M is for Michael. The boy who was in the car with Marcus who wasn’t wearing his seat belt and went straight through the windshield and was killed instantly.
M is for mother, which is what the woman in the other car was. To a two-year-old boy. I’ve seen his photo in the papers. I want to reach into the photo and pull him out and hold him on my lap and brush his hair out of his eyes and tell him he’ll be OK, that I lost my daddy and I’m OK. I want to tell him I’m sorry that he won’t know his mama. But I don’t think his family wants anything to do with our family.
M is for Marcus. My brother, who changed his whole story.
On Friday we go see him.
The ride to the hospital is somber. Granny Dee and LaoLao don’t say a word, not even when I get in the front seat. Usually they squabble like little kids over who gets to sit in the front.
“We’re here to see Marcus Jones.” I wonder if anyone else can hear the heartbreak in my mother’s voice. Hear the hope.
The woman behind the registration desk glances up at my mother, down at paperwork, back up at my mother. “I’m sorry, ma’am, family only.”
My mother’s face crumples. “Excuse me?”
Granny Dee puts her bony hand under my mother’s elbow, because it looks like my mother’s body might follow her face and crumple too. LaoLao moves closer, frowning like thunder.
“We are family,” says Granny Dee, and LaoLao nods, her frown deepening so it almost gets lost in her face.
The woman behind the desk purses her lips, stares at Granny Dee, stares at my mother. I step forward, the missing link. The thing that connects them.
“He’s my brother,” I say softly, even though inside I’m screaming. “We need to see him.”
The bright pink color that creeps up the woman’s neck almost perfectly matches her shirt, but it does nothing to appease Granny Dee. Neither do her mumbled apologies.
“You heard my granddaughter.” I watch the word granddaughter tumble out of Granny Dee’s mouth and slap the woman in the face. “We need to see him.”
Once we’re inside his room, the first thing I notice is that the body in the bed looks both small and gargantuan at the same time, like some kind of fun-house mirror trick. The next thing I notice is that it isn’t my brother.
“Talk to him,” says the nurse as she bustles around the prone and plastered body. She is cool and competent. I’m envious of her busyness. Envious that she can help him. That she has a job. We stand in a line by his bed. Staring down at the person who was once Marcus. This thing we’re looking at, this bloated and broken thing, isn’t my brother. His eyes are still swollen shut and his head is wrapped in miles of gauze and he’s in plaster from the waist down. He has so many wires attached to him, going through him, he looks more robot than boy.
My mother crouches down next to him, takes his hand, the one that isn’t in a cast, and holds it.
“Hi, Marcus,” she says. “I’m sorry I’ve been your only visitor this week. We’re all here now.”
“And we’ll be here as much as we can.” Granny Dee’s voice rings out loud and true in the small room. If anyone is going to be able to wake Marcus, it’ll be her. I look at his face expectantly, waiting to see his eyes open, the way they do in the movies.
Nothing happens. His face has the same dead expression that looks nothing like the brother I remember. The Marcus I remember.
“Wing? Do you want to say anything to Marcus?”
Marcus. Marcus. This is Marcus. This is my brother.
I want to say so much. I want to shake him and scream at him and hit him for doing this to himself. To us. To Michael and his family. To the mother who was killed, to her family. Because as much as him being in here is hurting me, at least he is here. I can’t imagine, won’t let myself imagine, how much more it would hurt if he weren’t here. Even thinking about what could have been makes me scared and angry, but more than that it makes me grateful, guilt-ridden grateful, painful grateful, that he is here right now. It’s like walking barefoot across broken glass to get to him, it hurts so bad, each step piercing me with tiny slivers that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get out. He shattered other people’s lives and all I’ve got to do is wade through the mess he made, and as painful as each step is, I know it could be so much worse. All this just proves how much I love him, because I know this was his fault. He’s ruined more than I can even get my head around, but I love him even fiercer than I did before. I want to cuss him out for being so selfish. For being so stupid. But I also want to see him on the field again. I want to cheer for him. I want to hold onto him and never let him go.
“Wing?”
I feel like I’m onstage and my mom and Granny Dee and LaoLao are all watching me, waiting to hear what I have to say.
“I’m sure he wants to hear your voice,” my mom prompts.