me. No one knows what to say to me about what happened to my mom and me except they’re sorry. My grandparents, Audrey, Natasha, Sibyl, even my dad . . . they keep searching for the right words. As if the right words will make everything all better. If there even are any right words to say.”
“Still, he could have at least called. How does he think I feel? Does he think I’m not scared?” She lies back on the pillow and stares at the ceiling. “So much time and work, for years, all for nothing. Wasted.”
I sit next to her and offer her the only thing I can. I listen.
“You know, last year, I really started to hate playing tennis. I even told my parents that I wanted to quit. Oh, that set them off. They couldn’t believe it. I was so good. So dedicated. How could I give up when everything, all the sacrifice, was just starting to pay off? Blah. Blah. Blah. But I didn’t enjoy it anymore. I guess I got what I wanted. I can’t play like this, obviously. But now I want it back.” The tears stream down her face. “I just want to play tennis.”
If I had lost my arm, would I still be able to take photos? It would be difficult, but I could probably learn how, adjust over time. It’s more like, what if I went blind? That would be horrible. To never be able to take or see a picture, or see anything, ever again. I wouldn’t even know how to process the world.
I place my hand on Christine’s leg. “It’s horrible,” I say.
“Thanks,” she says. “For not trying to make me feel better.”
“I could try to make you feel worse?”
She laughs.
I smile.
“Can you sleep?” I ask.
“They’ve got me so drugged with painkillers that I’m sleeping like a baby. Why? You having trouble sleeping?”
“Benny heard me cry out in the middle of the night once. I didn’t even know until he told me the next morning. But since then, lately, I’ve been having nightmares. It’s like all these really graphic, gruesome memories from the bombing just pour into my head, and I can’t stop them.”
“Wow. I don’t remember anything about the explosion. When I woke up, I was already here. Do you remember anything?”
“Yeah. More than I’d like, actually,” I say. “It was . . . unreal.” I try to find the words. “There was this booming sound and then I was thrown. I couldn’t hear anything at first. But I could see people screaming. It was really scary. Like the worst horror imaginable.”
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br /> “Wow,” Christine said. “I keep trying to remember. The doctor said that it could come back or it may never, but not to be too hard on myself.” She looks down.
I nod.
“You still taking pictures?” she asks.
“Kind of,” I say. “Not as often. It’s weird, but I haven’t really wanted to. It doesn’t feel as important as before.” I shrug. “But I’m trying.”
She considers this. “Could you take one of me?”
“Really? Um . . .” The question shocks and confounds me. My injuries are way less noticeable, and I still wouldn’t want my picture taken.
“I know it probably sounds weird, but I don’t want to forget this experience. I mean, it can’t ever be this bad again, right? So maybe, if I can look back on this time in my life, actually physically look back on it, then when things get hard in the future, I’ll have a visual reminder that they could always be worse. And that they have actually gotten much better.”
It reminds me a little of what Mr. Singh said about his friend documenting his partner’s battle with cancer.
Sometimes our art is the only way out of the dark.
I swallow past the lump in my throat and smile. “Sure. Happy to.”
Christine slowly unwraps the elastic bandage covering her amputated arm. “The doctor is supposed to change this anyway.” She unwinds the outer wrap. The skin is raw and red, and she is completely exposed. It’s very hard to look at, but Christine is so brave, I just start clicking.
“It’s weird,” she says. “I guess you and I have something to bond over now that’s not about Audrey.”
When I’m done, we look at the photos together, and she chooses the one she thinks best captures what she’s feeling. I tell her I’ll upload it and send it to her.
“Thanks for coming to see me,” she says.
“My pleasure,” I say. And I mean it.
* * *
∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙
Audrey returns to the room a few minutes later and sits on the bed. We hang out with Christine until her doctor enters the room and examines her arm. Audrey and I leave to give her privacy and head for the cafeteria. We order ice cream bars and sit at one of the tables.
“What did Christine’s mom want?” I ask.
“She asked me about organizing people to come visit Christine when she gets home so that she won’t be alone so much. Kind of like those food registries after someone has a baby.”
“That probably is a good idea, even if she fights it at first.”
“Why would she fight it?” Audrey asks.
“She may not want to see so many people.” I set my camera down on the seat next to me and take a bite of the bar. Chocolate and vanilla together.
“This is amazing,” I say.
“Mm-hmm.”
We’re quiet for a few minutes. But I can tell Audrey is just biding her time, waiting to ask me something.
“So, Zara, how are you doing?”
I finish chewing. “I’m good.” Talking with Christine, taking her picture, has actually made me feel a little better. I didn’t have to try and explain. She’s dealing with something so much worse than my own physical pain, but we understand each other in ways that Audrey will never get.
“I’m being serious. I don’t want you to feel like you’re going through this alone.”
I shrug. “I have my grandparents and Benny.” Dad practically lives at the hospital, but I know he’s going through a lot too, and he’s trying. If I really needed him, I know he would be there for me.
“That’s not the same thing. And you tend to isolate yourself when you’re going through something.”
“I do not.”
“Yeah, you do. Remember when you and Mike broke up? You didn’t talk to me for a whole week.”
“You’re exaggerating.” But I know she’s not.
“Or when you didn’t get into that photography program last year? I think that was even longer.”
Audrey may have a point. “Sometimes I just need time to process, that’s all.”
“Okay, but just . . . please don’t shut me out, all right?” she asks, and then takes a bite of her ice cream.
I’m about to object again, but I can’t. She’s right. I do shut her out when things get hard. It’s not personal. I shut everyone out. I don’t know why. Survival mechanism, I guess. It’s easier to avoid than deal; don’t get too close. Now that I think about it, Mom is the same way. I wonder if I learned it from her.
“Look, I know that I’m not one hundred percent,” I say. “Not even fifty percent. It’s going to take time. Seeing Christine like that . . . that was tough.”
“For me too. I kept staring at her arm.”
“I just kept thinking that that could have been me, lying in the bed with an amputated limb. I got off easy. I haven’t lost anything.” The word “yet” hangs in the air and hovers there—like my mother’s life—as though it could dart in either direction. “I just don’t want her to give up.”
“Christine is tough. She’ll make it through.”
“Yeah,” I agree, though I wasn’t referring to Christine.
“Hey, you’re wearing the prayer beads.”
My hand flies up to them. “Oh, yeah.” Since I put them on the day I had that terrible migraine, I’ve just kept wearing them. They’re comforting somehow. And they remind me to pray for Mom. It feels right to pray for her.
“That’s good. Have you found Marko yet?”
“No. I haven’t done any looking since you were over.” I kind of regret showing Audrey the box. Mom doesn’t even know I’ve seen it yet. How would she feel if she knew I’d shared her private things with someone else? Suddenly, it doesn’t even feel right to be talking about it. “I should go,” I say, popping the last of the bar in my mouth and putting my camera strap over my shoulder. I’ve already been gone too long. “Check in on Mom.”
As we stand to leave, I hear my name being called.
“Zara!”
I turn to see Joseph walking toward Audrey and me.
“Glad I found you,” he says when he reaches us.
“Hey, Joseph.”
“Hey, I forgot to give you my number,” he says.
“Oh, right. Sorry.” I take out my phone.
“What’s yours? I’ll just text you.”
I tell him, and he types it into his phone.
“I’m Audrey,” Audrey says.
“Joseph. Nice to meet you.”
Audrey is smiling all goofy and wide.
“So, you guys know each other how?”
“Oh, we met in the chapel,” Joseph says. “Zara took some photos for me.”
“She’s a great photographer,” Audrey says, and looks back and forth from me to Joseph.
“Yes, she is.”
“Really good. Like gallery-good one day.”
“Thanks, Audrey,” I say, pinching her arm.
“You go to school together?” Joseph asks.
“Since sixth grade. Where do you go?”
Joseph hesitates, but says, “I’m homeschooled. Well, technically I was. I just graduated. This is kind of my gap year.”
I don’t think I’ve met anyone who’s been homeschooled before. But I’m surprised he already graduated. I thought we were the same age.
“Gap year?” Audrey says.
“Yeah, you know, when people take a year off from high school before college? It’s more common in Europe than America, I suppose.”
“Are you from Europe?” Audrey asks.
“Nope. Boston. My mom’s from Ireland, though. For her gap year, she backpacked across Europe. Right now I’m exploring religion and faith a bit, asking the big questions and stuff. Figuring it out.”
“Joseph’s grandmother is in the hospital. That’s why he’s here,”
I say.
“I hope she gets better,” says Audrey.
“Thanks. She really enjoyed meeting you, Zara.”
Out of the corner of my eyes, I can see Audrey staring at me, and she’s no longer even trying to conceal her what-have-you-been-keeping-from-me expression.
“Well, we need to go,” I say, backing away from Joseph and pulling Audrey with me.
“Right. See you.” Joseph lifts his hand in a wave and walks back the way he came.
When he’s barely out of earshot, Audrey turns to me, smug. “Now I see why you’ve been so busy.”
“Oh, stop it.”
She nudges me with her elbow. “Spill it.”
“What? He’s just a nice guy visiting his sick grandma in the hospital.”
“Yeah. A nice hot guy.”
“He’s relatively attractive,” I admit.
“Relatively? He’s got those eyes that bore right through your soul.” She touches her chest. “I was getting nervous just talking to him.” She giggles, and I can’t help but laugh too.
Pretty soon we’re laughing so hard, walking down the hallway, past the reception desk, that I need to lean against a wall by the elevators for support. Even though it pulls at the wound on my cheek and across my back too, it feels really good to laugh.
My phone buzzes with a text. It’s Dad.
Where are you? Mom’s awake
1994
Spring
Sarajevo
BiH
“THE WORLD IS shit,” Dalila said while expelling a plume of smoke into the already hazy air. “No one in the West cares. Big American nothing. They are busy watching TV and getting fat eating while we are dying like animals in the street. They can all go shit on themselves.” The words were Amir’s, stolen from one of his typical rants. Dalila selected only the leanest and most provocative for the room.
The older boys watched her with amused, hungry eyes. Dalila seemed to grow bolder under their gaze. However, when their eyes roamed over Nadja, the boys shifted, scattered like rabbits. The boys were not welcome there.