Authors: Renee Lewin
“Oh
my gosh
! Where were you? I was freaking out!”
“The line had a lot of static for a second there and I couldn’t hear anything. I can hear you now. What did she say?”
“The greatest news!
He’s going to wake up tonight.”
“Be my eyes and my voice. Let him know that, no matter what happens, he’ll always be my bro,
mi
familia
.”
“I will.” Then the call is ended. I switch back to Miss Kinsley’s line. “Manny is really happy, Miss Kinsley.”
“That’s good, Elaine. Come over to the hospital now if you can. I know Joey would want to see you when he opens his eyes.”
I quietly clear my throat. “I’m on my way.” I hang up the phone and stand up from the bed. My palms are sweating. I dry them on my jean vest. I take my purse and put my cell phone in it. I glance in the mirror and decide to put my glasses back on. After all, I don’t want to startle Joey with a completely new look. “Uncle Frank!” I call to the living room.
“Yes?”
I walk into the living room as he’s standing in front of the couch tiredly stretching. “Miss Kinsley called. Joey’s coming out of the coma tonight,” I smile. Uncle Frank doesn’t ask about the tears in my eyes, figuring they are happy tears.
“I’m going with you,” he says. “Does this shirt look okay?”
I look at him as if he’s lost all his wits.
“Right,” he says, running his hands through his hair. “I’ll drive.”
******
“Understand that he was not sleeping. He was in a coma. It wasn’t like how you or I experience sleeping at night. He didn’t have any dreams. In a coma, the brain signals bodily functions such as the heart beating and lungs expanding, but there is no consciousness to allow dreams. His memory will be affected by the accident. When he wakes up he will feel as if no time had passed between the accident and now. He may not remember the accident at all.” He rubbed at his brown beard tiredly. “We have already removed the pentobarbital drip. When he gains consciousness, in about twenty minutes or so, we will make some observations and conduct traumatic brain injury tests. Physical ability tests, etcetera.”
“Dr. Rice, I need to prepare myself so that I can be strong for my son. You understand? I don’t want to hear ‘etcetera’. Tell me what exactly I should expect. I need to think of what to say to comfort my child when he finds out he’s damaged.”
Dr. Rice nodded at Amelia. His eyes were magnified by his gold framed glasses. He folded his hands on his desk and leaned forward in his chair.
“I don’t want you to be frightened. He may wake up perfectly normal. Or, he will have problems consistent with trauma to the cerebellum and occipital lobe, at the back of the head. Problems would include dizziness, tremors, insomnia, vision difficulties, muscle weakness, uh, inability to reach for and grab objects, he might have to relearn how to walk, and he may have slurred speech.”
“Okay.” Amelia tried to accept the words, but they slipped away from her.
“Also, trauma to the back of the head can cause the brain to bounce from the back of the skull and make contact against the front of the skull. So, along with the cerebellum, the frontal lobe of the brain may suffer trauma, resulting in changes in personality, inability to perform multi-stepped tasks, and other similar issues. As I said before, he could wake up and have not even
one
of those side effects. The only side effects I anticipate are severe headaches from the brain tissue swelling.”
Amelia corrected her slouched posture and batted some loose strands of restless red curls away from her drained face. “Thank you.
How much longer until he wakes up?”
He glances at the time on his computer screen. “In about fifteen more minutes he should reach consciousness.
Maybe sooner.”
“I’m going to go for a quick walk,” she said without looking at him. Then she left the room and took the elevator to the lobby floor.
She wrapped her arms around herself as she got off the elevator and walked through the automatic doors into the night. Squinting up at the stars she tried to mentally prepare by reminding herself that all situations big or small, bad or good, were of a higher purpose. That she had to have faith and trust that her son’s life path had been blessed and would always be blessed. She rehearsed those words, but still there was bitterness in her heart. That boy, Elaine’s brother, who Joey had treated like family, had turned on him. He’d put his hands on him and he
knew
it was the one wound her baby bared that never quite healed. The Roberts family had a grip on her son for too many years. She wished Joey had listened to her when she told him to stay away from them. He didn’t tell her about dating Elaine because he knew she would have been concerned. She just didn’t want her son hurting anymore.
The doctor said Joey might not be able to
walk
or he could wake up with a
different personality
. What would be left of her only child if he couldn’t play soccer again or work to provide for himself or if he lost his bighearted nature? He would be stripped of everything that made him the man he grew to be. It had been a miracle that Joey hadn’t tried to self-medicate or do any other destructive behaviors to deal with the pain of not having his father in his life. He was still a very sensitive person and a bit unconfident at times to the point where he would deny himself the rewards and the praise he deserved, but a good kid. She was so proud of him for just being the person he was. If the accident had taken his strength and personality, she feared Joey would not make all those good choices again. She wiped angry tears from her face and went to get Joey’s girlfriend from the waiting room.
******
Dread forms a heavy weight in the pit of my stomach. Joey will be waking up. He could give his statement. Manny could be released, yet I was panicked. Miss Kinsley walks into the waiting room.
“Amelia.” Uncle Frank smiles warmly.
She nods at my uncle and looks at me. “They will wake him up in a few minutes. I assume Joey wants you to be there,” she voices coldly.
Uncle Frank’s eyebrows go up.
Her reluctant invitation is a mallet on the tiny box holding the guilt inside of me. The guilt from lying, for telling her I love her son. Uncle Frank looks worried. I grip my hands together in front of me as I walk from my seat towards her. We begin to leave the waiting room.
“Amelia?” Uncle Frank calls her back. She turns. He stands up from the chair and comes to her, studying her restrained expression. Then he wraps his arms around her and she leans into his hug. “You raised him, Amelia. He’s a strong kid. He’ll be fine.” After a minute or so, she removes her wet face from his shoulder and nods.
“Do you need me to go with you?”
“I don’t want Joey to have too many strangers staring at him when he wakes up. I don’t want him to be uncomfortable, understand? But, thanks for asking, Frank.”
I’m a stranger to Joey as well. I should stay here in the waiting room.
The two of us, Miss Kinsley and I, walk down the hall to Joey’s room.
Dr. Rice is there and the blonde nurse and one other nurse whom I’m not familiar with. They check monitors and remove some IVs from Joey’s arms. Joey’s mom positions herself at his bedside, kissing and holding his heavy hand. I stand by the doorway watching. Dr. Rice steps closer to me, smiling.
“So, you told his mom about you and she approved?” he whispers.
I shake my head.
“Too early to tell.”
He frowns sympathetically and walks away to perform his doctorial duties. Joey lies in the hospital bed unsuspecting. The little hair that has grown back on his head is lightened to a strawberry blonde by the overhead lights. His lips are slightly parted. Before I’m ready, Joey begins to stir. His arm moves and he shifts his head on the pillow.
This could be the end of a five day hell or the next level of it. It all depended on what Joey wanted. If Joey wants to help me, he will help me. If he wants Manny to pay, Manny will pay. I can’t stop my hands from shaking as I rush to his bedside. His faintly freckled eyelids slowly flutter open to reveal his blue eyes. I find myself, not able to meet his gaze, looking at his slightly
stubbled
cheek, his strong chin, and his pink Cupid’s bow mouth. Miss Kinsley caresses his hand, patiently waiting to hear her son’s voice again. Then the first word out of his mouth is my name.
NINE
I lay in bed face up with my hands under my head, staring into the darkness and grinning like a fool, imagining Elaine maybe noticing I exist now that Raul wasn’t parading around in front of her with his golden skin and empty marriage promises. I can’t believe I didn’t make Raul swallow his own teeth today at the convenience store. I just got off the phone with Manny and he told me Raul was history. Elaine just came home from breaking up with him. She is finally free of that tool. Along with Manny’s congratulations, I’d received an odd warning to not trip myself up. It hadn’t made any sense. Why would I let anything sabotage the opportunity I’d waited two years for? Five years for? After ten more minutes of smiling and daydreaming, doubtful thoughts began to pop up and I understood Manny’s cautionary words.
I should give her some space, I think. She should be left alone for at least a few weeks. Her heart had just been broken after being betrayed by a guy she’d dated for a reasonably long amount of time. I don’t want to be a rebound or something, if she even considers me rebound material. What if she really doesn’t find me remotely attractive? I mean, I’ve seen her eyes wander over my body before, but only if I’m wearing a shirt that’s kind of snug and its right there in her face. Back in high school she used to notice me when I walked into class. Then again, my red hair certainly draws a person’s eye to me no matter if they want to see my face or not. And was there any way to make freckles stop? I hate them. They look like bacteria multiplying on the surface of my skin or something. I know staying out of the sun would help, but I’m not going to stop playing soccer, that’s, like, a third of my life. This is Arizona. I can’t just escape the sun. And don’t get me started on my nose or my mouth or my ears or…
There are the relentless anger issues, too. What’s sick is that I feel angry just thinking about my anger. Sometimes I justify that part of me by saying it’s beneficial. How good would I be at soccer or at protecting my friends and family if I wasn’t easily worked up and scary and intimidating? I want to be normal. I don’t like having to do dumb breathing exercises multiple times a day to stop myself from flipping out. I want to not scare Elaine. At the same time she can turn me into soft marshmallow fluff if I’m not closely monitoring my feelings so I get so defensive around her because she was, and still is, the one of two people who can hurt me the most. She always found a gap in my armor and pierced me. In an astonishing way that made me want to talk to her even more so she could help me strip off the armor and find the rest of the shrapnel in my side that I always ignore. Sounds scary, right? One afternoon around the middle of freshman year, the year in which pining for her attention had become a hobby of mine, I found her at her locker.
“Elaine, this is the absolute last time I’m going to ask you to be nice and let me help you with the English project,” I smiled and she snorted, both of us knowing it wouldn’t be the last time. There was a trace of a smile on her full lips and I studied her fresh face. She didn’t wear any makeup at all and she was still pretty. I hadn’t seen her smile since before the rent thing. It had been a month ago and everyone had stopped harassing her by now, yet she didn’t seem any happier or any less happy. She dealt with it like a saint. If I had been in her position, with everyone ganging up on me, I would have exploded and a couple dummies at school would have found themselves knocked into a coma. I seriously admired Elaine for keeping her composure.