by Susan Wiggs
“Yeah, well.” Gordy sighed. “Looks like Degan and his squad will be working here.”
“So?”
“So do you still want to do this?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I still want to.” No way would Fletcher allow himself to be run off by a couple of high school punks. He was about to explain as much to Gordy when something caught his eye.
On the slope behind and above the farm office, a girl appeared, skimming across the field of untouched snow on a pair of snowshoes. Curly dark hair escaped her knitted red cap, and he recognized her. The blowtorch girl—Annie. She was accompanied by three dogs, tossing a stick for them to chase and wrestle over.
She moved and sounded like a young kid, and her laughter carried down the mountain. Then one of the dogs noticed Gordy and Fletcher, gave a warning bark, and barreled down the hill to challenge the intruders. The other two dogs followed suit, ignoring the girl’s shouted command.
A moment later, they were surrounded by dogs, barking and wagging their tails. Fletcher held out his hand to a shaggy mongrel. “Hey, buddy,” he said. “Easy, now.”
The dog bowed playfully, then feinted away. The girl approached them. Her big brown eyes reflected the sun, and she had a face Fletcher could look at all day long.
“Oh, hey, Gordy,” she said, then eyed Fletcher with a quizzical expression on her face. She was probably trying to place him.
“Hiya, Annie,” Gordy said. “This is Fletcher. We’re looking for your brother.”
“Kyle is in the office.” The dogs swirled around her, vying for attention. One of them nudged the stick toward her. She eyed Fletcher with a slight smile. She was even prettier when she smiled. Her cheeks were pink from the cold, and she had the longest eyelashes he’d ever seen. “You’re going to be on the tapping crew?”
“If he needs the help,” he said.
“Oh, he needs all the help he can get,” she stated. “So I guess I’ll see you around.” Her gaze lingered on Fletcher a bit longer. Then she whistled to the dogs and patted her leg, then headed across the snow.
Fletcher shaded his eyes and studied the girl on the hill, moving lightly on her snowshoes as she played with the dogs. On Monday, when he’d enrolled in Switchback High School, he thought it was going to be the worst thing that had ever happened to him.
Now that he’d met Annie Rush, he had a feeling that was about to change.
9
Now
Annie? I’m Dr. King. I’ve been taking care of you. My team and I.”
She tried to swallow. It took three tries. Her throat felt terrible, clogged with pain. She blinked until the guy’s face came into focus. Dr. King. She never went to the doctor. Did she know him? He had a good face. Craggy from being outdoors. Sandy-colored hair and light blue eyes watching her with a peculiar intensity. Not the kind that made her uncomfortable, but the kind that wanted to connect.
“Oh.” A single syllable, sounding like a rusty hinge. Her mouth didn’t work properly. She didn’t recognize her own voice at all. It was weird and thready, as if she’d been clubbing all night. She didn’t do that anymore. Did she? Had she ever?
“Um . . . thank you?” She wasn’t quite sure what to say to a stranger claiming he’d been taking care of her.
There was a crusty, ripping sound as soap-smelling hands opened the Velcro behind her neck. The cervical collar came away, and fresh air chilled her exposed neck. She tried to turn her head, but her neck was so stiff she could barely move it.
Questions and confusion crowded her mind. There were feelings, too, floating through her, but the only one she could name was frustration that she couldn’t express the other feelings.
Someone had pushed the sitting-up icon on the keypad, and the bed raised her up. The kitten-and-stars woman had also freed her from the restraints. Annie tried to flex her fingers and toes. Something was stuck on her finger. Then she circled her feet at the ankles. All her joints felt stiff and numb. She attempted to twirl her wrists, and they didn’t quite work either.
Dr. King leaned forward, looking, always looking, deep into her eyes. “You were in an accident. Do you remember that?”
She lifted her hand. Was that her hand? There was a white clothespin thing on her index finger. A heavy box in the pocket of her gown was connected to her with wires on the end of suction cups. She was wearing a hospital gown.
Because of the accident. What accident? An image flashed—a squeegee falling from a window washer’s scaffold? Another flash—she was driving along a busy freeway, in a hurry to get somewhere. She was in a hurry because . . . The thought floated away.
“I nnnnn . . . need a toothbrush.” Yes. Please. Her mouth was like the bottom of a cave.
Someone placed a curved tray in front of her, with a plastic-wrapped toothbrush and a sample-size tube of toothpaste. Annie reached for the toothbrush. Her fingers refused to grip it. She was too weak even to pick it up. She stared at her fingers as though they belonged to someone else.
“What h-h-happened to my manicure?” she asked in her scratchy, drunken voice, still staring at her hand.
The doctor picked up her hand, the one without the glowing white clothespin.
“I paid eighty bucks for that manicure,” she explained. “It was a gel coat.”
He regarded her with a look of pure male cluelessness. “I’m trying to find out if you’re aware of what happened,” he said. “What brought you here?”
“I drove myself,” she replied. An underlying sense of foreboding flowed through her in a dark river. She felt her mind struggling to understand precisely what was going on. Maybe this was a dream, one of those dreams about an unfamiliar place, unfamiliar people coming and going.
The doctor nodded, seemingly agreeable. The kitten scrubs lady pulled a rolling laptop and screen closer to the bed. Someone else, a woman who introduced herself as Dr. Riley, came forward with a stethoscope. She listened to Annie’s chest on both sides, front and back. Deep breath in. Blow it out. Then she pressed the smooth metal disk to Annie’s neck, explaining that she was checking the pulse in her carotid artery.
“Do you know what day it is?” asked Dr. King.
“Unless I missed something, it’s Monday.” Yes. The magazine interview was scheduled for Monday. There was usually a day or two of preproduction; then the taping started on Wednesday. The show’s shooting schedule usually ran like a precision clock. It was one of the many tricks she used to keep everything on budget. The quick thought flitted away, and the thread of memory unraveled.
Slight smile from the doctor as he exchanged a look with the other doctor, then turned to Annie. “There was an accident,” he said. “You suffered a head injury.”
She had tripped over something. I’m fine, really . . . That thought flitted away, too, on butterfly wings.
She lifted her hand again, studied the bare fingernails, clipped short. Touched her head. It didn’t feel injured. But . . .
“Hair,” she said in a reedy whisper. “What happened to my hair?”
This was confusing. When she’d left that morning, her heavy long hair had been caught in a pretty celluloid clip. Now her hair felt like . . . bristles. It was just . . .
“It’s gone.”
And for the first time since the waking-up time, Annie felt afraid.
“Hi, baby.”
That voice. Calling her baby. The voice and the word nudged Annie awake. Open your eyes.
A face, hovering above like the full moon. A sweet, sad smile. And then joy. Wet joy.
The name for the face flickered and disappeared. Annie struggled to bring it back. “Mom. Don’t cry, Mom.” Her voice still sounded so strange. The voice of a woman who had whiskey and cigars for breakfast.
“Oh, Annie. I can’t help it. I’m just so happy. I thought—we all thought . . .” Her mother looked at someone stationed at the foot of the bed. The kitten-and-stars woman again. “Can I touch her?”
A nod from the woman. A hug from Mom. Smell of the breeze in
her hair. The melting sweet sensation of safety. Mom.
And then came Kyle. Big brother, lumberjack build, teary-eyed grin. “Look who’s back,” he said. Bending forward. Soft brush of lips on her forehead.
“Oh, baby. We were so scared,” said Mom.
“You’re going to be all right,” said Dad, taking her hand and tucking a kiss inside her palm, the way he used to do when she was tiny. “For later, when I’m not here,” he used to say.
Wait. Dad?
She must be dreaming. Dad left the family forever ago. And here he was—salt-and-pepper hair, white teeth, square jaw, eyes the color of sweet basil.
A pizza with sweet basil, tomato, and mozzarella was named in honor of Queen Margherita of Savoy and featured the colors of the Italian flag. The signature white cheese was made from the milk of the Italian water buffalo. Annie had no idea why this arbitrary thought occurred to her now.
“Hey,” she said. Dry lips. Dry mouth.
“Here you go.” Someone touched her lips with a tiny wet sponge on a stick.
The whitecoats hovered, shining a beam into each eye and giving simple commands. Follow my hand with your eyes. Touch your finger to your nose. Now close your eyes and touch your nose. Close your eyes and hold out your arms. Clap in a pattern.
She knew what they wanted, but even lifting one hand exhausted her. And lifting her arms? Forget it. They were weighted down by sandbags.
Her brain had turned to scrambled eggs. It was remarkable how few people truly understood how to prepare scrambled eggs. Fresh eggs—preferably from the henhouse in the yard—were the key to the dish. It was important to avoid beating them into a uniform, homogenous liquid; instead, they should be stirred gently with a fork in order to allow the eggs to retain their character. Add a big pinch of salt and a small pinch of pepper. Warm the butter in the pan without letting it turn brown. The moment the butter starts to foam, pour in the eggs. Count slowly to ten and then scramble them gently with a wooden spatula. While the eggs are still moist—but not wet—remove the pan from the heat. Serve on a warm plate with buttered toast. Brain food.
Food for the brain. Not from the brain. Annie had never been a fan of sweetbreads—a nice-sounding name for organ meat—so she couldn’t exactly say what a brain looked like. Yes, she could. She had taken a class in neuroscience in college. The pictures in the textbook had caused her to quickly surmise it was not the right path.
Her thoughts were pinging every which way. Maybe her brain was not scrambled eggs, but popcorn. With the lid off the pan. A thought would form and then shoot away before she could grasp it.
Focus. Pay attention. She gave herself a stern warning.
And it was so. She swallowed a drop from the wet sponge. Icky taste of cellulose. She looked at her mother’s eyes and saw the sky.
“What just happened?” she asked. Crackly voice like static on the radio.
Another whitecoat held a camera pointed at her. Was this a taping? No. His camera was not a professional model. Besides, the taping was on Wednesday, and this was only Mon—
“Whadduh . . .” The words came out malformed. She tried again. “Wad . . . What day issst?” Still malformed, running together. Her mouth was so dry. The sponge on a stick touched them again.
Dad brushed her arm, a fleeting nudge of affection. “It’s good to hear your voice.”
Annie had always loved her father’s voice. When she was very small, he used to read her adventure stories that were supposed to be way over her head, like Kon-Tiki, The Odyssey, Treasure Island. They weren’t over her head at all. She understood the urge to venture to far-off places, discover new things, see the wonder of the world, even if it meant facing harrowing danger. She would snuggle up into the big protective curve of her father’s shoulder and let his stories carry her away to far-off lands. And then Dad himself got carried away. He wanted an adventure of his own.
Your mother and I are getting a divorce. None of this is your fault. We still love you exactly the same.
If it wasn’t her fault, why was she the only one hurting?
“Your care team is calling you a miracle,” said Mom. “You’ve always been a miracle to me, but they’re talking about your recovery.”
“Care team.” If she concentrated on the words, they came out better. Raspy and stuttering, but comprehensible. “I have a care team? What in the w-world is that?”
“They’ve been taking care of you since you were brought here,” Mom said.
Here. Where is here? Annie lifted her gaze to the skylight. That was where the warmth came from, the bars of sunshine she’d felt, waking up her legs, her body.
Accident. The doctor with the light blue eyes had mentioned an accident, but she couldn’t figure out what he meant.
“I tripped over a cable.” Yes. A memory flickered and flashed. She grasped at it, missed. She had been hurrying. Running from . . . what?
“That wasn’t the accident,” said Kyle. “There was a scaffold—”
Another flicker—fresh flowers, heat and smog. “The window washer’s squeegee, yeah. I remember now. It didn’t hit me. Came close, though.”
“Just listen,” said Kyle. “There was nothing about a window washer in the report. This was a workplace injury. The scaffold—some kind of platform on a lift—malfunctioned and collapsed.”
Annie. A voice calling her name. Come back.
“Seriously?” Now she felt annoyed. She had been opposed to that lift from the start. Sure, it was less expensive, but skimping on safety was no way to economize. “Where’s my phone? I’ll have my assistant file a complaint.” The words came from a place inside her that she didn’t recognize.
“Sweetheart, don’t worry about that. It’s all handled,” said Mom.
“What do you mean ‘it’s handled’?” She scowled and aimed a broody stare out the window. The apple blossoms were in full bloom, seashell pink and ivory, a graceful arch of limbs against a sunny sky.
She was allowed to climb the apple trees in the orchard on Rush Mountain. Not the maples, though. When she climbed the maple trees, she got sticky sap all over her clothes and Gran would scold her. A scolding from Gran always carried a special sting. Though she never raised her voice, her tone and the expression on her face conveyed a sense of disappointment, causing a burn of shame that cut deeper than any shrill rebuke.
Oh, Annie.
She looked back at her family. Dad. Kyle. Mom. Her family. They were far from perfect, but right now she felt only love from them. And for them.
“What is this place?” she asked. There were lab coats and doctors, yes, and warning signs and hand sanitizers on the wall, yet it lacked the tangle of equipment and high-tech feel of a hospital.
“It’s the skilled nursing facility of Burlington General,” said the lady in the scrubs.
Wait. What?
“Burlington as in Vermont?” Annie asked, incredulous. “How the hell did I wind up in Vermont?” Home. She was home at last. But Vermont wasn’t home anymore. Was it?
“Ah, Annie.” Mom inhaled unsteadily, and her eyes filled. “We’re trying to explain, but there’s just so much. We don’t want to overwhelm you.”
Worry pressed down on her chest. She yearned to sleep again, to dive deep into that pool of nothingness. She needed to sleep, but they seemed to want her to stay. Stay with me, Annie. Stay. The phantom voice in her head belonged to someone she thought she knew.
“You were knocked unconscious,” her father said. “It was a head injury, kiddo. A bad one.”
Kiddo. Why did he still call her that? She hadn’t been his kiddo in decades. Head injury . . . She lifted a leaden arm, took a breath for courage, and touched her short short hair. Her head didn’t feel injured.
“Is that why my hair got cut off?” She offered a slight smile. “I suppose I can handle short hair for a while.” She turned to her brother, who was watching her as if she’d just pulled the pin on a hand grenade. Kyle had never been able to maintain a poker face. “What?” she d
emanded.
“Nothing.”
“You’re looking at me funny.”
He glanced over at the nurse, then the cameraman. “There’s nothing funny about this, squirt.” That was his nickname for her. Squirt. She used to drive him crazy, spying on him and his girlfriends when he was a teenager.
He shuffled his feet. Looked at the floor. Looked back at her. “You were unconscious for a long time. Like, a really long time. It was bad. There was a chance you’d end up brain-dead. The organ procurement team wanted to—”
“Kyle.” Mom bit her lip.
“They wanted my organs?” Annie couldn’t get her head around that. Organ meat. Sweetbreads. Not a fan.
“No one could say whether or not you’d ever wake up,” Kyle said.
Annie yawned. She wanted to sleep again. To sleep, and never wake up. Focus, she told herself. Stay here. Keep them away from your organs. “I’m awake now. So I guess, thank you for not giving away my organs.”
Kyle laughed, and Mom smacked his arm.
“You said a long time,” Annie whispered. “No. You said a really long time. What’s a really long time?”
Kyle went completely sober. Everyone was silent for a few moments. Annie counted the beats of her heart. Then she said, “Mom?”
Her mother was crying again, her head bowed.
“Dad?”
“You’ve been gone for a year,” Dad said. “That’s what we’re trying to explain. You lost a whole year.”
“A year.” The words rasped from Annie’s throat.
You’ve been gone for a year. Those were her father’s exact words.
“That’s not funny,” she said. She tried to grasp the idea of a year, but her mind worked with a strange lethargy. A whole year. What did a year feel like? How did a person sense the passing of time? Her thoughts formed slowly, like sugar syrup reaching the softball stage. Although water boils at 212 degrees, the sap has to heat up to 219. At that temperature, the sap is transformed into syrup.
Her father was still speaking, but Annie’s mind had wandered off again. “Sorry,” she said. “What?”
“No one’s joking around,” Dad said. “You had a lousy break, but the worst is behind you. Now we have to move forward from here.”