It's My Life

by Stacie Ramey

  Mom asked, “Are you okay, Jenna?”

  I said, “No. I need to go home. I need to go home. I need to go home.”

  “We’re going, baby. We’ll be there soon.”

  When we got there, Mom unloaded me from the van and helped me to the bathroom and then to bed. I pulled up the browser on my iPad and typed my name, plus my Uncle Steve’s name, plus medical malfeasance, then settlement.

  I tried to tell myself whatever I found wouldn’t change anything. Wouldn’t change me.

  Then I pressed search. The results loaded, and I saw it. My name. The doctor’s name, Dr. Jacoby. Settlement. Steve Cohen, my Uncle Steve. The rest was hidden. I could pay money and find out how much we got, but there was no point.

  I finally knew the truth: I wasn’t supposed to be born like this.

  The world shifted under me. Mom knew. Dad knew. Uncle Steve knew. This was worse than the Santa deception. I wanted to scream at Mom and Dad. I wanted to yell at Uncle Steve. I wanted to find them and shake them and make them fear me.

  I sat there for a long time, staring at the screen until my vision felt painted with the blue-light glow. How could they all have lied to me?

  “Do something,” a voice inside me whispered, sounding braver than I felt. “Do something.” The voice sounded familiar. Like it belonged inside me. Because it did. It was Jennifer, the girl who I could have been, would have been, if only a doctor hadn’t messed up sixteen years ago. I beat my tears back. She was right. I needed answers. I would get them.

  And the first person I was going to start with was Uncle Steve. He had been part of the betrayal, so he was going to spill his guts. He owed me.

  I sent him an email with the settlement information attached and one simple line.

  We need to talk.

  He texted back.

  In a meeting. Can’t call now. But can text. How did you find that?

  Does it matter?

  No. I guess not. This was all for you. To be sure you were cared for.

  Cared for? Like an abandoned kitten? Like an orphaned child?

  No. Like my niece.

  So you did one of these for Rena?

  Do you want to meet up after I’m out of work? Talk about this?

  No. Not now. Right now I want you to keep this between you and me.

  I don’t think that’s the right thing. For you or your parents.

  As your client I expect you to respect my wishes.

  My client?

  Uncle Steve has always joked with us that he’d represent us against our parents if we ever needed him—as long as we paid him a dollar, he was our legal knight in shining armor. But if we really wanted to make it sacrosanct, we’d pay eighteen, the Jewish number that meant good luck. He was teasing, of course, but I pull up Venmo and send Uncle Steve a fast eighteen dollars.

  Fine, we’ll keep this between us for now. But this doesn’t change anything. You’re still the same girl.

  That’s where he was wrong. This changed everything. It changed me. Every decision I’d made before this finding became suspect. I rethought my classes, my life’s plans, my participation in therapy. In short, I rethought my world.

  Three

  The morning after the MRI, I wake up with my body throbbing from the abusive tests. But for some reason today, I feel pulled toward some kind of magic. Like something exciting is about to happen. Jennifer’s voice finds me and whispers in my ear that I need to get up, go to school. But my head is woozy, my eyes are glued shut, and I want to sleep for days.

  I hear Rena’s alarm go off. Then Mom’s steps down the hall. “You up?”

  She means Rena, not me. No one expects me to go to school today.

  The drugs they put in my IV for contrast are still sloshing around inside me, making me dizzy and nauseous, but I’m not down for a sick day. Not with Jennifer’s voice in my head telling me there’s a reason I need to get up.

  Jennifer’s voice comes to me, and it’s like magic. The kind I’ve always believed in. The truth is, I have always had this weird obsession with magic. And while that doesn’t make me unique or anything, because I’m sure everyone believed in magic when they were little, the thing is, sometimes I still do.

  Practical magic, at least.

  When I was twelve going on thirteen I started going to see the rabbi to study for my Bat Mitzvah. As I waited in the library outside the rabbi’s study for my turn, I’d walk by the bookcases, my crutches making the tiniest sound as they tapped the floor. My eyes fell on the beautiful gold lettering on the spines. Tikkun Olam. Jewish Mysticism. The World of Wonder. Malakim. “Malakim,” I whispered the word written in Hebrew, like a secret code. When I looked that word up later, I saw it meant angels or messengers. Man, was I bought in.

  But one day I picked up one of the books and read through it as I listened to the rabbi helping Eric Lisben recite his Haftorah. The combination of his soulful singing and the words on those pages got inside me, into that place that wanted magic. As I read, the letters seemed to rise off the page and swirl around in the air.

  “Ah. That’s a good one,” Rabbi Goldman said, emerging from his study and eyeing the book I was skimming on Jewish Mysticism. “Have you read the part about the thirty-six saints?”

  I shook my head.

  “They say that in every generation there are thirty-six saints who keep the world in balance. No one knows who these saints are. Not even the saints know. When one of these saints die, another is born to replace them.”

  “Wow,” I said, following him into the study. It was sort of like the Buffy the Vampire Slayer deal, though that’s not the kind of thing you can say to your rabbi.

  Rabbi Goldman sat on the side of the desk, his one leg hanging off. He laughed, and when he did, the soft wrinkles around his eyes creased even more. He had gray hair and a deep voice. “Yes, wow.” He rested his cheek in his beefy hand. “Some believe that these saints remind us of the divine inside of each of us. Any one of us can be one of the thirty-six, Jenna.”

  It was then I decided what I really wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be like one of those saints. I knew I could be important. I could be righteous. I could be free.

  Anyway, after the Dr. Jerkoby debacle, I’d told myself it was time to grow up and ditch the fantasies, but this still felt real to me, somehow. Like hidden inside any one of us could be the power to save the world. Our little corner of it, at least. And wouldn’t that be cool?

  I pull myself up on the edge of my bed. My head pounds, and I can’t help but make an awful noise. This makes Mom poke her head in my room.

  “What are you doing, Jenna? You need pain meds?”

  She means for the pain the dye caused. The headache, the body aches. The ache from cramping, which happens every time I have to do these tests.

  “I need to go to school,” I say.

  Mom makes a face. She marches into my room and puts her hand on my head. I want to throw her palm off my forehead, but she pulls it back. “No fever.”

  “I can’t keep missing days.”

  “Mrs. Wilson is getting your stuff for you. I’ll swing by and pick it up today if you like.”

  I take a breath and sit up taller, a small feat that sends a shock of pain through my spine and blasts my head. “I feel like I’m forgetting something. You know that feeling?”

  Mom looks at me like she wants to give me what I want. I shift forward, getting ready to stand, and wince at the pain.

  Mom shakes her head. “Whatever you’re forgetting will wait.”

  Maybe she’s right. Maybe it could wait, whatever it is.

  Before I can argue, Dad bellows from the other side of the house, “Sharon? Where is my cell? I’ve got that meeting in an hour…”

  “I’ll be right back.” Mom holds her finger in front of my face. “You stay here.”

 
The door closes partway, and I push myself to my feet. These tests are required to determine the next surgery or procedure that’s supposed to help me, but the irony—that they temporarily make things harder—isn’t lost on me.

  The pain in my head is insane. It’s like my body is a bottle of seltzer that someone shook up and my head is the cap that’s holding off the eruption. Maybe Mom is right. After all, one of the reasons I switched to regular classes was to make my school life easier, so it would be okay when I missed days like this.

  And yet, here I am working double time to get my sorry ass to school.

  A knock on my door. “Jenna?”

  “Yeah.”

  Rena lets herself in my room. “You okay? You need anything?”

  “I’m going to school.”

  Rena makes a face. “You don’t look so good.”

  “Thanks.” I push myself up and try to stand with my elbow crutches, but they scoot out from under me, and I buckle. Rena wraps my arms around her shoulder and holds me up.

  “What’s so important at school? I’d give anything for a day in bed.”

  “Everyone says that until…”

  “Yeah. Sorry. That was pretty crappy of me.”

  “You’re fine. I just need to get ready.”

  Rena helps me limp forward.

  I groan.

  “Is this about the text I sent you?”

  Then all of a sudden, the fog clears. The text. Rena sent me a text, and that’s why I want to go to school. But my memory still needs to be jogged. I make a weird noise that Rena interprets as the question I’m too ill to ask. What text?

  “About Julian,” she says.

  The ground shifts under me, and I stumble on my stupid rug. The one Mom says I shouldn’t have in my room because it’s the kind of thing I’ll trip on, but I insisted because I loved the fake white fur and how fluffy and puffy it looked. Glamorous. Annoyingly, Mom was right about this. I lean against Rena with all of my body weight, and she should be pissed but we both kind of laugh, because that’s what we do. When I’ve got my legs under me again, I move forward.

  “Distract me,” I say, only my tongue is kind of bunched, because right now it’s acting like an anchor for the rest of my body. I’m aiming for mobility on top of stability. Coordinated movement is the name of the game. Most people don’t have to think of it every time they move something or stabilize something, but I do.

  “Closet or bathroom?” Rena asks.

  “Closet.”

  She loops her arm under my armpit and braces me. “Julian’s back in town. Back in school. I saw him yesterday.”

  A tiny bud of hope forms inside me. Then something replaces it. Annoyance. If I’d been at school yesterday I would have seen him, too.

  We shuffle forward a few more steps. “Eric says the hockey team could really use him,” Rena adds.

  Julian. My Julian, with everyone but me. Rena saw him. Eric, who is away at college and not even at our school anymore, knew he was coming and has already planned how Julian was going to save the season. And me? I was busy getting injected with dye and lit up like a Christmas tree.

  We reach the opening to my closet. Rena balances me using her hip and throws the door open, jamming the switch to turn on the light.

  I breathe out, hard.

  “You okay?”

  “Ish,” I say. One of our jokes.

  My walk-in-closet houses three faux-fur jackets Rena insisted I needed this winter (one with a faux-fur-lined hood that she said was just delicious) and rows of Converse and ankle boots, because they add stability and also passed Rena’s cute-enough-to-wear test. But there are also skeletons in my closet—my abandoned mobility equipment. My closet is a graveyard of stuff too expensive to get rid of.

  A state-of-the-art electric wheelchair is parked underneath my spring clothes as if it’s waiting for its turn to become useful again. My Hoyer lift, the contraption we had to use after surgeries, when I couldn’t get up by myself, hovers in the back. Its metal chains and swing-seat—made of ballistic material—loom large and frightening like a character from a Stephen King novel.

  I glance at Rena. “I’m going to need my scooter, I think, but it’s not charged.”

  “It might be. You know how on top of things Mom is about your stuff.” My stuff. The stuff that I used to love because it helped me go places and do things. Since finding out about the settlement this past summer, my mobility equipment has become just another reminder of the entire birth injury lie. But I am aware that if I’m going to go to school, it will only be with the help of one of these little lovelies. So be it.

  My head pounds, a sign that I should probably just go back to bed. What does it matter if I see Julian today or any day after this? But there’s no reasoning with me when I set my mind on doing something. Dad used to say I got my hardheaded stubbornness from him, but he said it as a source of pride. Eric said it was my middle-child syndrome that made me so relentless. But I’m not sure either one of them would think my current drive to make it to school today is either cute or admirable.

  Rena bends down and turns on the scooter. “It’s got a little life, but not enough for an entire day.”

  I groan. “The full-on wheelchair it is.”

  She helps me back to the bed to sit, then returns to the closet and backs the wheelchair out of its corner, running it over her foot in the process. “Damn!”

  “Sorry,” I call out.

  “It’s cool.” She blows the hair off her face. “After you’re done with this contraption, I might have to exact some kind of revenge on it.”

  I lay back on the bed. “I get that.” My legs ache. My back throbs. My head feels way too heavy for my neck to hold.

  Mom throws the door open. “Oh, Jenna,” she says as she sits next to me on the bed. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay.” She looks at Rena. “Just grab some clothes for her and get ready yourself. I’ll take care of your sister.” Then she turns back to me. “Let me just call the school and make certain they’ve got an aide ready for you.”

  And now my head hurts even more. “Not Mrs. Wilson.”

  “You’ll take what you get, deciding to go into school after a procedure with no notice.” Mom’s in full-swing planning mode now. I want to argue. I want to remind her I told her I’d go last night, but it’s not worth it. If it’s Mrs. Wilson, it’s Mrs. Wilson. I’ll just have to deal.

  * * *

  Mom works the lift on the van and straps my wheelchair in. She hands me my shake. My hands tremble a little as I reach for it, and I’m almost positive Mom’s going to abort the mission. Instead, her face softens, and she cups her hand under mine, bringing the straw to my mouth. “You need some nutrition in you.”

  “Thanks,” I say, and I hope she knows it’s for everything. A big part of me is still upset with Mom after my discovery this summer. But then Mom does so much for me—my whole family does—and I can’t help but feel grateful for that.

  Rena hops to the car, pulling her boots on, a toasted waffle hanging from her mouth. She opens the front passenger door. Rena only sits up front when she wants something. Mom eyes her, waiting for Rena to click her seat belt on, and then backs out of the driveway.

  It doesn’t take long for Rena to start making her case. “I’ve got to stay after today.”

  Mom harrumphs and drums her fingers on the steering wheel.

  Rena puts her foot on the dashboard and ties the laces on her boots, talking around the waffle. “It’s just today. I’ll come home at the normal time tomorrow.”

  We get stuck at a stoplight, and Mom swats at Rena’s foot, then wipes the mark her boot made. She edges us forward in the traffic that is already backing up even before 7:00 a.m. “I need your help.”

  “I’ve got to finish my design for the fashion s
how. You want me to fail?” Rena gestures wildly, and the waving of her arms sort of pulls my eyes in a car-sick-inducing way. I don’t need that today, so I glance away. The drama is strong with the girls in my family.

  The auxiliary cord is hooked to my car iPod, so I toggle until I get to a song I want to hear. Now tracking in the van? “It’s Alright” by Weekend.

  Rena grabs the coffee mug Mom loaded for her, takes a swig, and then salutes me with it. “Great song, Jenna.”

  Mom’s eyes flit to Rena, then to me. A tiny smile forms on her lips because as annoyed as she gets with us all, she’s always happy about how close we are. “All right,” she tells Rena, “but when you get home, you’re mine.”

  “Drama queen much, Mom?” Rena twists to wink at me.

  Mom swats at Rena half-heartedly. The mood in the van magically shifts from cranky to light as Rena sings. “Sings sweet. Walks tall. Holds me upright.”

  The lyrics reach inside me and squeeze my heart. Will I ever bring sunshine or hold someone upright? I will never sing sweet, that’s for sure. But now I know what doing those things would sound like and feel like. Music and stories do that to me. Slay me and heal me all with the same sword.

  Rena chews, slurps her coffee, and does the hipster head bob to the music. Like the voice said in my head yesterday, it’s so easy. She means life. My life. And anything I want to do. Jennifer is the eternal optimist.

  As Mom pulls into the school driveway, she says, “Your brother is coming in for your birthday weekend. We’re having a ton of family.”

  “He is?” I ask from the cheap seats in the back.

  “Yup. In two weeks. He’ll stay through the weekend.”

  And suddenly nothing feels bad. Eric’s coming home. Eric. Rena. Me. They need a song for how great that feels. There may be no making me not have CP. There may be no rom-com happy ending for me. But when I’m with Eric and Rena, everything feels exactly the way it’s supposed to.

  Mom swings the van up to the curb where my school aide stands ready to retrieve me. It’s Mrs. Wilson. I do my level best not to scowl.