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“I’m fine, Dad,” Sam says, only briefly raising his eyes to meet Andrew’s.
“Good,” he says. Then more quietly he says to me, “He’s been sick. Has had this fever and sore throat thing for a couple of days.”
I nod, and then there’s a lull between us. I start to get antsy; I don’t do well with silence, especially in highly emotional situations. “How long do they expect Jack to be in surgery?”
Andrew’s jaw works furiously. I know he’s holding back more tears, and I quickly regret asking the question. “They can’t know for sure, but the surgeon said to prepare for a long night.”
Without realizing I’ve done it, I press a hand tightly to my stomach as I think of Jack in the operating room all night, his parents waiting for news, hoping for the best, trying to ignore the worst.
“Are you okay?” Andrew asks, for the first time taking in my open coat, my soiled dress—the bloodstain. He shifts his body to face mine, his hands hovering slightly in front of my stained dress. “You weren’t hurt, were you?”
“No, I’m fine,” I say. “This isn’t my...” My voice trails, thankfully stopping before I finish the sentence, say the word blood. He looks ill, because even though I didn’t say it, we’re both thinking it. I use one hand to close my coat over the stain on my dress and place my other hand on his arm. This time he rests his fingers overtop of mine and squeezes slightly.
“I’m so sorry this is happening, Andrew.” My chest contracts again, the vice grip of guilt moving through me.
He nods, mouth set in a grim line. “Me, too,” he says, voice breaking. He looks down. “They also said Jack’s back is broken. Probably from when he...hit the ground.”
“Oh, Andrew.” I’m finding it hard to breathe, the fabric of my dress, the wrapped tightness of my coat suddenly too constricting.
He keeps his voice low, so Sam and Audrey don’t hear the conversation. “They said there’s a chance he might not walk again.” His eyes fill, and his voice catches. “How the hell do you tell your kid that?”
Jack Beckett is a gifted athlete, a golfer who apparently has a decent chance at playing the professional circuit if he keeps going the way he has been. He has his whole life ahead of him: college, career, a family of his own one day. He needs to walk out of here.
“I don’t know,” I say, a little breathless. My words are the truth, but they sound terribly useless in the moment. “Andrew, is there someone else I can call for you? Or can I get you something? A coffee? Something to eat?”
He shakes his head. “Don’t think I could keep anything down. Thanks, though.” His eyes drop to his phone, where a text message illuminates the screen, and he’s quickly typing back to whoever it is. I tell him I’m just stepping out to make a call, then once outside, sit on a bench beside a hospital gown–clad woman attached to an IV pole, halfway through a cigarette. I can’t catch my breath and so bend at the waist and suck in great heaving lungfuls of air.
“You okay, honey?” the woman asks, her voice raspy. She rests her elbows on her splayed knees and takes a long pull on her cigarette, watching me.
I look to her face, heavily wrinkled and a sickly shade of yellow, and shake my head. “No,” I say. The cigarette smoke is making me nauseous, and I want to leave, but my legs aren’t yet ready to hold my weight.
She nods. “Most of us here aren’t.”
6 (#u03196365-e241-516a-a543-24cc33d0df3f)
“I want to stay with Sam,” Audrey implores, after I tell her we need to head home. Andrew’s parents and sister, Suzanne, have arrived, and Alysse managed to get on a flight that will get her here before Jack’s out of surgery.
“We should give them some privacy, Aud,” I reply quietly. I wonder when you learn that particular nuance of crisis—that giving people time and space is appropriate in situations like these—but then just as quickly wonder if that’s actually the best thing for anyone. When Audrey asks again if she can stay with Sam, this time a bit louder, I wish I could use the old “Three...two...one...” trick I used to when she was a preschooler. Audrey would usually concede when I got to “one,” and I never had to follow through on whatever consequence would happen after the countdown. But she’s a teenager now, on the cusp of being a woman who can make her own decisions, and my influence over her is diminishing. Which scares the hell out of me.
Andrew glances at us. “She’s welcome to stay, Meg,” he says. “Suzie can drive them back to our place in a bit.” Suzanne, who with her short blond bob and long limbs looks like the female version of Andrew, nods in response and rubs Sam’s back. I open my mouth to insist Audrey come with me, then see her face and Sam’s, and pause. He needs her right now.
“As long as you’re sure,” I say to Andrew. He murmurs again that it’s fine, and I nod. “Audrey, Dad or I will come get you at Sam’s place a bit later. Text me, okay?”
She hugs me and assures me she will, and after a quick goodbye to Andrew and his family, I head home.
* * *
I sit at the kitchen table in my bloodstained dress, too tired to do all the things I need to: get changed, bury the dead bird, deal with work stuff. My mind is both racing too fast and moving too slow, and I still feel like I can’t draw a full breath.
With shaking hands I pick up my phone and dial Julie, who answers on the first ring.
“Meg! Are you okay? What happened? I heard about Jack Beckett. Oh, my God. Where are you?”
I’m crying too hard to speak.
“Are you at home? Meg?”
“Yes,” I manage to say.
“I’m coming over. Give me ten minutes.”
Nine minutes later Julie lets herself in the front door, and seconds after that she’s got me in a tight hug. “Oh, Maggie. You’re okay.” Though she’s shorter than me, no one would ever call Julie petite. She’s solid and fit, yet still has a soft layer over top of her muscles. She does not subscribe to potions, surgical interventions or negative body image, saying her girls need to see the way “God made her” and understand what a real woman’s body looks like. Her halo of dark curls, that never seem to lay flat no matter what she does, tickle my face, making me sneeze.
“Sorry,” I say, sniffling, but she doesn’t let me go.
“What’s a little snot between friends?” she asks, finally pulling back and holding either side of my face in her hands. “Mags, you look like hell.”
I sniffle again, take the tissue she hands me and honk my nose into it. “I know. I feel like hell, too.”
“Why don’t you go get changed and I’ll make you a cup of tea.” She gently nudges me toward the stairs. “After that you can tell me what happened. Okay?”
I nod. “Thanks. Also, there’s a dead bird upstairs. I need to bury it before Audrey gets home.”
Julie doesn’t miss a beat. “Then I’ll meet you upstairs with tea, and rubber gloves. Off you go.”
Once I’ve stripped out of the bloodstained dress, balling it up with the pashmina and stuffing both into a plastic bag in my closet that I’ll throw in the trash bin later, I pull on some yoga pants and a sweatshirt and swallow two more ibuprofen. I’m standing at the balcony door staring at the tiny brown bird, lying exactly where it fell this morning, when Julie comes in my bedroom.
“Here,” she says, putting the hot tea in my hands. I take a tentative sip, and my eyes widen, the honey and lemon mingling with a hit of whiskey. She shrugs. “I brought the booze with me. Figured this was the time for something stronger than chamomile.” She’s wearing the pink rubber gloves I keep under the kitchen sink and has her hands on her hips. “So that’s the little guy, huh?”
I nod, staring back at the bird. In a flash I see Jack on the road, feel the pills I just swallowed trying to make their way back up.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, and I know she doesn’t mean the bird.
“Not even a little bit.”
Julie nods. “Okay, so about this bird.” She crouches down and gives it a long look. “What do you want to do with it?”
“We could just put it in the trash,” I say. “Audrey doesn’t know what happened.” Making the effort to bury it does seem pointless.
But Julie shakes her head. “I think it needs a proper burial.” She looks pointedly at me. “I think you need this as much as the bird.”
She’s right. I can’t bring myself to put it out with the trash, like its life didn’t matter at all—not today. Frowning, I take a deep breath and hold out my hands. “Give me the gloves.”
“I don’t mind,” Julie says but then, seeing my face, pulls the gloves off her hands and gives them to me. I open the sliding glass door to the balcony and gently pick up the bird with some difficulty, thanks to how small its body is and how awkward the gloves are. Its body is stiff, yet so light it’s practically weightless. Julie holds the half-empty tissue box from my nightstand toward me and I set the bird’s body inside, covering it with a few tissues so I don’t have to look at it anymore.
We already have two birds buried in our backyard—a baby robin that was pushed from its nest a few springs ago, and the yellow finch that started Audrey’s save-the-backyard-birds campaign in our house. The graves are marked by two stones, upon which Audrey has painted red hearts with wings, and I start digging with the garden spade about a foot away from the one on the left. The wind blows strong, and Julie, sitting on the grass beside me, holds tightly to the tissue box so it doesn’t get knocked over by a gust.
A half hour later back in the bedroom, Julie and I are meticulously placing Audrey’s gel clings in a pattern on the balcony windows, tiny semicircles of dirt still stuck under my fingernails from the bird’s burial, when my phone rings.
“Hey, sorry. I’ve been in the meeting. Everything all right? I just saw your missed calls.” He sounds like he’s had a couple drinks, his words soft around the edges, and I wonder exactly where this afternoon’s meeting is taking place.
“Ryan.” I sit hard on the side of the bed, the gel cling in my hand wilting against my fingers. “Just a second,” I say to him, pressing the phone to my chest and looking at Julie. “I’m good. You don’t need to finish that.”
“Are you sure?” she asks. “I still have—” she glances at her watch “—thirty minutes before the kids go ballistic wondering where their dinner is.” She smiles, and I return it.
“I’m sure,” I say. “Thank you, Jules.”
She watches me for a beat, then blows me a kiss. “Always, my friend. Okay, call me later?”
“I will.” I wave as she leaves my bedroom, then put the phone back to my ear.
“Sorry, just saying bye to Julie.”
Ryan gives a low whistle. “You sound rough. Guess you’re not feeling bet—”
“There was a car accident.”
A pause, heavy between us. Then the rush of questions. “What happened? Are you okay? Is Audrey okay? What kind of accident?” His tone now sharp, worried, impatient.
“It wasn’t us. We’re okay.” My tone weak and weary. “But Jack Beckett got hit by a car. Right in—” My throat catches as I try to hold things in, control the flood of emotions. I shake my head and close my eyes against the images of Jack, his jagged shinbone, the nausea bubbling inside my stomach. “Right in front of us.”
“Sam’s brother? Shit. Is he okay? Was Audrey in the car with you? What the hell happened?”
Yes. No. Yes. I’m not entirely sure, but it’s at least partly my fault.
“It was a couple of blocks from the school. I had just picked Audrey up for her appointment, so, yes, she was with me,” I reply. “She’s at Children’s now with Sam.”
“Why is she at Children’s? I thought you said she was okay?”
“She’s fine, Ryan. She wanted to stay with Sam.”
“God, what a nightmare.” Ryan lets out a long breath, and I know he’s imagining what it would be like for Audrey to be the one hurt. But he’s thankfully saved from the images in my head, which are making it difficult to stay upright. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I say, forcing strength I’m not feeling into my voice. “I’ll fill you in when you get home.”
“Do you want me to come home?” Ryan asks. “I can pick Audrey up on the way.”
“She wants to stay with Sam, at least for now. And I’m fine. You don’t need to come home.” I work hard to make this part sound true, because I realize how much I want to be alone right now.
“I’ll text Audrey and let her know I’m picking her up,” Ryan says, his voice firm.
“Don’t,” I say, too fast. I pause briefly, then decide it needs to be said. “I can tell you’ve been drinking.”
There’s silence on the other end. “I’ve had half a beer, Meg.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean...” I sigh, exhausted, lying back against the pillows and closing my eyes.
“No, I’m sorry.” He sounds frustrated but genuinely apologetic. I’m not even sure what we’re apologizing for at this point.
I turn my head, and a tear drops on to the pillow. “I’ll text you when she’s ready to be picked up, and we’ll figure it out.”
“Okay,” Ryan says, pausing again. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
My body quivers with my need to get off the phone. “Yes. Go back to your meeting.”
He sighs, and I know he’s struggling to decide what to do, despite what I’ve said. “I love you, Meg.”
“Me, too,” I say, then hit End Call.
I feel my fever climbing again, a chill tickling my skin, and give in, folding my sick self under the duvet. I turn up the volume on my phone so I’ll know when Audrey texts, then press my heavy head against the cool pillow. At first all I can see when I close my eyes is Jack Beckett, the aftereffects of the accident, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep. But moments later I fall into a deep slumber.
7 (#u03196365-e241-516a-a543-24cc33d0df3f)
The dream is restless, terrifying, and all I want to do is get away from the scene in front of me. But it isn’t the accident I’m dreaming about—at least not today’s accident.
I’m trembling, my tank top and denim miniskirt soaked and clinging cold to my body. It’s raining and dark—aside from two beams of light that seem to be pointing straight up into the sky. I want to run, to get out of the storm, but as I turn in circles I see wide-open fields, a long and empty road stretched in front of me. It’s then I notice someone, walking on the road toward me. I squint, wipe at my eyes, taste raindrops when I open my mouth to shout to this person. It doesn’t occur to me to be scared. But my body is humming with something...adrenaline, I think, though I can’t sort out why my muscles seem to know something is wrong, but my mind doesn’t.
A few moments later the person is close enough for me to see who it is. Paige Holden. My high school best friend. Relief ripples through me, and I start laughing with release.
“Paige!” But my mouth is full of water, the rain everywhere, and I choke a little. Coughing, I shout again. “Paige!” I’m relieved she’s here, but she doesn’t seem to hear my cries despite being only a few feet away. She’s also soaked to the bone but isn’t doing anything to wipe the steady stream of water running down her face.
I’m about to call her name again when the words die in my throat. She’s stopped walking—too far for me to reach if I stretch my arms as far as they’ll go, but she’s close enough I can see everything, the two streams of light, which I now realize are headlights, illuminating her. Oh. God.
Her blond hair, once so pretty and the envy of most of our friends, is caked with rusty red clumps, the usually bone-straight strands tangled in knots. The rain seems to have done nothing to rid her shirt—which used to be a pretty pale blue eyelet tank—of the dark crimson blotches covering its surface. I suddenly understand all the red is blood, her blood. But it’s her head, specifically the shape of it, that makes my legs give out. I didn’t notice before, the shadows that followed her while she walked toward me hiding it, but now I see what’s missing. The left side of her head—including one beautiful blue eye—is gone. Just...gone.
I wake myself screaming. Taking a few deep breaths I try to calm the rattling inside me, but the image of Paige’s face hovers around the edges of my consciousness, and I think I’m going to be sick.
It has been twenty-eight years since that horrible night, and nearly as many since Paige came to me while I slept.
And now it’s happening again.
* * *
Two days after Ryan slid the engagement ring on my finger—only a week after my twenty-fifth birthday—was when I learned my mom had breast cancer.
Back then we had a weekly, standing dinner with my parents: Sunday night, seven o’clock. A free meal was always welcome as we were broke—Ryan in pre-med at Tufts and me working a front desk job at an orthodontist’s office, my eye on teacher’s college by the fall if we could afford it. Ryan proposed on a Friday evening and though I was bursting to call my mom moments after, I decided to wait until our dinner. So I sat on our exciting news for two days, having no idea my mom was sitting on some news of her own.
We arrived ten minutes early, like always, because for my parents, showing up on time meant you were already late. I wore my engagement ring but kept my hand in my skirt’s pocket when Dad opened the door. He seemed distracted and tired, his face drawn and the buttons on his shirt mismatched by one hole, which was out of character. He was always immaculately dressed, even for a trip to the gas station. But I assumed he was merely work-weary—being a high school principal wasn’t an easy job, teenagers masters at creating drama-fueled challenges—and that mom was too busy getting ready for dinner to notice.
After Dad poured our drinks, Danny, my younger brother, regaled us with stories from middle school, while Mom’s famous black bean and cilantro cream enchiladas warmed in the oven. I couldn’t keep the grin off my face. I was sitting on my left hand, had been careful to keep the ring out of view. A lull in the conversation came, and I opened my mouth to shout the words, “We’re engaged!” when my mom suddenly stood, her small shoulders rolling back and her chin held high.
“I have cancer.”
I don’t remember doing it, but suddenly I was standing as well, facing her. “What?” The word, barely a whisper. My hands shook, the beautiful, if not tiny, cushion-cut diamond ring on my finger forgotten.
A lot happened all at once. Dad started crying. So did I. Danny fetched a box of tissues, seeming more mature than his thirteen years, and pushed them into our hands. Mom assured us, in her best nurse’s no-nonsense tone, she would be fine. Ryan stood beside me and I clutched on to him.
Though Mom’s cancer was advanced, there were decent treatment options. Plenty of people survived cancer these days, so why not Mom, who was tenacious and well-equipped for what lay ahead?
