by Abby Maslin
He felt sort of bad.
I wonder if his guilt felt any way comparable to the pain his actions have inflicted.
For twenty long minutes the public defenders plead their clients’ innocence as the judge denies their requests, insistent that there’s more than enough compelling evidence to warrant keeping them behind bars for another month. During this time, I’ve become livid. Furious. Seething.
I don’t feel anger often, but right now I’m feeling it in spades, shocked by how visceral the experience is in my body. It’s as if I could throw over tables or lift a car or possibly even hurt someone. It’s an anger that alarms me in how natural it feels.
And yet, it’s deeply unsatisfying. I am face-to-face with the men who almost murdered TC. No one would blame me if I lost my mind for a moment. I could scream or jump over the seat or throttle someone. I could do something I’ve never done before: I could choose to break every rule I’ve ever been conditioned to follow.
But the reality is that nothing, literally nothing, in this room will change the outcome of our situation. No form of justice can reverse time. No apology will ever mend TC.
“Relax,” I hear Bethany command in a whisper, and I bring my body upright again, finding stillness.
Just as quickly as it opened, the spigot to my anger closes, and I focus in on the beating of my heart. Whatever ending there is to this story, it will not be written in this courtroom.
CHAPTER 13
October–November 2012
At the rehab hospital, TC and I have been bestowed new nicknames: Romeo and Juliet. My favorite nurse, Cindy, coins the term one afternoon as she watches us snuggling inside the mesh tent that sits atop TC’s bed.
“You guys are the sweetest,” she says, smiling, before continuing her rounds on the brain injury unit.
The tent is TC’s latest safety precaution, the consequence of his recent getting-out-of-bed misdemeanor. It looks exactly like the Mickey Mouse tent bed I had as a kid, closed on all sides, accessible through a zippered door, one that, in TC’s case, can be opened and shut only from the outside.
This is where we spend much of our time these days, zipped inside our mesh love nest. With me I bring any tiny thing I hope will make TC feel more comfortable here: a fuzzy blanket, a pair of new sweatpants, a portable DVD player in the event he wants to watch old episodes of 30 Rock. I’m bringing in all the things I can to make this place feel like home, but TC still responds with minimal recognition. Plus, he can’t figure out the DVD technology on his own. He watches politely as I set up the screen for him, my hair standing straight up with static electricity as I struggle getting in and out of the tent bed, trying to connect the power cord to the wall. Neither can he manage the new iPhone I’ve purchased for him, which sits unused on his nightstand table.
If I can teach him to text me, I won’t be at the will of whichever nurse is on duty at the hospital to check in with my husband each night. But there are simply too many steps involved in sending a text. One must be able to turn on the phone, correctly utilize the contact feature, and be able to type out legible words.
I’ve put the cart before the horse, or so it seems. The iPhone, like the DVD player, is meant for the old TC, the one who’d lose his mind without something to keep him connected to the outside world during these long, lonely days.
The new TC doesn’t much resemble the old version. It’s not just the physical changes. TC’s now sunken skull, absent that large bone flap, is a sight to behold, but it’s easier to look beyond than one would imagine. It’s the subtle personality changes that have me most flummoxed. The longer TC can sustain alertness, the greater the glimpse I get into his new persona.
“Do you remember what happened to you? Do you know why you’re here?” I ask him nearly daily. The old TC would be intently focused on this point, determined to make sense of his surroundings and the play-by-play that landed him here.
“Yeah, yeah.” He nods with inappropriate vigor, clearly confused.
He speaks like a stroke victim now: slow, in those moments he is relaying real, purposeful speech, and then slurred and rapidly as he blends together the initial sounds of random words that pop into his brain.
“Aww, he can rayya who his mom,” he tells me one day. I’m guessing from the affection on his face that he is speaking about Jack (TC is often speaking about Jack), but what exactly he’s trying to convey is unclear.
I try again. “Are you talking about Jack, honey?”
“Yeah, but he can sicka for his mom. Whoa!” He smiles.
On other days, his voice rings as clear as a bell. “Honey, you look hot!” he yells at me when I enter his hospital room one morning.
He is hilarious now in a way I’ve never before witnessed. Goofy and uninhibited. Much more like Jack and certainly more like me. In some ways I like it, but I’m also disturbed by the change. Shouldn’t he be worried about things? His job? Our house? How long it will be before he gets to go home? The old TC was always worried, always asking questions, and not always welcome ones.
“Abby,” he told me just after Jack was born, “we can’t just do what we feel like. I love you. I want to have adventures with you. I want to take great trips with you. But you don’t understand. I need to feel settled before all these things happen. It scares me the way you’re always rushing us into the future.”
It was one of the hardest things I ever had to hear him say. I remember where I was when he said it, how I sat down on the park bench beside him, my cheeks burning. Was I that undependable? That whimsical and fiscally impulsive that I threatened his security? Were we on two different planes entirely? Was TC the adult and I the child?
If so, the roles are certainly reversed now. And I am taken aback by the complexity of this challenge, the inconsistencies between the two TCs and their differing abilities.
It is frustrating trying to remind TC who he is. The last time I asked him his name, he responded, “Ah, la wha? Me? I sometime gadda, I learned, how do, ooh ya, or sometimes I sing. Yeah.”
All I know is that of the many outcomes of TC’s injury—the hemiparesis, the loss of vision—it is his aphasia that gives me the gravest concerns about his future. It’s been weeks since he’s been willing to write anything for me besides numbers to a math equation. And it doesn’t appear as though he’s making significant strides with his oral speech either. All of this is a reminder that while a wheelchair or a cane may be life changing, physical disabilities don’t necessarily demark the end of an independent existence. An inability to communicate, however, just might.
TC cannot operate a phone or even relay identifying information in the case of an emergency. There is still so much he needs to recover, but on paper he’s making progress that convinces our health insurance he no longer needs inpatient care. Which means, in a few weeks, he’ll be coming home, whether or not either of us feels ready.
I take all of this into account as I decide what to do next. I am drawn to the idea of leaving Washington, of finding a quiet, restful place away from the world, where we can be as strange and unfit for society as it seems we are these days. There are logistics that make city life impractical now. After all, how do I help a wheelchair-bound TC up the stairs of a third-story walk-up? There are also other intangible worries that convince me we need distance from the city. I want to be in a place that requires no explanation, no constant reminders of the event that brought us here. A place where we can start anew—fresh and yet terribly broken. I plan to start searching for one such place.
Until then, I lay my head against the weight of TC’s chest as we lie inside our mesh fortress another hour more. He kisses me on the head and goes quiet, pretending to care about Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy on the screen in front of us.
* * *
There is a beautiful courtyard attached to one side of the National Rehabilitation Hospital, where trees and picnic tables abound and where young
children are invited to spend time with their beloved family members.
Because the brain injury unit itself is off-limits to kids, we’ve been dependent on clear weather and quiet Sundays for these infrequent family gatherings. The first took place in late September, a week or so after TC’s admission to the rehab hospital.
Jack, dressed in his finest plaid shorts, everyone mindful about keeping applesauce off his crisp white shirt, waited in the courtyard with Bethany, Sean, Ryan, Patrick, and my parents as I prepared TC for his highly anticipated reunion with his son.
We all understood what this reunion signified. After six weeks of listening to Jack call from his crib for his father in the middle of the night and countless visits watching TC clutch Jack’s photos as he looked at me expectantly, wondering why I couldn’t bring his son to him, it was impossible to contain the happy visions I imagined for this day.
I pushed TC, not yet trained in mobilizing his own wheelchair, through the double doors leading to the first-floor courtyard entrance as I talked him through the event.
“Today is the day. You’re going to see Jack. Can you believe it?” I asked more than once, as TC went happily quiet, unable to find the words for his own excitement.
“Bubby, really?” he slurred, once again resorting to Jack’s nickname, which, by this time, I’d determined was easier for him to pronounce.
“Yes, Bubby.” I smiled affectionately.
But as we strode into the courtyard, it was only I who garnered Jack’s attention.
“Mommy!” he cried, breaking from my sister’s clutches and sprinting toward my legs.
I couldn’t tell whether Jack’s dismissal of him upset TC, but my guess is that he was unaware, mesmerized and delighted to finally be breathing the same air as his son.
As we all leapt into action, encouraging Jack to show his father some attention, my dad looked on, his eyes brimming with tears.
Maybe he isn’t as far gone as I thought, I remember thinking, the emotion clearly etched across my father’s face. Maybe everything that has happened with TC has simply been too much for him to try to articulate. The heartache of his hurting daughter on top of the heartache of his suffering son-in-law, and that of his beautiful, innocent grandchild. Maybe I’d had it wrong assuming he couldn’t feel it all. Maybe no father, ill or not, has the right words for this kind of extraordinary heartbreak.
“Show Daddy your train!” I heard Bethany coax, as TC’s own eyes began to well. He didn’t care one bit if Jack recognized him through the big plastic helmet that sat atop his head, his shadowy beard, or his puffy, healing eye. He was in ecstasy simply reaching for the top of Jack’s head, taking in the scent of his baby-fine hair.
The next few reunions were equally joyous. As Jack grew more comfortable with TC, he allowed him to get physically closer. On one visit, they shared a bag of apple slices in the shade of the courtyard. A few days later, we gathered in the basement of the hospital for a feast of processed cafeteria food.
It’s still not clear to me whether Jack recognizes TC as his father or whether he is simply open to getting to know this new stranger. I don’t suppose I’ll ever know. Jack’s memories of the old TC aren’t the ones he’ll carry into the future. Everything he’s bound to remember about his father hasn’t even happened yet.
* * *
The beach house finds me as easily as I find it. A quick internet search leads me straight to Jan Barnes, a successful, no-nonsense Southern Maryland real estate agent who also happens to be the owner of the cottage.
Going home is the only practical solution for getting out of the city. The beach house is smack-dab between our parents’ two homes in St. Mary’s County, far enough away from D.C. to enjoy the solitude of nature, close enough to the city to get TC back and forth to his doctor appointments.
There is also a local hospital within ten minutes where TC can continue outpatient physical, occupational, and speech therapy services into the indefinite future.
On the day I arrive to tour the house, I step out of the car, onto the gravel driveway, and breathe in the country air. The beach house is a quaint little thing. A one-story gray cottage whose rear sunroom sits less than twenty feet from a sweeping expanse of Breton Bay. The water is so close I feel as if I might topple into it with one clumsy misstep. It’s a thought that ought to send alarm bells ringing as I consider my toddler son walking the property, but it fills me with delight instead. How can TC do anything but heal in this beautifully serene, hidden corner of the earth?
As we tour the inside, Jan softens as I explain our unusual circumstances.
“My son has a brain injury,” she remarks. “Got it in Germany, just as he was departing for Desert Storm. He and three other men were hit by the Turkish National. I know exactly what you’re going through. And it’s OK. You can even bring the dog here.”
Grateful for her understanding, I am ready to write a check on the spot. In this charming five-room house, with its wood-burning stove and bright sunroom overlooking the bay, I know instinctively this will be the place for TC to recover. It seems like precisely the kind of place we all need.
But first I must bid goodbye to Capitol Hill. With a little effort, I find a renter to take over our apartment. However, the next two weeks send me spinning with exhaustion and sickness as I attempt to pack all our belongings and prepare for TC’s discharge from NRH. At one point, I find myself laid out on the couch, a strep diagnosis confirmed, staring at a mound of boxes that have yet to be packed.
Please, God, send someone to do this work for me, I beg, ready to accept defeat for the first time.
But by the morning our health insurance evicts us from rehab, I am feeling something resembling optimism. Maybe it’s the certainty of knowing I’ll never have to spend another day confined by these walls, chilled by the exaggerated air-conditioning, my every interaction with my husband monitored by strangers.
With the exception of those rocky first few days after his admittance, I know I have little to complain about. The rehab staff have been lovely, treating TC with as much respect and compassion as he received in the ICU. His nurses are delighted by his progress—his newfound ability to walk with a cane, his stabilized mood, and his generally happy demeanor. Do you really trust me with all this? I want to ask, unconvinced of my qualifications to take over. I mean, has anyone seen me try to collapse a wheelchair before?
It’s been eighty-four days since the morning following TC’s assault. He has been absent for eighty-four breakfasts. Eighty-four sleeps. Eighty-four bath times and eighty-four books before bed.
But after today, we will be a family again. Sleeping under one roof and trying to relearn each other after a long, forced separation.
I pull the RAV4 up to the curb outside the entrance to the hospital and busy myself rearranging items in the back seat as I wait for Cindy to wheel TC downstairs.
She helps me get him safely into the front passenger seat (a maneuver TC has been practicing in preparation for discharge), and then lends a hand in collapsing the wheelchair when she sees me struggling embarrassedly with it on my own. Thank God. I hug Cindy goodbye, and seconds later we are alone, driving south on North Capitol Street, back toward the Hill, where we will collect Jack from the nanny and begin the ninety-minute journey south to our new home.
These first breaths of freedom are exhilarating, something akin to driving with your license for the first time or the moment your parents turn out of the driveway, leaving you to housesit for a week. There is so much potential fun to be had. So many ways it can go completely wrong.
As I drive, I glance repeatedly from the road to TC’s face. “Are you OK?” I ask, making the left turn onto Massachusetts Avenue, heading in the direction of Rachel and Mladen’s house.
I expect TC to be basking in his newfound freedom, looking out the window and speaking nostalgic gibberish about each familiar building and row home of h
is beloved neighborhood, but his face is stricken instead. “I don’t feel g-good,” he stutters.
By the time we reach their house and Mallet delivers Jack to the car, I am genuinely concerned we’ve made a monumental error. Maybe he’s not ready to come home yet, I think to myself. Maybe he’s fighting a serious infection.
I can only ask TC so many times if he’s feeling well enough for me to continue driving. He looks at me in silence, his face twisted with discomfort. It’s exhausting for him to answer my questions. He closes his eyes and turns to the window instead.
However, there is a very upset toddler in the back seat who is beginning to pipe up too. It occurs to me that I’ve never been tasked with taking care of them both at the same time. For three months, TC has been my day job and Jack my night job. But holy shit, we are alone now. And I don’t know who to prioritize first.
We’ve made the long drive to St. Mary’s County countless times before with Jack in the back seat and it has never been a problem, but on this particular afternoon, he is thrown completely off-kilter. His car seat sits directly behind TC, and all he can glimpse of the stranger in front of him is the top of his father’s plastic helmet. Some alarm in his tiny head must be signaling danger, because for the next hour and a half, Jack screams bloody murder as TC turns fifty shades of green.
“I am so sorry,” I repeat over Jack’s fits, trying to keep my eyes on the highway and my wits about me. The sound of Jack’s crying is murder on TC’s head, and the longer it continues, the more TC clutches the side of his helmet for relief. Over the course of the ninety-minute journey, I pull over five times. Once for TC to puke. Once to buy a gallon of milk to refill Jack’s sippy cup. And another three times to climb in the back seat and beg him to quiet down.
The journey is an exercise in hell. A preview of the responsibilities ahead.
This is the real thing, I think to myself. This is your life from here on out. Decades more of in sickness and in health: the three of us, growing old together, learning how to navigate the real world again and trying not to crash and burn.