by Maggi Myers
“No, I don’t understand how any of this is happening,” I cry. “She was fine when I left.” I must sound like an idiot. I never should’ve left.
While I mentally berate myself, Lily grabs the protective pillow and launches it across the room. She grips the bedrail and throws her head backward, keening like a wild animal. She’s crazed, unrecognizable to me. My heart has no time to break as her intent becomes clear. Reacting on pure instinct, I lunge forward and block her face as it comes careening toward the rail.
Sharp pain radiates up my wrist when the force of her head slams my hand against the bed rail. My only thought is, Thank God it wasn’t her forehead. A moment later, Audrey is there to shuttle me out of the way so Dr. Baker has room to hold Lily still. With the smooth and precise movements of a seasoned nurse, she prepares the syringe and gives Lily the drug with a quick stab to the thigh.
Dr. Baker takes Lily’s arms, crosses them over her chest, and slides onto the bed behind her. Gentle but firm, she places Lily in a therapeutic hold, the one the hospital staff is supposed to use before restraints are introduced. Nonviolent crisis intervention—NCI—is meant to keep the patient and staff safe until the situation de-escalates. In this case, until the meds kick in.
I can feel my heartbeat in my hand, each beat bringing another wave of pain. Everything else is numb, but the pain helps to keep me anchored in the moment. Dr. Baker whispers softly to Lily, reassuring her that she’s safe. I’m mesmerized by her soothing bedside manner; I startle when Audrey reaches for the hand I have clasped to my chest.
“Caroline, let me see,” she demands. I wince as she probes, yelping when she gets to my wrist. “You need to have this X-rayed.” She sighs. Her tone betrays what she knows. What I know—it’s broken. I can only imagine what the ER doctor is going to say when I tell him that my daughter crushed my hand between her skull and the TV remote built into the hospital’s bed rail.
“I need to call Peter first. I’m not leaving her alone again,” I say. In truth, calling Peter is the last thing I want to do. I don’t know where I’d even begin to tell him what’s happened. Thinking about it sends a new wave of tears falling, because I can almost hear his frustration. I already feel like I’ve failed Lily. I don’t need or want him to remind me.
I hold my breath as his line rings, dreading the moment he answers. How am I ever going to explain this to him without him freaking out? If Peter called me with this news, I would be completely out of my mind.
Voice mail. Voice mail. Voice mail. I will it to be, but Peter answers on the fourth ring.
“Caroline, I can’t talk now. I’ll have to call you back.”
“Peter, wait,” I urge, “it’s an emergency. Lily and I had a little accident.”
“What?” he yells into the phone. I pull the receiver away from my ear. “I thought you were at the hospital. How did you get into a car accident?”
“No, no,” I stammer. If he would just shut up for a second I could explain. “It’s a long story, but we’re still here at the EMU. Lily had a really bad tantrum, Peter. I’ve never seen her like that. She was thrashing around violently, trying to hurt herself. I threw my hand out to keep her from banging her head on the bed rail, and smashed it. I need to have it X-rayed and I don’t want to leave Lily alone.”
“Jesus, Caroline,” Peter breathes into the phone. “Has she calmed down? I can be there in thirty minutes.”
“They had to sedate her,” I say.
“Come again?” Peter sounds incredulous.
“They sedated her,” I repeat. “She was trying to hurt herself. We didn’t have a choice.” Peter stays silent on the other line. I can only imagine what he’s thinking, how angry he must be with me right now. It hurts my heart so badly. I have failed so miserably. “Say something, please,” I beg.
“I’m so sorry.”
His softly spoken words floor me. I was ready to face his anger, not his compassion. A sob tears free from my chest. All of the anguish I’ve been keeping at bay runs in steady streams down my face.
“I can’t imagine seeing Lily like that. It breaks my heart to think about it,” he continues.
“Peter,” I sob. My breath comes in staccato gasps, making it impossible to say more.
“I’m on my way,” he promises. “Hang in there.” Then he’s gone. A warm hand rubs steady circles across my back. I look up to find Audrey holding out a box of tissues and an ice pack.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“Stay strong, Caroline.” She continues to rub my back as she speaks. “This too shall pass.”
I believe her, but I’m scared to death at what awaits me in X-ray. Deep down I know my wrist is broken. Even if I tried to explain, would anyone believe that I was protecting Lily? My hope that people will accept Lily slowly circles the drain. People are rarely accepting of things they don’t understand, and no parent would let their child play with a girl who broke her mom’s hand.
reason why
The Haldol will last a few hours,” Dr. Baker says.
“I want to take her home when she wakes up,” I respond. Dr. Baker’s silence meets me, and I worry she’ll disagree. “You’ve already said that the EEG hasn’t shown us anything new. You have almost thirty-six hours of data. I want her home.”
“I wasn’t going to disagree, Caroline,” she assures me. “I’m just at a loss for the words to say how sorry I am. I’ll go write up the orders so they’re ready when you are.”
“Is this going to keep happening?” My voice is a breathy whisper of my fear. “Will her tantrums be violent like that now?” The walls of the room bend inward, hemming me in. Trapping me inside the prospect of the doctor’s words and a fate I can’t handle.
“Do I believe Lily is inherently aggressive? No. I do feel like she would benefit from the aid of a behaviorist. Someone who can teach you as a family how to cope with Lily’s deficits. Lily can learn to self-regulate before she gets that upset, and you and Peter can learn how to help her do that.” She gives me a reassuring smile, but I’m too overwhelmed to return it. “I’ll come check on her later,” she promises before she leaves to continue her rounds.
Dr. Baker’s words swim through my mind as I brush silky strands of hair off Lily’s forehead. Every time I think things can’t possibly get harder, something happens to prove me wrong. Someone sent me a card once that said, “If God doesn’t give us more than we can handle, then He must think you are a real badass.” I didn’t think it was funny. I didn’t chuckle at the sly wit of the friend who’d sent it. It pissed me off. It made me irate at God. Furious that He would do this to me—and for what? What purpose does it serve, to make my child suffer? Why should she go through any of this? So some fucking whacked-out crack whore can give birth to a healthy child she neglects? Don’t get me started on God. He is a sadistic thief who took everything away from me without a glance backward. Where is He now? Nowhere around here, that’s for damn sure.
Lily breathes in a shuddering sigh, like she can hear my hostile thoughts. Thick, acrid shame spreads like venom through my veins. Unfazed, Lily snuggles closer against my body. All she needs is my acceptance, and all I’m doing is cursing God for who she is. I don’t deserve her.
“Uh-oh. I know that face.” My head snaps up at the sound of Peter’s voice. He levels his kind eyes on me, bathing me in sympathy. “Stop blaming yourself, Caroline. It won’t help.”
I recoil from Peter’s words. What right does he have to assume what I’m feeling? It’s easy to oversimplify what someone else should or shouldn’t be doing. It’s a lot harder when you’re the one living it day-to-day.
“Thanks, Peter.” I let my words drip with sarcasm. “That’s insightful of you.” I shimmy my body out from under Lily, and fuss with the sling Audrey wrapped my arm in. I try tugging it into place, but it keeps digging into my neck. What I’d really like to do is wad it up and throw it at Peter.
“Caroline, you can’t keep condemning yourself,” he presses. “You can’t—”
“No, you can’t, Peter,” I snap, cutting him off. “You can’t tell me how I’m supposed to feel. In fact, you don’t get an opinion on how I feel at all.” I deserve to be condemned; look what I let happen. If I’d just come back a little sooner I could’ve stopped it.
I grab my purse and head toward the hall; Peter’s footsteps follow, so I keep talking. “She should be out for another hour or so. Dr. Baker is coming back in a few minutes to remove the electrodes, so you’ll need to get the hair conditioner out of Lily’s bag and comb out whatever glue the acetone doesn’t get to. I will wash it out when we get home.”
“Caroline,” Peter starts.
“Someone from Administration is meeting me in Radiology to take my statement for the accident report.” I ignore Peter and continue. “I shouldn’t be more than a couple hours.”
“Caroline, stop.” Peter grabs my shoulders, swinging me around to face him. “It’s not your fault. You can’t be there all the time, no matter what you’ve been spinning in that stubborn head of yours. You can be pissed at me for saying so. Whatever. Just stop, please.” He rubs my shoulders, placing his forehead against mine. Instead of comfort, it feels like acid where he touches me. He winces as I push him away. Where was this comfort when we were together? Why didn’t it occur to him to treat me with this kind of care when it mattered? Why now?
“What do you mean, you don’t know what happened?” Peter bellowed. “What else do you have to do but supervise her, Caroline?” His outburst hung like a poisonous cloud in the Urgent Care waiting room. The woman in the seat next to me got up and moved a few rows away. I hung my head in humiliation.
“Will you please keep your voice down, Peter. People are staring at us,” I whispered as I looked around at the curious stares. “I was in the bathroom. It’s not like I left her to fend for herself.”
“Yeah, well, you left her long enough for her to crack her head open on the coffee table.”
My heart shattered on the impact of his words. I knew that Peter was angry; I was, too. I was exasperated that the moment I took to use the toilet was also the moment Lily had a seizure and hit her head. I felt more guilt than Peter could’ve fathomed.
“You don’t think I know that? I’m the one who has to live with that on my conscience. For what, Peter? What would you have me do, wet my pants?” I cried. “I know you’re frustrated, Peter. I am too, but you can’t blame me. It’s not fair. I don’t deserve your poison.”
“You should know better than anyone, Caroline,” Peter scoffed. “Life doesn’t give a shit what any of us deserves.”
“Is that what you tell yourself, Peter?” My gentle tone did nothing to soften the sting of the words that followed. “That it’s not your fault you were never there? Screw you.”
Hindsight is always more clear than the present. If I had to pinpoint the moment that our marriage started to fall apart, that day would be it. The memory of those words, and what they did to my heart, fuel the fury building inside me. Peter’s never had to worry about feeling the way I did that day, because Lily’s care has never been his responsibility. It’s always been mine. It’s easy to criticize someone else’s efficiency when you’re never around to experience it yourself.
“Caroline, I’m sorry,” Peter pleaded. “Talk to me. Yell at me. Something!”
I couldn’t. My voice was crushed under the weight of the guilt I carried. There was nothing I could say that could erase his outburst anyway. I didn’t want to absolve myself or him. I wanted to hoard the pain, cloak myself in it and use it to validate my misery.
“I should’ve been there. I don’t blame you for your anger.” My words were as flat and colorless as I felt. Neither of us could cope with the hand we’d been dealt; we just kept repeating the same toxic pattern. Peter would explode with painful words and I would lose all ability to use mine.
“Goddammit, Caroline, you can’t believe that.” Peter gripped his blond hair in frustration. He waited, but I was adamant in my silence. “I don’t know what else you want me to say,” he mumbled as he stalked out of the kitchen.
“I love you” might’ve worked, though at that point I don’t know if I would have believed him, anyway.
As I walk down the hallway, I fight the urge to turn around and apologize for being so combative; Peter was only trying to help. Grief makes people say the most awful things. I know that Peter is not a cruel man. I would never have married him, let alone had a child with him, if he were. That day was a nightmare. It took seven stitches to close the gash above Lily’s eyebrow; the faint scar it left was a constant reminder.
I understood the desperation Peter was feeling, back then; I was feeling it, too. I was grieving, too. I forgave Peter for saying what he did, but he can never take those words back. Clearly they’ve remained a trigger for my own cruelty. I can’t decide which is the lesser of two evils: Caroline the silent martyr, or Caroline the sharp-tongued bitch. Honestly, I’m not very fond of either one of them. I don’t like who I am when I’m around Peter anymore. I don’t want the anger or resentment. I just want to move on. I choke back a sob as it occurs to me: that’s exactly the reason Peter left. Somewhere along the way, the magnitude of caring for Lily eclipsed that of our love. Unwilling to reach out to the rest of the world, we lashed out at each other, ripping lethal wounds in our marriage.
Hindsight might be clear, but it burns all the same.
fault line
The elevator is excruciatingly slow on the way down to Radiology. I have too much space to think, and remembering my exchange with Peter makes my head throb in time with my wrist. In his defense, he has no idea where I’m coming from. He didn’t when we were married, and he certainly doesn’t now. Attacking him was a stupid move on my part; I can’t exactly move on to a brighter future without finding a way to be civil to Peter. Poor guy. I’m sure my attitude was a shock; that’s the most verbose I’ve been about my feelings in years.
There was a time when I was happy to conform myself to exist in Peter’s likeness. He never asked me to; it was my own doing. I floundered in college, never really finding my niche. I was at the peak of my wandering when I met him. I’d spent three years trying to discover what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Three major changes later, I was still drifting without vision.
The only thing I cared about was writing, but my dad had put the kibosh on that dream: “I’m not paying for a bachelor’s degree in creative writing that you will never use.”
I tried to major in education; I really did. That lasted one semester. Then I thought I’d try journalism but soon discovered that making up news stories was frowned upon. I was a writer of fiction, not a columnist or news writer.
The one good thing that came out of the journalism department was my involvement with the literary magazine. At least there I didn’t feel so lost. I had purpose. In addition to writing my own submissions, I got to help choose the work that went into publication. That was the only reason I lasted three semesters—I loved that magazine.
I was too far into my schooling to reasonably change my mind again. My advisor was fed up with my apathy; my father had made it clear that he would not be paying for a fifth year of school. So I did the only thing I could at that point: I changed my major again. With a quick trip to the advising office, I was now Caroline Hunter, liberal-arts major.
Adding to my self-doubt was my “boyfriend,” Trent. We’d been dating for a few months, and I knew it was going nowhere. Still, I couldn’t even make the decision to break up with him. I was pathetic. A loser. All the things that Peter wasn’t. I was amazed at his confidence. He knew exactly what he wanted and where he was headed. In his third year of studying to be an electrical engineer, he already knew he wanted to work alongside the military as a defense contractor. I was fascinated and intimidated. I adored Peter, so it was easy for me to like the things he did. I let go of trying to figure out what I wanted out of life, and hitched my star to his. I felt safe tethered to his plans, but I never made any
of my own. In fact, it was Peter’s suggestion that I turn my love of the written word into a career. I’m so grateful to him for that. Still, as bright as Peter’s star shone, it wasn’t meant to illuminate us both.
The fluorescent lights flicker as I meander down the hallway, lost in my depressing reverie. Not paying attention, I bypass X-ray altogether and end up in the reception area of the MRI clinic. It figures my feet would automatically carry me here. My thoughts turn to Max, and my mood instantly brightens. I could really use a friend right now.
“Need to sign in?” The triage nurse taps her pen against the clipboard in her hand. She looks at me expectantly. “Hello?”
“Oh. Um. No,” I stutter. “Is Max Swain here, by chance?”
“No, he’s taking a late lunch,” she says. I watch as her sharp eyes home in on my left hand and the absence of a wedding ring. She arches a judgmental eyebrow at me and adds, “Can I tell him who stopped by?”
Nosy cow.
“No, that’s all right.” I sigh. “Can you tell me how to get to X-ray, though?”
“Down the hall and to the left.” She smiles sweetly, but her eyes are still picking me apart like a turkey vulture on roadkill. I fight the urge to fidget under her scrutiny, and I nod my thanks as I retreat. It’s not that I blame her; Max is totally hot, and single to boot. I have a feeling that’s the kind of reaction all women have around him.
I fight to regain my composure as I check myself in at the X-ray clinic. The receptionist waves me toward the waiting room, where I’m shocked to stillness in my tracks.
“How’d you know I’d be here?” There’s no hiding the surprise in my voice or the smile on my face. I debate whether to tell Max that he’s supposed to be having a late lunch, but I’m sure the triage nurse back in MRI will fill him in soon enough. Let her gossip all she wants. I’m so relieved to see a friendly face, I don’t care.