Would You (11 page)

Claire will never be Claire again. She might not even
open her eyes again, and she sure isn't going to go to college in the fall, or play soccer, or marry Joe-boy or anyone else. She won't ride a bike or pool-hop or scarf cookie dough or dance with me on our beds till we fall
ploof
onto the duvets. Her life took eighteen years to make and now it's over.

My life is over too, the one I had coming up right behind her, attached to her, sewn onto her even when I was swimming in the opposite direction.

What would Claire think? Would Claire like this? How would Claire do it? I don't care what Claire says! Claire, Claire, Claire … the only one who knows all the stuff about my life, the only witness.

This nurse seems to know what's careening through my head. She puts a cupped palm under my elbow and sits me down. I see her knitting tucked into a tote bag. Pale, fluffy,
hopeful
pink, tiny needles; must be for a baby. Someone just beginning.

I stare at Claire. She'd never, ever want to know that this is where she is. It's time to find something new to hope for.

I wake up sweating with my arm trapped in a twisted sheet and I almost scream getting it out.

What if all this had happened to me instead of to Claire? What would Claire do?

Things I'll Never Be

A nurse who dyes her hair a really bad color

A nurse of any kind

A ballet dancer

An astronaut

A driver

An aunt

It's Dr. Hazel who tells us all the jazz about the EEG, aka
ee-leck-tro-N-ceph-A-low-gram.

“It's a noninvasive procedure,” he says. “To observe whether or not there is any activity in the brain. We attach electrodes to the scalp that will pick up any electric signals produced by the brain …”

Who can listen?

So they can learn how to confuse patients with jargon and convoluted sentence structure.

I meet Audrey before she goes to work. She's unsnarling her hair, cursing and jabbing the comb like a machete. Zack is there and I tell them about Claire's EEG.

“The brain's electric?” says Audrey.

“Not the way you're thinking,” says Zack. “It's not a toaster. It produces electrical signals, sort of like microscopic sparks. They use an EEG in this situation to detect whether … if Claire … if there's any flicker of action.”

“That's pretty much what the doctor said,” I say.

“Okay, you can disappear now, Brain Child.” Audrey pushes him. “I need to speak to Nat.”

“Can we see Claire?” says Zack

“Uh, well, they say family only. But maybe.”

Zack rubs my hair and leaves.

I ask Audrey, “So?”

She doesn't look at me, but suddenly she's smirking.
Uh-oh
, I think. Does she know about Zack and me?

“I had an inappropriate coupling,” she says.

“A
coupling?”

She doesn't know.

“Well, not actually, but partially.”

“Who?” I ask.

“Don't laugh.”

“I won't.”

“Don't yell at me,” she says.

“Oh crap, who was it, Audrey?”

She looks over her shoulder.

“How inappropriate can this have been?” I say. “I'm trying to think of the worst possible—”

“Carson.”

“Carson?”

“Sssh!”

“You're joking, right?”

“See? I knew you'd be a butt about it.”

“I'm not, wait, I'm not anything about it yet. I'm just trying to find out if you're telling me— Wait,
Carson?
The
one we've known since junior kindergarten Carson? The one who wears tighty whiteys and farts when he eats hot dogs Carson? The one who says the wrong thing every time Carson? The one who—”

“Okay, Natalie, I think we both know which Carson we're talking about here.”

“You
hooked UP
with him?”

She grins right at me.

“What? It was
good
?”

“He's the
best
kisser,” says Audrey.

“So why are you in a crap mood?”

She remembers, and scowls. “He said it was a one-time only. He doesn't want to ruin our friendship.”

“But—”

“I know, how dare he?”

And she stomps off.

There's always drama.

What's the point, otherwise?

I keep thinking how I'm so mad at you, only then of course I can't be mad at you, but I keep getting jolted with dark, steaming thoughts … like Why the hell did you stumble into the road, you idiot? How upset could you be, since
you
were the one breaking up with
him?
Why were you so deranged as to step in front of a car?

“These are my cousins,” I say. “Audrey and Zachary.”

Trisha looks them up and down, pausing to read Zack's T-shirt:
HELL
IS
A STATE OF MIND.

“One visitor at a time,” she says.

“Oh, please, Trisha! It's not like we're going to tire her out!”

“You bite your tongue, girl.” But she makes a point of turning her back so we can file into the little scrub room.

“You've got to swipe me one of these gowns,” says Audrey. “My bag's too small, but get me one, okay? I've got this idea, to turn it into—”

“Oh, and I want a hat,” says Zack, tugging on the paper shower cap.

“Take it,” I say. “All yours. Your very special souvenir from Claire World.”

Zack checks my face to see if I'm being sarcastic, but I'm not. I know what they don't know. They're going to walk through the inner door onto another planet. Nothing will ever be the same.

Suited up all together with our masks on, we look like a team from a bio-horror flick. Good thing Carson's not here to comment.

We stand beside Claire's bed, speechless. For a long time.

Then, “Wow,” Audrey whispers.

“Her hair,” says Zack.

“Or not,” says Audrey, and then slaps a hand to her mask. “Sorry.”

They stand some more.

“We shouldn't be just
standing
here,” says Zack.

“What do you do when you're here alone?” Audrey asks.

“I talk to her.”

“Wow.”

“The nurses say, you know, maybe she can hear. So I tell her stuff.”

I move closer to the bed and stroke her hand. Her puffy, purply hand.

“Hey, Claire,” I say. “You've got company.”

Zack is next to me so close his chin is hooked over my shoulder. Audrey goes to the other side of the bed.

In the quiet the machine is like a heartbeat. Well,
bi-bip, bi-bip
, like a robot heartbeat.

“It's sort of holy, eh?” says Audrey. “Like we're in a cathedral and she's one of those stone crypt things, you know? Lady Claire.”

“She's not dead,” I say.

“Oh god, sorry. Sorry. But it's … so still. That beep is sort of like praying monks, you know? An incantation …”

Audrey begins to hum, this pure, melancholy note, and Zack jumps right in, lower, in harmony. I can't help it, I pick a note and join in. We start out solemn, chanting the way they do in recordings of medieval rituals. Then Zack introduces some bebop and Audrey starts snapping her fingers.
I'm swaying and the room is adding echoes while we Rip It Open for Claire.

Trisha's face at the door is horrified. We stop.

“This is intensive care,” she says. “The recording studio is in the next block.”

“Sorry,” I say. “We were cheering her up. See? Isn't she smiling more than she was before?”

We all look at Claire, wishing.

They're supposed to have their swim from three to four on Wednesday afternoons, but they're never on time. Never. There's an instructor one on one, for each of the six kids in the pool. To hold them up. I'm only there to lifeguard, so staring is part of the job.

These are kids with serious “challenges,” as we're supposed to call them. Cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy; there's one boy with some kind of genetic situation, meaning he has hands like fairy wings coming out of his shoulders with no arms in between. His name is Eddie, that kid. He likes to float on his back and ripple the water with his fingertips. He's the only one who's not in a wheelchair outside the Y. He's got two working legs, but I watch him every week thinking, Would you rather have no legs or no arms?

I asked them that at the Ding-Dong one time and Carson said, “Easy. No legs. Then I could park in the handicapped spot.”

“I think no arms qualifies too,” said Audrey. “You're set, either way.”

I sit watching these kids, wondering every time how it would feel to be so … so
knotted
in your own body. Accomplishing the day would seem so overwhelming. And some of them have fully equipped brains, even if they can't talk. So they know.

They come in today and my heart is in my throat, gagging me. I wave at Eddie and he waves at me, his little fluttery wave. He must be about eleven. I think about him being a teenager, about him hearing the other guys brag on unhooking girls' bras and knocking back beers. How's he ever going to knock back anything? He drinks through a straw. And girls? He can't even, you know, touch
himself
, let alone any girl who manages to love him without him being able to hug her. The image comes of Claire lying there in stone, forcing the tears up hot and fast, so I can't see for a second and I feel my nose go red.

“Natalie? You okay?” It's Brian, one of the caregivers.

“I don't feel well,” I say. “I think I'm going to call Shannon back from her break.” And I run out of there, banging on the office door, snot bubbling, telling Shannon I've got to leave right now.

The very, very, very best possibility for Claire would fall way short of these kids. What if she knew she'd never be underwater again? That's just— Oh, it's really better that she doesn't know.

I hear Aunt Jeanie on the phone and I'm not really listening, but then I'm suddenly,
bing
, alert.

“Well, you know, according to statistics, very few marriages survive the death of a child….”

She's not dead.
Who is Jeanie talking to? Does she think Mom and Dad are going to break up? Oh god. Does that mean she thinks Claire's going to die?

I need to talk about this. With Claire.

Will there ever be a day when I don't think of her? Will there ever be an hour?

And if there is, will it mean that I'm mature? Or that I'm a coward, and I've stuffed her away in a hiding place?

Which would I rather not be?

I feel as if I'm swollen. Swollen with sadness.

Audrey's with me on my bed, snug like sisters. We're facing the wall instead of Claire's side of the room.

“I keep thinking,” says Audrey.

“About Joe.” “I know,” I say.

“Don't you think he must feel like the worst human ever?”

“Yeah.” I see his face, squeezed up and crying, his brown arms sticking out of his T-shirt, hands dangling, helpless.

“How do you ever get over something like that?” Audrey is playing with my hair.

“I don't think I'm the person—Ow! Audrey!”

Her fingers are caught in a tangle.

“Oh, sorry, Nat, sorry….” She tries to comb out the knot with her nail, but it bugs me and I pull away. But not all the way away because I need her there.

We lie still.

“I don't know what to say,” Audrey whispers after a while. “To you. Sometimes. About this.”

I'm watching Audrey and Carson for signs of anything. There's nothing obvious except that he's not looking at her and she's not looking at him.

“What would you do?” I ask. “Not that it's up to me, but it's all I can think about. If you had to choose … would you rather just die, or be alive and seriously braindamaged?”

Audrey opens her mouth but nothing comes out. The
others stare at the table. Leila gets that mottled pink flush on her cheeks.

“Die,” whispers Zack. “I don't want to say it.”

“Good,” says Carson. “I was waiting for someone else to go first. I take die, for sure. No way do I want to be a cripple.”

“Okay, Carson, stop now,” says Audrey. She picks up a paper napkin and strips away the edge of it with her amethyst fingernails. “This feels kind of bigger than the game, Nat.”

“Well, yeah,” I say.

Another wisp of napkin floats down.

“Wait,” says Leila. “What is the extent of the brain damage?”

“Bad,” I say.

“Can I talk?” she asks. “Can I at least understand what people say to me?”

“We don't know yet,” I say. “But how about ‘to a certain extent.’”

“Then I choose brain damage,” says Leila.

“You do?” I get this quiver that Leila knows something surprising or hopeful.

“It would give me the opportunity,” she says, “to learn sign language.”

“Christ,” says Carson. “You're in a wheelchair with probably spastic arms. Your body is kind of twisted so you have to wear ugly clothes and you'll never have sex. I don't think learning sign language is a priority.”