I look in my phone and I've got his number.
I text him, come down.
I see his head silhouetted upstairs, looking out.
I wave. He disappears, without a signal. Is he coming, or what?
Why did this happen only to Claire and not to Joe? Did he jump out of the way? Did he try to save her?
Did she break up with him?
I hear the side door open, so I ride up the driveway.
“Nat?”
“Hey, Joe.”
“How are you?”
“Oh, you know,” I say. “Bad. How about you?”
“Really bad.”
I'm glad they don't have one of those lights, like we do, that pop on when a raccoon goes by. A raccoon or a skulking teenager.
“I'm so messed up,” says Joe. “I keep thinking someone is going to shake me awake and tell me it was a nightmare. It's just so, just so …”
And here's another reason boys cry: their girlfriends get hit by cars. Joe covers his face. I don't want to watch him, so I go to lean my bike against the wall, but it sways and twists and knocks into him while he's trying to pull it together.
Then I lunge to catch the bike but Joe misunderstands and thinks I'm trying to embrace him. We end up standing there in this wrong hug, with the bike kind of pinned between us, and it's so awkward.
I step back and get the bike set. I sit down on the little step by the door.
“Have you seen her?” He sits next to me.
“Yeah.”
He wants to know but he's afraid, I can tell. I'm waiting to ask him, but I'm afraid too.
“She's pretty bad,” I say.
I think about today. I see her head and the gash and her swollen face and the tubes. I grope for the real Claire. The old Claire. I remember the prom photo taped to her mirror. Joe was her date, wearing a tuxedo, and they were so gorgeous it was ridiculous, like movie stars at a premiere. Now I can see her face, clear as clear. Her hair, darker than mine, cut so it would fall just right, no hokey updo for Claire.
“She was crying,” says Joe. “She was telling me …” He stops, and when he talks again his voice cracks like a sad little kid's. “You can't tell anyone this. Please, don't tell. She was saying she thought we should, you know, spend the summer apart, because of going away in the fall. I couldn't even listen. I knew from the first sentence she was breaking up with me, and I felt like my heart stopped. I got all… well… I cried, Natalie. I cried. And then she started crying and she tried to hug me and I told her to get lost and I punched a telephone pole.”
He holds out his knuckles, scraped and scabby. “See? And then I turned around and said, ‘I mean it! Get lost! I don't want your pity! Don't be nice to me while you're breaking up!’ And I was sort of yelling but I was hiccuping too, and that got me more pissed off. And Claire was crying so hard she must have … well, I guess she couldn't see properly. And she went… stumbling back across the sidewalk and turned around to cross the street and then … oh god…”
He has a hand over his eyes and he shudders.
“Did you … did you push her?” I say. “Is that why she—”
“No! We were just, you know, mad, and … emotional. But then this car came out of nowhere and … boom!” Joe is whispering now. “Except it wasn't a boom…. The sound I remember was the brake grinding, like eeeeee… and a thud. A hollow thud. I keep hearing it, I keep trying to figure out what it sounded like….”
“Like a body,” I say.
Joe moans. It's miserable. Animal in pain.
A light snaps on inside.
“Oh Nat.” He grabs my arm and yanks me off the steps, around the corner of the house. “Ssssh! My mom—”
We're in the dark near the garage. I can feel loops of hose on the wall next to me. Joe is leaning against the bricks, trying to recover his composure. The door opens.
“Hello?” calls Mrs. Russell. “Is someone there?”
Joe puts a hand over my mouth, but I twist away.
“What?”
“My parents said not to talk to you, or anyone,” he whispers. “Your dad scared them, like … I did it.”
My hand is gripping what turns out to be his bicep.
Claire had sex with him. That's what goes through my head while we're hiding there. The screen door bangs shut.
“Did you do it, Joey?”
“What? How can you say that?” His eyes are horrified.
“Because Claire is really messed up!” I yell. “She's really damaged! And you were with her when it happened! Why didn't you stop her? Why didn't you save her?”
I wrench myself away from him and grab my bike. I look back and he's standing with his tanned arms just hanging there. I hurtle down the drive, blind with tears. I scrape against the curb and grind my ankle so it rips and bleeds.
What Should Have Happened
Claire comes in and I look at the clock. “Late.” But then I see she's red-eyed. “What?” I say. “You did it?”
She plonks down onto her bed and nods, grim and unhappy while she takes off her sneakers. Then she says, “But you know what? He acted like a jerk, like a baby high school jerk. He cried and he punched the telephone pole and he was a pathetic idiot, so it just makes me know that I did the right thing.”
“Poor Joe-boy,” I say.
“Don't even start,” says Claire. She throws a shoe at me, but she misses and topples my bottle of water, which spills all over my duvet.
“Aaah! Claire! You whore! Look what you did!”
“Oh, shake it out. It hasn't even soaked in yet!”
So I pick up my duvet and thwack it a couple of times like an oversized dish towel, and water sprays around the room and we laugh.
“Ice cream?” I say.
“And Breakfast at Tiffany's.”
That's how it should have been.
Look at This
Dad's at the computer when I come in.
“Look at this,” he says.
“I'm tired.” I'm not going to tell him that I saw Joe-boy
“Just for a second. Look at this,” says Dad. “Your Aunt Jeanie told us about all kinds of times when people despair and then …”
So I go and look over his shoulder at the computer screen. He's got a list from Google of medical journal articles or maybe crappy tabloids, with titles like “Man with Head Injury Rewires Brain” and “Woman in Vegetative State Shows Signs of Awareness” and “Car Crash Victim Wakes After 20 Years in Coma.”
“Dad.” I put my hand gently on his plaid shoulder, pretending I'm the nurse. “Dad.”
He slumps a little, hearing me through his hope.
But, “It could happen,” he says. “We can't give up.”
I sink into a chair. Have I given up? Or am I being realistic?
Sleep Has New Rules
Every part of me is aching and fuzzy, longing to be asleep. But when I get to my bed, my brain won't let go of this day. I want to lie on my side and whisper to Claire as if she's in the other bed, like all the nights of our life.
Maybe I can trick sleep if I try a different position. I stretch out on my stomach, pretending I'm on the beach. I lie on my back, being a vampire in a coffin with my arms crossed over my chest. I go back to my side and wait.
First Sight in the Morning
Audrey is sleeping beside me like a puppy. How'd she sneak in? She's on the floor, not on my bed. And not on Claire's bed either.
I look at her face, her eyes crusted with black, lips parted and making a sound like there's a bug whirring in her throat. She's got a bath towel over her and she's curled up with her head on Claire's stuffed chimp, Finny.
I love Audrey, coming over here for me to wake up to.
I Step over Audrey and Go Downstairs
I don't have to work until noon but here I am at eight, as perky as can be, sitting with the ladies. The kitchen is already bustling, as if we're getting ready for a party and all hands are on deck. Aunt Jeanie is being hostess, pouring coffee, unwrapping mor
e muffins from somebody.
Maeve went to high school with Mom. Shelley is Kate's mom, so she and Mom have been on school committees and all that. Gina's younger; Mom met her at the gym. They've been around as long as I can remember, but I haven't lingered in their company since my playground days.
“Can just you and me go see Claire?” I whisper to Mom. “Before I go to work?”
“Yes, darling, of course. But can we stop on the way? At Devon Road?” says Mom. “I think I'd like to see—”
I'm going to say no? It's the first time she's wanted to do anything, the first time she's spoken to me, really, since her wack attack in the bedroom.
I leave a Post-it on Audrey's sneaker: ur the best.
Dear Claire
Zack went yesterday and read all the cards and looked at the dolls and ribbons, and he said I should too, it might be good for me. Good for me? I wasn't going to, but then Mom …
We've been avoiding Devon Road on purpose, going around the other way to get to the hospital. It's as if some news channel is filming it, recording a tragedy with poignant details. We see it on TV all the time, whenever there's a heart-tugging victim. But now it's real life, our life, where we can pick the stuff up and read it. We stand and stare for a minute.
“But she's not dead,” I say.
“It feels as if she's gone, though,” says Mom. So she knows too.
We swallow and go closer.
I pick up a folded card with a crayon picture on the front of a big stick person and a little stick person, both wearing triangle dresses.
Dear Claire.
You are so prity. I hope you feel better. This is wen we went on a piknik.
X O X O
Michelle
Claire looked after Michelle on Saturdays while her mom went to business school. Try explaining this to a six-year-old.
Dear Claire,
I was so saddened to hear of your accident. I know you're a fighter and if anyone can get back on her feet, it's you. My wife and son join me in sending you the very best.
Coach Cop
Dear Claire,
You are the best friend I ever had in my life and I can't believe this happened to you.
I love you,
Taylor Flint
“Who's this?” Mom asks, handing me one.
Dear Claire,
It makes me feel really out of control that bad things can happen to such a nice person in a normal place like this. Now I'm afraid all the time. I hope a miracle happens next.
Your friend,
Steve
“I don't know,” I say. “There's a Steve in her class, but he's kind of—well, he plays chess, basically, so I don't know if this is him.”
“If this is he,” says Mom.
Dear Claire,
Jesus Christ our Lord is waiting for you with open arms. There is
nothing to fear. May your journey
be painless.
E.G.
Sure, I think. Don't sign your name. Painless.
Dear Claire,
I wish we had sex.
Toony
That one I crunch up and slide into my pocket while my mother is bawling her eyes out, touching teddy bears and miniature soccer balls.
“Can we go now?” I ask.
My mother puts down the card she just picked up. “Yes,” she says. “I think I've seen enough.”
She brings Michelle's drawing with her. “Maybe we can pin up some of these in Claire's hospital room,” she says. “To brighten the scenery.”
Mom
When we arrive in the parking lot of the hospital, she turns off the ignition. I open my door and get a blast of heat from the real world. Mom's not moving, aside from shivering. I didn't notice that the car is freezing till I opened the door. But Mom is just sitting there, so I pull my feet back in and close the door and look at her.
If she's this stoned, I think, she shouldn't be driving. She's just staring out the window with her lower lip pushed slightly out, looking petulant. But then I guess, Oh, maybe she's afraid. To go back inside for another day.
“Natty,” she says.
“ Uh-huh.”
“This is not the way it's supposed to be.”
“No kidding.”
“People tell me we'll be okay, but it's hard to believe, isn't it? I feel like I won't ever be okay again.”
I look at her. “I know.”
“I had these babies,” she says. “These darling babies. And from the first second that I held a living creature in my arms, I was terrified. First Claire and then you. It was just the idea, in the beginning, that I was responsible, this little bug could live or die because of me.”
“Mom.”
“Look what happened to Gina! She put Alexander to bed one night and he just died. Crib death. Over. Oh my god, the way I paid attention to my babies … And then you went to school. And to parties and camp and playdates and movies and riding in other people's cars. Even other parents' cars. A part of me was unable to breathe or think until you were home again.”
“That's a little extreme, isn't it?” But then I swallow. Nothing is extreme, it turns out. Anything can happen.
“So all this time I've been expecting the terrible phone call…. And then it came. You'd think, since I've been waiting forever, you'd think I would have made a plan for the next part….” Her eyes start to tear. “Wouldn't she hate this, Natty? If she knew she was …”
“She would. She'd totally hate it.”
“It's so … I can't bear … to see her this way.”
“I know, Mom.”
“And you're my baby too.” She smacks the steering wheel. “But… how can I ever be a whole mother again?”
I lean over as far as I can in the car and try to hug her. She leans against me. She laughs just a little while she's crying because it's so clumsy.
“I love you, Mommy.”
It slips out and makes her cry more but I'm glad I've said it.
Okay, Shoot Me
What is the deal with old women and facial hair? I know it's some function of aging and not producing estrogen and blah blah blah, but these old dames at the hospital, they've all got nasty spiky hairs growing out of their chinny-chin-chins!
One lady today, her name is Blanche, which I know because she's got it written in BLOCK letters on a giant sticker on her cardigan, upside down, so that when she forgets who she is, she tips her tag and reads her own name.
So Blanche is in a wheelchair in the hallway close to the intensive care unit. She's got a rolling IV apparatus and she's wearing slippers that without a doubt she knit herself, green-flecked woolies with pom-poms on the toes, like portable cat toys. She's clearly listening to music from an alien spaceship, because she's tapping her feet on the wheelchair footrests, and she's snapping her fingers and she's jutting out her hairy chin with the biggest grin on her face. Till she sees me.
“Hold your horses,” she says.
“Hello, uh, Blanche,” I say.
“You enduring?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“You just cry if you need to,” she says. “You deserve it. You are never going to be short on tears, from here till the end of time.”
And I believe her. I have this vision of myself wearing Blanche's dressing gown and Blanche's slippers. I'm a distressed old crone and my heart is still breaking for Claire.
But you can be damn sure I'll be plucking out those chin hairs!
Last Times with Claire
Last fight: Well, the black thingy wasn't really a fight, but it feels like one now. It would have been, if she'd known.
Last movie watched—don't laugh: The Princess Bride. Our all-time favorite line: My name is Inigo Montoya. You keeled my father. Prepare to die!
Last purchase together: Flip-flops at the mall. Two for five dollars. I got green and she got bronze.
Last thing she said to me: Mwa.
The Mailman
Charlie's been delivering mail to our house since probably befo
re I was born. His kid Ali goes to our school. His wave is usually the cheeriest of the day. But this week he's bringing a stack of envelopes so weighty he shakes his head and hands over Get Well cards like sheaves of thistles. He stands on the doorstep as if he needs to say something, but then he backs down the steps and goes off muttering his Jamaican oaths.
Mr. Dodd's Letter
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Johnson and Natalie,
It was with great sadness that I heard about Claire's tragic accident. As Claire's principal since the eighth grade, I have come to admire her good humor, her optimism and her resilience as an athlete. It is these qualities that I believe will carry her through to a full recovery. My wife and I, on behalf of the entire school community, extend our hear felt good wishes to your family during this difficult time.
Sincerely,
Michael P. Dodd
My Bike's in the Back So I Can Use It Later
“Where are we going, Dad?” This is not the way to the Y. Then I read the street sign. Carlisle Street. Uh-oh. Dad pulls over in front of a garage-type building painted yellow. U-RENT-IT! U-DO-IT! says the sign. The big doors are open and there are giant machines and tools inside.
“Dad.” I have this instant chill. Dad is just staring over there. I hear Carson's voice, And then the father, insane with grief and pumped up on revenge, he gets out of the car and it's a wide-angle shot, and you can see the crowbar in his hand….
“Dad!”
“Do you think that's him, Natalie?” says Dad. His hands are holding the steering wheel and he's pointing with one raised finger.
“I don't know,” I say. But I'm also kind of peering at this guy in shabby jeans and a muscle tee. He seems to be rubbing a rag over the blades of a lawn mower that's turned upside down in the drive.
“Keeping himself busy,” says Dad.
“I think he was injured too.”
Would You Page 7