There was this silver maple at Hawthorne Court, must have been a hundred years old, according to the arborist. It had severe damage from a yellow-bellied sapsucker, which is like a woodpecker, only worse. The bird had pecked away at the trunk and left holes in horizontal lines with sap running down and bacteria entering, causing extensive damage. No one can fault the sapsuckers, all the bird is trying to do is to get at the sap, and it did what mothers do, it fed insects to its young, but the bird was about to kill the tree. The arborist said not to bother but against his advice I sprayed the damaged areas with hydrogen peroxide, filled in the holes with goop I purchased at a garden store, slathered the entire trunk in an attempt to save the tree. And I brought it back to life.
I can admit it now. I was embarrassed. Not for Penny but for myself. How did I manage to create this picture-perfect life while she ran through my fingers like sand? I had saved a tree from certain death, yet I couldn’t help my daughter?
The reason I feel slighted when it comes to Hawthorne Court, the purpose of coming back was not to claim the house but to claim the truth, yes, the truth is what I’m after, I now know that all I ever wanted was a place for Penelope to be safe. But it didn’t do any good. I want to spare myself the memories of what happened next but I’ve come this far, haven’t I?
* * *
• • •
It goes against all reason that we should end up here, in this kitchen, in the middle of the night, the lights bouncing off the royal blue stove. Edward’s words are like a beacon and once I catch a glimpse of something, though it doesn’t come back all at once and it isn’t there all the time, it bobs up just to withdraw as fast as it appeared.
How old and haggard Edward looks in this light. His left eyelid twitches. Is he still the man he used to be, still the surgeon people flock to? Can he still hold a scalpel steady, can he stay on his feet without tiring through eight-hour operations, and most of all, does he still have the power to make me believe I am the one to blame for everything?
PART III
HEAVEN
Heaven wheels above you, displaying to you her eternal glories, and still your eyes are on the ground.
—DANTE ALIGHIERI
37
DONNA
The kitchen has a built-in desk where women used to sit and make grocery lists, a whimsical detail in an old-timey kind of way, but in reality it turned into a catchall spot for receipts and bills and newspapers. That’s where Edward stands and stares at a framed photograph pushed into the corner of that desk; Edward and Penelope stand behind me as I sit on a chair. Penelope looks to be about twelve or so. I remember the day because we had an argument about her outfit. Looking back, it was unnecessary to quarrel about it but in the moment it seemed significant. Her eyes look empty, her smile forced. I shouldn’t have been so hard on her, but that too is hindsight. I get lost in these moments, ponder every single action, every word I ever said to her. There’s so much I’m not explaining right, so many things incongruent with what I remember and what I’ve forgotten. If I think about it hard enough, maybe I’ll be able to pinpoint where I went wrong.
“What happened to Penelope’s room?” I ask.
“That’s what you want to know?”
“Yes, what’s happened to it?” I insist. “There’re holes in the wall.”
“After all this time, you come here and ask me about holes in the wall?”
“Just one of the many things I don’t understand.” I panic for a second—the letters, where are the letters? Then I remember, I shoved them into my tote. “I want to know where my daughter is. I want to know what happened because nothing makes sense to me anymore. I fell and I hurt my hip and I was taken to the hospital. I recall nothing after that but not being able to get out of bed. And you deserted me because . . .” I can’t finish the sentence. My voice sounds overly loud as I demand answers but this blame is a curious thing; Edward seems mad when prompted for details.
“How did you fall, Donna? How did you hurt your hip?”
“I don’t remember. I had a car accident? A slip on the back porch maybe? I was out on a walk and a car hit me? It’s all the same to me. I don’t care, really. This isn’t about me.”
“Come with me,” Edward says and marches me out of the kitchen and to the center of the foyer, his fingers digging into my arm.
“Here, right here,” he says and points down to the black-and-white checkered tile. One has a crack. “Does that jog your memory?”
I pull away from him.
“Jog it for me, Edward, why don’t you?”
38
EDWARD
If Edward were to get Penelope out of the car, it was going to be nothing short of a miracle. She clung to the steering wheel with such ferocity that he feared he might snap her joints out of place. Every time he loosened one finger, another one tensed its grip. As he managed to undo one hand, the other one clutched tighter. The steering wheel was sticky with blood and her face was smeared with what had by then turned into a brown mud-like layer, like sap from a tree. A trail of tears had made their way through the bloody landscape of her face and down her neck.
Trauma assessment. In sequence actions must be performed, preventing mortality. Not something he’d encountered in recent years, decades even. Vital organs must be oxygenated, stop the bleeding if there’s any.
That’s my child, my own flesh and blood—oh, the irony—my daughter blabbering without rhyme or reason, shaking violently, her knees hitting the steering wheel, over and over.
He rattles the list off inside his brain. Information gathering: time of injury, related events, patient history. Key elements of injury to alert the trauma team to the degree and type of injury.
There were predictable patterns in which trauma mortality occurs and though he went through the motions, he wasn’t equipped to do anything but an initial assessment.
Stabilize the patient.
He would suspect such blood loss from a gunshot wound but Penelope showed no signs of injury, her limbs were moving, her pupils—he shined a flashlight into them—reacted normally, constricted as they should. He couldn’t think straight but he was aware that this was his child, half of his DNA in front of him, and everything he did to her he did to himself and never had he been so conscious of that fact and never had he felt so helpless and never ever had he been this aware of his failures as a father. He performed every motion like he did in the emergency room rotation so many years ago, did everything according to the book, had done it before but with his own daughter beneath his hands, it seemed crude. Edward patted his daughter’s skull with his hands, moved on to her neck. Her pulse was racing but steady. Edward, by all accounts, couldn’t find anything physically wrong with Penelope.
But there was a woman in the passenger seat. He couldn’t help but be taken aback by the angle of the woman’s head, the way it was touching her chest. He reached over and searched for the woman’s carotid artery. Placing his index and middle fingers on her neck by the side of her windpipe, he felt for her pulse. Nothing. Not even a faint flutter.
Edward thinks drive-by. Penelope and the woman were driving and someone opened fire. Mistaken identity, maybe a stray bullet. So much blood, there must be a gunshot, if not on Penelope, then the woman had some sort of injury.
He should prepare the resuscitation area. Once the ambulance arrived, there needed to be airway equipment put in place, bag-mask ventilation, and endotracheal intubation. A line needed to be placed, IV fluids given, monitoring equipment hooked up. Guidelines on protection when dealing with body fluid should be followed throughout this and subsequent procedures. Did that even apply? How random his thoughts were, how he focused on insignificant details.
He asked himself why don’t you call 911?
But he made no attempt. Neither did Donna.
Donna, in his peripheral vision, stood a few feet away and for once she di
dn’t have an opinion to add. She didn’t call 911 and it registered. After so many years they were in tune with each other, one look and they knew, understood the gist of it.
Edward’s hands were sticky. Such an odd and peculiar feeling, he who had never touched blood without gloves, he who wasn’t used to feeling the warmth and the stickiness, he who had always had a layer of protection between him and the blood of his patients.
There was so much of it. It had pooled on the mat by the woman’s feet. On her lap, within a crease where the coat fabric had puckered, a crimson puddle where the plaid trench lining shimmered in the dome light of the car’s interior. On the door, the handle, the window, even the glove compartment. So much blood. Exsanguination was the medical term.
Ex (out of) and sanguis (blood).
Meanwhile, within those spattered leather seats, his daughter was screaming without a sound. Her mouth, the gaping vastness of it, her wide eyes. And not a sound escaped. He’d never seen anything like it. He wanted, if he could have it his way, some sort of X-ray so he could understand her mind much more so than her body because there was not a mark on her, not so much as a scratch.
He was floating in a sea of adrenaline. As if an explosion had gone off and then died down, single auditory components of the world around him returned one by one. It struck him like a horror movie, everything over-the-top and too loud and too much, too much of everything, but this was real.
Penelope was in a state of madness. He needed momentum, needed to be quick about it. He wanted to lay her flat on the ground to do a proper assessment, maybe there was a break or a wound after all, but he couldn’t get ahold of her.
Without warning Edward tipped his daughter’s body to the left, put his arms underneath her from the back, locked his hands, and swiftly pulled her out of the car. Her hands let go of the steering wheel but she kept her fingers hooked like talons. She flapped her arms like a dervish, twisting her body as if she were prey and he was a raptor.
Penelope repeated words as if they were a recitation, as if in some sort of hypnotic state, then she broke free from him and whirled and hit his chest and then her body coiled—he couldn’t think of any other word—and twirled as if she were dancing.
She said words he couldn’t make out and all he wanted was for her to be quiet so he could think.
39
PENELOPE
Penelope didn’t realize the extent of her actions until her mother had washed all the blood off her. She stood in the shower, hair shampooed, skin red from her mother’s hands scrubbing every inch and fold of her body as if she were a child.
Penelope watched her mother as a film of sweat formed on her upper lip, as she struggled to get her daughter’s arms into a shirt. When every last molecule of her recklessness had gone down the drain, as her mother awkwardly put a nightgown on her and her father turned to give them privacy, Penelope had a searing thought: Did Rachel have a child? Was she a mother? Did she have a husband and was he waiting for her, parting a curtain, expecting headlights to appear around the corner? If Rachel had children, who was dressing them? Who would care for them? That thought tumbled into another: Is this how Gabriel’s mother slipped underwear on her son? Is this how she struggled to put pajama pants on him?
Penelope had been cleansed of all blood. Her sins were washed away but there was no righting this—that much she knew. Though her mother had washed the woman’s blood off her, the guilt wasn’t going anywhere. It was going to stick to her for all eternity. Her mind went on and on. This house. Those endless corridors that had frightened her as a child, the tedious staircases and infinite rooms were . . . her. She was a labyrinth with dark corners.
Her father had given her pills, had pushed a glass of water toward her. She chewed them like antacids. Penelope slid under the cover, her wet hair wrapped in a towel, but it leaned and dropped to the ground.
The way her hair stuck to her cheek reminded her of a summer, years ago. A memory she had been holding at bay. She was unable to diffuse it or make it go away:
* * *
• • •
How old was she then, sixteen, maybe seventeen? School was about to start back up, Penelope remembered being anxious, her mother had kept tabs on her all summer, involving her in errands and appointments and before Penelope blinked, summer was over and she was exhausted and just wanted to get away from the hovering. It was barely nine, the sun was about to go down, but the light had been draining away for a while. They pulled into a gas station. During shopping and running errands and dropping off dry-cleaning, it had begun to rain, a heavy downpour that had soaked the bottom of Penelope’s jeans. Her feet were wet and then there was her mother’s voice.
“Honey, fill up the car for me. My hair,” she said and handed Penelope a credit card.
Penelope glared at her but rose from the seat, got out, and flipped the gas panel open like a little door. She unscrewed the fuel cap, swiped the card, inserted the nozzle into the hole, and squeezed the handle.
Ngggggggggggggggggggggg.
Penelope heard a noise but didn’t know where it came from. She cocked her head but kept her eye on the pump screen. She turned when someone knocked on the back window of a car parked at the pump next to her. Was someone waving at her?
She walked closer to the car. The tinted window made her lean in but all she saw was her own contorted reflection. It was curiosity that made her cup her hands, shield her eyes, and stare into the interior.
Gabriel still bore some resemblance to the boy he had been years ago but if it wasn’t for the birthmark on his left temple, Penelope wasn’t sure she would have made the connection. His formerly poreless skin with a hint of conch pink was now dotted with cystic acne and his teeth had shifted into an odd assembly. His lips were moving as if he was speaking to her. His eyes weren’t focused on her but drifted off somewhere upward and to the left just to sway to the right. Back and forth.
She had a sudden image in her mind of him with his mother, being fed, food dropping into his lap, his mother’s eyes empty, a countertop crowded with medication bottles. How much reassurance that takes, Penelope thought, his mother telling herself that she can do this, can feed him for the rest of his life. Or her life.
Nggggggggggg.
There it was again. Shorter, cut off. A short but fierce thrust of air emerged from his mouth. No words formed, nothing she could decipher. He froze as if someone had hit the OFF button. Her mother had told her there were lasting injuries but Penelope had imagined a crooked bone or a scar on his temple. His head rolled back and forth. When the palm of his hand hit the windowpane, Penelope jerked backward.
Thunkkkkkk.
The tank was full. Penelope placed the nozzle back into its plastic sheath. She got in the car and her mother merged onto the highway and it was all behind her. She banished the moment, except the lolling of the boy’s head. She couldn’t get that out of her mind.
* * *
• • •
As her mother led her to her bed, Penelope saw her father’s outline standing in the corner of the room. He was nothing but a distorted aura. When he stepped toward her, he seemed unreal, as if he were walking on air. She watched him, transfixed, waiting to see if he would speak to her.
So many conclusions rammed their way into her head, there was no more closing the gates to keep them at bay. All her life her father’s approval had been important to her. His ability to make even the worst transgression seem like child’s play would stop today. Even if she could suppress her guilt and everything that came with it, it would come to a full stop. That was what she was sensing, the end of it all. There was nowhere to go from here. This couldn’t be swept under a rug or erased from memory. This would stick. Full circle.
At last her father opened his mouth. She couldn’t hear the words, they seemed muffled. She realized he was whispering to her mother, who was sitting in a chair, rocking, rocking, rocking
. Her mother spoke but the words made no sense, like she was answering someone Penelope couldn’t see. Not one sentence was connected to the one that had come before.
She drifted in and out, from darkness to visions of guilt, and she did what she had always done when confronted with racing thoughts: she attempted to look as far back as possible into the Pandora’s box which was her life. From the playhouse in the sparse backyard in Florida to the bluish light of the pool full of floating noodles.
Another memory lined up, one out of order, waiting to be acknowledged. Maybe it was her wet hair or maybe it was something else, but Penelope faced another memory then: one summer when her mother had cheered her on from the edge of the pool, the same pool she and Gabriel had thrown toys and rocks into. She had unsuccessfully attempted to do a perfect handstand in the shallow part.
You are almost there. Try again. Almost. One more time.
Finally Penelope managed to get her legs up in the air, the arches of her pruney feet stretched, her big toes touched. Her mother took a picture at this very moment and later, when Penelope came across the photo, she was surprised to discover how perfectly her hair rose around her head like a halo. She’d never realized that her mother, while relentless in pushing her, was her biggest cheerleader. It dawned on her that her mother had tried to be some sort of composed and solid presence in her life, a steady hand leading her along, and suddenly she saw her mother in a different light, saw her attempts to keep some sense of order, some perceived direction for her.
Shadow Garden Page 19