-1-
“I hate hospitals,” Corinne moans
“You should have said that before I spent $100 on
fruit,” I tell her, balancing the giant gift basket to open the door.
We cross into Children’s Hospital and I explain to the front desk nurse I need to drop the basket off personally to Ms. Cosgrove, the Hospital Public Relations Officers. I explain that it was a thank you from Matthew Saylor that he wanted it delivered personally.
It was a lie. But it was good enough to get us
Visitor’s badges.
I drop the basket off at Ms. Cosgrove’s door and we scatter before she comes out. Pretending to be completely bored with the whole place, we walk into the ICU and no one gives us a second look.
“Care to tell me how we are going to find her?,” Corinne asks.
“I got us this far,” I whisper.
After bitching us out for 20 minutes for taking the photo, Blythe told us everything about she and Abigail and what had happened after she pushed her off the bridge. I couldn't believe it. She told us we could find Abigail at Children’s Hospital. She’d been only a few feet away from us just weeks ago at Matty’s concert.
Lucky for us patient names are written on the door. Most of the rooms are shared between patients, but the one at the hall is a single. And it belongs to Abigail Winters.
The room is noisy with all the machines she’s hooked up to. It smells sterile, but also like sickness. Gone are her long curls, an ugly scar spreads across her face like it’s been cracked, her skin is glistening and her lips are dry, but she’s alive.
In a coma, but still alive.
“I don’t think I can handle this,” Corinne says weakly. She’s still standing by the door frame.
“Okay.” I say and I take out my phone to take a picture.
“What the hell--” Corinne hisses.
“We have to show her or she won’t believe us.”
I quickly snap the photo. The moment the phone is in my pocket the door creaks open, Corinne yelps and I turn to see Abigail’s mother stepping in. She’s nothing like the woman we saw in the picture, she looks thinner and her black hair is streaked with gray. Her navy suit is hanging off her body.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” She apologizes. “Are you friends ? I’m sorry I don’t remember you all but--,”
“No, I mean yes—but, we’re Sorry,” I say backing away from Abigail...Abigail’s body. “We were kind of in the neighborhood and just came by. We’re just going now--”
“It’s okay, it’s good to see friends visiting again,” Mrs. Winters smiles. “I feel bad leaving her alone so often,”
Her voice cracks, but her face keeps all composure.
“I’ll add you to the visitor list,” she says. “What are your names ?”
We tell her tand she makes an effort to smile as she writes them down. She recognizes my name and said Abigail talked about my Dad’s book.
“So, she’s been like this for almost a year ?,” Corrinne asks.
“Well, there have been some days where they get more activity,” Mrs. Winters explains. “Sometimes she moves.”
She takes a seat on the bed next to her daughter and her pumps thud off her stockinged feet. She starts going through her purse.
“Um, did you need anything ?,” Corinne asks Mrs. Winters as we make our departure, but she shakes her head. She locates a novel in her bag and starts reading aloud to Abigail.
“That was the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” Corinne says to me and I can just nod as we get into Mom’s van.
Without conferring with Corinne I start back towards campus. I take the first space I can find and we walk towards Strauss Bridge. The wind chill from the bay makes the bridge especially chilly and no one is stopping except for one person.
Abigail is sitting on the edge of the railing with her arms around her body, she turns and sees us coming and turns back. She looks like she is going to jump, but I know she wouldn’t. As we get closer, I see her hand is rubbing at the spot in the railing where there is scratched paint. It must be the spot.
I reach out and touch her and she feels different. Less solid.
“You met my mom,” she says quietly.
“Okay, how the hell do you know everything--,” Corinne starts, she’s pissed for some reason.
“Sometimes I hear voices… doctors, my parents. Just snippets.” Abigail says. “I didn’t know what it was at first. I just wanted it to stop… but now I know.”
“Well, you’re right there at Children’s Hospital,” Corinne says.
Abigail spins slowly to face us.
“How did I survive ?,” she said. “Did my mom tell you ?,”
“… You missed the water and hit the shore. Your arms absorbed some of the impact," I tell her. “Your mom didn't tell us though...Blythe told us.”.
“She’s alive ? She didn’t--,” Abigail starts and then a flash of anger. “She didn’t do it--”
“Oh, she tried to do it, “Corinne adds bitingly. “ But a security guard saw her and pulled her back over and then talked her down. She was afraid she’d get in trouble for pushing you, so she didn't say what happened and ran. When her parents reported her missing she came back, but it still took her a month to admit what she did. A construction crew found you... everyone thought you were going to die, but you survived.”
“So..what ? Is she in jail now ?,” Abigail chokes.
“Just 9 months in a mental facility.” Corinne mutters. “Now she’s out. But don’t worry, she said she doesn’t see you.”
“Listen Abigail,” I say. “I think that maybe if you see your body you might wake up.”
“I’ve been thinking that too,” Abigail admits.
“Okay, well let’s do this,” Corinne says.
“No,” Abigail say plainly. “I can’t--”
“Can’t ?,” Corinne throws back. “What do you mean ? You can see your family--”
“I’m just…I’m not ready,” Abigial sighs.
“You’re not ready ?,” Corinne repeats. “That’s kind of selfish--”
“DON”T CALL ME THAT,” Abigail screams. It’s so uncharacteristic of her, it’s jarring.
Corinne is silent and then opens and closes her mouth a few times before saying:
“I’m done.”
She walks away without looking back and I realize I’m stuck between them.
“I’m sorry Jonah—I just can’t. She doesn’t get it. I’m not ready for a world where I’ve been in a coma a year and the girl I loved tried to kill me and is gone from my life. It’s too complicated.”
“I get complicated,” I tell her. “But you can’t hide forever.”
“But I can,” She says. “If you could wouldn’t you ?,”
And I know I would. No more Dad. No More Ethan.
“Abigail, I know but you have to try. Your family--”
She turns away from me and in the time it takes me to blink she’s gone.
Seeing her go, I turn and go after Corinne. Somewhere along the way I learned her schedule and I easily find her at the Thinking Cup, aggressively cleaning the tables.
“I said I’m done,” she says, cutting her eyes at me.
“I tried--”
“No, I’m done.” Corinne says. “With all of you.”
She walks back to the counter where Sev is counting tips.
“You know I’ve been in some really shitty group homes, but I always make friends. But somehow I haven’t made one real friend at Eastham and I’ve finally figured out why. You are all spoiled brats,” Corinne says. “The worst thing for Abigail is going back to her loving family. Sev, you are throwing your life away with that douchebag, Jonah if I have to hear about your stupid pistachio green Prius I’m going to punch you. Of course, I guess I’m a bitch for pointing that out.”
She stalks to the back.
Sev’s tongue is clenched hard between her teeth. She looks at me and shakes her head.
“Funny,” she says. “I thought Corinne was my best friends”
“Look Sev, I’m not saying my brother’s not a catch, but… don’t get too attached,”
“I’m not an idiot,” she tells me and she looks on the verge of tears.
My phone picks that moment to go off and it’s Dad saying I’m late picking him up. I give Sev a sympathetic smile and head out to meet him. He is pissed off when I finally get to him, but he doesn’t let it show.
-2-
The minute we get in the house, he goes to his office to write. I read for a while and then I realize this is the exact opposite of what my Mom wanted. I make some coffee, go to his office door and knock.
“What ?,” Dad yells.
“Coffee ?,” I ask and he nods.
I set the drink down in front of him and move his hand so he can feel it.
“What’s gotten in to you ?,” he asks.
“Nothing,” I lie.
He goes back to writing and only pauses when he hears me open my violin case behind him. It takes me nearly half an hour to tune it since it’s been abandoned for so long.
I stand in the back of the small office looking out the window at our neighborhood. I don’t know what to play first so I do a concerto, but I can tell I’m missing too many notes. I start playing the scales and then I’m playing Green Day’s Time of My Life.
Dad’s so into his work he doesn’t notice that I’m suddenly switching between centuries of music. And then suddenly I’m composing a song, the same song that’d been in my head for weeks. I play for 2 hours straight and at the end he prints the pages for me to read.
Together we solve his problems about time.
***
The next morning, I take my violin over to Matty’s for our open mic night practice. I wasn’t originally going to play the violin, but now I’m itching for a chance to play with someone.
Ethan’s apparently been busy.
Outside of Matty's house I spot a red Jeep Cherokee with new plates. I knew that Ethan would have to come home soon, I needed him.
Matty’s house is usually some kind of clean, but now it’s the familiar mess I know from sharing a room with Ethan. He has running shoes all over the place, plates and open magazines all over the floor. The Hooters Girl cut out Ethan won in Atlantic City is standing by the door.
He and Sev are playing video games when I arrive and even though I want to talk to Ethan about Dad I know better than to interrupt his date. Matty takes me to his bedroom to practice. We throw around the idea of doing something original, bu I can’t really hear over Ethan cursing at the video game
“You know Matty,” I say, smacking his shoulder. “Dad said Ethan can come home. He might even give Ethan his office, you don’t have to put up with him--”
“I know, Jonah,” he sighs. “He told me, but Ethan’s not that bad. He made dinner last week, he drives me around sometimes. He even had some friends over and we did shots. Besides he told me he has a meeting and might get some sponsors for his next race--”
“If he succeeds we will never hear the end of it,” I remind him.
After we practice I ask Matty to play through the Pachabel Canon with me on string, so I can re-learn it on the violin. I warn him not to do any teacher-y stuff with me, but he does it anyway, he can tell my hold is off just by the sound of the strings.
When I get tired of playing he keeps going through the entire Canon and I know if his bow didn’t need to be resined he’s keep going. There’s this placid joy on his face as he’s playing, like if I didn’t know any better I’d swear he could see and hear the world perfectly. Better even.
“Matty, you’re amazing,” I tell him when he sits back down on his bed.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, Jonah ?” he asks. “Are you dying ? Is this a joke ?,”
“No, I just…I don’t know I guess I forget how talented you are,” I admit. “You are so lucky.”
“Stop calling me lucky, Jonah. It’s insulting, you know… I have to work too,” he says with an annoyed edge.
“I know,” I try to appease him. “But, I meant you don’t have to work as hard since you have that whole natural talent thing. You never had to suck and fail like the rest of us. ”
“God, Jonah. I’m so sick of your martyr bullshit. You don’t suck.” he breathes. “And for the record I’ve failed too. I was born a failure, remember ? That’s the first thing they told my mum you know. He failed. He failed the vision test, he failed the hearing test. For most of my life people called me an idiot savant. I mean, I get it’s a thing but being called an idiot…it’s insulting you know ?”
“Sorry,” Is all I can say to him.
“It’s just you always feel like you and your brother have to be the best at something or it’s not worth it, which might just be an Aris thing, but not everything is like that. Sometimes you have to work and hope everything works out. There is so much more than talent. Sometimes you have to work at what you want.”
Matty’s right. He did work harder than anyone I knew, because truthfully he was a god awful mess. Blind, deaf, hyperactive, ADD. But he reigns it all in for the music.
I knew what I wanted. I wanted what I'd promised Abigail when I first met her. To make her smile, to figure out what happened to her and bring her back.
“I take it back. You’re not talented.” I tell him. “You are… driven. You are amazing. You are fucking brilliant.”
“So are you, mate,” he smiles.
***
I decide to go to my second favorite coffee shop, a small cart inside Eastland Rowe. Because once again I’m avoiding Corinne after her ‘spoiled brats’ tirade I figure she needs her space.
I’m not really hurt by what she said, it’s true after all. I had a trust fund for college from when my Dad's book was doing well, I don’t have a major and I’ll probably never need one. I don’t have to try, things just happen for me. I’m spoiled rotten.
But things are falling apart in my family and no amount of freebies can cover that. And I can’t hide from them the way Abigail gets to hide. I know the truth now and I’m just going to run towards it. If my mom really believes I’m so good at taking care of people then I’m going to take care of my friends.
I end up back at the hospital, I’m on the list to visit Abigail now, but I have to wait because she’s not in the room. I do some re-reading and I can hear a nurse talking to her about doing a good job in testing as they roll her back in the room. At first I think she’s awake, but she isn’t.
When they allow me in her room I sit right next to her bed and put the vanilla latte with cinnamon on top on her bedside. I purchased two.
Just in case.
“So, I don’t know why I came here, but I just heard that nurse talking to you, so maybe I’ll do that too,” I say. “If that’s okay ?”
She’s unresponsive and it hurts me to reconcile this version with the person I know. But the person I know is a memory.
“So, while I was waiting I just read this book called My Own Eternity. My father wrote it. You’ve read it too, so we could talk about it one day maybe,” I tell her. “You could have warned me about the sex stuff.”
I want her to smile so badly.
“It turns out a lot of shitty things happened to my Dad. Things I didn’t know about. Shitty things happened to you too. Maybe we can talk about that one day.” I continue and then think of something I think she’d like. “I want to show you something.”
I put my coffee down and roll up the sleeve of my shirt to my shoulder, where my one and only tattoo is. The calligraphy is small and the words are written across my shoulder. Mom loved tattoos and the three of us went to get them at the same time last summer at this shop in New York, mine was the smallest, but I don’t regret it for a minute.
“Cool, right ?” I ask her. “But, don’t tell Corinne I have a tattoo in Elvish. I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“It says ‘Where there's life there's hope.’,” I explain. “ It’s from Lord of The Rings, but I bet you knew that…Look, Abigail maybe everyone was freaked or even angry when you almost died and maybe you picked the wrong girl to love…but you’re here and there is hope. Because I promise if you wake up I’ll be there for you.”
I touch her hand and I squeeze it hoping she squeezes back. She doesn’t.
“Please, just wake up.” I beg “Please.”
----