Austen Box Set

by Hart, Staci

  I felt a longing so irrationally deep in that moment, a frantic regret that I hadn’t looked into Annie’s palm, that I hadn’t traced the lines with my fingers. I wanted to see that crease travel across her hand and never end. I wanted to know that she would live until she was a hundred too, and that line would be some proof to carry me through the waiting, the unending waiting in a warp of time marked by a lost space man and infomercials for Brett Favre’s copper brace.

  A shuffling caught my attention. Elle was transferring Meg’s sleeping torso to her aunt’s lap, who brushed the little girl’s hair from her face with reverence. Their mother sat in her wheelchair, staring at the television without seeing, with exhaustion on her face so deep, it seemed to reach all the way through to her bones. Her uncle’s elbow was propped on a hard plastic armrest, his face propped wearily in his hand and legs kicked out in front of him, his body sagging in the seat.

  No one had spoken in a long time, long enough that Elle only spoke in a whisper, which they each answered with a nod.

  She came to me last, taking the empty seat next to me, with her hazel eyes tired and kind and worried. “I’m going to get coffee. Can I get you a cup?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I answered with a dry, creaky voice.

  “I hope it’s not much longer. I don’t know if I can stand it.”

  “Me either.”

  She stared at a spot on the ground, her eyes unfocused. “I can’t stop wondering what happened, how she ended up alone. You said she left the bookstore with Will, but what possibly could have happened between there and where you found her? How did she end up running through Central Park alone?”

  “I don’t know, but whatever it was, it was his fault. There’s no other explanation.”

  She shook her head and looked down at her hands, just as I had. “I wish I hadn’t texted him. I only saw her for a second when she came home. She was so tired, and we agreed to talk later. I didn’t see her again. I didn’t…I didn’t know they’d broken up.”

  “I don’t fault you for texting him, nor am I surprised that he hasn’t answered you.”

  Elle sat silently for a moment. “What did he do, Greg? What did he do to hurt you?”

  I ran a hand over my lips, looking to her family. We were speaking quietly, and they were distracted enough that they didn’t seem to be paying us much mind.

  “He used to date my sister. I wish it were as simple as him breaking her heart, but he took it so much further than that, so beyond what I could have even imagined. She told me he’d started rumors about her, which effectively ruined her reputation, and that was true. But she didn’t tell me the truth of the matter until today, before…before…”

  I swallowed hard, clamping my jaw before speaking again.

  “He drugged her and left her at a party, and she was assaulted by a stranger.”

  Her hand moved to her mouth.

  “I didn’t know. If I had, I never…I’d never have…” The words piled up in my throat. I swallowed them down again and started over. “I don’t know what he did to Annie, but the second I know she’s all right, the moment I see it with my own eyes, I intend to find out.”

  Another stretch of silence passed, mine laden with determination, hers busy processing what I’d confessed.

  She reached for my hand, which my eyes had found once more without my realizing.

  “You didn’t know, Greg. You couldn’t have known.”

  “Then why does this feel like it’s my fault?”

  “If it wasn’t for you, she might not still be with us. If you hadn’t found her, she might have been lost to us forever. We owe you a great debt.”

  I shook my head. “You don’t owe me anything. All I want is Annie whole and well.”

  “I believe we will have our wish, and you have to believe too.”

  “I do. Because if I lose my faith, I’m afraid of what will happen to me.”

  Elle squeezed my hand and let it go, and I turned my attention back to my empty hands.

  A little while later, those hands held a cup of bitter coffee that I drank without tasting. And I didn’t look up.

  Not until I heard a gasp from Elle.

  Will stood across the room, his hair disheveled and eyes glassy and bloodshot. At the unexpected sight of him, the whistling emotion I’d so carefully tamped down came unsnapped, letting loose in a hot wind of fury that propelled me out of my seat and to him.

  My hands didn’t care about the liquor on his breath or the repentance in his eyes as they reached for the lapels of his coat where the cold still hung.

  I pulled him into me like a rag doll and arched over him. “What did you do to her, you son of a bitch? What did you do?”

  His eyes, momentarily alert and wide with fear, bounced between mine. “I…I…”

  I shook him once, hard. “What the fuck did you do?”

  Commotion erupted around us, and hands pulled me away. I let him go and stepped back, my composure a breath away from shattering completely.

  “Is she all right?” he asked.

  “She will be, no thanks to you.” Elle stepped forward, her face drawn. “Are you…drunk?”

  “I…” he started, his eyes on the ground and shoulders sagging. “I didn’t know what else to do. When I knew…when I heard…” He ran a hand through his dark hair. “It’s my fault.”

  I took a step, but Elle stayed me with a hand on my arm. “Tell us what happened.”

  With one hand, he clamped his forehead, his thumb and fingers pressing his temples. He swayed when his eyes closed. “We fought. I…I said things I shouldn’t have. She left me for you.”

  I spoke the question again, for the last time, “What did you do?”

  “I…I told her she should be mine, kissed her to prove it, but I wouldn’t let her go, not until the driver stopped, and she ran—”

  I heard nothing more; I was flying toward him, cocking my fist, letting it go. I didn’t register the smack, didn’t feel the crunch of bones in my hand or the jolt it sent up my arm when it connected with his jaw, didn’t stop as he fell, and I descended with him.

  But I was lifted away, struggling against unseen hands, thrashing and gnashing and desperate to hit him again.

  “You left her!” I screamed over everyone else, the cords of my neck taut and burning. “You fucking left her there, just like you left Sarah. They paid for your fucking pride. She could have died. Do you understand that? I told you I’d fucking end you if you hurt her. I fucking told you!”

  Will propped himself on his elbow, and when he looked up, I knew he’d heard every word.

  “You don’t deserve her—you never deserved either of them. After what you did, you have no right to be here. You’re lucky you’re not in jail. You’re lucky I don’t fucking show you just how sorry you should be.” I tried to shake off the hands that bound me, but they tightened, holding me back.

  It was for the best; I didn’t know if I’d be able to stop myself.

  He stood, making no motion to straighten his coat or wipe the spill of blood from his lip, meeting my eyes. His words were thick, slow, and slurring. “I’ve never been a good guy; we both know that. But I never meant for this to happen. I never meant for any of it to happen, not Sarah, not Annie, and now…now…” He sagged, but his eyes met mine, bright with pain. “I’m sorry—”

  “No!” I screamed, straining to get free. “I will not feel sorry for you, and nobody believes you’re sorry. Don’t ask for forgiveness because there is none to give. Not for this, not for anything.”

  His eyes hardened, but he nodded once. Two police officers ran into the room. Those bodiless hands disappeared from my arms and chest, and somehow, I didn’t reach for him again.

  With the stern authority that only cops could manage, a brief questioning took place, and the general details of what had happened were given. They asked Will if he wanted to press charges. He shook his head, thumbing his lip when he met my eyes.

  In fact, Will watched me until the
police were gone—though they stayed near the elevators—and he looked at me with sincerity that I had no taste for.

  “Tell Annie I’m sorry,” he finally said.

  Before I could tell him to go to hell, he turned and walked away.

  My hands trembled as I turned to face Annie’s shocked family.

  “I…I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I shouldn’t have—”

  “Don’t be sorry,” her uncle said with dark eyes, his hand hooking my shoulder. “I only wish I’d taken the initiative to pull off a shot of my own.”

  We moved to sit again, each of us stunned silent—Meg with her wide eyes, curled into Susan’s lap, and Annie’s mother, her hand cupped over her lips and eyes locked on a spot on the wall.

  Elle rested her hand on my arm.

  But I looked back at my hands, now scuffed up and stinging, red and shaking.

  And I waited.

  * * *

  An hour passed before the surgeon appeared, looking tired but smiling.

  The relief of that smile was instant and complete.

  He told us the details of the surgery. Her shunt that kept oxygenated blood flowing through her had collapsed, which caused the immediate danger, but rather than replace the shunt, they’d performed the surgery Annie had planned. They’d repaired the valve and closed the hole in her heart. She was stable, and we’d be able to see her soon.

  A few minutes afterward, a nurse came to take Elle and her mother to see Annie. And for another half hour, I waited some more.

  So much waiting, I almost lost my mind from it.

  When Elle returned, her face was swollen and red from crying. Meg began to cry at the sight of her.

  Elle took the seat next to her, pulling her youngest sister into her arms, gently rocking her, soothing her as best she could.

  “She’s okay,” Elle assured her. “She’s all right.”

  “I want to see her,” Meg pleaded.

  “Not tonight,” Elle answered with a shaky voice. “Susan, will you take her home?”

  “I don’t want to go!” Meg wailed.

  “I know, I know, but Annie’s still asleep, and she’ll be that way for a while. Tomorrow, you’ll come back first thing, all right? And then you can see her once she’s awake.”

  Meg sobbed miserably into Elle’s chest.

  Elle looked to her aunt for help, and Susan drew the little girl into her arms, speaking in a gentle, light cadence that made it feel like everything would be all right, listing off what they would do until the time when they came back.

  Everyone stood, and goodbyes were said, coats donned. And then they were gone.

  Elle collapsed into a chair, her composure gone the minute the elevator doors closed behind her sister.

  I sat next to her and pulled her into me, rocked her as she cried into my shoulder, her hands clutching my shirtfront over the spot where my aching heart hammered my ribs. And I was somehow certain that she hadn’t let herself go all the way, not until that moment.

  It was a little while before she caught her breath and pulled away, blotting at her nose with a tissue balled in the shape of her fist, swiping her tears away with her fingers. And then she reached for my hand, meeting my eyes with weight that scared me more deeply than anything I’d seen that day.

  “Greg, I need you to prepare yourself.”

  “Tell me,” I croaked, my mouth dry as ash.

  “She’s okay. I want you to know that. Like the doctor said, the surgery was successful, and she should be fine. But it’s not going to be easy. And what you’re going to see is hard, harder than I can explain or you can imagine.”

  I listened mutely as she told me of Annie’s physical state, what I would find down the hall and in the ICU room. But she was right in that there was no way to prepare myself, not even after living with my mother’s lupus.

  The room was dim but not dark, the bed in the center of the room so big and Annie so small. The low light made the dozens of tubes look sinister, like a beast behind her bed had slipped its tentacles around to feed. A white tube was taped to her chin and cheeks, disappearing into her partly open mouth, and a thick line wound around from a machine and into the artery in her neck. The entry point was exposed, the bulge the needle made in her neck disturbing and shocking, the tube into it the deepest shade of crimson.

  Blood, I realized distantly.

  There were tubes running into her chest, into both wrists. So many tubes, so many wires, even more beyond what I could see, carrying things into her and out of her.

  Soft stays rested on either side of her, nestling her in the center, holding her there like an embrace. It was the only thing in the room that seemed to be there as much for her comfort as her safety.

  My throat caught fire and burned, squeezing until tears pricked my eyes and fell. I wanted to touch her, wanted to feel her warm fingers in mine, but I didn’t move, afraid I would somehow hurt her, that the moment I touched her, alarms would sound, her heart would stop, that all the things I feared would come true.

  And so I stood just inside her room, out of the way of the nurses next to Elle, who took my hand and cried with me.

  Nurses came in and out with businesslike purpose, talking to each other in soft voices as they prepared the room for her to wake, which should be at any time, they told us.

  I saw the moment it happened, though no one else did. It was the rise and fall of her chest that changed, picked up speed. I took a step without thinking, then another, and I was at her side, her mother and sister next to me. Her hand lay delicately by her thigh, and I took it in my own.

  She squeezed, just a flicker of pressure.

  A laugh that was a sob passed my lips and her sister’s and mother’s. The nurses were on the other side of the bed, one of them watching the heart monitor, smiling.

  “Hi, Annie,” she said with that light nurse’s tone. “Welcome back. Can you open your eyes for me?”

  It took a second, but her lids opened for a brief, shining moment before disappearing again.

  “Good job.”

  She stirred.

  “Try to stay still, okay? We’re going to take the breathing tube out in a few minutes, but until then, just try to be still.”

  She nodded almost imperceptibly, her eyes opening, then closing again.

  “It’s all right,” I whispered.

  Her eyes snapped open, the beeping of her heart monitor ticking up. She met my eyes; a tear fell from the corner and down her temple.

  I leaned over, brushed it away, kissed her forehead.

  “I’m here,” I whispered again.

  Another slight nod.

  I let her go, moved out of the way to exchange places with Elle. Her mother watched on with longing, unable to stand or get close enough with her chair for the wires coming from every direction.

  It was probably fifteen minutes of her awake and speechless, still and barely conscious before they removed her breathing tube. I’d been prepared for a gruesome exit from her throat, but it was out so fast, I’d almost missed it. She coughed, her face bent in pain, the nurse on one side of her applying pressure to a pillow she’d been instructed to hold against her split chest.

  “Can you tell me your name?” one of the nurses asked.

  Her pale, dry lips parted to speak, but no sound came out. Her eyes were hardly open.

  “I know it’s hard, but I need you to say your name and make a sound.”

  She seemed to summon the power, taking a shallow breath, whispering, “Annie.”

  The nurse smiled. “Perfect. Okay, in fifteen minutes, we’ll get you some ice chips, and if you keep that down, we’ll get you something solid.”

  She nodded, but the nurse had already busied herself with another task.

  Annie turned her head, her eyes glassy and struggling to stay open. Her lips moved, but no sound came. She swallowed and took a more purposeful breath. “Greg…”

  My heart skipped a beat, and I stepped to her side. Her hand lifted. I took it. />
  With my other hand, I cupped her cheek, now free of tape but still tethered by an oxygen line. “Hey, Annie.”

  She smiled, just the smallest curve of her lips. “You…found…me…” The laborious words were almost inaudible, a shallow breath needed to power each one.

  “I found you,” I echoed.

  “Don’t…go.”

  To that, I smiled, my eyes teeming with tears. “Don’t worry—I’m not going anywhere.”

  Yours

  Annie

  “That’s disgusting,” Meg whispered in wonder two days later, hunched over the photos of my exposed heart during surgery. “There’s your superior vena cava,” she said, pointing at a thick blue vein, “and that’s your aorta. I can’t believe they cut through your sternum, Annie. Do you know how much power it takes to crack that bone?”

  I flinched against the visual and the following wave of nausea. “No”—I took a breath to power the rest of the sentence—“and I’d rather not know.”

  Mama laughed. “Come on, let’s put these away.”

  Elle swept the photos into a stack, separating them from the little instant photos I’d taken over the last couple of days, and put them back in the folder I hoped never to see open again. Meg watched them disappear before lighting up again.

  “Please, can we watch the video of your surgery? Pleeease?” she whined.

  I laughed, the sound quiet and rough, my throat still shredded from being intubated. “Never in a million years.”

  “Can I see your scar again?” The hope on her face was almost comical.

  I waved her over, and she climbed up the bed, mindful of the tubes. I pulled the neck of my robe down and lifted away the top of the taped bandage, already loose from showing her twice that morning.

  “Cool,” she breathed, eyes wide. “There are actual staples in you. You’re a badass, Annie.”

  “Meg!” Mama scolded, shocked.

  But the rest of us laughed, and after a second, Mama was laughing too.