This Is How It Happened

by Paula Stokes

  I’m not sure if I should be offended or flattered at the idea of my dad stalking me online. I really did think after he messed up royally with Mom and me that he just decided to cut his losses and start over with his new wife.

  “We’ve been dating—I mean, we dated—for over two years, but we were kind of going through a rough spot,” I say. “Dallas spent a lot of time working on his YouTube channel even before he got the offer to record the album, but it was never more than an obsessive hobby, you know? But once he started making real money, things changed.”

  “You felt left behind?” my dad asks.

  “More like we just ended up on different paths,” I say. “Maybe we would have broken up. I don’t know.”

  “That doesn’t make this any less traumatic for you.” Dad squeezes my hand gently.

  “Thanks.” Dallas didn’t survive. He’s dead. It’s like I have to keep replaying those words in order to believe them. I know the first stage of grief is denial, but I’ve always thought of that as an active thing, a violent refusal to accept reality. What I feel is just this passive shock, this numbness. Maybe it is just the medicine, like Dr. Chao said. At least my leg stopped aching.

  “Right now it all feels fake,” I say, more to myself than my dad. “Like I’m rehearsing for my role in the world’s most terrible play.”

  I can’t shake the idea that my real life, and Dallas, are out there somewhere waiting for me.

  CHAPTER 4

  Dad and I start watching a movie on his iPad. We’re only about fifteen minutes in when my mom reappears, my backpack clutched in one of her fists. “Good news,” she says to me, without so much as acknowledging my dad’s presence. “Shannon dropped off your homework. I figured you’d want to start catching up as soon as possible.”

  “Is Shannon here?” I ask hopefully. Last year she had to spend the night in the hospital after she slipped on the diving board and hit her head. I stayed with her right up until she fell asleep, watching movies and working on homework together.

  “I told her you weren’t ready for visitors yet, but she’ll be back tomorrow after school. Oh, and the police are going to come by and take a statement after dinner.”

  “Okay.” There’s a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I’m not sure if it’s from the idea of talking to the cops or the idea of trying to eat dinner for the first time in six days.

  “How are your cases going?” Dad asks Mom, a safe attempt to be polite. If there’s one thing a surgeon is always willing to talk about, it’s surgery.

  “Good.” Her eyes flick to his face for just a second and then back to mine. “Did two PFAs this week and a transplant in a two-year-old.”

  “Nice,” my dad says. “You always did have a knack for the detail work. I prefer my hearts big enough that I can actually see the vessels I’m working on.”

  “Yes, well. We could talk all day about how you like easy, oversized things.”

  I wince. My stepmom, Rachael, is a park ranger who is five years older and about fifty pounds heavier than my mom. Mom had fun with that fact, telling all her friends that Dad had apparently developed a taste for overweight geriatric women.

  “But at the moment I think it’s best if we limit our interactions to what directly concerns our daughter,” Mom continues. “How long will you be in town?”

  Dad pauses the movie. “As long as Genevieve needs me.”

  My mother lifts her chin. “I’m quite sure I can take care of Genevieve. I’ve been doing it basically on my own for almost eighteen years.”

  Dad’s face reddens. “That is not—”

  I clear my throat. “Can you guys maybe not do this?”

  My mom doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “I’ll let you and your father enjoy your movie and drop back by later after he’s left.”

  “Good plan.” Dad’s jaw tightens.

  Mom spins on her heel and leaves the room, the tails of her white coat flapping behind her.

  “Sorry,” he says, after she slides the door shut. “She still knows how to push my buttons.”

  “Yours and everyone else’s,” I say. “I thought she and my nurse were going to get into a fistfight.”

  Dad snickers. “It’s good to know there are people who refuse to let her intimidate them.”

  “Good until those people start to mysteriously disappear, at least.”

  He pats me on the knee. “I’m glad to hear you making jokes. But hey, you don’t have to put on a brave face for all this, okay? After everything that’s happened, you’re allowed to fall apart; your parents are both surgeons. We’ll be here to put you back together if needed.”

  “Thanks, Dad. And thanks again for coming all this way.” I tug at the loose thread on my blanket again.

  “Stop thanking me for that.” He leans forward so we’re eye to eye. “You’re always going to be the most important thing in my life.”

  “Says the guy who moved fifteen hundred miles away,” I mumble.

  “Says the guy who has been trying to get you to come visit him for three years.”

  That’s the thing about surgeons for parents. They are always on their game. A weaker dad would have dissolved into apologies after my remark, but my dad counters with a legitimate point. I haven’t gone to visit him once since he moved to Utah. I didn’t even want to go to his wedding in the Bahamas, but he said I could bring a friend and Shannon had never gone anywhere outside the Midwest. Her eyes almost bugged out of her head when I told her. After that, I couldn’t back out.

  But the two of us hung out on the beach and kept to ourselves except for the actual ceremony and the bare minimum of time I felt obligated to stay at the reception. I expected my dad to act all wounded and lecture me, but instead he said he was glad I came, that it meant a lot to Rachael I was willing to be there.

  “You’re right,” I admit. “I should’ve found the time to visit. I’m sorry if I hurt you, or Rachael.” I glance around nervously. “I know you tried. I don’t blame you for leaving anymore. I just wish you had done it differently.”

  “Me too,” Dad says. “I hate that I hurt you.”

  I swallow hard. I’m in no condition to talk about the way my dad hurt me right now. It’s weird that something he did years ago feels like a fresh wound, but thinking about Dallas being dead still feels hazy and unreal. Maybe it’s my mind trying to protect me, holding back the emotional pain of the accident until my physical injuries start to heal.

  I gesture at the iPad. “Let’s get back to our movie.”

  For the next two hours, my dad and I hang out in comfortable silence, disturbed only by my nurse popping in occasionally to reprogram my IV pump and do neuro checks. As the credits start to roll across the screen of Dad’s iPad, a man in black-and-white checked pants and a white coat knocks gently on the glass door.

  My dad hops up and opens it.

  “I have a clear fluids meal for Genevieve Grace,” the man says, checking a paper list.

  “Mmm-mmm good,” Dad says. “Look, Genevieve. Dinner is served.”

  “Great,” I say. “I’ve been clamoring for some chicken broth and Jell-O.”

  The man checks my hospital ID bracelet, makes a note on his list, and sets my tray on my bedside table. Dad pushes the chair he’d been sitting in back against the wall and helps raise the head of my bed all the way so I’m ready to eat.

  The man heads for his next room and Dad lays out my silverware on a napkin.

  “Are you going to hang out and watch me eat?” I ask. “I’ll look the other way if you want to steal that Jell-O.”

  “Pass,” Dad says. “You know I only like the green kind. I just want to be sure you can eat without aspirating.”

  I take a big slurp of soup—low salt, lukewarm, this is why people starve to death in hospitals—and when I don’t suck it straight into my lungs, my dad smooths the wrinkles from his polo shirt and begins to gather his things.

  A strange bout of preemptive loneliness hits me. I don’t want
to be in this room all by myself. “Do you know what happened to my phone?” I ask.

  “I don’t know if they ever recovered it from the accident, but I think there’s a landline somewhere that works for local calls if you need to call someone.” Dad scans the room.

  Except I don’t know Shannon’s phone number. “I was just going to check my email and stuff.” My eyes latch onto Dad’s tablet.

  “You want to borrow this?” He drops his iPad on the mattress next to me, bending over to kiss me on the forehead at the same time. “The latest Tess Gerritsen is on there if you need something to read. It’s also full of my recent case study notes, if you need help getting to sleep later.”

  My lips curl upward. “Thanks, Dad.”

  The sliding glass door opens without warning and my mom reappears. I pull the blankets up to cover the iPad—I’m not sure why—and turn my attention to her. “You’re just in time for the blandest dinner ever created. I think they brought me three bowls of colored water.”

  “See you tomorrow.” Dad winks at me from the doorway.

  Mom gives him a glare and then pulls up a chair next to my bedside table. “Are you doing all right swallowing?”

  “Pretty good considering that everything tastes like nothing.”

  “I’ll talk to Dr. Derby about getting you on a soft food diet by tomorrow night if you progress all right with the fluids.”

  “What’s soft food? The one where everything tastes like mud?”

  “If you’re lucky.” Mom smiles as she brushes my hair back from my face. “The police will be here in about an hour. Do you want me to read you some of these cards while you eat?” She gestures around the room.

  “Who is all that even from?” I ask.

  She goes from gift to gift looking for cards as I struggle to make my way through my bowl of soup. There’s a plush Dalmatian from Shannon, a silk flower arrangement from Dallas’s parents, and then more stuffed animals from Tyrell and Dallas’s record label. Some of Mom’s colleagues chipped in for a bouquet of Mylar balloons. That accounts for about a quarter of the stuff. After that, some of it is from musicians I’ve never met, some from kids at school I barely talk to, and some of it doesn’t even have cards.

  “Do you think it’s from Dallas’s fans?” I ask.

  “Possibly,” Mom says. “The newspapers printed your name and that you were in critical condition.”

  I shake my head at the balloons and stuffed animals, at the brightly colored envelopes stacked on the counter. “Well, it’s a nice gesture, I guess, but kind of unnecessary.”

  “You know how people are. Tragedies like this remind us how little control we have over our lives. Giving a gift makes people feel better.” Mom points at my dinner tray. “Are you finished? I can help you brush your teeth before the detectives arrive.”

  “Good idea. My mouth tastes terrible.”

  Mom pushes my bedside table toward the wall. She finds my toothbrush and a travel-sized tube of toothpaste in an overnight bag she must have packed for me. She holds a pink plastic basin under my chin so that I have something to spit in after I brush my teeth.

  “Gross,” I say, as a bit of toothpaste drool runs down my chin and lands on the top of my blanket. “Is there any reason I can’t get out of bed and walk to the sink?”

  “Right now you’re still hooked to too many tubes to be able to get out of bed safely. I’ll make sure PT comes tomorrow. Dr. Derby will probably move you to the step-down too. A couple more nights and hopefully we can get you out of here. I’m sure you’re dying to get back to school and see all your friends.”

  “Mostly just Shannon,” I say.

  After I brush my teeth, I ask my mom for a mirror. She hesitates just long enough for me to know there’s something wrong with my face.

  “What is it?” I ask. “Do I have a broken nose? A giant scar?”

  Sighing, Mom hands me her phone so I can examine myself with her reverse camera. I’m a mess of cuts and bruises and there’s a white bandage wrapped around my head, but I don’t look as bad as I was expecting. I lift a hand to a long red gash along my cheekbone. My fingers trace the tiny black stitches.

  “I had that stitched by one of the best guys from Plastics. It should fade completely in a year or two.”

  A year or two. I’ll be a sophomore in college before this scar goes away. I finger the bandage wrapped around my head. “And this.” I furrow my brow as I struggle to remember our earlier conversation. “You said . . . brain surgery?”

  “A craniotomy, yes. They had to shave away part of your hair.” Mom pulls a tissue from the box next to my bed, obviously expecting more waterworks. “They wanted to do half your head, but I convinced them they didn’t need that much exposure, so it’s not as bad as you think.”

  “Oh.” I ignore the tissue my mom is holding out. Maybe there are stages of grief for hair loss too, or maybe I just can’t bring myself to care about my appearance when Dallas is dead. I run one finger underneath the edge of the dressing and feel the smoothness of my skull.

  “Don’t mess with it. You don’t want your incision to get infected.” Mom blinks hard. She blots at her own eyes with the tissue.

  “Mom . . .”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been a wreck all week. It took me a long time to get over losing your father, and I really thought I might lose you, too.”

  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen my mom cry. Even after the divorce, what I mostly saw was anger. If there were tears, she hid them from me. It feels weird comforting her when I’m the one who almost died, but I guess that’s how it is in hospitals—the family members suffer just as much or more. I reach out for her hand and she lets me take it. For a little while, the two of us just sit there in silence. My eyelids fall shut and I start to doze off.

  And then there’s a knock at the door. I open my eyes to see two plainclothes policemen—well, one man and one woman—standing outside the room. The man is stocky and muscular, with dark brown skin and the beginnings of a beard. The woman is older, blond hair streaked with gray, dark circles under her eyes.

  “Come on in.” I gesture for them to enter, but my mom springs up from her seat.

  As she slides open the door, she clears her throat. “I’m Genevieve’s mother, Dr. Elena Grace, chief of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery.” She keeps talking without giving the detectives a chance to introduce themselves. “My daughter suffered a traumatic injury to her brain, which is still healing. She hasn’t regained her full memories of the accident yet.”

  “Dr. Grace. Thank you for letting us know Genevieve was awake,” the blond woman says. She exchanges a look with her partner. “Do you think she might be more comfortable talking to us by herself?”

  “Not a chance,” my mom says. “She’s a minor and I know her rights.”

  “What are your names?” I ask, a little embarrassed by the way my mom feels the need to introduce herself with her entire title and take over every conversation.

  “I’m Detective Blake,” the blond woman says. “And this is my partner, Detective Reed.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I say.

  My mom nods curtly to both of them and then returns to her seat.

  The detectives pull chairs to the side of the bed opposite my mom and start by telling me they’re going to record the interview. Detective Reed asks me to tell him what I do remember.

  I close my eyes for a second and try to fish out more images from the blankness of the last few days, but I can’t recall much beyond what I already told my mom. “Uh, I remember smoke and lights, the sound of people yelling. Firefighters, I think? And I remember blood. The windshield was missing, but there was blood on the dashboard . . . and on me. I had on a white top, and I remember all the red.”

  “And before that?” Reed probes gently.

  “I remember us going to the release party. Dallas brought my mom flowers. He is . . . was always so kind, thinking of other people.”

  “Did anything special happen at the party?” Detecti
ve Blake asks.

  “You’d have to ask . . .” I trail off. They can’t ask Dallas. Dallas didn’t survive. He’s dead. I clear my throat and try again. “I’m not sure. Tyrell could tell you more about the party. I always felt kind of out of place at Dallas’s events. I spent a lot of the night hanging out with Tyrell’s Rottweiler.”

  Detective Blake gives me a small smile. She asks me why I was driving and it feels like a betrayal to admit that Dallas might have been drinking, but I guess now that he’s gone it’s no big deal if he was breaking the law. They want me to go back through everything I remember from that night, but the problem is I remember some of the party and then I have bits of memories of what happened after the crash, but the middle part is a total blank. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I know you’re looking for specifics about the accident, but I just don’t remember.”

  “It’s possible she’ll regain full awareness of that night after she’s had a chance to recuperate,” my mom says crisply.

  “We’ll get out of your hair so you can rest.” Detective Blake sets her business card on my bedside table. “Let us know if you remember anything else.”

  I nod. “Sorry I can’t be more help.”

  “That’s okay,” Detective Reed says. “You’ve been through a lot. We’re just glad you’re doing better.”

  Detective Blake and her partner leave my room and Mom starts fussing with the equipment laid out on the counter. I think about the snide way she said the other driver was having trouble remembering. What if no one believes me, either?

  The second the detectives are out of sight, I fake a huge yawn for Mom’s benefit. “That was kind of tiring,” I say. “I think I’m going to get some sleep.”

  “Okay,” she says. “I should probably head home and take care of a few things there.”

  I can’t imagine what Mom could possibly have to take care of at home. Pay the guy who trims the hedges? Make sure a second plastic-bagged newspaper doesn’t pile up on the porch? But I don’t care. Earlier I was terrified at the idea of being alone. Now I’m desperate for it. The not knowing is starting to weigh on me. I have to fill in some of the pieces from that night, and I know just the way to do it.