The Magic Room: A Story About the Love We Wish for Our Daughters

by Jeffrey Zaslow

  Megan and Shane two weeks after the accident

  Early on, Megan told her doctor that her wedding was August 1, just four months away. “What will I look like then? Do we need to move our date?”

  “Well, you’ll still be healing,” the doctor said. “We’re going to be doing plastic surgery on your face, your hands. But you’ll be able to get married. Don’t worry.”

  Shane had listened to the discussion, and then somewhat softly, he offered a few words that filled Megan’s heart, and her mother’s, too. “Megan,” he said, “it doesn’t matter what your face looks like. I’ll walk down the aisle with you today if you want.”

  When he finished speaking, Laura had to look away to compose herself. When the accident happened, this young man had been engaged to her daughter for just one week. He hadn’t yet signed on to stand by Megan in sickness and in health. It would be understandable if he asked to postpone the wedding, or even if he was scared away completely. And yet here he was, saying all he needed to say in two sentences. That’s the kind of love you wish for your daughter.

  In the week after the accident, Megan cried at times about her predicament. How could she not? But mostly, she soldiered through. As Laura watched her daughter find ways to cope and accept, she was very moved by this thought: We might think we know our children’s character, their inner fortitude and the limits of their resilience, but we can’t fully predict how they will respond in a crisis.

  Megan never asked, “Why me?” Instead, she said to Laura, “I’m pretty mad at myself, Mom. I can’t believe I allowed myself to fall asleep while driving.” More than anything, she’d say, she was grateful that “the grace of God got me through.”

  Laura was especially moved by Megan’s attitude when she was told about the need for amputation surgery. Perhaps if the doctors had told her they needed to amputate on the day of the accident, it would have been more traumatic for Megan. But by the sixth day, given all the pain she’d been through, and all she had learned about herself, about Shane’s love for her, and about the great concern displayed by so many people, she was able to accept the news. Besides, her fingers were turning black and ugly, with an odor that suggested death. “I’m ready,” she said.

  Before the operation, nurses asked her a number of questions, several of which were designed to gauge her awareness of what was ahead for her. “Do you know what the doctor plans to do today?” a nurse asked.

  “He’s going to amputate my dead fingers,” she answered. She did not say it in an emotional way. She said it as if she had already detached herself from those fingers, as if she had already mourned for them and said good-bye.

  In truth, Megan worried as much about her parents as they worried about her. “It’s hard for them to see their baby girl in such pain,” she told Shane.

  “Just let them love you and be there for you,” he replied. “It’s helping them, especially your mom.”

  Her mother’s hovering concern was often welcomed by Megan, but it annoyed her at times too. She appreciated that her mom was giving people updates, but wondered if all the gritty details were necessary. Her mother seemed eager to tell the world about Megan’s hand, almost as if it would make it easier for Laura to wrap her own head around what had happened.

  As Megan’s recovery continued, the sites of her injuries throbbed for hours, and the pain medication made her vomit. But there were sweet moments too. One night, highly medicated, she was extremely loopy. Not much she said made sense. But then she turned to Shane, smiled, and told him, “I like you. You’re nice.”

  Laura tended to the website. She went there not just to inform loved ones, but to grieve, to offer thanks, and to ask for assistance. She asked those reading to pray for the doctor’s wisdom and diligence, for the skin grafts on Megan’s forehead, for her colleagues back at Hope College, who were covering her classes, and most of all “for Megan’s healing, both physically and emotionally.”

  On Monday, April 5, at 12:24 p.m., seven days after the accident, Laura wrote on CaringBridge about the amputation surgery on Megan’s four fingers: “The tissue had died and was no longer viable. Dr. Allen also removed the dressing on Megan’s forehead and found that a spot the size of a silver dollar had not taken the graft and would need to be re-grafted. Megan slept well last night (her mom, not so much) and was calm while we waited for surgery. Each of the nurses commented on her positivity and evident faith in God. She and I also talked about how she will be able to adapt. There are certainly worse body parts to have to live without.”

  Two days later, Laura wrote on the website: “The prayers we need now are for tomorrow, when the doctor removes the dressing on her right hand and Megan sees her hand for the first time minus her fingertips. Dr. Allen has warned us that it will likely be quite traumatic for her. Please pray that Megan will have the strength to face her hand.”

  When the moment came for the doctor to unwrap the dressing, Megan got queasy. Some of it was due to pain—the gauze was stuck to her wound in several places—but she also felt nauseated just looking at what had become of her hand. She couldn’t tell how much of her hand was lost.

  Everything was too swollen. But she knew she was missing a good part of each finger. “It’s OK,” she said softly, and then, “Thank you, Doctor, for everything you’ve done for me.”

  Megan remained in Illinois for several weeks, staying at a Holiday Inn Express near the hospital, where she underwent daily therapy. During doctor visits, Megan often felt great pain when her hand was undressed and debrided (the removal of dead skin). As he worked, her doctor encouraged her to look at her hand. “You need to grieve the loss of your fingers,” he said, “to accept what your hand will look like.” And so she would force herself not to look away as she kept her left hand in Laura’s, squeezing tightly.

  In physical therapy, Megan, the fledgling kindergarten teacher, became a student, learning to dress, write, and open get-well cards with her left hand. “Your writing looks like your kindergarten students’ handwriting,” her doctor joked. At night, Shane and Laura worked jigsaw puzzles with her, to help her improve her fine motor skills on her left hand. Soon, they started working with what remained of her right hand. Trying to touch her thumb to the stump of a finger often left her light-headed, but she persevered. Her therapist worked with her to try to make a fist, to grip a fork. The pain could be excruciating, but progress was made.

  It was hard for Shane and Laura to watch Megan in such agony, and she was, understandably, very stressed out sometimes. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she’d tell them.

  “It’s OK,” Laura told her. “We just wish we could take the pain away.”

  Meanwhile, the wedding planning continued. Megan and Shane worked on the guest list and planned their honeymoon in Mexico. They arranged to return to Michigan together to select a wedding cake. Megan also would need to go to Becker’s for a second fitting. And as they thought about the wedding day, they decided that Megan ought to change the part in her hair and grow out bangs to cover the wound on her forehead. “You’ll look great,” Shane reassured her. (In the months ahead, her hair wouldn’t always cooperate with the new part, but that was the easiest challenge Megan faced.)

  Meanwhile, doctors kept finding gravel in Megan’s wounds. All of that gravel could take months to work its way out. There was also nail tissue in the stubs of Megan’s fingers. The nail tissue didn’t know a finger was gone, and would try to grow a nail, which was very uncomfortable. Megan was told this could go on for the next thirty years.

  On May 23, Megan agreed with Laura that it would be OK to post a photo of her right hand on CaringBridge, allowing friends and loved ones to better understand. Eventually, they’d all see the hand. Why put it off? “Megan told me to warn you in case you don’t have a strong stomach!” Laura wrote. “I think her hand looks beautiful.”

  Megan was able to return to student teaching a month after the accident. She really had no choice. To earn her degree in early childhood education, she needed
to finish her commitment to the school. But she felt very anxious. “Will the kids be afraid of me?” she asked her mom. “Will they not want to talk to me?”

  Laura couldn’t fully answer her. It’s hard to know how children will react to something like this. But she did tell Megan: “The kids loved you, and you’re still you.”

  It turned out, the children noticed the serious gash on her forehead first, and asked questions. She told them about the accident, how she was on her way to teach them when it happened. Her right hand was still bandaged, but the most curious kids asked for a look, and she obliged, unwrapping the dressing. The children stood around her, taking it in. Then one boy spoke: “At least you don’t have to clip your fingernails now.”

  The other kids agreed: Here was an unexpected benefit! Megan had to smile. She let out a breath; it was a moment of appreciation and relief. For the rest of her life as a teacher, children would be looking at her hand, asking questions. But it would all be OK.

  She pulled some strands of hair over the gash on her forehead, and led the children back to their desks.

  Day by day, Megan tried to focus on what was positive. When people asked about her injuries, she’d tell them: “Early on, one doctor said I wouldn’t have any bones in my fingers, but I do. He said I wouldn’t be able to write with my right hand, but I can.”

  Eventually, Megan returned to Michigan to take care of wedding tasks with her mother. Everywhere they went, her mother felt obliged to tell acquaintances and strangers the story of the accident. Megan would have preferred to keep her hand out of view, to pull her bangs over her forehead and try not to call attention to herself. She thought of telling her mother this, but instead she mentioned it to one of her mom’s friends at church. “Maybe telling so many people is her way of coping with what happened to you,” the woman told Megan. And so Megan decided to just let it be, and to show her hand and lift her bangs every time her mother brought it up to a curious onlooker.

  When they returned to Becker’s for the second fitting, Shelley didn’t immediately notice Megan’s injuries, and neither did her salespeople. Megan was relieved at that. A bride wants to feel beautiful stepping into her wedding dress. She doesn’t want to feel like an oddity, or an object of pity.

  But Megan hadn’t said anything about her urge to hide her injuries as she and Laura drove over to the store with Megan’s sister-in-law and best friend. Once they arrived, Laura spoke up pretty quickly.

  Gwen, her saleswoman, had been hovering around Megan, making small-talk. People’s eyes don’t immediately go to someone’s hands, and Megan’s hair had grown out and was covering her forehead pretty well. The injury on her nose was covered by makeup. Megan thought to herself: This is nice. No one is noticing.

  Then, in the Magic Room, as Shelley got on her knees, ready to start hemming, Gwen said, “You look beautiful, Megan. You really do.” That’s when Laura answered, “Yes, she’s looking so much better now. She’s really coming along well.”

  And, of course, the saleswomen had to ask what she was referring to, and once they looked at her hand and heard all the details, a couple of them actually got teary-eyed. One Becker’s worker had to walk away because she was ready to sob.

  It’s difficult for people to understand exactly how Megan’s fingers were so damaged in the accident, and so she had to explain about the open window, and falling asleep while driving. Her mom even lifted Megan’s bangs to show the forehead wound.

  For a while, no one was talking about the wedding dress, and Megan had to stand there, patiently answering questions and accepting condolences. She didn’t begrudge people their curiosity. It just felt deflating to discuss this while standing in her dress. When her mother was out of earshot, Megan said to her sister-in-law, “Boy, my mother sure likes bringing up what happened to me.”

  “I’ve noticed,” her sister-in-law said. “Should we say something?”

  “No, it’s OK. I understand.”

  By then, Megan realized that her mother’s response was a mix of her own nervousness and a maternal urge to protect Megan. Laura wanted to save her daughter the embarrassment of having her hand noticed, and it being the elephant in the room, with people afraid to say anything. In Laura’s mind, there was another issue, too. She had been able to keep her own emotions in check when telling people the story of Megan’s accident. But when Megan told the story herself, Laura often got choked up. Hearing her daughter so bravely explain her injuries, well, it was more than she could take. And so part of her chatter was proactive. She wanted to speak so Megan wouldn’t have to.

  Megan sensed all of this, and indulged her mother. As Shelley hemmed Megan’s wedding gown, Laura talked. “We actually feel lucky,” she said. “A lot worse could have happened. So many people have told us about a car rolling over and their loved one was paralyzed or had brain damage or died. Yes, Megan lost fingers and hit her head. It’s been hard for her, for all of us. But we still have her. She’s still Megan.”

  The last time Shelley had seen Megan in the Magic Room, she’d been engaged for just one week. There are photos of Megan from that day, smiling in her gown. Anyone who looks at the photos now can’t help but notice her hands at her side, her fingers intact. They notice that her forehead was clear, that her hair was parted the way she’d always worn it. Those turned out to be her last photos before the accident.

  Now Megan was back at the store, her new image repeating thousands of times in the Magic Room mirrors, her mother’s words—“She’s still Megan”—echoing in he head. “Come on downstairs,” she heard Shelley say, “we’re going to find you just the right headpiece.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Meredith

  Meredith Maitner never returned to Becker’s to buy her gown, and never again saw that super-sexy number she had tried on there. She was one of the hundreds of brides-to-be who visit Becker’s each year and leave without making a commitment.

  The thing about Meredith: She has warm memories of that sexy dress and how sensational she looked in it. She’s glad she has a photo of herself wearing it, taken in the Magic Room. But partly because she has spent these pre-wedding months very aware of her age—she’ll turn forty just before her wedding day—she decided she needed to walk down the aisle in something more subdued.

  She ended up buying her gown at a small, independent bridal shop that was going out of business. “The store was in this old, horrible-looking house,” she later told friends, “and when I got there, I said to myself, ‘They’ll never have a dress for me.’”

  In one bedroom there were racks of dresses, and in a second bedroom with green shag carpeting dating to the 1970s, there was a simple pedestal and a mirror. “The store didn’t have a Magic Room, that’s for sure,” Meredith said, “but I found a magic dress. It works for my figure. It’s cheaper. It’s elegant. I love it.”

  Shelley never likes to lose a sale because someone can’t find the right dress—that’s one reason Becker’s has 2,500 in stock—but like a fisherman resigned to letting some fish get away, she recognizes she can’t snag them all. She tries to find it in her heart to wish all brides well, even if they don’t wear a Becker’s dress. That’s harder to do, of course, with brides who waste her time trying on dresses they intend to buy more cheaply on the Internet. But for someone like Meredith, “I understand,” Shelley says. “I hope she lives happily ever after and never needs to come back to look for another dress.”

  Younger brides are more apt to focus on the details of their ceremonies, dresses, receptions, and honeymoons. They walk around with thick “wedding notebooks” crammed with names, phone numbers, menus, gift registries. No one walks around with a thick notebook about how to prepare for a meaningful marriage. The marriage can feel like an afterthought.

  But for Meredith, the months leading up to her wedding have been a time of introspection. Given her age, she has friends who’ve already bought wedding dresses twice in their lives. Some have found great happiness in their second marriages.
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  One of her friends married and had children very young; she and her husband didn’t know what they wanted in a mate, or how to compensate for their differences. The marriage ended in divorce. The second time, this friend knew better what she was looking for. “It makes such a difference when you’re with the right person,” she told Meredith.

  Because Meredith and her fiancé, Ron, are older and marrying for the first time, Meredith feels they’re wiser, more settled, and more confident than when they were young. When she puts her life in perspective, she realizes that she may have skipped the “starter marriage” that so many women in her generation now have behind them.

  “In all my years of dating, I went on a few runs of jerk, jerk, jerk,” she says. “I also dated intelligent, genuine men who might have made good husbands for someone, but not for me. I just couldn’t develop emotional feelings for them.”

  She also dated men who thought she was smart and fun, but they weren’t attracted to her romantically. “There were so many times when I thought, ‘Well, maybe there’s something wrong with me.’ But I came to realize that there wasn’t something wrong with me, or wrong with the guy. There just wasn’t a connection.”

  She is relieved that she never misstepped into marriage with one of the jerks—or one of the nice guys with whom she felt no passion. She recognizes the tradeoffs: It may be too late now for her to have children, given her age and that she has diabetes and high blood pressure. That saddens her. But mostly, she’s decided, she’s happy with where her life has carried her.

  In her management role at a footwear company, Meredith earns significantly more than Ron does as a graphic designer. If they’re able to have children, or if they adopt, he’ll be the stay-at-home dad while she works. Meredith is comfortable with that. As she got older as a single woman, and very successful on her own, she realized that if she ever found the right man, it didn’t matter if he was rich or had a high-powered career. And it didn’t matter if he wasn’t the stereotypical ideal on other fronts.