Would You Read online

  New game, I think. Guess the Emergency. But I don't see anything wrong with him, so maybe there's a wrinkly wife in her nightie somewhere behind that swinging door.

  I notice how I'm not breathing and then I breathe and I notice I can't hear anything except a buzz in my ears from brain cells colliding.

  My mother is pacing in circles like a maniac panther. Dad is this huge silent lump leaning against the wall next to me, with his shoulder half covering a sign: HAVE INSURANCE CARDS READY BEFORE SPEAKING TO RECEPTION.

  The First Doctor of Many

  A doctor wearing green scrubs comes out. I recognize the scene from TV, only he's not handsome and he has a bristly neck.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Johnson?”

  They swish to attention, like startled puppets.

  “You are Claire's next of kin? Your daughter is not married?”

  “No, no, it's us,” they tell him.

  The doctor looks at me.

  “I'm her sister.”

  He looks nervous, with bloodshot eyes.

  “I'm Dr. David Cooper,” he says. “I'm a resident here at the hospital. What I have to say will be difficult to hear. Claire has been very badly hurt. We're monitoring the situation closely. She has had a severe head injury and is not responding to stimuli at this time. She may have some bleeding in her brain.”

  He pauses while Mom sags against Dad. “We're working at the moment to stabilize her vitals. We had to wait for Dr. Hazel—he's the neurosurgeon—to come back in, but he's here now and we're preparing her for surgery.”

  “Can we see her?” asks Mom.

  “In a few minutes,” says Dr. Cooper. He looks for refuge on the pages pinned to his clipboard. I'm guessing he hasn't done this too often, this talking-to-the-family-in-a-traumatic-crisis-hell situation.

  “I need to ask you a few questions. Does Claire have any health issues we should know about? Is she diabetic, for instance? Or does she have an allergy to any medications?”

  “No,” says Dad. “She's the healthiest girl alive.”

  Dr. Cooper blinks a couple of times.

  Not anymore, I can hear him thinking.

  “I see.” He writes something down. “Did any of you witness the accident?”

  We all murmur no, shaking our heads. I wonder for the first time who did see it. Who called?

  “Is anyone else hurt?” I ask.

  He doesn't look at me. “I'm not at liberty to tell you that,” he says. I glance around, maybe to see Kate's parents, or Joe's, but then I remember the nurse saying, It's the family, like there's only one.

  “How old is Claire?” asks Dr. Cooper.

  “Eighteen,” say Mom and Dad together.

  The doctor's pencil hesitates. “Oh.”

  “What, ‘Oh’?” I don't like the way he said “Oh.”

  Dad pats my shoulder.

  “I think the doctor means that Claire is not a minor, am I right?”

  “What difference does that make? Shouldn't you be in there saving her?” I say. “Aren't these questions kind of pointless?”

  “There may be certain decisions,” says Dr. Cooper, “about her treatment. If she were a minor, your parents would have to make them. As it is …”

  “Can you just tell us the situation?” says Dad.

  Dr. Cooper ducks his eyes. He can't look at us during the next part.

  “It seems that Claire, after impact, somersaulted and landed a distance away from the collision site. She apparently had a seizure on the spot. She has a broken collarbone and several other injuries. Most importantly, she has suffered severe trauma to the head and brain.”

  He stops. Severe trauma to the head and brain.

  “Can we see her?” asks Mom.

  Spin Mode

  We follow Dr. Cooper through the swinging doors and he sticks us in this room by ourselves, as if he's considering our privacy, but really it's just the Bad Effing News Room.

  Dad pulls Mom into a hug.

  “Come on,” he says to me. “Let's have a Lump.”

  So I go over and let him fold me in too.

  “Knock, knock,” says a nurse, coming in. “I'm Sue. You're Claire's family? I do triage.”

  We all just look at her. Triage?

  “We're preparing Claire for surgery, but you'll be able to see her for a minute before we take her in. She could be in there for, well, a few hours, maybe, depending on how it goes. I'm going to warn you, there are several tubes, intravenous lines and cardiac monitor wires all in place. We've put her on a ventilator. She's not in good shape and it might be alarming for you to see her, but—”

  “We're coming,” says Mom, and she's out the door right behind Sue, with Dad at her heels.

  I'm not so sure.

  I see where they're going, and I see the rolling gurney thing. And I see the shape of a body under a draped sheet. I see extra carts with machines on them, and tubes and hookups and bags hanging there…. All these people are moving like mechanical dolls.

  I stay back while Mom and Dad go right over and Sue is saying something, but all I can really see is a hand sort of curled inside the railing of this bed on wheels.

  That's Claire?

  Mom picks this moment to fall to the floor in a heap. I don't know if she fainted or took one look and just couldn't stand up anymore. She's on the floor and there's a silent pause and then she starts to howl. Dad bends over, trying to soothe her, rubbing her arms. She wrenches away and wails. I'm just watching, hot all over, mostly behind the eyeballs. My mother has lost her mind. What am I supposed to do? I've never seen anything like this.

  “Mom?” I creep closer. The medical people are zooming around, pushing Claire's bed out of the way through some doors and gone.

  I don't know what to do. But neither does Sue or Dr. Cooper. I hear the murmurs; they're going to give Mom drugs.

  I want to start screaming too but I can't breathe, can't breathe in to scream out.

  I sit on the floor next to Dad. Mom is kneeling, rocking a little, holding herself.

  “Mom.” I'm afraid to touch her, so I just lean in close. “Mom,” I whisper. She catches her next noise before it comes out. She hears me and she's trying to stop, I can see that.

  “Mom,” I say, really slowly, inches away. “They're going to see if they can fix her.”

  Mom puts out a hand and finds my face. She shudders a couple of times.

  “I'm sorry,” she says. We wait. “It's a shock.” We wait some more. “I'm all right now.” She opens her eyes and climbs upright.

  Now We're Part of Some System

  They put us in this other room and a woman comes in. She's shorter than I am and kind of lumpy.

  “Hello,” she says. “I'm Janet Fox. You're the family of Claire Johnson? I'm your social worker.”

  My father spins on her. “A social worker? What for? Don't bother us with any head-shrinking crap right now, okay?”

  Instead of ducking, Janet Fox is easy and calm. “I can appreciate that this is all very scary, Mr. Johnson. My concern right now is to make sure you all have something warm to drink.”

  For the first time I notice that my mother is shivering. And nodding. “Yes,” she says. “Do you have any coffee?”

  “Right away,” says Janet Fox. And then to me, “How about some hot chocolate?”

  I shrug. “Okay.”

  Dad shakes his head. He pulls out his cell phone but stuffs it back into his pocket right away, like he can't face what using it will mean.

  “If there's anyone you'd like me to call?” Janet Fox pauses in the doorway. “That's something else I'm good at.”

  “Oh, dear god,” says my mother. She hunches over in the chair, so her face is on her knees. Janet Fox darts to a cabinet and takes out a blanket. She lays it across my mother's back.

  “Keep her warm,” she says to my dad. “I'll get the coffee.”

  Mom is shaking as if there's a chill wind, but there's no air to breathe.

  “Let's go home,” I say when the d
oor closes. Dad nods at me.

  “No,” Mom croaks. “I'm staying here.”

  “Honey, they said it'll be several hours. We're a mile away,” Dad tells her. “We'll come back.”

  “I'm staying.” Mom pulls the blanket tight around her shoulders. Her hair is sticking out and the gray roots are kind of obvious. I try to smooth it down for her. She takes my hand and holds it against her cheek.

  I look at Dad. “I'll take you home,” he says. “But I'll make sure that woman or somebody is here with her while I'm gone.”

  “I'm waiting outside,” I say. I run for the door, imagining that I'll burst into the parking lot and there'll be fresh air to drink in gulps. But it's hotter out here than inside, and the night hasn't moved since we arrived.

  The Police

  There's a cruiser with flashing lights sitting by the entrance. Officer McCafferty and that new guy look at me through the windshield and then look at each other. Coach Cop rubs a hand over his face and climbs out like I'm an ugly blind date. Dad comes through the door behind me at the same time.

  “Burt,” says Dad.

  “Mr. Johnson,” says Coach Cop.

  “Oh,” says Dad, figuring out that this is somehow official.

  “Can we go back in?” Burt McCafferty takes Dad's arm. “I'm afraid we have to ask some questions.”

  How I Finally Get to Sleep

  I lie across the hood of the car, waiting. The metal is half a degree cooler than the air against my cheek, soothing, like the smooth deck of a pool after a long swim.

  Dad comes out and we get in the car.

  He drives so slowly we could be walking. Then he brakes. His hands are trembling on the wheel.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “I just need a minute,” he says. “I'm feeling kinda shaky.”

  I go to hit the radio button out of habit but I stop in time. How bad taste would that be, eh?

  We get home in silence.

  “We forgot to lock the door,” he says as we go in. “There's someone to blame for this, Natalie.” And he purposely kicks over a kitchen chair in the near dark.

  I pick it up and he kicks over another one.

  “Jesus, Dad.” I hold my breath. What next? What display of parental insanity is next?

  But he just turns on the light and tosses his keys into the basket on the counter.

  He's going to pick up a book and stuff, a sweater for Mom, and go back in an hour. I lie on the couch while he wanders around. I watch TV with the remote on my leg, exactly within fingertip distance, clicking every time a thought sneaks into my brain.

  Click.

  Some kind of documentary dog show, where we see them getting bathed and shampooed. Was it this morning I had a shift at the Y?

  Click.

  Law&Order.

  Dad keeps bumping into chairs or tripping over the rug. He's shuffling, picking things up and putting them down. “That car wasn't driving itself,” he mutters.

  Click.

  Another stupid model show with selfish bitchy girls dissing each other while trying on thongs. What would they do if one of their perfect bodies got crushed by a Honda Civic?

  Click.

  “Somersault?” says Dad suddenly.

  Uh-oh.

  “She didn't know how to somersault! The only kid at Playtime Pals who couldn't do a somersault! That's why she played soccer instead of gymnastics!”

  Click.

  “This is how you're gonna spend the night?” says Dad.

  “Mmmm.”

  “I'm going back to the hospital. Go to bed.”

  “ Uh-huh.”

  I'm too tired to go to bed. Too wired. I find this channel that is selling a knife that can cut anything: tomatoes, cardboard, hard-boiled eggs, frozen dinner rolls and ham bones. I watch and watch and watch. Wow, we should get one of these.

  I go upstairs around morning. I crawl into Claire's bed, which is not exactly made, and I flip the pillow over. I pull up the duvet and I curl into the smallest kitten ball I can get into. And I go to sleep.

  Morning Comes at, Like, Noon

  Now I know what like zombies really means. We sit at the breakfast table like zombies with no discernible brain function. But then I think, Oh god, what if Claire is a zombie?

  We're each bent over a cup of coffee, but no one bothers to steam milk or pour juice or toast an English muffin. I move the telephone ringer to silent. We don't hear the ring but we hear the machine bleep and pick up. After about the fourth time, I turn the recording to silent too. The radio is not on, so no Mozart or any of those other guys in wigs. Usually Mom and Dad would be doing the Sunday crossword right now, speaking in code: Seven letters starting with C-O-…

  But instead, we're huddled like refugees on a dock. What are we supposed to do? Act like normal people?

  How It Went

  Dad tells me he was drooling and Mom was asleep with her head on his lap when they came to say that all efforts had been made to salvage Claire's brain. The bleeding in her head had been evacuated, her broken bones had been set, she was being pumped full of saline, and Mrs. Johnson should go home to get some rest. Dad brought her home, but no rest yet.

  “The men in the ambulance said she was conscious for a minute or two,” says Mom. “After the accident. One of them said, ‘If a person is talking, you can be pretty sure she's breathing.’”

  Mom had an injection, Dad told me. A sedative. That's why she sounds so careful.

  “Claire was talking when they got there, but no one could tell me what the words were. I wish I knew what she …” Her voice catches and two tears run gently down her face. She doesn't even wipe them away.

  Dad puts a hand under Mom's elbow and seems to lift her up. They leave their coffee cups on the table and shamble out of the kitchen. I think he's going to put her to bed. She looks like a little old lady, leaning on him, the backs of her arms freckled and shaking.

  I wait till the thumps upstairs are settled.

  I write a note: Gone to see Claire. Took my bike. N.

  First Time

  The nurse has colored hair, something like Pumpkin Kool-Aid. Her name tag says TRISHA.

  “I'm going to let you start with five minutes,” she says, not thinking about how it may be the most intense five minutes of my life. Or maybe avoiding thinking about it. She's been here and seen this a hundred times, or a thousand. I've been here once. Maybe her whole life is looking at families whacked in the face with trauma. So maybe, to be fair, she's protecting me.

  Trauma—our new state of being.

  There's a ceremony first. Trisha shows me how to wash my hands, how to put on the smock and the gloves and the mask. It's like on TV, all the papery garments, only I'm trembling and the clothes shiver and crackle.

  “You are not to touch her,” says Trisha. “You are to stay two feet from the bed at all times. She's very vulnerable to infection. You are not to cough or sneeze. You are not to touch any of the tubes or the equipment. You are most especially not to touch her.”

  “What can I do?” I say.

  “Some people talk,” she says, not so bossy now. “Some people just sit. There's research showing that if you talk she may hear you. It may be of some comfort to tell her things. Say her name a lot. Remind her who she is. It might even trigger a repair mechanism. It's a long, slow process, so don't be disappointed if there's no response.” She taps her watch. “Five minutes.”

  The Five Minutes

  The overhead lights, the fluorescent ones, are off. It's dim in here and you're on the bed.

  Claire. It's you but not you. Your hair is all gone. They shaved your head and there's this, this, oh god, it's awful, a huge injury on the side of your skull, swollen, with black crisscrossed stitches, holding together this gash, not bandaged or anything, just there for us to look at. Horrible.

  Your eyes are closed. Good. I was afraid of looking into vacant eyes. You definitely don't want to see this.

  The nurse said maybe, if anything's tickin
g, maybe you can hear me. Maybe you're just… gathering strength.

  Wow. Claire.

  It's hard to … believe.

  This is the way you look now. Yesterday we were getting ready to go out and … I mean, yesterday, you know? And I stole your black thing… and then you … didn't come home.

  Claire? Please, Claire? Be okay?

  Look, I'm wobbling here. This sucks.

  Ohgod, my voice is way too loud for being alone in the room. I mean, not alone, but…

  I'm not going to be all weepy and pathetic if there's a chance that any of this is seeping in.

  Hey. I think this is as close as I'm supposed to get.

  That's Trisha at the door, giving me the hand waggle. I'm showing her one sec with my finger, so I've only got a minute.

  Claire? I'm dragging a chair over, see? So I can be right next to you. I'm going to perform an act of supreme defiance. I'm going to—

  That's me, touching your hand. Ew. It feels like a balloon kept in the freezer. But I love you so much I'll keep my fingers resting there.

  I feel like … I want to …

  Okay, whoops, out of the chair. Trisha's waving again.

  I'll be back, okay?

  Mwa. I'm going.

  Fluids

  Something I didn't want to mention to Claire is that she seems to have gained about twenty pounds overnight. And it's not just because she's bald so her face looks rounder. She is puffed up like someone stuck a bicycle pump in her ear and pumped fast.

  When I ask at the nurses' station, they say it's the fluids. The patient takes in massive amounts intravenously, too much for the veins to hold; the spaces outside the veins get soaked. The cells and tissues absorb the fluids— especially the saline solution—and swell up. Claire is now a giant bloated sponge.

  Fluids ranks right up there with moist on the Ten Worst Words list.