A Season for Fireflies (7 page)

DAY ONE:

Here's what I know:

The year is 2016.

I have no memory from May 2015 through today, September 18th, 2016.

In the hospital, my legs shake when they make me walk so they give me a shiny wheelchair. I want to be sitting on my bed at home with May. I want Panda to come over with potato chips and tell me about Taft's insanity.

I missed Christmas. I missed Panda's New Year's party. I missed
Much Ado About Nothing
.

I want to see Wes so much that I curl up tight in the hospital bed.

DAY TWO:

The walker they give me has tennis balls on the feet.

“Push, shuffle, push, shuffle,” the nurse tells me.

The numbness in my right foot makes it more like: Push, drag. Push, drag.

When I'm back in bed, I slip under the covers so the sheet is over my head. I don't care that I look like I'm five. I can't stop thinking about Wes and I want him to just pick up the phone and explain why he isn't here harassing the nurses to see me. Why isn't he here with Panda making jokes at the side of my bed? I hold the hospital phone close to my ear and dial. First ring, I hold my breath. Second and third, I silently beg that he'll pick up—and at the fourth ring his voice mail picks up. “It's Wes. Leave a message. Make it quick.”

His voice is deeper. It was deep the last time we spoke but this is smooth. Like a—it's weird to even think it. Like a man. It knocks me off my game and I stumble over my words once the phone beeps.

“Um, hi. It's Penny. I guess you heard about the lightning. I'll be out in a couple of days. Anyway, I'm rambling so if you could call me back at the hospital that would be good. I have some questions. I—” My voice catches in my throat and I wince. “I just have some questions about what's been going on. I don't have my cell, it was damaged in the pool. So, um. Just call me back, okay?”

I hang up and after a moment of holding my breath, I groan, wishing I had never called.

DAY THREE:

Push, drag. Push, drag. Push, drag. Push, drag.

I miss running at the track with Wes on weekends. I miss the lemon water and the fights over what music we would listen to. I miss running eight-minute miles and leaving him far behind, panting, with his hands on his thighs.

Push, drag. Push, drag. Push, drag. Push, drag. Push, drag. Push, drag . . .

Why hasn't he called me back?

DAY FOUR:

They move me to crutches when I'm feeling brave. I fall a few times—my bones rattle. It aches in the center of my chest, directly between my lungs. Every time I think of my friends and every time I stare at that hospital phone, it throbs.

“It could be worse,” the nurse says, trying to be nice. “What if you lost all your memory?”

My kneecaps are purple from falling.

There are more and more tests. Whether it's in a bed or a chair, I am transported everywhere on wheels. At one appointment, they place sticky dots on my chest—an EKG. Effects can come later, they say.

Much later.

During a brain scan they give me cold lemonade for the metallic taste that has been lingering in my mouth since I woke
up. It makes me think of the frozen lemonade from this summer—or, I guess, last summer—when Panda, Wes, May, and I sat on the town dock watching the Welcome Summer Festival fireworks.

I want to get in touch with people but the doctors won't let me look at a computer screen. Dr. Abrams thinks the brightness of the screen could cause a seizure or a hand spasm.

So I let it go.

DAY FIVE:

When I come back from physical therapy I ask the nurse if there are any calls for me. I even ask the nurses at the main station, but they tell me that the “phone hasn't rung once.” I scan the room, looking at the cards and flowers and notes from family. I wonder if Mom packed away the important ones from my friends or took them home as I'll be leaving in a day or two. I don't see Wes's block lettering or May's loopy cursive anywhere. I don't open any cards with handwriting I don't recognize. I drop them into my duffel bag.

Wes must be at rehearsal or working on some new contraption like the tree Taft wanted him to cut out of wood for
Much Ado
. Maybe he's crafting something for my messed-up brain.

He'll show up. He will.

DAY SIX:

“The uneven weather has caused a surge of the lightning bug population. We're here at Stevenson Park at dusk to see the array of lights. Really, it's much more like a show here this evening.”
The
Channel Six journalist with a severe blond bob stands before the lush green trees of the state park. Even at dusk, tiny lights pop in and out of the evergreen trees. I'm sitting in the physical therapy room before being discharged, waiting to see Dr. Abrams. Mom is on her way to pick me up and this is the last “hurdle” before I am officially let out. But right now, I don't know how to feel about going back to my regular life.

Last night, Dad told me I quit theater back in the summer after tenth grade. I say the four words over and over.
I quit the theater.
I wasn't even in
Much Ado
. I don't know who played Beatrice. It makes so much more sense that Wes and May aren't returning my calls. They must be so mad at me.

How could I quit theater?

I take a sip of lemonade, the third glass I have had today. The taste of metal coats my mouth. It's acrid, bitter. To wash it away they've been giving me sweets, sucking candies, juice, and popsicles.

It will fade, they tell me. But when?

“Aren't these just unnatural beauties!?”
an expert coos from the TV.

“Though I do have to mention,”
the blond journalist says to the expert,
“it seems that they may be growing in numbers. Do you have any thoughts on this?”

Dr. Abrams walks into the room with an oversize manila envelope and clipboard. A clipboard means new information.

“Let's go sit,” he says, and motions to the cubicle at the back of the room.

I limp slowly toward the cubicle, pressing my foot against
the floor, but it feels the same as it has all week—fat, numb, and uneven. I sit down with Dr. Abrams behind the pink plasterboard.

“This is a list of your team of doctors. As you know, I'm your neuro specialist, then you have the counselor—”

“Counselor?” I say.

“It's important you talk to someone about how you're feeling, even if you go to someone at your school.”

I nod and tell him I've already talked to the hospital therapist, but Dr. Abrams raises an eyebrow. He sits back, pulling the list of doctors away.

“I heard you've been waiting to hear from some friends.”

I look at the desk and walls of the cubicle.

“I guess they're busy,” I whisper. “I wouldn't even know what to say if they did show up. It's been a long time.”

I expect Dr. Abrams to refer me to the counselor again but he considers me and says, “What would you want to say?”

“That there must be a reason I quit theater. I want to know why.”

“Is that connected to the last memory you have?” Dr. Abrams asks.

“I think so.”

He sighs. “Well, people have been known to purposefully block things out.”

“Why?”

“It's too hard for them to think about a specific memory or deal with a situation emotionally.”

“I guess it doesn't really matter, does it? I'm here, aren't I?
Sitting at this ridiculous pink cubicle, and I have to start over.”

“What would make you happy right now?”

“If everything didn't taste like metal. That would make me happy.”

He smiles. “Besides the obvious, I mean.” He takes some notes and chuckles.

“What?” I say.

“You remind me of my daughter.”

“You have a daughter?” I say quietly.

“She's a little younger than you. She's always moaning and groaning when I ask her to talk about something going on in her life.”

“I wish my dad would want to spend time with me at all.” The words just fly out into the air between us in that pink cubicle. I didn't even know they were true until just now.

Dr. Abrams says nothing, but presses his lips together. I clear my throat, nodding to the clipboard and manila envelopes resting on the bubble-gum-colored desk. He goes through the rest of the doctors I'll get to know over the next few months and then lays out a set of MRIs images as well as what I assume to be the EKG report.

“Your mom is on her way here, but I've got a surgery soon and have her permission to tell you your newest test results.”

A flutter high in my chest makes my breath short.

“Are they bad?”

“They explain a lot. But nothing we didn't expect.”

“Oh,” I say in a huge exhale, and my back hunches over a bit. I hadn't realized I had been sitting so straight.

He points to one of the MRIs of my brain.

“As we saw from the initial MRIs at the beginning of the week, neurological complications are very common following a lightning strike. We don't see any major damage to the frontal lobe but—” He stops and points at three white spots on the scan of my brain. “These are small lesions, which may be causing the spasms in your hand and your memory loss.”

“What is a lesion exactly?”

“When there's someone with damage from trauma or who suffers from recurrent migraines, a lesion can present itself on a scan. It's like a small injury to your brain, a signal that there is a little damage. Sometimes it's just a temporary spot we need to watch. For you, we think it's linked to your acute memory loss.”

My lesions don't seem like much more than three white specks.

“We're going to monitor you, see how you do when you get back to school. That way we can track when your memory comes back.”

I lift my eyes to Dr. Abrams and his spiky white hair. “When it comes back?”

The hope of this makes tears bite at my eyes and I swallow hard, concentrating so I don't lose it completely.

“With some neuro therapy, yes, some memories should resurface. But there's no guarantee.” Dr. Abrams stands up and I do too, pushing my chair back into the cubicle. I let my left hand linger on the chair back. Mainly because it's so cool from the icy air-conditioning.

“We're going to do everything we can. Every lightning strike
victim is different.” He hands me a stack of pamphlets and printouts. “Read through this information, it may help you to adjust. And remember, no screen time for another week or so, to give your eyes enough time to recover.”

“Thanks,” I say, and look down at the papers in my hands. The top page has a bunch of strike victim testimonies, and the one after that has information about online communities for survivors.

“Let's be optimistic about this,” Dr. Abrams says. “I know it's scary and frustrating, but you were very lucky, Penny.” He tucks his clipboard under his arm. “So let's focus on that for now.”

MY FIRST NIGHT AT HOME, DINNER IS “WHATEVER
I want,” which ends up being takeout from Pals, the best Italian restaurant in East Greenwich. The kitchen is the same as the last time I saw it, which is comforting. Except Mom has new designer plates. These ones have tiny sprigs of rosemary that circle the rims.

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember.

Ugh, of course I can recall a line from
Hamlet
with no problem, but the last year of my life? Nope.

Mom and Dad have given me a new cell phone, and it charges on a chair near the table while we eat. I keep my eyes on the TV because the news is going on and on about the scientific reasons
that the fireflies have hung around. According to experts, they've tripled in numbers.

“Extra salt in the air coming in from the coast could be attracting all of these warm-weather-loving bugs!”

“Could be the extra humidity from the coast.”

Except, no one seems to
know
.

Dad explains to Mom about the Swiss company that's interested in his newest carburetor invention. “I have to get back to the office sooner than later,” Dad says, and dips his garlic bread in his red sauce.

“Mom? What about you?” I ask. “When do you go back to work?” I take a bite of ziti. “Have any fun events coming up?”

Dad lowers his fork and Mom sips on her water.

“What?” I say. “What did I say?”

I check the wall for Mom's event calendar. It's not there. I check for her usual color-coded folders and files filled with seating charts and catering orders. Mom gets up without a word and clears her half-eaten baked lasagna into the trash.

“Your mom left the company,” Dad says carefully.

“I took a leave,” Mom says, keeping her back to us.

“Why? When?”

“It just got too hard,” Mom says.

“Conflict of—” Dad starts to say and I think he's going to say “conflict of interest” but Mom jumps in.

“Not a conflict,” she snaps, and walks to the wine refrigerator next to the sink. She pulls out a bottle of white wine. “It was just—time.” Mom started that company when she was twenty-five. It was her entire life. What happened?

The wine bottle pops open, and I hear the familiar glug of it being poured into a glass. A memory sparks in my mind, bright in the dark like one of those fireflies in our yard.

Mom drinking.

Mom sad.

Me, disappearing into the theater, into other characters whose lives made sense.

I stand up quickly, and before I even realize what I'm doing, I'm reaching for the bottle.

Mom seems to snap out of her reverie. “What are you doing? Penny, you shouldn't stand up so quickly like that, you could fall.” Just as she says it, I stumble back into my chair. The memory that was starting to come back fades away.

“I—I forgot,” I mumble.

Mom puts down her glass. “You've had a long day. Maybe we should help you up to bed.”

“I want to do it myself,” I say.

I stand up again, slowly this time. Dad watches me from the bottom of the stairs. Mom follows close behind in case I fall backward. The cushy carpeting running up the stairs makes it hard for me to sense the landing with my numb foot. I press hard so I can feel that my foot is on the step and move to the next stair using the strength of my left leg. Mom and Dad are silent and I guess it's hard for them to see me dragging my right leg but I need to do it myself.

When I get to the top, Dad joins us, kisses my head but makes sure not to hug me too tight. I know he doesn't want to cause my hand to spasm.

I feel like a bomb about to go off. My hand can spasm at any second, with no warning.

Dad looks concerned. “Maybe I should cancel my meetings this week,” he says. We both know he won't, but it's nice that he's even thinking about it.

“You should go,” I tell him, and I mean it. “I'll be fine.”

He heads downstairs into the basement where I am sure he will stay in his shop for the rest of the night. Mom lingers at the top of the stairs with me.

I look at her smooth, beautiful face, and search for evidence of a year's time passed. Can one year show in a person's face?

“What?” she says with her hand on the doorknob of her bedroom.

“I'm sorry about your job, I didn't remember,” I say.

“Don't apologize,” Mom says. “I just needed to take a break, for a while.”

Mom embraces me and the pressure of her palms against my body, even against my shirt, burns against the figures. She pulls away and I clench my back teeth to mask the pain. Somehow I manage a smile.

“You sure you don't want me to set up your room?” she asks from the doorway.

“I just want to be alone awhile.”

“You always have to do it your way,” she says with a little shake of her head. “Fine. Get a good night's rest. We have the nurse coming tomorrow, to do PT.”

When I go upstairs and step inside the bedroom, it feels like I should recognize it, but I don't. The playbills are gone from the
wall near my bed. The ticket stubs, newspaper clippings, and photos of May, Wes, Panda, Karen, and me—gone from the bulletin board above my desk. I limp across the floor and lean my hand on the back of the blue paisley love seat next to the bed.

On the big bulletin board are concert stubs, movie tickets, and
dozens
of photos. I nearly fall forward as I recognize not only the girls in the photos but the voice at the hospital. Kylie Castelli.
Kylie
is my best friend. Mom said it at the hospital, but it's just now sinking in. I remove one of the pushpins holding a photo in place and lift it closer to me. I run my finger down the glossy image: me, Tank Anderson, Kylie Castelli, Lila Suffolk, and Eve Dennings sit on the sea wall in Narragansett, sunglasses on, smiling. These are my
friends
. I can't help but zero in on Kylie's cheek pressed against mine. I grab the next photo and the next . . . Kylie and me in matching bikinis, Kylie and me in matching leather bomber jackets and red lipstick. In another, I am on Tank Anderson's back, red-and-orange leaves litter the ground, and he's in his varsity jacket. God, I look glassy-eyed—like I could be buzzed.
I look like Mom,
a small voice says.

I need my computer. I shuffle some of the papers aside. I recognize English essays and there are a lot of various papers and folders. I check the desk some more, the night table, and anywhere that may have a flat surface where I might leave a laptop.

“Mom!” I call from my bedroom doorway. “Where's my . . .” I am about to say laptop, but I don't know if that's what I have anymore. “Computer,” I finish.

“You're not supposed to use it yet,” Mom calls. “Remember, no screen time until your eyes recover. You can have it back when Dr. Abrams says it's okay.”

I sigh and close my door, then lean against it. My eyes are tired and suddenly I don't have the energy to look at a computer screen anyway, much less argue about it. I know what I'll do. I wasn't ready to open the cards before, but I am now.

I sit down on my bed and pull the unopened cards out of my hospital duffel bag, spreading them in my lap. Each one is an unopened bomb that can explode another truth about who I've been over the last year and a half. I know that—but I need to know. I look around the room at the photos of Kylie, Lila, and Eve.

A card on the top says my name in blue scrawl on a salmon-colored envelope.

I don't know that handwriting—it could be anyone. To open a card, I have to position my hand into a pinching motion, which
could
set off a spasm. But I do it anyway. When I open it, it reads,

Feel better, Penny. We miss your wonderful performances—Ms. Taft

I grab a piece of lined paper from a notebook on the night table. Thankfully, when I flip through quickly, it's blank. I write down a question.

    
    
1.
Why
did
I
quit
theater
?

I pause, and add another.

    
2.
How
am
I
friends
with
Kylie
Castelli
?

I have about a million more, but I want to finish opening the cards. I tackle the next one, in a pale yellow envelope.

Get better soon, Penny Pen! So glad you are okay—Lila

And then a blue one, after that:

Penny! You are amazing—feel better ASAP!—Eve

Lila Suffolk. Eve Dennings. What the hell
happened
in a year?

I open the last card and on the front is a weird symbol that I don't recognize right away: a white circle against a red background with a lightning bolt through the middle. It looks like the card is handmade. Inside is a message in a messy scrawl I recognize right away even though there was no writing on the front of the card.

Do you think you'll have superpowers like THE FLASH? Get better soon, Berne.—Panda

He's the only one of my old friends to send me a card.

I close my eyes, searching for something,
anything.
I want the memories to come back in a rush like they always do in the movies.

I reread the cards.

My eyes tear up again, blurring the Easter egg–colored assortment of cards in my lap. My nostrils flare, which I hate because I know I'm really on the edge of crying and I'm tired of feeling sorry for myself.

I am going to be strong—Clytemnestra in
Iphigenia
strong. No, I'll be Beatrice from
Much Ado
strong.

I am going to put on the new costume of my life and be grateful I'm alive.

The next day, I blink away the morning light, reach up my arms in a big stretch, and a surprising twinge of pain makes me pull
my arms close to my ribs. I sit up quickly to find the source of the ache.

It takes a heartbeat of a moment for me to remember.

Vines and figures curl and tattoo my whole body up to my collarbone.

I look to the massive horizontal windows across the room and push up as fast as I can in my sore state. Something
else
is missing. There should be a mobile made of geodes in the center window. May made it for me in 8th grade. It's hung in the window and glinted in the sunrise every morning since. I limp across the room and draw my fingers to the cool glass.

It's gone. And so is the past year.

Where did I put my theater playbills? I scan the room and check under my bed, pushing aside a black globe and some winter sweaters. I look through my room once more, eventually stopping at my old porcelain dolls. They sit on top of my wooden trunk, not on top of the bureau like they used to. I walk toward the trunk, and lower myself to the floor.

I move the dolls delicately aside so they rest next to one another on the floor. I can't help being gentle with my dolls, no matter how cheesy it is. The top of the trunk creaks open when I flip the latch. Inside the cavernous space are the photo albums, playbills, old scripts, and even parts of costumes from almost every play I've ever done. I sit back on my heels and the figures on my body burn from the pressure.
All
the photos of May and me are in here, hidden in the darkness of this trunk.

I pull out a scrapbook from eighth grade and flip through the pages.

Take a front-row seat! Ocean State Theater Company's star Penny Berne shines as Dorothy.

This garden is flourishing!! Penny Berne as Mary Lennox is riveting!

I stop on a black-and-white newspaper photo of me in sixth grade when I was in
A Christmas Carol.

I stay on the floor for a long time with the tattered ghosts of my old life.

Photos of May and me sit on the floor near my fingertips. I still know her phone number by heart. It's the password for all of my accounts. My brain
knows
that number. I grab my new cell and turn it on for the first time. It updates with all my old contacts.

I hope to see May's name pop up in my texts. She and I used to exchange hundreds a day. Maybe she didn't send a card because she's been texting me. That makes
so
much sense. A dozen or so text message chimes come in quick succession right away, starting from the first few days I was in the hospital. My heart leaps.

LILA: Wish we could have seen you

KYLIE: Omg. I can't believe the last thing we did was fight.

KYLIE: WHAT IF YOU DIED?

TANK: PENNY! Call me when u get out!

LILA: Dropped your homework at your house!

KYLIE: Penny, I miss you. I called the hospital!

EVE: Lunch is disgusting today. Do they even know what they are serving us?

EVE: Need my running buddy to burn off what I THINK are mashed potatoes!

PANDA: Holy shit, Berne. Your name is a pun!!

KYLIE: I'm sorry, Pen. For everything I said.

With the exception of Panda, I don't know any of these people.

I let the phone rest in my lap and press my fingers against my temples.

The skin on my right leg burns where the first branch of Lichtenberg figures splits and etches out onto my thigh.

Above me in the long, horizontal window, lightning bugs bob in and out of the morning air. No—I'm never calling them that again. Fireflies. That's their name from now on.

If I just keep my eyes closed and concentrate on my breathing, my arms won't ache. My hand won't contract and seize and these branches won't crawl up and over my body.

Maybe if I close my eyes for long enough, none of this will have happened at all.

Once the texts stop coming in and it's silent, I call May. It rings three times. I clench my jaw—too late now. Caller ID will definitely show who is calling.

May picks up.

I open my mouth to say something, but hello and sorry want to come out at the same time so I just croak.

“Penny?” She sounds surprised.