CHAPTER 34
REID
Funny thing about not waking up hungover on days off—
there’s more day off to the day. I can’t believe I actual y dreaded this. I was certain I’d be bored as hel inside 48
hours—evenings without the usual entertainment fol owed by entire days to fil . But what’s to miss about headaches, nausea and acute sensitivity to light and sound? My enthusiasm may have as much to do with Vancouver itself as it does the lack of hangovers. I wouldn’t know; before this project, I’ve had little experience with either.
It’s our first Sunday off, and Chelsea and her husband, Chad, invited me along to explore Gastown, an area of the city with cobblestone streets and smal shops, gal eries and restaurants. A bodyguard trails us, but hasn’t been necessary. Vancouver is known as Hol ywood North, and the locals are semi-inured to celebrity sightings. No one’s bothered us, though cel phones are frequently aimed in our direction and I’ve heard my name and Chelsea’s hissed emphatical y a dozen times.
I lace my fingers behind my neck and stretch my sore shoulder careful y. The screenwriter is working the bruise into the storyline for the shirtless scenes because hiding it is impractical. It’s huge and ugly, and I wonder at my sanity over the fact that I’m more amused than annoyed by it. I frequently left the Diego house lightly bruised and battered, as did Dori. Once, I pointed out a purple welt on the back of her thigh, and she twisted to look at it. “Hmm,” she said, shrugging. “I’ve had worse.” I wanted to slap myself for how hot that was.
“This city is marvelous,” Chelsea says now, opening a menu. Chelsea is fond of words like marvelous and fabulous and splendid, lengthening the first syl able as though she’s trying to remember the rest of the word. She smiles at her husband. “I think we should move here.” We’ve found a corner bistro across the way from an idyl ic green space that’s commonplace in Vancouver, mixed in with the modernized buildings and concrete. This one boasts a fountain. As kids are tossing coins and making wishes, one smal boy pockets a handful of change and throws his baby sister’s shoe into the water instead.
Out of nowhere, I’m fighting the urge to cal Dori and tel her about it. I want her to tel me I’m mean and try not to laugh as I mimic my costar’s unnatural love for multi-syl abic adjectives. I wonder if she’d be more sympathetic or amused that I got slammed with a chair during a simulated bar fight.
“I hope you’re suggesting that I become a kept man,” Chad says, “because I don’t think my license from the California bar extends this far north.”
“Oh, no, no. You’re the sugar daddy and I’m the bril iant artistic type in this marriage.” Chelsea purses her lips endearingly, while I battle a desire to punch one or both of them in the face.
My cel buzzes with a text from Tadd, and I’m elated at the distraction from both the Chelsea and Chad lovefest, and futile thoughts of Dori.
Tadd: Hey dude, are you in vancouver now? Rob and i are flying up later this week. Would like to meet for dinner if you can. Let me know.
Me: I think i can squeeze you in, haha. Text me when you get here.
*** *** ***
Dori
By the time Dad and I reached the hospital, it was close to midnight. “Oh, Dori,” Mom said, throwing her arms around me as though I was a life preserver and she would sink and drown without me. She was a wreck—her face blotchy, eyes red, a smudge of mascara dissolved under each eye, giving her delicate skin a gray cast under the greenish fluorescent lighting of the critical care waiting area. We held each other as Dad looked on helplessly.
Deb’s medical team gives us periodic updates, much of it too complex to understand. I’ve tried to take notes, but mostly end up with scraps of paper covered in scribbles l i k e increased intracranial pressure and epidural
hematoma and Glasgow coma scale—5. I don’t know what hematoma and Glasgow coma scale—5. I don’t know what any of it means, but the words are menacing and my mother is shaken by them, so I know the prognosis isn’t favorable. Deb had a seizure shortly after the accident, one of the many reasons for her sedation.
“The increased pressure inside her skul from the brain swel ing is common in this sort of injury,” one of the doctors intoned, but it was clear this wasn’t meant as reassurance.
If the swel ing doesn’t stop, my sister could die.
These aren’t the circumstances under which any of us wanted to meet Bradford. Deb told me once that he’s seldom overcome with emotion because he deals in the realities of death and dying every day. Sitting next to me in the hospital cafeteria, though, he’s visibly anguished, hands clasped and rigid on the tabletop, next to his tepid coffee.
“Hardly anyone at the hospital knows about our relationship.” His voice is hoarse, his handsome face pal id and drawn. “As far as most people know, we were distant acquaintances. I’m not expected to be… not expected to feel…” I put my hand on his arm as he struggles to stay composed.
When my parents are given Deb’s belongings—the clothes and jewelry she was wearing when the accident occurred, a beautiful, unfamiliar solitaire threaded onto a long gold chain is included with her things. Bradford’s swift intake of breath and compressed jaw is al the answer we need to confirm that this is Deb’s engagement ring—
hidden from her coworkers, worn next to her heart.
***
Dad and I travel back and forth between LA and Dad and I travel back and forth between LA and Indianapolis while Mom remains steadfastly by Deb’s side.
When she can be coaxed to leave the hospital for a few hours, she spends them at Deb’s apartment, where she tends my sister’s balcony ful of plants but doesn’t get enough sleep to remove the circles from under her eyes.
My mother and sister have both always been slim. Now, they’re both more emaciated every time I return from LA.
Once I apprise him of the fact, Dad and I begin to press food on Mom—jars of cashews, buttered blueberry muffins, turkey sandwiches topped with avocado.
I postpone my admission to Berkeley for a semester. I don’t tel my parents that at the moment, I can’t imagine myself there at al . Thanks to donated air miles, Dad and I get into a rhythm of swapping off—hospital, home, hospital, home—so we don’t impose further on anyone to watch the house or feed and walk Esther. I hardly see my father, our flights passing each other like that saying about ships in the night. My strongest feelings are reserved for anything relating to a change in Deb’s condition.
Her doctors used innovative, controversial approaches to lessen the swel ing in her brain, and the terror that we could lose her diminished, too. There’s been little change since she was successful y removed from life support. The monitors prove a low level of brain activity, and when she’s awake, her eyes are open. But if I move directly into her line of vision, it’s like I’m made of glass. She just stares right through. She doesn’t speak or react to voices unless they’re very loud—and then her only responses appear to be irritation or pain.
be irritation or pain.
The doctors yel at her in attempts to provoke a response, and Mom sits stoical y, while I can barely stand to watch my sister flinch over and over. They ask me to try, hoping she might respond to my voice.
“Deb, can you hear me?” I say, and they insist louder, louder. “Deb, can you hear me? Can you hear me, Deb?” I’m screaming, but the volume only makes her recoil, and I run from the room, weak and ineffective, gasping for breath and slumping against the hal way wal , sinking lower and swal owing tears. I bury my face against my knees, wishing this was al a nightmare, and I could just wake up.
My mother joins me as I huddle on the floor, opening her arms. “It’s okay, Dori. They won’t ask you to do it again.” I let myself cry, because I don’t want her to let go. This embrace is for me, and I want it desperately even while I berate myself for leaning on Mom for comfort. She doesn’t need me to break down and add to her burden.
Bradford remains close by, but I wonder how long that wil last. He and Deb weren’t married; their relationship wasn’t even public knowledge. Excluded from decisions concerning her care except where his opinion is quietly sought by my parents, he has no official place in her life—
this woman he wanted to marry, the person with whom he intended to link his future. As Mom and the chaplain prayed over her stil form yesterday, requesting miracles on her behalf, my eyes met Bradford’s. I saw my grief mirrored there, as wel as my recognition of her prognosis. The girl we love is not coming back.
There’s no discussing reality with Mom when she constantly addresses Deb as though she’s capable of making a coherent reply at any moment. “How are you feeling today, sweetie? Looks like your hair is growing back in—time for a trim, don’t you think?” Her fingers run lovingly over the sparse spots on Deb’s head as my sister stares straight ahead at nothing. Mom chatters on about the weather and I fade from the room, because it’s almost as unbearable as watching people yel at my sister to get a response.
When I’m home in LA, I see my friends, fel ow church members, or Nick—who brings me food and stays to sit and talk when he’s home from col ege, though we skirt sensitive subjects like my newly aimless life or Deb’s increasingly unlikely recovery. Two months ago, I confided in my sister and counted on my parents. They each encouraged my independence, but they were always there.
Now there is no hand to steady me and no net beneath me, and I’m more isolated than I thought it was possible to be.
“Dori is such a little rock for Doug and Jocelyn,” I overhear Mrs. Perez tel Mrs. K one Sunday. “They don’t have to worry about her fal ing apart.”
Too late, I realize what my show of strength costs me.
I’ve become disconnected, and the people in my life have become mirages. When I reach for them, my fingers go right through.
There is only one exception—Reid.
I can’t explain it, but whenever I catch sight of him on television or a magazine cover, I’m connected to my former life, my former self, even if it’s just for a moment. I’ve memorized times and channels for entertainment news programs that I’ve never watched, flipping rapidly between channels in the first two minutes. My pulse quickens when he appears in the teasers, like a monkey who’s learned to press a lever and get a treat. He’s a drug, and I need him. I tel myself that this is a safe obsession, because he has no knowledge of it.
Sometimes I wake from dreams of him, shuddering with longing. In these waking moments I come back to reality unwil ingly, grounded by Esther, who sleeps pressed to my chest like an extension of me. She is proof that I’m alive—
my ear snuggled against her chest, attuned to the faint gurgles of her soft stomach and the steady drum of her heart, my nose breathing in her familiar doggy scent, my face and fingers buried in her fur, stroking her beloved warm body.
“Stay, stay, stay,” I whisper.
She does, and I do.