Comfort and Joy

by Comfort

  “What did she say?”

  “She told me to wake up. It’s good advice.”

  Stacey reaches out, brushes the hair from my eyes. “When you were . . . sleeping, I didn’t think I’d get another chance with you.”

  I don’t know what to say except, “I know.” The nurses have told me that her devotion to me was legendary.

  “I was there at the hospital, you know,” she says. “From the second we heard. I almost never left.”

  It’s what I would have done for her, too. “I missed you, Stace.”

  She finally smiles. “I missed you, too.”

  By the end of my first week at home, I’m ready to scream.

  I spend the better part of my days on pain pills, trying not to move. Everything hurts, but pain is not the worst of it. What I hate most are the nights.

  I lie in bed, staring up at my ceiling, trying to tell myself that the rainforest was a construct of my own mind. Before the plane crash, I was lost and lonely, desperate to want someone and be wanted in return. I can admit it now; losing both my sister and my husband unhinged me somehow. Without them, I was adrift.

  So I made up the man I wanted to love me and the boy I wanted to love.

  In the cold light of day, it makes sense. I was tired of hot, dry Bakersfield; I imagined a magical world of green grass and towering trees and impossible mist.

  On paper, it pencils out, makes perfect sense in a psych 101 kind of way. At night, however, it’s different.

  Then, the darkness—and my loneliness—just goes on and on and on. For the first time in my life, I can’t read to pass the time. Every hero becomes Daniel; every heartfelt moment makes me sob. Even movies are useless. When I turn on the television I remember Miracle on 34th Street and the Grinch; not to mention the fifteen Winnie-the-Pooh videos we watched.

  God help me, in the darkness, I believe. Over and over again, I try to “return.” Each attempt and failure diminishes my hope.

  I can’t stand it.

  It’s time for me to either fish or cut bait. I’ve spent too long floating on a drug sea, dreaming of one place, and sitting in another. I need to believe in my rainforest, to find it, or to let it go. It’s a cinch what my shrink would advise. There’s no room in the real world for the kind of fantasy realm I’ve imagined. But I keep thinking of moments—the way Daniel and I said “fate” at the same time; the way our wish on the star was the same. The television broadcast with Stacey. I didn’t hear her broadcast from my coma; I saw it. And there’s the fix-it list Bobby had on Christmas morning. Maybe that was somehow real. If it was, I was there, however impossible that sounds.

  What I need is evidence. And if there’s one thing a librarian can do, it’s research.

  Throwing the covers back, I hobble out of bed, get my crutches and then turn on all the lights. In the garage, I find what I’m looking for: my files. I take several—the Pacific Northwest, Washington, and North American rainforests. Clutching the manila folders to my side, I return to the desk in my living room.

  Beneath a light bright enough to dispel shadows and sharp enough to illuminate the truth, I begin laying out my materials, organizing them into piles. Then I turn on my laptop and search the Web.

  It doesn’t take long to identify the core problem.

  All I know about my dream life is that it took place in a rainforest in Washington State. According to a Googled statistic, the Olympic National Forest is roughly the size of Massachusetts.

  And I am trying to find one—imaginary—lakeside town that probably has a population of less than one thousand people.

  Oh, and let’s not forget that I don’t know the name of the town, or the lake, or Daniel and Bobby’s last name.

  A woman less impressionable might say that if fate exists, it doesn’t want me to find my way back.

  Still, I trudge ahead, unwilling—unable, maybe—to give up. I make my own map, underline possible towns and lakes and call information for each city I can find. There is no listing for a Comfort Fishing Lodge. Then I call realtors. There are two fishing lodges for sale in the area; I’ve gotten e-mail photos of both. Neither is the one I remember.

  Finally, nearly eight hours after I begin my search, I shut my laptop and lay my head on top of it, closing my eyes. By now, the walls of my living room are studded with pieces of paper—maps, photographs, articles. The place looks like a task force command center.

  And none of it helps.

  I don’t know exactly how long I remain there. At some point, I hear a car drive up.

  I glance up, and see Stacey’s van pull into the driveway.

  I grab my crutches and head for the entry.

  At her first knock, I open the door.

  She is on my porch, holding a casserole pan in gloved hands.

  It’s Mom’s chicken divan recipe. Chicken, cheese, mayonnaise, and broccoli. “I guess you forgot about them restarting my heart.”

  Stacey pales. “Oh. I didn’t . . .”

  “I’m just kidding. It looks great. Thanks.” I wobble around and make my way back to the living room.

  Stacey veers into the kitchen, probably puts the casserole in the oven, and then joins me. In the living room, she comes to a dead stop. Her gaze moves from wall to wall, where papers hang in grape-like bunches.

  “Welcome to Obsessionville,” I say. There’s no point in trying to explain. I make my halting way to the sofa and sit down, planting my casted foot on the coffee table. “I’m searching for the town.”

  “The one you never went to.”

  “That’s the one.”

  Stacey sits in the chair opposite me. “I’m worried about you. Thom says . . .”

  “Let’s not start a conversation like that. It’s your turn to care about what he says.”

  “You’ve been home almost seven days and you haven’t let anyone visit except me. And now . . .” She lifts her hand to indicate the walls. “This.”

  “Bertie and Rayla have both stopped by.”

  Stacey gives me “The Look.” “Bertie called me because you said you were too tired to see her.”

  “I’m in pain.”

  “Is that really it?”

  “What are you, my keeper?” I don’t want to explain the inexplicable.

  “It’s that dream, isn’t it?”

  I sigh, feeling my defenses crumble. All I can tell her now is the sad truth. “I can’t let go of it. I know it’s crazy—that I’m crazy—but the pictures are so familiar. I know how it smells there and feels there, how the mist floats up from the grass in the morning. How do I know these things? Maybe when you develop my film, I’ll get an answer.” It’s the dream I’ve clung to.

  As I say the words, I see my sister frown. It’s a quick expression, there and gone, but if there’s one thing sisters recognize in each other, it’s a secret being kept. “What?”

  “What what?”

  “You’re hiding something from me, and, given that your last big secret was my husband, I’m . . .”

  Stacey stands. Turning away, she walks out of the room. A few moments later she’s back, carrying a manila envelope. “Here.”

  I take it from her, though if I had two good legs, my instinct is to run. “I won’t like this, will I?”

  “No.” Stacey’s voice is soft; that makes me more nervous.

  I open the envelope and find photographs inside. I look up at Stacey, who shakes her head.

  “I’m sorry.”

  The envelope drops from my grasp. I turn through the pictures. When I get to the few taken in the airport, I gasp. There’s the plane, before the crash, and the crowd of hunters waiting to board, and the interior before takeoff. Riegert, giving his buddy the thumbs up.

  After that, nothing.

  No photos of the lodge or the rainforest or the lake. No spiderwebs dripping with dew, no clusters of old growth trees and the giant ferns at their feet. Just twenty-nine empty gray pictures.

  “I wasn’t there,” I say slowly, feeling it for the
first time.

  “I’m sorry, Joy,” Stacey says after a moment, “but you have a real life here. And people who love you. Rayla says students ask about you every day.”

  I can hear my sister talking, but the words are like smoke, drifting past me. All I can think about is the boy who made me promise to stay for Christmas. My heart feels like it’s breaking down the middle; it’s hard to breathe. It takes all my self-control not to cry at the smoky, blank photographs. Still, I know what I’m supposed to say, what she wants to hear. “I’m sure everything will be fine when I start working again.”

  “Don’t you miss it?’

  It takes me a minute to hear her. I look up. “Miss what?”

  “The library. You used to love it.”

  I know Stacey hears herself say love it; all I hear is used to. “What I love doesn’t seem to exist.”

  “You’re starting to scare me.”

  “Join the club, little sister.”

  It is amazing how quickly a bone can heal. If only the heart were as durable. A little plaster, two months of bed rest, and voila! your broken heart is mended. I wish it were true.

  By late February, I am moving well again. My headaches are all but gone and my leg is coming along nicely, according to the battalion of doctors who oversee my care. They urge me to consider returning to work, though, to be honest, I have trouble contemplating my future.

  It’s because of the nights.

  Alone in my bed, I can’t control or corral my thoughts. In sleep, I dream about the Comfort Lodge and Daniel and Bobby.

  Even during the stark, bright daylight hours, I have problems. No matter what I’m supposed to be doing, I keep drifting northward in my mind. Everything reminds me of the pseudo-memories I can’t let go of.

  My psychiatrist—the newest member of the post-crash-save-Joy-team tells me that what I’ve experienced is not that uncommon. Apparently lots of head cases are head cases, if you know what I mean.

  My shrink says it’s because I’m not happy with my real life. She thinks I’ve let the accident paralyze me emotionally, and that when I wake up, I’ll quit needing a forest mirage as my ideal.

  I tell her she’s wrong. I was emotionally paralyzed before the crash. This is just same old–same old. The difference is, now I know what I want. I just can’t find it.

  Before the crash, I wanted Thom back.

  Now I’m actually happy he’s gone. I worry for my sister that it’s dangerous to love a man who has already betrayed one wife, but she has made her choice, and truthfully, at his heart, Thom is a good man. I can only hope he’ll be a good husband to my sister.

  I’m so deep in thought, I’m surprised when I hear my doorbell ring.

  I glance at the clock. It’s twelve-fifteen. As usual, she’s right on time with my lunch. “Come in,” I say, getting to my feet, reaching for the crutches.

  Stacey comes in, carrying a stack of magazines and videos. They have become her peace offerings, these things she collects for me, her way of saying she doesn’t think I’m crazy, even though I’m sure she does. “These are the newest Sunset magazines—two have articles on rainforest getaways—four local Sunday newspapers, and two movies shot up there. Harry and the Hendersons, about a Sasquatch, and Double Jeopardy.”

  We both know how much it means to me, these pointless, silly gifts; we also know it won’t do any good. I’m not going to suddenly “see” where I’ve imagined. The walls of my downstairs are now entirely covered with maps and photographs. None of the butter yellow walls beneath can be seen.

  I take the pile of things from Stacey, knowing I will watch or read each item carefully. Knowing, too, that all I’ll find are images that strike a chord but create no real memory.

  While Stacey puts things away in the kitchen, I go into my living room and sit down on the sofa. In the new Sunset magazine, I see a photograph of the Hoh rainforest that makes me feel homesick for a place that doesn’t exist.

  “Joy?”

  I look up to see Stacey holding a tray of croissant sandwiches. It isn’t until I see the look on her face that I realize I’m crying.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t bring you this stuff.”

  “I need them,” I hear the panicked edge in my voice.

  So does she. She sets the tray down on the coffee table. “You have to come into the real world.” Her voice is tentative; I know she’s wanted to say this for a long time, but has been afraid. We are not yet the sisters we once were, who could say anything to each other. She plucks up a sandwich, sets it on a napkin and sits across from me.

  “The real world,” I say softly, putting the magazine aside. Getting up, I make my awkward way to the window. There I stand on my good leg, staring out at the houses across the street. Now, in the winter, the lawns are dead and brown, as are the trees. There hasn’t been a leaf on the road for months. Everything on the block is gray or brown, it seems, and the pale sunlight only manages to dull it all. “Last night I dreamt I was stuck right here,” I say, without turning to look at Stacey. “Watching life pass me by. In my dream, I could see your house. Your lights were always on; there were kids in your yard. One of them was a quiet, watchful girl who always waited her turn. You named her Joy. And here I was, stuck. Wrinkling like a dying grape, going gray, wanting.” I take a deep breath and turn around to face her. There’s something I need to tell her; something I probably should have admitted before. “You weren’t the only reason I got on that plane. Most of it, maybe, but not all. I was so tired of who I’d become.”

  Stacey doesn’t respond to that. I’m not surprised. She doesn’t know what to say, and she doesn’t want to say the wrong thing. Our relationship is fragile; we both handle it like hot glass.

  “You can’t understand,” I finally say. How could she? My sister never let anything pass her by. She’s never been a spectator.

  “Are you kidding?” She stares at me as if I am a science exhibit under glass. “You think I don’t know about wanting more?”

  “You were a cheerleader, for gosh sake, and homecoming queen. And now you’re pregnant and in love.”

  “Sixteen years ago I was a cheerleader, Joy. When you went off to college, I stayed in Bakersfield and worked dead-end jobs.”

  “But you met Chris . . .”

  “And he didn’t just break my heart, he shattered it, remember?” She sighs. “I used to watch your life and feel like such a failure. You came home from college in love with Thom and had the perfect wedding and then got the great job at the high school. You succeeded at everything you tried. I hated always being in your shadow.”

  I frown. “Is that why you moved away?”

  “I thought a big city would help, but in Sacramento I felt even more lost. It was too busy for me. So I came back here and used my divorce settlement to buy a house, but I still couldn’t manage to get a decent job. It’s tough when you’re twenty-eight years old with no husband and no education—especially when your sister seems to have it all.”

  “You should have come to me.”

  “I tried.”

  I want to tell her it’s not true, but we’re well past the lying-to-each-other stage. The last year has given us that, at least. I glance out the window; anything is better than looking at her. “I know you did, but I was barely hanging on. Thom and I were fighting like crazy.”

  “I know,” she says softly. “I came over one day to talk to you, and found him at home.”

  So that’s how it had begun. I’d wanted to know, though I never would have asked. Now that she’s planted the words, I see them grow: how they were friends first, my sister and my husband, commiserating about their disappointed lives, then commiserating about me, then finding solace in each other.

  “It took him a long time to tell me how unhappy he was, but once he did . . .”

  I hold up my hand. “I get it.”

  “So, I know about being lost, Joy,” she says instead. “Can you imagine how it feels to hurt the one person you love most in the world? To break yo
ur sister’s heart and know you can never apologize enough?”

  This time when I look at my sister I see a woman I’ve never met, one who’s been through hard times—is still going through them, perhaps—and lives with the pain of her own bad choices. She knows about fading; maybe every woman of a certain age does, especially in quiet towns like this one where the sun can be so hot.

  Not like the rainforest.

  There, in that moist green and blue world, there is no drying up of a woman’s spirit.

  I push that thought away. No good can come of it. I turn back to Stacey. This is what matters. Us. Whatever is unreal about who I met or where I’ve been, it’s all led me back to this moment with my sister. The beginning. “So,” I say softly, “how’s the pregnancy going?”

  I hear her surprise; she takes a thin breath and battles a sudden smile. I can’t help wondering how long she’s been waiting for me to ask. “Good. The doctors say everything is normal.”

  “Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”

  “They think it’s a girl.”

  A niece to shop for; dress up like a little doll . . . love. “Mom would have gone nuts.”

  “We thought we’d name her Elizabeth Sharon.”

  That hits me hard. “Yeah. She’d like that.”

  We fall silent again. I want to say more, make a sweet, innocuous comment about the baby, but I’ve lost my voice. Selfishly, I am caught in my own sense of loss; I take a deep breath and try to let it go, but it’s difficult. I keep remembering my dream, where I was frozen in this spot, the aging aunt, watching life pass her by.

  “You’re losing it, aren’t you?” Stacey says after the pause.

  I look at her, wondering if that’s accurate. Can you lose something you never really had? “I’m scared, Stace. It’s like . . . I don’t know what to hang on to. I feel like I’m going crazy.”

  She stares at me, frowning. Just when I expect an answer, she leaves the room. I hear her making a phone call in the kitchen. Then she returns and says, “Come on. I’m taking you somewhere.”