How to Walk Away Read online

  “You’re coming.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You are.”

  “I won’t.”

  I don’t really know where we would have gone from there. He didn’t much seem like the type to give in, and I was—suddenly—just spoiling for a fight.

  But that’s when Nina walked in—a last check before she went off shift—and I don’t know if she’d been listening at the door or what, but without skipping a beat she said, “Oh, this one’s not starting till tomorrow. It was a typo in the chart.”

  Ian looked back and forth between us.

  “Ask Myles, if you want. She’s still got one more day.”

  He eyed us—suspiciously, like we might be in cahoots. Finally, he said, “Tomorrow, then.”

  He walked out.

  “No, no, no, no, no,” Nina said then, typing into the computer at the same time. “They are not giving you that guy for PT. I already told them to switch you out.”

  “What?” I asked. “Is he bad?”

  “He’s not bad,” she said, “but he’s not for you.”

  “Not for me?”

  She kept her eyes on the monitor. “He’s just not kind. He’s relentless. Merciless. Thoughtless. That works for some people. Not you. We’ll get you someone else. You’ve got enough going on.”

  On a different day, I might have asked more about him. But who cared about that heartless guy, really? Who cared about anything?

  “Nina?” I asked then.

  She kept typing. “What is it, sweetheart?”

  “My drunk fiancé came in here this morning and told me I was never going to walk again.”

  Nina looked up.

  “Is that true?” I asked.

  From her face, I could see that it was.

  Still, I waited for more—some words of encouragement, or some little crumb of hope to pick up. But she just let out a long sigh, and paused longer than could possibly be good news. “That’s—”

  And then I knew exactly how she was going to finish, and so I said it with her: “A question for the doctor.”

  Six

  SO BEGAN THE strangest day of my life—one of them, at least. Top five.

  What I wanted most all day was exactly what I wanted least.

  I desperately needed time alone to process the news that Chip had just given me, and I just as desperately did not ever want to process anything—or be alone—again. I needed to take an emotional breath, but I was petrified to do it. So I spent the day mentally panting, light-headed and oxygen deprived, with my soul crying for air but my brain refusing to breathe it—and also dreading the night, when I’d have no distractions from every impossible thought that would rush in without my permission.

  My parents startled me by arriving with lunch—Tex-Mex takeout from my favorite spot—before I realized any time had gone by. They had big, anticipatory smiles, as if fajitas might make everything okay for me.

  I didn’t touch the food—too nauseated from the meds—but I thanked them. Not even the idea of the food was comforting. My dad gave me the report on driving Chip home: He’d thrown up twice on the drive—“kind of a motif today”—once out the window, and once all over the dashboard. His parents were waiting in their driveway, and they steered him inside to sleep it off.

  “Poor Chip,” my mother said. “I hope they offered to pay for a detail.”

  Poor Chip? Was Chip the one we felt sorry for?

  “He’s not handling this well,” my dad said.

  My mother gave me a pointed look. “Sometimes I think people are more worried about him than about you,” she said, as if we were making chitchat.

  “I don’t need people’s worry,” I said. I was worried about me. That was enough.

  “He shouldn’t have said what he said to you today,” my father went on.

  “He told me I look like a pizza,” I said. “Is that true?”

  “No, sweetheart,” my dad said. But my mother looked away.

  “I’d like to get a look,” I said then, catching my mother’s eye. “Can I borrow your compact mirror?”

  But the headshake she gave, I knew from a lifetime of experience, meant no way in hell. “You’re not ready.”

  Okay. Maybe she was right. Maybe I’d learned enough today. On to the next question—the one I didn’t want to ask. But I paused a long time. I took a low breath. “He also said I was paralyzed,” I said at last.

  My mother sat up a little straighter.

  “Is that true?”

  My father gave me a sad little shrug. “Let’s just say it’s a good thing you’re still on our insurance.”

  My mother had insisted that I stay on the plan they kept for their employees until I was settled in my career, even though the premiums were higher. We had argued about it more than once.

  I hated it when she was right.

  “What does that mean?” I asked, turning to my mother, who was braver.

  She let out a big sigh. “From what the doctors have told us, only time will tell. It takes about six weeks before the bone heals and all the swelling in your spinal column clears out and we can see what kind of damage is left. Right now, the swelling itself could be blocking nerve signals. It’s possible that once everything has healed there will be no blockage at all, and all normal function will come back.”

  I read both of their stoic faces. “Possible,” I said, “but not likely.”

  “Not very likely, no,” my dad said. “The doc is very encouraged by some parts of your nerve responses and less encouraged by others. But he also says there’s real mystery involved in these kinds of injuries. He said there are people you think will never take another step who wind up running marathons.”

  “Or becoming underwear models,” I said, my voice like a robot.

  “Exactly,” my mother nodded, like that would be a good thing.

  “So we’re waiting,” my father explained. “Doing everything the docs tell us, and waiting.”

  My mother still couldn’t look at me for more than two seconds at a time. “The point is,” she chimed in, eyes on her taco salad, “it’s all about attitude.”

  I squinted, like, Really? “Sounds to me like it’s all about swelling and nerve damage.”

  She pushed on. “You have to believe you can get better. You have to work hard and never give up. I saw Chip’s mother in the yard this morning, and I promised you’d be good as new by summer.”

  My dad and I both stared at her.

  “You didn’t,” he said.

  My mother sat up straighter. “I saw a video just this morning about a young BXM racer—”

  “BMX racer,” my dad and I both corrected.

  “—who simply refused to let his spinal cord injury hold him back. He broke his neck, Margaret!” She reached up and tapped at the spot on her own neck, still averting her eyes from my face. “They told him he’d never feed himself again! Now, he’s riding his bike from coast to coast raising money for charity—and he’s about to record a country album.”

  “That’s very inspiring,” my dad said. “But it’s not just mind over matter, Linda. If you break your leg, you can’t just tell yourself it’s not broken.”

  “But the human body does heal,” my mom said, pointing at him.

  “Yes, but the spinal cord is different,” my dad said patiently. “Remember what the doctor said? When those nerves get damaged, they don’t grow back.”

  “Well, I don’t see why not.”

  My dad looked at me. We both imperceptibly shook our heads. “But they might not be damaged,” he emphasized to me. “They might just be compressed. Your job is to get lots of rest, take your medicine, and do whatever these folks tell you. For five and a half more weeks.”

  “Five and a half?” I asked.

  “That’s what insurance covers,” he said. “One week in the ICU, and five and a half weeks in the hospital afterwards.”

  “That’s awfully specific.”

  “Yep.”

  “What hap
pens at the end of five and a half weeks?”

  My dad shrugged. “They stop paying. You move home and start outpatient therapy at a gym.”

  “Move home? Which home?”

  My dad smiled. “Any home you want.”

  I took all this in. I was going to be here for five and a half more weeks.

  “The point is,” my dad went on, “to make the most of your time here while you have it. We’ll just see what happens when we see what happens. That’s all we can do.”

  “And have the right attitude!” my mom added, like he’d forgotten the most important thing. “And believe two hundred percent that you can beat this.”

  My mom had gone to my apartment and picked up my laptop, and the novel I’d been reading, and some fuzzy socks, and my pale blue chevron-print pillowcase, and some ridiculous, strappy high-heeled sandals that she thought might “cheer me up”—but, of course, did the opposite.

  I didn’t want to use my laptop or read that novel or even look at the sandals. I didn’t want to see anything from before.

  “Your cell phone was destroyed in the crash,” my mom said next, “along with everything—burned to a crisp—and so I stopped by the store and got you a replacement. They were really very understanding.”

  She handed it to me and pulled out a charging cord for my dad to plug in. We watched my dad hunt for the plug.

  “They never found the ring, either,” she added, after a bit.

  “What ring?” I asked.

  At that, my mother took a good look at me for the first time all day. “Your engagement ring!” she said, like, Duh! Then, “Chip gave us the good news while you were in surgery.”

  The good news. I looked down at my naked hand. I’d forgotten a ring was ever there. “Oh.”

  “It must have come off in the crash.”

  I nodded. “It was enormous.”

  “Too bad,” my mom said, bending back over her bag to root out some other things. “It was his grandmother’s. Irreplaceable.”

  She pulled out some framed photos. She’d grabbed two of the three that I kept on my dressing table: one of Chip and me on a hike in the Rockies, and one of me with my parents the day we’d gone zip-lining. The third picture on my dresser was of me and my sister, Kitty, when we were little, dressed up like cowboys with hats and bandanas, back when I used to adore her. That one, my mom left behind.

  My mother and my sister did not get along.

  Like, really did not get along.

  Like, I suspected my mom was the reason Kitty had been ignoring us all for three solid years.

  In fact, my mom was the last of us to see Kit before she took off and didn’t come back. My parents were hosting a Fourth of July party three summers ago. Kitty had been drinking that night, as she often did, and she’d been loud and boisterous and causing trouble, and at one point, she accidentally-on-purpose pushed my mom into the swimming pool. Kitty laughed so hard at the sight, she collapsed onto one of the chaises and stayed there until my mother climbed up the pool steps, gushing water onto the patio, and dragged Kitty inside and upstairs to have it out.

  I took up my mom’s hosting duties while they were gone, keeping an eye out for them all the while, but when my mom came back much later, fully dried off and wearing a whole new outfit, Kitty wasn’t with her.

  “Where’s Kit?” I asked, but she wouldn’t tell me.

  In fact, she never told me. To this day, I had no idea what they fought about that night. All I knew was, it must have been bad. Kitty sent me an email the next day, to tell me that she was moving to New York. Immediately.

  I tried to get her to come home and talk to me about it, but she wouldn’t. I tried to get her to tell me where she was, but she wouldn’t. I didn’t think she’d really leave, but she did.

  I didn’t think it would last, either, but it did.

  She left, and she didn’t look back. She stayed away from all of us. My mom never tried to contact her, but I did, and my dad did, even though emails went unanswered and texts and phone messages were ignored.

  The whole situation bewildered me at first. My mom and Kit had never really gotten along, I knew. I also knew my mom had always been harder on Kit than she was on me. But just disappearing? Ignoring everybody? No Thanksgivings, no Christmases? No birthdays? It seemed like a bit much.

  After a year and a half of trying and trying and getting nowhere, I stopped trying so hard. I stopped wondering what we’d all done to push her away, and I just found myself feeling resentful of the fact that she’d gone. You can only reach out so many times before you stop trying. After a while, just the fact that somebody is mad at you can make you feel mad at them. The longer she stayed away, the more defensive I became, and without even noticing, I drifted into an alliance with my mother—steadily resenting Kitty for disappearing without ever even saying why.

  At this point, my sweet dad was the only one of us still hoping she’d decide to get in touch.

  “No picture of Kitty?” I asked—not because I was surprised, but as a way of calling attention to our allegiance, a way of reinforcing a little closeness when I could.

  My mom gave me an eye-roll that was just as reinforcing. “Please.”

  But the mention of Kitty did raise a question. “Has anybody called her about this?” I asked.

  “No,” my mother said definitively, just as my father said, “Yes.”

  My mother and I both looked at him. “You did?”

  My dad nodded. “I sent her an email with the subject URGENT FAMILY EMERGENCY.”

  My mom looked away. “I’m surprised she replied.”

  “Well,” my dad said, “she did. And then she hopped on a plane and came home.”

  “She’s here?” my mom asked.

  My dad nodded. “She came to the ICU several times.” Then he glanced at my mom. “When you were out.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t remember seeing her.”

  “You were on a lot of medication.”

  My mother gave my dad the look she gives him when he’s been very bad. “We didn’t pay for that plane ticket, did we?”

  He ignored her. “She’d like to come see you,” he said to me, “but she doesn’t want to upset you or make any trouble. Can I tell her it’s okay?”

  From his expression, he clearly expected me to say fine. But I found myself shaking my head. The idea of some big, delayed, years-too-late confrontation with her felt like way too much right now. I couldn’t face it. I had enough going on. Even just thinking about seeing her again made me exhausted.

  “Okay,” my dad said, nodding. “I get it. I’ll tell her you’re not ready.”

  “Just tell her to go back to New York,” I said. “I won’t be ready anytime soon.”

  My mother had that look she gets when she wants to yell at my dad, but she holds it in for the sake of the children. I did not envy his car ride home.

  “Thank you for going to all this trouble to grab my stuff,” I said to cheer her a bit.

  “No trouble,” she said, shrugging in a way that let me know yes, it had been trouble, but that’s the kind of self-sacrificing mother she was. Also, she was going to make another trip later to bring her folding bridge chairs “so company would have a place to sit.”

  “No company,” I said then. “I don’t want any visitors.”

  My parents looked at each other. My estranged sister was one thing—but no visitors at all?

  “A few close friends, at least?” my dad asked, in a be reasonable tone.

  “No friends. No one.”

  “Sweetheart,” my mother said. “The phone’s been ringing off the hook. The front hall table is covered in cards. People want to see you.”

  It was my moment to reflect graciously on how kind it was of people to think of me. But I just said, “I don’t really care.”

  “We can’t barricade the hospital,” my mother said.

  But my dad said, “We might talk to the nurses. Say she’s not ready.”

  My mom frown
ed. “But all the literature says not to let them get isolated.”

  Oh, God. She’d been reading “the literature.” It was worse than I thought.

  “I just need some time,” I said, trying to get her on my side.

  Truer words were never spoken. If I had to make a list of things I wanted to see right now, old friends who would pity, judge, and gossip about me would be the last things on it. I didn’t want anyone else thinking the things I was thinking. I didn’t want anyone else privy to the specific horrors of my new situation. I did not want to be the topic of anyone’s phone chats, or get-togethers, or status updates. I didn’t want to be the reason other people counted their blessings.

  I would see them—might—when and if I could do it of my own accord.

  Which left my mother with nothing but decorating. After capitulating at last to the No Visitors policy, she made us both weigh in on whether or not the hospital might let her bring some floor lamps. Her next stop, she said, was Bed, Bath & Beyond for a tension curtain rod and some better window treatments. Maybe a throw pillow.

  This was my mother’s method for loving people: through décor. She glared at the mauve-and-gray-swirled curtains as if they actually might try to harm us. “Doesn’t that fabric make you want to cry?”

  I tilted my head. “I’m not sure it’s the fabric.”

  “That fabric,” she went on, pointing at it now in accusation, “is a crime against humanity.”

  My dad and I knew better than to argue. If my mother ruled the world, its prisons would be crammed full of nothing but citizens with bad taste.

  * * *

  AFTER THEY LEFT—taking the morning’s sad croissants to donate to the nurses’ station after I declared I’d never eat them—I decided to close my eyes for just a second, and I fell dead asleep. You wouldn’t think being confined to a bed would be so tiring.

  I slept until my new occupational therapist, Priya, came in and wanted me to try to wiggle my toes. She also wanted to work on transferring from the bed to the wheelchair, saying the sooner I could get into the chair on my own, the sooner I could wheel myself to the bathroom—and the sooner I could do that, the sooner we could remove my catheter to see if, God willing, I could pee on my own.