Left Neglected

Chapter 7





The hazy bright whiteness above me focuses into a fluorescent light fixture on the ceiling. Someone is saying something over and over. As I study the brightness and shape of the light, I come to realize that someone is saying something over and over to me.

“Sarah, can you take a deep breath for me?”

I assume that I can, but as I do, my entire throat grips around something rigid, and I gag. I’m sure that I’ve stopped inhaling, but my lungs fill with air anyway. My throat feels bone dry. I want to lick my lips and swallow some saliva, but something inside my mouth won’t let me. I want to ask, “What’s happening?” but I can’t gather the reins of my breathing, lips, or tongue. My eyes fill with panic.

“Don’t try to talk. You have a tube in your mouth to help you breathe.”

There is a fluorescent light on the ceiling above my head, a tube inside my mouth to help me breathe, and a woman’s voice.

“Can you squeeze my hand?” asks the woman’s voice.

I squeeze, but I don’t feel a hand in my hand.

“Can you squeeze your other hand?”

I don’t understand the question.

“Can you show me two fingers?”

I spread my index and middle finger.

Scissors.

I won the shoot. The shoot, the rain, the car. The crash. I remember. I hear electronic beeps and the whirring of mechanical equipment. The fluorescent light, the tube, the woman’s voice. I’m in a hospital. Oh my God, what’s happened to me? I try to think past the crash, but a searing pain slices through the top of my head, and I can’t.

“Good, Sarah. Okay, that’s enough for today. We’re going to put you back to sleep so you can rest.”

Wait! The shoot, the car, the rain, the crash, and then what? What happened? Am I okay?

The fluorescent light on the ceiling grows brighter. The edges of the light dissolve. Everything blurs white.



“OKAY, SARAH, BREATHE OUT as hard as you can.”

I blow as a nurse yanks the breathing tube out of me, and it

Feels like she’s dragging a sandpaper-coated speculum up the tender lining of my throat. There’s nothing delicate or hesitant about her approach to this procedure. The removal is ruthless, and the relief I feel when she’s done borders on euphoria, a bit like giving birth. I’m good and ready to hate this woman, but then she tips a Dixie cup of melting ice chips to my lips, and she’s my angel of mercy.

After a minute, she folds my hand around the cup.

“Okay, Sarah, keep sipping. I’ll be right back,” she says and leaves me alone.

I sip the cold water. My cracked and dusty lips, mouth, and throat are grateful sponges, like earth soaking in rain after a long drought. I just had a breathing tube removed. I needed a tube to breathe. That’s not good. But I don’t need one now. Why did I need a breathing tube? How long have I been here? Where is Bob?

My head feels strange, but I can’t identify the sensation at first. Then it comes to me in full Technicolor, the volume turned all the way up. My head is scorching hot. I let go of the cup of ice and touch my head. I’m stunned and horrified by the mental image drawn by what my fingers feel. A large portion of my scalp, about the size and shape of a slice of bread, is shaved, and within that bald space, my fingers discover about a dozen metal staples. Somewhere just below the staples, my brain is the temperature of volcanic magma.

I grab the Dixie cup and pour the watery ice onto my stapled head. I actually expect to hear the water sizzle, but it doesn’t. The ice doesn’t lessen the fiery pain, and I’ve just used up all of my chips.

I wait and breathe in and out without the help of a tube. Don’t panic. The nurse wouldn’t have left you alone without a breathing tube and holding a disposable cup of ice if your brain were melting. But maybe it is melting. Check to see if it works.

Who are you? I’m Sarah Nickerson. Good. You know your name. My husband is Bob. I have three kids—Charlie, Lucy, and Linus. I’m the VP of HR at Berkley. We live in Welmont. I’m thirty-seven years old. Good. Sarah, you’re fine. I touch the staples and trace the shape of the bald patch. They don’t shave your head and insert metal hardware into your scalp if you’re fine.

Where is Bob? someone should tell Bob where I am and what’s happened. Oh God, someone should tell work where I am and what’s happened. How long have I been here? What happened?

Other than during and following childbirth, I’ve never needed any medical attention beyond a few Motrin and a couple of Band-Aids. I stare at the fluorescent light. I don’t like this one bit. Where is the nurse? Please come back. Isn’t there a button somewhere I can push to call her? I look for a button, a phone, a speaker to yell into. I see the fluorescent light on the ceiling and an ugly beige curtain hanging next to me. Nothing else. No window, no TV, no phone, nothing. This room sucks.

I wait. My head is too hot. I try to call out for the nurse, but my brutalized throat can manage only a raspy whisper.

“Hello?”

I wait.

“Bob?”

I wait. I wait forever as I picture my brain and everything I love melting away.



THE FLUORESCENT LIGHT AGAIN. I must’ve dozed off. My world is this fluorescent light. The light and the low, continuous, electronic whirring and beeping of whatever equipment might be monitoring me. Monitoring me and keeping me alive? God, I hope not. My world is meetings and deadlines, emails and airports, Bob and my kids. How did my world get reduced to this? How long have I been lying under this ugly light?

I move my hand beneath the bedsheet and down to my leg. Oh no. I’m feeling at least a week’s worth of stubble. The hair on my legs is fair-colored, almost blond, but I have a ton of it, and I usually shave every day. I rub my hand up and down my thigh like I’m petting a goat at the zoo.

Oh God, my chin. I have a cluster of five hairs on the left side of my chin. They’re coarse and wiry, like boar hair, and for the past couple of years, they’ve been my hideous secret and my sworn enemies. They sprout up every couple of days, and so I have to be vigilant. I keep my weapons—Revlon tweezers and a 10X magnifying mirror—at home, in my Sherpa bag, and in my desk drawer at work, so in theory, I can be anywhere, and if one of those evil little weeds pokes through the surface, I can yank it. I’ve been in meetings with CEOs, some of the most powerful men in the world, and could barely stay focused on what they were saying because I’d inadvertently touched my chin and become obsessed with the idea of destroying five microscopic hairs. I hate them, and I’m terrified of someone else noticing them before I do, but I have to admit, there is almost nothing more satisfying than pulling them out.

I stroke my chin, expecting to feel my Little Pig beard, but touch only smooth skin. My leg feels like a farm animal, which suggests I haven’t shaved in at least a week, but my chin is bare, which would put me in this bed for less than two days. My body hair isn’t making any sense. I hear nurses’ voices in conversation coming from what I imagine is the hallway outside my room.

I hear something else. It’s not the machine that may or may not be keeping me alive, not the nurses’ chatter, not even the faint buzz of the fluorescent light. I hold my breath and listen. It’s Bob’s snore!

I turn my head, and there he is, asleep in a chair in front of the beige curtain.

“Bob?”

He opens his eyes. He sees me seeing him and pops upright.

“You’re awake,” he says.

“What happened?”

“You were in a car accident.”

“Am I okay?”

He looks at the top of my head and then into my eyes and purposefully not at the top of my head.

“You’re going to be fine.”

His expression reminds me of what happens to his face when he’s watching the Red Sox. It’s bottom of the ninth, two outs, the count is 3 and 2, there’s nobody on, and they’re four runs down. He wants to believe that they can still win, but he knows they’ve probably already lost. And it’s breaking his heart.

I touch the staples on my head.

“They did surgery, to relieve the pressure. The doctor said You did really well.”

His voice shakes as he says this. Not only are the Sox losing, they’re playing the Yankees.

“How long have I been here?”

“Eight days. They had you sedated. You’ve been asleep for most of it.”

Eight days. I’ve been unconscious for eight days. I touch my bald head again.

“I must look horrible.”

“You’re beautiful.”

Oh please. I’m about to tease him for being so corny when he starts crying, and I’m stunned silent. In the ten years that I’ve known and loved him, I’ve never seen him cry. I’ve seen him tear up—when the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 and when our babies were born—but I’ve never seen him cry. I’m an easy crier. I cry watching the news, whenever anyone sings the National Anthem, when someone’s dog dies, when I get overwhelmed at work, when I get overwhelmed at home. And now when Bob cries.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I say, weeping with him.

“Don’t be sorry.”

“I’m sorry.”

I reach over and touch his wet, contorted face. I can tell he’s struggling to pull his emotions back in, but he’s like a shaken bottle of champagne, and I just popped the cork. Only nobody’s celebrating.

“Don’t be sorry. Just don’t leave me, Sarah.”

“Look at me,” I say, pointing to my head. “Do I look like I’m going anywhere?”

He laughs and wipes his nose with his sleeve.

“I’m going to be fine,” I say with teary determination.

We nod and squeeze hands, agreeing to a certainty we both know nothing about.

“Do the kids know?” I ask.

“I told them you’re away for work. They’re good, business as usual.”

Good. I’m glad he didn’t tell them that I’m in the hospital. No need to scare them. I’m normally home with them for the hour or two before school and for the last hour of their day, but it’s also normal for there to be times when I have to work late and miss seeing them before they go to bed. And they’re also used to my frequent travel schedule and me being entirely away for many days at a time. Still, when I travel, I’m not usually gone for more than a week. I wonder how long I’d need to be here for them to really wonder where I am.

“Does work know?”

“Yes, they sent most of the cards. They said not to worry about anything and to get better.”

“What cards?”

“Over there, taped to the wall.”

I look over at the wall, but I don’t see anything taped to it. They must be on the wall behind the curtain.

“How long do I need to stay here?”

“I don’t know. How are you feeling?” he asks.

My head is no longer on fire, and it surprisingly doesn’t hurt much. I’m sore all over, though, like how I imagine a boxer must feel after a fight. The boxer who lost. I also have intense cramping in my leg. I’ve noticed that sometimes there is some sort of device on my leg that massages the muscles, which helps. And I have no energy. Just talking to Bob these past few minutes has tuckered me out.

“Honestly?”

“Yeah,” he says, and I can tell he’s bracing himself for something gruesome.

“I’m starving.”

He smiles, relieved.

“What do you feel like having? Anything you want.”

“How about soup?” I suggest, thinking soup is probably safe. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to eat anything I want yet.

“You got it. I’ll be right back.”

He leans over and kisses my chapped lips. I wipe the tears off his cheek and chin and smile. Then he disappears behind the ugly beige curtain.

It’s just me and the fluorescent light again. The fluorescent light, the beeping and whirring, and the beige curtain. And somewhere behind the curtain, wonderful get-well cards from work on the wall.