More to Life

by ReShonda Tate Billingsley

  “Please, baby. Please come back to us.”

  There was a desperation in Charles’s voice. I heard whimpering and crying, which had to be my children. I’d know those cries anywhere. I tried to move to let my family know that I could hear them. I willed my eyes to open, but it was as if my brain couldn’t connect the message to my body.

  “Doctor, it’s been . . . it’s been two weeks. When will she wake up?”

  An unrecognizable voice said, “As I’ve told you every day, she’s lucky to be alive at all. That accident would’ve instantly killed most people, but Mrs. Clayton appears to be a fighter. Her vitals are stable and the worst is over. Now we just have to be patient.”

  I heard more sobbing and crying and I made out Anika’s voice. “But, Dr. Hubbard, what if she doesn’t wake up?”

  Dr. Hubbard said, “Look, I know this is difficult but what your mother needs now is just your support. She’s going to pull through this. I’m very encouraged by her vitals.”

  I was still struggling to connect my brain to my vocal cords and it took all kind of energy, but I felt the grunt that came out my mouth. “Ugh.”

  “Oh my God. Mom. Mom.”

  “Mrs. Clayton,” the doctor said as I kept fighting to open my eyes. “Mrs. Clayton, can you hear me? This is Dr. Hubbard, your internal specialist.” I felt someone lifting my arm. “If you can hear me, I need you to squeeze my hand.”

  He put his hand in mine, and once again it took effort, but I was able to squeeze it.

  “Oh my God. She moved,” I heard Anika say.

  “Yes, she did,” Dr. Hubbard replied. I could hear the smile in his voice.

  I felt my eyelid open and a light filled my eye.

  “Yep, her pupils are dilated,” Dr. Hubbard said. “I’d say your mother is on her way back.”

  “Thank you, Jesus,” Charles said.

  I felt arms wrap around me and I finally willed my eyes to open. “Ugh,” I said again. “Wh-what h-happened?” My voice was hoarse and sore, like someone had taken sandpaper and just run it up and down my throat.

  “Honey, you were in a bad accident,” Charles said, stroking my hair as everything slowly came into focus.

  “We thought we’d lost you,” Anika said, lying on my chest and sobbing, though not as hard as before.

  “Yeah, Mom, we’ve been scared you were gonna die.” Eric eased up behind his sister.

  I blinked as visions of the black SUV and the royal blue Mustang filled my head . . . then careening off the embankment. My God. I couldn’t believe I was alive.

  “I-I’m okay?” I managed to ask. I must’ve sounded funny because Charles lifted a glass and straw to my mouth and I took a sip, though it seemed to be the hardest thing I’d ever done. But my mouth immediately felt better.

  “Yes, you are just fine,” Dr. Hubbard said, placing the stethoscope against my chest. He listened for a moment, then stood back. “Nice, steady heartbeat. Wonderful.” He checked the machine and nodded his approval. “Well, I’m going to give you a moment with your family. Then I’ll come back so we can run some tests. But, Mrs. Clayton, you’re a very lucky woman.”

  I struggled to sit up but Charles stopped me. “Here, I’ll raise your bed but don’t move.” He pushed a button that lifted my torso, giving me a better view of my family.

  Anika’s eyebrows furrowed as she clutched my hand as if she never wanted to let it go. “Mom, the police said you were texting and driving. You fussed at us about texting and driving since we first got our license.”

  “I know,” I said, the memories racing back to me. “It . . . it was just a second.”

  “That’s all it takes,” Anika said, repeating my mantra throughout their high school years.

  I looked over to see Judy in the corner of the room. I don’t think that I’d ever seen her look so worried.

  “Hello, Aja,” she said, easing up on the side of my bed. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I was hit by a Mack truck,” I managed to say.

  “You were hit several times, so this is nothing but the grace of God.” The gentleness in her words surprised me, but I welcomed them.

  My voice was slowly returning and it was less of a struggle to speak. “How . . . how long have I been out?” I tried to sit upright again, but the pain immediately stopped me.

  “No, no, baby,” Charles said, coming to my aid. He gently pushed my shoulders back down. “Just lie there and rest.”

  “Yes,” Judy said. “We have everything taken care of. You just recover.”

  I fell back against the pillow. “How . . . how long have I been here?”

  “Two weeks. It’s been the worst two weeks of my life,” Charles said.

  “All of ours,” Eric repeated.

  My son was the spitting image of his father. He’d grown into a handsome young man, but right now, he looked like a scared little boy.

  “Why aren’t you,” I had to pause to catch my breath, “you . . . two in school?”

  “Really, Mom?” Anika said. Her eyes were puffy like she’d had two weeks of nonstop crying.

  “We were scared we were going to lose you. How were we supposed to concentrate on school?” Eric added.

  “Eric . . . basketball . . .”

  “Basketball will be there,” he replied, taking my hand. “I wouldn’t have been able to concentrate anyway.”

  The thought of what my family had been through the past two weeks broke my heart. I can only imagine the fear they must’ve been feeling.

  Charles stepped up. “Well, your mother is out of the woods. So you both need to get back to school.”

  I could see them both about to protest, but luckily, Charles continued. “We’ll talk about it later. Right now, we just want to get your mother home, nurse her back to health, and return our lives back to normal.”

  That’s when it dawned on me. Home wasn’t my home anymore. My normal was different. What in the world was I supposed to do now?

  I had to figure this out. I managed to sit up, but then a wave of panic swept over me.

  “Oh, Jesus,” I cried, my eyes widening in horror.

  “What’s wrong?” Charles asked.

  I looked up at my husband, my heart racing as I said, “I can’t feel my legs!”

  Chapter 23

  The day that I couldn’t feel my legs turned into a month without feeling—the most grueling month of my life. I watched the winter weather give way to spring sunshine and my body refused to return to normal.

  What Dr. Hubbard and my family hadn’t told me that day I came to in the hospital was just how bad off I had been. I had shattered my vertebra in the accident, and pieces of it had been embedded in my spinal cord. I also had a ruptured bladder. The pain—from the waist up—was unlike anything I’d ever felt.

  “At best, you’ll probably spend a year in the wheelchair. I wish I had better news, but we have to be realistic. You may not ever walk again,” Dr. Hubbard had told me the day I’d been discharged to the inpatient rehab facility. “Honestly, your spinal cord is seventy percent compromised, and individuals with that diagnosis typically spend the rest of their lives in a wheelchair.”

  The rest of my life. The life that I’d been trying to reinvent.

  I’d cried for days—refusing to get out of bed and participate in rehab. But when the therapist had told me I would have to leave so they could give my spot to someone who really wanted to get better, I had dried my tears and tried to figure out how to become the exception to his rule. I’m glad the therapists wouldn’t indulge my pity party because within two weeks, I’d learned to roll over, get in and out of bed, and maneuver myself into and out of my wheelchair. I’d surprised the doctors and, though I was borderline depressed, I stayed committed to pushing myself.

  It was hard to stay motivated, though, because despite the hard work, I still couldn’t walk.

  “Just be patient,” Charles had told me. He was there with me every single day. He’d taken a leave of absence from work and
often slept on the hard pullout in my room. I don’t even know how he finagled that because guests weren’t supposed to spend the night at the rehab facility. I was sure Charles had flashed his award-winning smile to get the nurses to look the other way.

  But it was easy for him to urge me to be patient. He wasn’t the invalid.

  It’s crazy how we take the little things for granted. Never in my life did I think that I would be unable to walk.

  I did get feeling back in my right side, but not enough to propel one foot in front of the other.

  I was back home now, and supposed to continue my physical therapy, but being here, the place I’d run from, had made me lose all motivation.

  Right now, though, all I wanted was to walk across this bedroom, get my toothbrush and toothpaste, and brush my own damn teeth. I stood and demanded my legs propel me toward the bathroom. My legs didn’t listen, and I plopped back down in the wheelchair. I hated this wheelchair. In my dad’s final days, I’d seen his anguish about having to be in a wheelchair. I didn’t spend a lot of time with him. Jada had been his caregiver when he got sick from prostate cancer, but when I was there, I felt his frustration. I had no idea it was this bad.

  “Damn,” I said, hitting the door frame as I tried to navigate the chair through the guest bathroom door. It had taken a full-fledged temper tantrum to convince Charles to let me stay in the guest bedroom, but I couldn’t take his constant words of encouragement. It felt like all talk. I knew he meant well, but I was throwing a certified pity party and positivity wasn’t welcome.

  “I need you near me,” he’d said when I first told him that I wanted to stay in the guest room.

  “This just makes more sense. It’s downstairs and more accessible for me,” I replied.

  I also didn’t want to complicate things by going back into our bed. Though, according to the doctor, this disability was my life, I hadn’t resolved that just yet.

  “The guest bed is just more comfortable,” I added, hoping he bought my excuse. Thankfully, he did and stopped fighting me on it.

  I was up this morning trying my best to get up and move. I know that I had come a long way from the day I left the hospital. But still, navigating our non-handicap accessible house had proven to be difficult. Today, however, for some reason, I was determined to brush my teeth on my own.

  It took me about eight minutes, but I managed to stand from the wheelchair.

  “Yes,” I mumbled. I had started trying to give myself verbal reinforcement. I massaged my right leg. The feeling had come back there before I left the hospital, so I had been able to strengthen it. The left side, however, had no desire to keep up and I remained weak.

  I gripped the door frame and dragged my nonworking leg as I navigated my way over to the sink. I wanted to cry tears of joy when I finally reached the sink and toothbrush. I took a deep breath, surprised at how tired I was just from that small effort. I managed to get the toothpaste and was just squeezing it out of the tube when I lost my balance. I wobbled, willed my legs to work—to no avail—then hit the floor. Tears streamed down my face because no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t get up.

  “Charles,” I called out. “Charles.”

  Anika came running in first. She and Eric had gone back to school, though both had wanted to take a hiatus for the rest of the semester. They both still worried me daily with calls. I was glad they weren’t here. Charles’s doting was smothering enough. I didn’t mean to be ungrateful, but I was mad at myself for being in this position. I knew better than texting and driving. Roxie preached to me about it. I preached to my kids about it. And yet, I hadn’t practiced what I preached.

  Though she’d returned to school, Anika been coming home every other weekend since my accident. I could only imagine what our travel bill looked like. “Mom. Oh my God. Are you okay?”

  “Yes. I just fell,” I said.

  “Dad!” she screamed.

  It sounded like a one-bull stampede as Charles ran down the hall. “Oh no. What happened?” he asked as he burst into the room.

  “Mom fell,” Anika cried. She stood over me like she was scared to touch me, then finally knelt down and slid her arms under mine.

  “Ow,” I said as she struggled to lift me up. Charles came over on the other side, and together the two of them lifted me up and back into my chair.

  “Aja, what are you doing? What were you thinking?” Charles said. His voice was filled with panicked worry.

  “I just wanted to brush my teeth,” I cried.

  “You know you’re not supposed to be moving without somebody here,” he said.

  “I told you it wasn’t a good idea for her to be in this room alone.”

  I looked up to my mother-in-law standing in the doorway to the bathroom, shaking her head in condemnation.

  “Mom, we have it,” Charles said as he made sure I was situated okay in the wheelchair. “Babe, you gotta let me take care of you. You could have been seriously hurt.” He eased my wheelchair back out of the room.

  “I just want to lie down,” I said, fighting back the river of tears that was threatening to crest.

  “Come on,” he said.

  I expected him to wheel me back over to the bed, but instead he took a right and headed out of the bedroom door.

  “Charles, what are you doing?” I asked.

  He ignored me as he continued pushing my chair.

  “Charles, stop,” I said.

  He still didn’t say a word as he wheeled me down the hall and to the foot of the stair. Then he swooped me up out of the wheelchair and carried me up the stairs to our bedroom.

  “This isn’t open for debate,” he said, opening the double doors to our bedroom. “You could have been seriously injured. You’re coming back into our bed.”

  “Charles . . .” I said.

  He was carrying me like I was a rag doll. He gently laid me onto our bed. I cried silent tears as he tucked me in. Then he disappeared. He came back with the little container that I brush my teeth with and my electric toothbrush with the toothpaste on it. He handed it to me.

  “And this is what you’ve been trying to do? You see how easy it is to just let me do it? Why is it so difficult for you to let someone else take care of you for a change?”

  I took the toothbrush and brushed my teeth. Then he handed me a small cup of water. I gargled and spat into the plastic basin as he handed me a towel to wipe my mouth.

  “Now I’m going to get your breakfast, call for them to send a nurse to check you out, and you’re going to sit here,” he moved the remote next to me, “and relax until the nurse gets here.” He turned and left the room like there was nothing else left for discussion.

  Anika stood staring at me. “Mom, what is going on with you and Dad?” she asked.

  “What are you talking about, sweetheart?”

  “I don’t know. It just seems different. And then Grandma is really mad at you.”

  “Your grandmother is always mad at me,” I said, exasperated. This whole situation had just worn me out.

  “No, this is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I heard her on the phone with Aunt Jean,” she said, referring to Judy’s sister.

  “You know your grandmother is always gossiping.”

  She sat down on the edge of the bed. “Mom, I know you think I’m still a child, but I’m an adult now.”

  “Does that mean I can turn the cell phone bill over to you?” I chuckled, trying to ease the tension.

  “I’m not kidding.”

  “Me either,” I said with a smile.

  Anika blew an exasperated breath. “Mom, will you be serious? What’s going on?”

  Her expression tugged at my heart. I took a deep breath. Charles would be devastated if I had this conversation with Anika without talking to him first, especially now that I honestly didn’t know what was going to happen to us. If I didn’t get better, I would need to stay here for Charles to take care of me.

  The thought made my stomach scrunch up into knots.
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  “Your dad and I are going through some things, that’s all,” I said.

  She nodded like I was just confirming what she already knew. “Are you two getting a divorce?”

  “Look, let’s not talk about this, okay?”

  “Mom . . .”

  I squeezed my daughter’s hand. “Your dad’s right. I’m just going to lie here and get some rest.”

  “Mom, I don’t know what’s going on, but you see how much Daddy loves you. So, whatever it is, I hope that you guys will fix it.”

  I couldn’t reply to my daughter because I didn’t know what to say. I loved her daddy, but despite my current situation, I couldn’t say that I wanted to fix anything.

  Chapter 24

  I was sick of watching Family Feud, talk shows, and CNN. I was sick of being in this room and was now teetering between being depressed and being distraught. What happened to the story I was rewriting? The new chapter of my life? Instead I was stuck in this stupid wheelchair in a home with my mother-in-law giving me the evil eye. Yeah, all that concern Judy had had in the hospital was long gone. She acted like she resented Charles taking care of me.

  And my husband was taking care of me. He’d set aside all of the hurt that I had delivered to him on a silver platter before my accident and he tried to nurture and love me past my pain—the physical and the mental.

  Every day since I’d been home, I was reminded of how much Charles loved me.

  But despite my accident, despite his caregiving, that love no longer felt like enough.

  All the joy I’d felt prior to my accident had been stripped away, and now each day was just another day trying to heal.

  My husband walked into the living room and handed me a cup of tea. “Here you go,” he said.

  I took the cup as he adjusted the afghan across my lap. He moved the remote on the tray table closer to me and said, “Are you comfortable? You need anything else?” Then he flashed a grin.

  A horrible thought crossed my mind. What if Charles didn’t want me getting better? Maybe he liked seeing me as an invalid, confined to this chair and dependent on him. When I was in the rehab facility, I’d asked him to call the lady from the quilting shop and explain what happened and pay up for several months. I didn’t want to lose out on the building. He’d agreed—but only after trying to convince me that I didn’t need to be thinking about that.