All That's Left of Me_A Novel

by Janis Thomas

  Thursday morning: Charlemagne is gone. I wish away the tree.

  Thursday: I wish away Richard Green. Richard attacks me in the bathroom.

  Friday: The tree is gone. Richard Green no longer exists; the attack was erased. I am the head of marketing and new business. We have a new caregiver, Lena. Colin writes full-time. I find Katie’s pregnancy test.

  Friday night: I wish that boy away.

  Saturday morning: Katie is not pregnant. She has never met that boy. She is a radiant, successful teenager heading for the college of her choice. She and I are taking Josh for a haircut. We stop at the smoothie shop. That boy is there, but I make sure that Katie doesn’t see him. We end up in the ER.

  And here we are.

  Night has fallen around me. Josh is still asleep, and the nurses assure me this is normal. He will likely wake up soon, they say. Probably in the middle of the night or the early hours of the morning. He might be confused, bewildered, possibly very upset. He might need more sedation to understand the situation fully.

  More confusion, more bewilderment, more upset. As if my son doesn’t have enough of these emotions in his life already.

  The Asian nurse helps me convert the hospital chair into a makeshift bed and brings me blankets and a pillow. I do my best to wash the day’s stink off me in the small bathroom, then curl myself into the chair and pull the hospital bedding up to my chin. I stare at my son.

  My wishes are coming true.

  As I gaze at my son, I think about the one thing I’ve wanted, more than anything else, for the past fifteen years.

  Be careful, Emma.

  I push the thought from my mind and take a deep breath.

  I wish we’d never gone to Smoothie Palace.

  I awaken disoriented. Again.

  The sun slices through the bedroom curtains. Colin sleeps beside me. Josh’s steady breathing sounds from the monitor on the dresser. I hear the shower down the hall.

  Sunday morning in the Davies house.

  TWENTY

  Sunday, July 10

  Even though I still don’t have a rational explanation for the circumstances of the past few days, this morning I understand that I need to accept that which is happening to me as real. What is my alternative?

  I get out of bed before my husband, without the expected background noises of heart monitors and overly solicitous nurses, and tiptoe down the hall to Josh’s room. He sleeps soundly, albeit noisily. I approach the bed and look down upon him. His hair is cut short. I close my eyes and a memory forms of Lola snipping at his brown locks, chattering on, an endless monologue of humdrum verbal regurgitations while her scissors rhythmically whoosh-snap, sending clumps of my son’s hair fluttering to the floor. Devi remains in the reception area, playing pass-the-daisy with two young girls. No choking. No paramedics. No hospital. No Smoothie Palace before the salon. My wish, once again, has come true.

  I am rarely the first to arise, but on this Sunday morning, while my husband and children continue to sleep and dream, I descend the stairs to the quiet and empty first floor. I enter the kitchen and cross to the stove. Without thinking, I turn on the baby monitor on the far side of the counter, and Josh’s gurgling snores are instantly imported into the room. I make myself a cup of green tea, sweeten it with honey, then carry it with me to the kitchen table.

  I sit for a long while. Seconds pass, moments. I track them with an occasional glance at the clock on the microwave. I count my heartbeats. I breathe in and out purposefully. I sip at my tea. The tea is hot and scorches the roof of my mouth, but I welcome the pain. The searing heat is tangible, a sensation I can connect with. The pain tethers me to reality.

  I think back on my childhood, my girlhood, those precious years without responsibilities, when the future, vague and hypothetical, seemed bursting with possibility. As a young girl, I wished. I sent out prayers to the night sky—for a pony, for a new best friend when my old one moved across the county, for a sibling, for a groovy birthday party. Starlight, star bright, the first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.

  Some wishes came true. My seventh birthday party was a fete extraordinaire, engineered by my mother, which included a petting zoo, a magician, and the tallest Hello Kitty cake I’d ever seen. Some wishes did not come true. I never got a pony. Our yard, my mother explained, was not big enough for a horse of any size, and furthermore, my father snapped, the city didn’t allow equine inhabitants in residential neighborhoods. I also never got a younger brother or sister. But I did get a new best friend, Mary Anne Kurtowski, a chubby, bespectacled girl from Long Island who moved in with her grandparents down the block because her parents were getting divorced.

  Mary Anne was allergic to everything and was teased mercilessly by the other kids in school, and I took her under my wing as a sort of outreach program, and also because my mom made me. But she turned out to be nice and funny and incredibly smart, and she introduced me to Family Ties and The Wonder Years, shows I wasn’t allowed to watch because my dad owned the TV.

  We were inseparable. My mom called us the Wonder Twins, and we liked that.

  Mary Anne moved away, too. The night before her father came and swept her off to a remote town in Indiana, I sat at my window and watched the azure sky, waiting for the first star to appear. And when it did, I said the chant aloud and then wished with all my might that Mary Anne wouldn’t have to leave, that by some miracle she could stay with her grandparents and be my best friend forever. The next morning, her dad showed up in a beat-up ’72 Chevy Nova. I never saw Mary Anne again.

  I never wished upon a star again.

  I finish my tea, then take my cup to the sink to wash it. As I fill the cup with soapy water, I picture Mary Anne Kurtowski’s round, smiling face.

  I make pancakes from scratch. And bacon. I can’t remember the last time I did this, cannot access specific memories, but shadow recollections loom in my mind of Sunday mornings at the griddle.

  On this morning, I revel in the feel of the whisk in my hand, folding the ingredients together, the sizzle of the butter on the heated iron pan, the bubbles erupting from the disks of batter as the underside of the pancakes turn golden, the aroma of crackling pork from the broiler.

  The lure of bacon draws my family to the kitchen. Colin brings Josh down and Kate appears shortly thereafter, showered and fresh.

  Josh can’t eat bacon, but pancakes are okay, if they soak up enough syrup to be mushy. I plate a stack for him and pour maple syrup over the top and set the plate aside.

  No one utters the slightest bit of surprise over my culinary undertaking. And why should they? My shadow memories have already revealed that I make a fabulous breakfast on a regular basis.

  As I set the food on the table and watch my children and my husband enthusiastically dig in, shame rises from my gut. The false memories are just that—lies. I haven’t been making pancakes for my family. I’ve been lying in bed, wallowing in self-pity, resenting my obligations, and, in turn, offering up only the barest minimum. Oatmeal. Protein shakes. Half the time I let Kate and Colin fend for themselves while I curse the fact that my son can’t pour his own cereal, let alone eat it himself, or eat it at all.

  This, this family breakfast, produced by my hands, is what I should have been doing all along—would have been doing if I weren’t so busy hating myself and my life.

  Dante and I cooked together. Fabulous meals—French, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Greek. We bought a map of the world and taped it to the wall in the living room. We would go to the library and peruse the cookbook section, discovering recipes from all around the globe. Then we’d find the region that corresponded to our particular culinary adventure and mark it with a thumbtack.

  Dante’s grandfather was a chef, and Dante taught me how to dice and mince, how to separate yolks from whites, how to reduce wine and make a roux. We paired our meals with correlating alcohol: spaghetti bolognese with chianti, ahi spring rolls with sake, Mediterranean lamb shanks with ou
zo.

  When Dante and I parted, my passion for the kitchen dissipated. I tried with Owen, honestly I did. But every homemade meal I proffered was met with criticism. Too much sauce, babe. Or, Good thing I hit the drive-through on my way. If the food was unrecognizable to his limited palate, it was rejected out of hand. I stopped trying.

  And Colin, Colin was so happy to have a wife that he didn’t care whether his meals were masterpieces made from scratch or purchased from the freezer section of the local supermarket. With Katie, I never gave much thought to how a home-cooked meal might affect her. I made uninspired stews and meat loafs and pastas with canned gravy. Occasionally I pulled out one of Mom’s recipes, but only when I had extra time and energy, and those instances were rare. Josh’s dietary restrictions further distanced me from the joys of cooking.

  But now, as I take my place at the table and watch Katie feed Josh his pancakes and Colin scrape his last bite around the rim of the plate to soak up the butter and maple syrup, as I absorb the contentment in the kitchen inspired by a simple mixture of flour and baking soda and buttermilk, I realize that I have been undermining my family’s happiness as much as I’ve been undermining my own.

  The pancakes are delicious. But they feel like cement in my stomach.

  I discern from the breakfast conversation that, in this new version of my life, we have no caregivers on Sunday. The family is together without interference. Katie and Josh play Xbox or catch up on beloved TV shows or go to the park and feed the pigeons. Or all three. Colin reads the paper, then may or may not work on his manuscript. On Sundays I catch up on emails and the few blogs to which I subscribe and attack any carryover work from the office, if a deadline approaches. Occasionally, if I am free of my career obligations and Colin is suffering from writer’s block, we undertake to go on an outing.

  But not today.

  Today I have other plans.

  Keeping my voice neutral, I ask Colin about his writing schedule and if he is planning to work today.

  A fleeting sneer followed by a complacent smile. “I was hoping to get some words down,” he says.

  “Aw, do you have to?”

  “Yaaa, Daah, d’ y’ af t’?” Yeah, Dad, do you have to?

  “You must take inspiration when it comes,” Colin replies, then turns the spotlight on me. “What about you, Em?”

  I clear my throat. “Well, I have a big meeting this week. I could sure use some time today.”

  Katie rolls her eyes, but I can tell that she is used to my work ethic. Her eye roll is perfunctory but not malicious.

  “Your mother’s job pays the bills around here,” Colin says. My champion.

  Katie shrugs, then turns to her brother. “I checked the weather, Josh. I think there’s going to be a perfect breeze for that dragon kite of yours. How about I call Simone and the three of us can go to the park and try to fly it?”

  I could cry. Tears crowd my eyes. I won’t release them, because tears would give me away. But in my mind, three days ago, my daughter was off with him and her brother was a castoff, an embarrassment, a shirked responsibility. Today, she loves him as always.

  “Te’ Siowe t’ we’ th’ pe’ sher a her.” Tell Simone to wear that pink shirt of hers.

  Kate’s eyes go wide with mock consternation. “You’re such a perv, Josh. I know the shirt you mean, the one that shows off her . . .”

  “Boo.” Boobs.

  “I am not telling her that, Josh.”

  “Tha’ jus rog’. Aye stuh i’ thi’ cheh. Th lee’ y’ cu d’ i’ hep m’ sss boo. Aye doe’ wah t’ loo’ a’ yos.” That’s just wrong. I’m stuck in this chair. The least you could do is help me see boobs. I don’t want to look at yours.

  “Thank God for that,” Katie replies. “You can see boobs on the internet. You’re not going to ogle my best friend.”

  “Aye ca’ og. Aye droo t’ muh.” I can’t ogle. I drool too much.

  There is a moment of silence in the kitchen. Then we all burst into laughter—Colin, Katie, Josh with his donkey bray. Even me. My laughter feels foreign. It feels good.

  Simone arrives within the hour. She is lean but curvy, with long, straight, silky black hair that cascades to the middle of her back. She is not wearing a pink shirt, but she is ready. Simone is Katie’s best friend. Anyone who holds that office must be fully accepting of Josh. And she is. She speaks to him as though he is not imprisoned in his body. She teases him and jokes with him and even flirts with him. Not the same way that Lena flirts with him. Lena’s flirtations seem calculated and cold, obligatory. Simone is a well-adjusted teenager who sees beyond the wheelchair to the heart of my son. She is not bothered by the need for Katie’s translations.

  As I gaze upon them sparring in the living room, I am careful to not make wishes.

  Once the three teenagers have set out for the park, and Colin has barricaded himself into his office, I head for the family room. I lower myself onto the ancient, wooden, slat-backed desk chair and boot up the hard drive, then wait while the computer drags itself to life.

  When the computer is ready, I click on my search engine of choice and begin to type in questions. The answers are not forthcoming. As far as I can tell, no one in the history of mankind has ever experienced what I am experiencing.

  This seems far-fetched to me. I don’t consider myself to be extraordinary; I am average with a capital A.

  When my questions about wishes coming true glean no answers other than ridiculous YouTube videos about magic spells and inane opportunities to “creatively visualize my desires” and “jettison my intentions out to the universe,” I expand my search. Desires actualized, I type. Self-fulfilling objectives, I add. My new search calls up several websites regarding existentialism.

  My father was Catholic, my mother Episcopalian, which is like Catholicism light. When my father was present, which was about half the time, we went to Mass. When he was absent, Mom and I baked or knitted or went to the movies, reasoning that God wanted us to explore the world around us and appreciate His creation in all its aspects.

  Although my religious upbringing was largely impacted by my father’s presence, I never questioned the existence of God. Even through my trials with Owen and, more importantly, with Josh, God’s omnipotence was a given. My residual Catholic guilt led me to believe that the punishments I received were due to some horrible sins I’d committed.

  Existentialism is a word I’ve heard but never fully understood. This is what I read now:

  Existentialism is a philosophy that emphasizes individual existence, freedom, and choice. It is the view that humans define their own meaning in life and try to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe.

  Something about this idea strikes a chord in me. I am exercising choice, I think. I am defining my own meaning and trying to make rational decisions despite the fact that my life does not make any sense.

  “Is it possible?” I wonder aloud to the empty room. Is it possible that we are all in charge of our own destinies? That every human being has the power to assemble or disassemble their own lives through the sheer power of their minds?

  I continue reading, article after article, several blog posts, and one research study about the effects of the existential viewpoint on the life of the typical housewife. After an hour of poring over endless paragraphs about this philosophy, I realize that my question and the answer no longer matter.

  I am making wishes. They are coming true. It is what it is.

  Existential? Perhaps. Unlikely? Definitely. Happening? God, yes.

  At two o’clock on that Sunday afternoon, I shut down my computer. I am not reassured about the state of my sanity. But I have uncovered a lifeline to clutch, however desperate my grasp upon it is. I have no more definition or explication or justification for my current circumstances than when I began my search. But I now possess a philosophical supposition, a theory through which I can vindicate myself.

  For the time being, that’s enough.

 
Edith Piaf’s warble sounds through the wall of the family room. I stand and walk from the room, then grab my keys from the table in the foyer and head out into the blazing sunshine.

  The Krummunds’ SUV is parked in the driveway, the back hatch open, the cargo bay half-full of bags and equipment. My neighbors have returned from the lake. Spencer, the twelve-year-old, comes out from the house trailed by his little brother, Steven. They each grab something from the back of the SUV and drag their booty to the house. Spencer waves at me as he goes, and I wave back. I have the crazy urge to run over to him and tell him about the little puppy in the pet store downtown, how cute the little guy is, how his family just has to buy him.

  Instead, I walk down the path to the sidewalk and gaze down the block toward the park. From the curb in front of my house, I can see the dragon kite fluttering in the air.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Monday, July 11–Thursday, August 4

  There are rules. Aren’t there always rules?

  For the next several weeks, I push aside questions about my own sanity and test the extent of my puissance. I don’t think of myself as a superhero à la Marvel or DC Comics, but if I am to assume that I’ve been given some sort of power, I have an obligation to discern its scope and limitations.

  Through trial and error, this is what I learn: my wishes cannot be undone.

  At the beginning of my research, I start small, not wanting to unleash complete chaos into my world by wishing something life altering or drastic. I’ve already done that with Richard Green, and I still experience vertigo each time I go to work, expecting my boss to be there only to re-realize that I am the boss.

  On that first Sunday night, perched on the edge of my bed, hands clasped, I begin with my husband’s pipe.

  I wish Colin didn’t have that stupid pipe anymore.

  The next morning, Colin comes bustling into the kitchen, his brow furrowed. He has misplaced his father’s precious pipe and he is in an absolute lather over it. The pipe is nowhere to be found, he says, and has anyone seen it, and he’s searched the house top to bottom twice, and how could a person lose a pipe, and are you sure you haven’t seen it? He is so churlish for the next few days I am tempted to wish for a divorce. But I understand my mistake. My wording was nonspecific.