Becoming Chloe

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  That’s nice, too.

  The second day we go out and also don’t catch a fish.

  By the third day I’m ready to do something different, but Chloe is determined to catch something. She’s set her mind’s eye on it, and she’s not about to let go. We sit out all day and she catches nothing.

  Late in the fourth day we actually get a nibble. Chloe suddenly isn’t sure what to do, so I remind her how that reel thing works, and she reels it in. It’s a fish, all right. It’s bright and silvery, about seven or eight inches long. It flips its body desperately back and forth, swinging the line wildly. Chloe isn’t sure about grabbing it. So I grab it and hold it for her. Then she holds it.

  Then she says, “I feel bad for it, Jordy. That must suck to get caught. I feel bad now that I caught it.”

  “You want to throw it back?”

  “Yeah. Take the hook out, Jordy. I want to let it go.”

  I free the hook as gently as I can, and Chloe flips him back into the stream. As he flies, she says, “Goodbye,” and then, “sorry.”

  I guess it was something to do for four days at least.

  When the time comes for Chloe to get a light walking cast, Esther drives us in to the hospital. Even though it’s two and a half hours away by car.

  She says she’s going to miss us when we move on. I believe her. It must be hard to be Esther, meeting all these people who are just about to get up and go somewhere else.

  We’re on Route 87, headed south, between Second Mesa and Winslow. We’re riding in a Volvo station wagon with a nice young woman named Dana. She’s on a three-day vacation from her kids, and she’s being nice to us. She wasn’t planning on swinging so far east, but she wants Chloe to see the Painted Desert as much as Chloe wants to see it. Also, I don’t think she’s in much of a hurry to get back to her kids. She pulls off to the side of the road so Chloe and I can step out and get a better look. Breathe it all in.

  It’s nearly dusk, with the light on a long slant, making this world even redder and more dramatic. It hardly looks real. In front of us is a hill, stained in horizontal stripes. Tan and ocher and deep red and an almost purplish hue. The road, deep black with striking white lines and a yellow center divider, bends left to avoid the hill. The blue sky finishes off the painting. And white clouds, going to black and silver on their bottoms.

  I feel like I could look forever.

  “It really is painted,” Chloe says.

  “Well, not really painted,” I say. “It’s different kinds of rock, and it’s stained by things like carbon and iron oxide.” Wow. I actually remembered something from school. More amazing yet, I actually had some use for something I learned in school.

  “Well, maybe that’s how God paints,” she says.

  “Apparently so.”

  “I thought it was just the Grand Canyon,” she says.

  I have no idea what that means.

  “You thought what was just the Grand Canyon?”

  “It was supposed to be so beautiful. I was expecting that. But then there were all those other places on the way. And then the Grand Canyon was enough, but now here it is again. All this beauty. How many places are there? That are this beautiful?”

  “More than you can count, I guess. An infinite number.”

  Then she throws her arms around me, which I was not set to expect.

  “It’s such a beautiful world, Jordy. I didn’t know. I didn’t know it was such a beautiful world. I mean, how could I know?”

  Dear Dr. Reynoso. I think we can all breathe now. I think it’s enough.

  I could answer a lot of different ways, but I choose the simplest and most honest route.

  “I’m a little surprised myself,” I say.

  “What if I’d lived my whole life and never known? Do people live their whole lives and never know?”

  “Lots of people,” I say. “Lots of people live in one city all their lives. Lots of other people see all the things we’ve seen and still don’t know it’s a beautiful world.”

  “How sad.”

  “Yes,” I say. “It is.”

  “But it didn’t work out that way for us.” Just as I’m thinking I have Chloe to thank for that, she says, “Thank you for that.”

  It works both ways, I suppose. Without me she wouldn’t have seen all this. Without her, I might have seen all this and still not known what a beautiful world it is. The saddest fate of all.

  SIX

  * * *

  JINGLE BELLS

  We’ve just made our way down from the mountains, through Flagstaff, out onto flat desert. Through Phoenix more or less without stopping. We don’t like cities anymore. Chloe and I have no use for cities. But now we’re hitching out in the desert alone, and it’s getting late, and I’m thinking maybe we should have stayed over in Phoenix.

  Chloe is clumping along on the side of the highway with her walking cast. No crutches. We’re each towing a bike trailer. There’s a moon out, and it illuminates the cactus just enough to make them look eerie, like arms reaching for us in the dark. But I guess if they’re a bunch of cactus, they’re cacti, aren’t they?

  We’re getting a car every minute or two, but so far no one will pick us up. People like to pick you up in the daylight. Get a good look at you first.

  A car pulls over and stops.

  Before I even get a chance to look inside, Chloe says, “I don’t want to go with them, Jordy.”

  I look inside. Outwardly, there doesn’t seem much wrong with them. I mean, as far as I can see. It’s just three guys, college age, in a big old boat of a Ford. Relatively clean-cut and all. Probably I would have jumped into their car in a heartbeat. Never thought twice. I’m still not sure why Chloe said what she said. But then the guy in the shotgun seat rolls down the window and leans out and I can tell that he’s sloshed.

  All three of the guys have open beer bottles in their hands or between their legs. So I guess I just have to go with Chloe’s gut. Only, how do you tell someone you don’t want a ride when you just stuck your thumb out and asked for one? Maybe if they’re sloshed enough, it won’t even matter. Maybe whatever I say will make sense.

  “You know what?” I say. “Never mind. It’s a beautiful night. We just decided we’re enjoying walking.”

  “No, get in,” he says. “Really. Get in. It’s fine.”

  “No thanks, man. Thanks anyway.”

  “Come on, really. Get in.”

  “No, we’re just going to go our way, okay? We’ll see you.”

  I start walking, and I signal Chloe to walk. She’s about five steps ahead of me, and she takes the signal and we walk.

  The car cruises along at about three miles an hour, keeping pace.

  “What’sa matter?” the guy keeps saying. “What’sa matter?” He’s really drunk. Too much of his body is hanging out the window. The guy in the backseat is taking hits off a pipe. “What’sa matter? Come on. Get in. We won’t hurt ya.”

  I decide to walk closer to Chloe. I don’t want her up there by herself. So I catch up, and I go around her bike trailer on the right. My mistake. I should have gotten between her and the car. I know that immediately. But with the trailers behind us and the car beside us, it’s hard to correct it now. I’m beginning to seriously wish another car would come by. So far it’s just these three drunks, me and Chloe, and the spooky cacti and their shadows.

  The shotgun-seat idiot leans out and grabs Chloe’s ass. All three drunken fools whoop wildly at the same time. Chloe drops her bike trailer in surprise and that gives me my opening.

  I drop back and turn and smash the guy in the face.

  It’s a great shot. Man, I swear I didn’t know I had that good a shot in me. First of all, he’s all drunken limp like a rag doll. Second of all, I hit him square in the nose. Third of all, it snaps his head back and he smacks it hard on the top of the door frame. One, two, three, you’re out. He falls slack, hanging halfway out the window, blood from his nose running onto the road.

  The other two
guys get out.

  “Run, Chlo,” I say. “Run. Now. Get the hell away.”

  After each beat of words I expect her to move but she doesn’t. Whether she’s just a deer in the headlights or refuses to leave me alone in this, I don’t know. There’s not time to know.

  The driver swings his beer bottle and catches me clean in the left temple, and I go down. I can feel the beer foaming as it soaks into my shirt. I can taste beer and blood at the corner of my mouth.

  Everything that happens after that is only half clear.

  I remember being picked up from behind and held with my arms behind my back. Two or three more solid blows to the face. With a fist this time. A fist with a ring. I clearly remember the ring. I remember Chloe jumping the guy who was holding me. I know it was her, even though I didn’t see it. I know because when she hit his back she let out this exhalation of air, and a sort of accompanying sound. And in that sound I recognized her. Her voice. I think she had him by the throat because I heard some strangled sounds that weren’t her. Then I think we all three went over backward. Chloe, the guy holding me, me. I landed on him, knocked the wind out of him. I remember hoping we wouldn’t land on Chloe. It didn’t feel like we did.

  Then there was the boot. This big boot in my gut. That one last good shot. I might’ve rolled over and vomited, or maybe I rolled over and thought about it or thought maybe I would.

  Then there were car lights, and the sound of an engine. A car door slamming. Another car door slamming. Nobody holding or hitting. A screech of tires. I wanted to look to see if they were gone for real but there was too much blood in my left eye, and somehow I couldn’t bring myself to open either one.

  That’s really all I remember.

  I come back to consciousness saying the word “ow.”

  Stitches are being applied strangely close to the outside of my left eye. I can feel the tug of the suture, but it doesn’t really hurt. It’s a deadened part of me. Still, the “ow” was appropriate. Just for other, more general reasons.

  I open my right eye. There’s a doctor standing over me. A male doctor. A very good-looking male doctor. I can’t believe I just thought that. How could I have thought that at a time like this? I must be delirious. I must be trying to go somewhere else in my brain.

  The doctor says, “Now you’ll have a new scar to go with this other one.”

  “Great,” I say. “A set.”

  “You must be quite the scrapper.”

  “No, sir. Not at all. I really try not to piss people off. It never seems to work, though.”

  “One more, for good measure,” he says. I think he means another stitch. I hope so. I hope he doesn’t mean another beating. I really couldn’t take another beating.

  “Where’s the girl who came in with me?” I ask.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “She didn’t seem to have a scratch on her, except for that cast. I’m guessing you already knew about the cast. I don’t know where she is, though.”

  “Did they tell her she couldn’t be in here?” I’m getting a knot in my stomach. The only reason I can think of for Chloe to not be in here with me is if they told her she had to leave.

  “I don’t think so,” he says. “She was just here and then she was gone.”

  I have to go find her, I think.

  “I have to go find her,” I say.

  “No, you have to lie still for a while. You have a concussion. You’re under observation for a concussion. You’re not going to jump up right now.”

  “No, I have to go find her.”

  “Someone else can go find her if it’s that important.”

  “It is.”

  “Okay. I’ll get someone to go find her. You just stay here and lie still.”

  He’s gone for a long time. More than fifteen minutes. There’s a clock mounted on the wall at the end of the room. The curtain is only drawn closed on my left. I have an unrestricted view of the clock. It’s been more than fifteen minutes. Every minute or two a nurse looks around the curtain at me. What she’s looking for me to do or not do, I don’t know.

  Then she’s called out of the room for something that sounds urgent.

  Another ten minutes go by. I don’t appear to be under observation anymore. I get up.

  I’m not saying it’s an easy or comfortable thing to do. I’m just saying I do it. Slowly. Thinking I’ll pass out with every move. But I steady myself against stationary things, and I don’t pass out.

  I look out into the hall. Several hospital employees are clustered around an open doorway. My handsome doctor is not one of them. The nurse who was checking on me is.

  I go closer. So far they haven’t noticed me.

  “She just went crazy, I guess.” One of them says that. A woman in hospital whites. “She was banging her head on the wall, and then on the mirror.”

  I have one hand on the wall to steady myself, and I take three or four fast strides down the hall to see.

  That’s when the nurse looks up and says, “Hey. What are you doing up?”

  I keep striding. Just before two of them grab me by the arms and march me back to my horizontal state, I manage to get a quick look inside. It’s a restroom. A single bathroom. On the wall over the sink is a shattered mirror. Shards of silver lie in the sink and on the floor. Most have blood on them. The sink has blood on it. The floor has blood on it. On the shattered mirror itself, a few blond hairs.

  Dear Dr. Reynoso. All is lost.

  * * *

  They don’t let me go in and see her until the next day.

  She has bandages on her forehead and on the palms of both hands. She’s barely awake. Her arms are strapped down to her sides, and at first I don’t know why. And it pisses me off. Then I see that she has an IV dripping into her left hand, and that explains it. No way that needle goes in or stays in without full restraints. It still pisses me off. But I don’t see that I can do anything about it. She looks alarmed to see me. That’s when I realize that I haven’t seen myself yet. I have no idea what I look like.

  I sit down by her bed and she looks down at the sheets.

  After a while she says, “Sorry, Jordy. I’m sorry I broke my promise.”

  “Well, you didn’t, really. You just got scared.”

  “But I hurt myself. I promised you I wouldn’t hurt myself.”

  “It’s okay, Chlo. We’re both okay.”

  Then we don’t talk for a minute. We don’t meet each other’s eyes.

  “I thought you would die,” she says.

  “It wasn’t that bad, Chloe. It wasn’t bad enough to kill me.”

  “One time I saw somebody get hit in the head that hard, and he died.”

  “Oh. You know, sooner or later you’re going to have to tell me about all those times before you met me.”

  “Okay, Jordy. How about later? Can I do it later? Right now I’m just really tired.”

  “Okay. I’ll leave you alone to rest.”

  “No, could you just stay with me? Could you sit here for a while?”

  I’m discharged, so I guess I can sit any damn place I want. There are five other beds in Chloe’s room. They’re empty except for a thin, ancient man who’s unconscious or asleep.

  “I’m sorry I broke my promise,” she says.

  I sit with her until she falls asleep. Apparently she’s on a good deal of painkillers or sedatives or both. It isn’t hard for her to drift right back to sleep.

  While she sleeps I get up and go into the bathroom off her room, or ward, or whatever you call it. I flip on the light and look at myself in the mirror.

  I’m alarmed, too.

  My left eye is swollen shut. Which of course I knew. I knew it didn’t open. And I’ve been touching it gently, so I knew how swollen it was. But I somehow was not prepared for the full visual effect. My lip is swollen on one side, and I have a bandage covering the stitches at my temple. The side of my face is a sort of bright fuchsia, which I’m sure will be a lovely,
sickly yellow-green in just a few days. It’s kind of horrible.

  But then I think, you know what? It’ll heal. I look at the old scar on my forehead, and it’s just that. A scar.

  Nobody said we would get out unscarred, I guess.

  Nobody said it was a beautiful world with no scars.

  I make the call from the hospital lobby. Collect. I still know the number by heart. I know it’s late in the evening there. After nine, anyway. But I feel like I have to do this now, otherwise the mood might pass and then maybe I never will.

  I hear my mother say hello.

  Then the operator says she has a collect call from Jordan and asks if my mother will accept the charges. There’s a long, nerve jangling pause. I’m thinking maybe she won’t. Part of me would like that. Part of me would hate it, but I’d still be relieved.

  Then she says, “Yes, operator. Yes, I will.”

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Jordan, look. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, hon, but I can’t help you. Your dad was furious that I gave you money last time. Now I need his signature on every check I write.”

  “I didn’t call to ask for money, Mom. Could you just be quiet for a minute? I’m sorry. That sounded rude. I just need you to listen for a minute. I have something I need to say.”

  There’s a gift shop in the lobby, where a nice, plump, middle-aged woman sells balloons and teddy bears and flowers. She’s closing up for the night, and she waves at me. And I wave back. She knows me. Everyone here knows me. It’s become a source of comfort.

  “Mom. I just called to tell you that I forgive you. And Dad. I know that sounds weird. Me forgiving Dad. But I do. I forgive him for almost killing me and I forgive you for letting him. For pretending nothing bad happened.”

  “Jordan, I—”

  “Just listen, Mom. Could you please just listen?”

  The gift shop lady is walking through the lobby to the front door now, her heels clicking on the linoleum floor. She touches me briefly on the shoulder on her way by. “ ’Night, Jordan.”