Still Life with Tornado (14 page)

There is nothing I hate more than bullshit. Especially in a busy ER. I have to work with people who've been nursing longer than I have who try to bullshit me. They don't write down every detail but they say they do. They take breaks to check their phones or post something on The Social and say they were just taking a bathroom break. The only thing I hate more than a bullshitter is a lazy person bullshitting about being lazy. And yet look at my life. Look. At. My. Life.

•   •   •

You think I hate Chet because he's lazy around the house. Because he shrugs. You think it's because he doesn't really vacuum right and because he won't scrape off the sliver of tissue Sarah put on the TV. And while I don't respect lazy people, I don't hate Chet because of this.

You think I'm hard to please.

But I haven't told you the whole story.

I'm not embarrassed to tell you about my feelings, but I'm embarrassed to tell you where they came from. I'm embarrassed about my bad choices. I'm embarrassed by being stuck and being the glue all by myself.

•   •   •

Nineteen years old. I had never been hit before. Not by a kid in school, not by my parents, not by anyone. I was in nursing school. Chet was in college—living off-campus in an old house near Temple. It was a bad part of town and he wouldn't let me walk home by myself. He bought me a small can of pepper spray that fit on my key chain after the second night I stayed over and I thought that was sweet. A lot of things about Chet were sweet. He loved to cuddle and we liked the same TV shows and he loved walking around Center City holding hands and talking about everything.

We lived in that apartment near Temple for three years. We got married at City Hall and Chet didn't tell his mother. I was pregnant with Bruce when we moved out. But before that. Before that there were bad times. Chet could get too drunk and be surly. He'd tell me off and I would chalk it up to his being drunk. He was a college guy and only drank on weekends. He didn't know how to be drunk yet. He was just messing around. He'd tease me about something too much. His favorite subject was how I'd run off with a doctor one day.

“Only reason girls become nurses is to marry a doctor,” he said.

A lot. He said it a lot.

I have no idea why I didn't see he was going to be a problem right then. Instead, I figured it was his way of showing insecurity. It was my job to prove to him that I loved him, not some unknown doctor.

•   •   •

He wasn't drunk the first time.

I'd made dinner for just the two of us. He came home from class and though he didn't seem like he was in a good mood, when he saw the candles lit and smelled the beef roast I'd overcooked, he was pretty nice.

It was something I said.

It's never really something you say. Remember that. But at the time I thought it was something I'd said. At the time, it's always the fault of the person who isn't swinging. But it really isn't.

He asked how my clinical rotation was going. I was working in geriatrics that month. I said that the old men flirted with me.

“Dirty old guys,” he said.

“Nah. They're nice. Just bored.”

“What about the doctors?” he asked.

“They're okay. One of them actually asks questions instead of telling us what to do all the time. He's nice.”

“Nice?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you like him?”

“Like, do I
like
him? No. He's—too—he's too tall.”

I picked
tall
because I had to pick something. I was going to say bald. I was going to say hairy. I was going to say a bunch of things when I stuttered but I said
tall
.

Chet is five foot ten. Nothing wrong with that. I had no idea that his frat brothers called him “Half Pint.” I had no idea that
tall
was the worst word I could have used.

Except it wasn't. Remember that. It wasn't because I said the word
tall.

“He's too tall?”

“Yeah. Can we talk about something else? I love you. I hate when you think I like doctors. It's weird.”

This was not the thing to say after just saying the word
tall.

Chet put his hands on the edge of the table and pushed it. He was trying to push his chair out. That's what I thought. But instead he pushed the table right into my ribs. Broke one. I doubled over. The candles fell over and went out. The plates smashed into each other. My glass of water spilled onto my lap. I stayed doubled over because the pain was intense. I think I was crying.

When he came over to me, I thought he was going to say, “Oh my God! I'm sorry! Are you hurt?” I couldn't breathe. My rib was broken. I'd heard it snap. He was going to be concerned. He loved me.

But that's not what he did.

He slapped the side of my head as it was down near my knees. His fraternity ring got caught in my hair. He pulled the hair out. He slapped me again—right on the top of my head. Then when I looked up, his fist was closed and he slapped me across the face with it and I was crying already from the pain of my rib and he didn't get a good hit. He pulled his arm back to try again.

I didn't know what to do.

I didn't expect him to be hitting me.

I didn't know that I shouldn't say
tall
. I didn't know what I'd done.

He was screaming.
I can't trust you to leave this fucking house! You want a doctor? I'll get you a fucking doctor! See how this fucking works!

This was not Chet. That's what I kept telling myself. This was not Chet.

I didn't understand. What had I said? What had I done? I'd made roast beef. I'd lit candles. I'd candied carrots just like he liked them.

As I sat, doubled over, I lost count of how many times he slapped my head. I don't remember him landing one on my face, but later the mirror reflected a woman with a faint bruise.

Who was she?

What had she done?

•   •   •

I didn't go to school for two days after that night.

I could cover the bruise on the side of my face easy enough, but I couldn't do the work I had to do with the pain. I'd taken as much Advil as I could. I'd wrapped my chest as tight as I could. I walked around the apartment standing up as straight as I could. I wanted to look normal. That was what I did. That is not what I recommend anyone do, but it's what I did. I walked around and tried to stand up tall.

Chet had already apologized. He said he was stressed out over an exam.

He didn't say it right then when the roast beef was on the floor. He said it the next day. That night, after he'd hit me enough times, he just went out. Stayed out all night.

That was the routine. That became the routine because I let it become the routine. I am the glue.

When I went back to my rotation, the tall doctor noticed I couldn't do my work without wincing and he asked me what was going on. How was I supposed to tell him? Him? He was nice and cute and concerned and the longer I waited before answering his question, the more he knew without me having to tell him.

I can spot a battered woman at twenty paces now.

They're always the ones not saying anything about how they got that bruise or how come they can't reach above their head or why they can't walk without limping.

I was nineteen years old.

How was I supposed to tell anyone what happened?

I couldn't move back in with my parents. I couldn't even tell my best friend what happened. I just brought Chet to Thanksgiving and Christmas that year and showed him off like a prize dog or something. I don't know why. I don't know why I didn't leave before it happened again.

He said he was just stressed out. He hadn't done it again since.

But he still asked me questions about the doctors.

That only stopped once Sarah was born. Six months after we buried Gram Sarah. I hated him by then. What he'd done to me and Bruce was unforgivable. I'd kicked him out twenty times. He never left.

And now, we're here.

It's like putting a movie on pause for twenty-six years.

I'm stuck, eating staples, on pause, glue.

But meeting ten-year-old Sarah changed everything. I can see my Sarah in her. I can see what she used to be like. Though, at ten, Sarah had already seen what Chet could do. She saw in Mexico. She saw before Mexico, I bet.

My Sarah? My Sarah doesn't see shit. She's all conflicted. She stopped going to school. Something happened but she can't talk to us. Why would she ever trust us? Chet and I have been lying to her since she was born.

Kids are smart. I've said that my whole life. In the ER when we have to give bad news to the parents before we give it to the kid, I say to my nurses, “You can't bullshit a kid. You have to tell the parents first, but the kid knows.” And there I was bullshitting a kid when I know you can't bullshit a kid.

When Mom comes home she is by herself. She tells me that ten-year-old Sarah had to go home. She said she offered her to stay with us, but ten-year-old Sarah said that would be too weird. I agree. One Sarah is plenty.

“I don't know what to say,” she says.

“About what?”

“This is a lot to take in.”

“There are other ones,” I say.

“Other whats?”

“Other Sarahs,” I say. “Like, tonight I saw twenty-three-year-old Sarah.”

She looks at me very seriously.

“She was the one I saw first. At the bus stop. When I started skipping school.”

“Twenty-three-year-old Sarah?”

“Yes.”

She looks relieved. “I'm so glad to hear this.”

“She's kinda snobby,” I say. “Thinks she knows everything.”

Mom nods.

“Do you think I should see a therapist or something?”

She says, “Let's make a snack.”

I follow her into the kitchen and she pulls out bread from the cupboard and cheese from the fridge and I sit at the little round table and watch as she makes a cheese sandwich and then piles it high with potato chips, puts the second piece of bread on top of the potato chips, and then smashes it down.

“Want one?”

“Nah.”

“A slice of cheese?”

“No thanks. I'm not hungry,” I say.

She sits in her usual chair and I move back into the corner chair and she says, between crunchy, cheesy bites, “I think I can get you excused from school. I have a friend. A doctor.”

“You're going to tell him I'm crazy?”

“I'm going to tell him that we're having a family crisis and that you're in need of some time.”

“You're not going to tell him about ten-year-old Sarah, are you?”

“No.”

“Are we having a family crisis?” I ask.

“I think so,” she says. “I'm pretty sure I am.”

“Okay,” I say. “Where's Dad?”

“Who knows?”

“Aren't you worried?”

“About what?”

“I don't know. That he's not home?”

“Not really.”

“Okay,” I say.

“Do you really think you're going crazy?” Mom asks.

“No.”

“Good.”

“Did you know that sixteen is a popular age to have an existential crisis?” I ask.

“No.”

“Well, it is,” I say.

“Good to know.”

Dad comes home about a half hour after I go to bed. I know this because he slams his bedroom door. It's past midnight. I wonder was he out with the person he was saying sorry to last week—if he has some sort of girlfriend or something. I wonder if he slammed his door to wake us up on purpose.

I'm not paranoid. I'm remembering.

Dad has not been the kindest man on the planet.

I'm going to call Bruce again tomorrow. We'll talk about it. We'll talk about everything.