Accidents of Marriage (26 page)

Maddy the shell displayed for her family.

Did that make any sense?

Her sweet Gracie offered pillows, blankets, books, and food. She worried, worried, worried about her. Gracie, she was her heart.

Caleb, puppy boy, needed calming.
Down, Caleb. Sit, Caleb.
Everyone became so nervous as he asked question after question.

Emma, Emma, watching, guarding, the child of her flesh.
Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone.
They were too connected. If they stood within reach of each other, their skin sizzled.

Without warning, her mother began placing a pillow behind her back.

“Maa . . . mahm.” She wrenched up a smile. No longer reflex, smiling.
She had to think it. Put up mouth. Zelda said she had to smile.

“I just want you to be comfortable, darling.” Mom blinked away tears that made Maddy want to punch her. She didn’t want to make people unhappy simply by being.

“No.”
Feels like shit. Feels like a stone.
She reached behind, plucked out the pillow, and threw it on the rug.

“Whatever feels good, hon.” Her mother’s tremulous voice threw confusion at her.
Be sure, Mom. Act definitive. Stop it.

Gracie snuggled in close and then stopped, perhaps fearful she’d cause pain. Maddy pulled her in through a tiny motion of her arm.

“Mommy?” Caleb asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you still think?”

“That’s such a stupid question, Caleb. Of course Mommy thinks. She’s recovering from an injury, not retarded.” Emma looked at her. “Not that retarded people can’t think.”

“Nobody needs to talk about anyone being retarded,” her father said. His jaw was too tight. Maddy imagined it snapping off.

She put out an arm to Caleb, and he flew to fill up her empty side, sticking out his tongue at Emma in the process. “I . . . think.” She took a series of decent rehab-taught breaths. “I will . . . be fine.”

“You need to expect to have some good long recuperation time, honey,” her mother said.

“Day by day. That’s how we’ll do it,” Ben said.

“Not. So. Long.” Fatigue crept over her.

“See! Maddy knows she’ll be up and around in no time.” Her father gave a thumbs-up signal.

In answer, she lifted her hands over her head. Rock style?
Rock, rock, rock. That’s not right. Word, word, word, damn. What the fuck is that word?
She pictured a sweaty beat-up man.
Rock.
“Fuck.”

“Shah, shah,” her mother crooned, placing a hand on Maddy’s head. “See, we can’t rush anything. She doesn’t know what’s up or down yet. It’s called impulse control.”

“Anne, Maddy is right here. Don’t talk about her in the third person.” Ben came over to the couch. “Slide over, buddy,” he told Caleb.

He reached around their puppy to rest his fingers on her shoulder. All the contact. Awful. Smothering.

“Get off,” she whispered—wanting, craving, needing to shout.

Gracie and Caleb jumped off the couch.

“Too much,” she said. “Can’t . . .” Can’t what? What was the word, what word, what word? “Damn . . . damn it.”

“Relax, baby.” Ben started to put his arm around her and then drew back when she hissed. Everyone stared at her.

“No . . . problem.” Watch the amazing pop-up mother. Like those flat sponges suddenly filled with water, the mom-on-her-back rose from the flattened form on the couch. She couldn’t even share the joke.
Fuck. Can’t talk—can’t be funny?
Would she have to learn to mime?

“What? No . . . food?” She watched her mother jump up. Ah, her mother was the original pop-up mom.

“You can have anything you want,” her father said. “Look at you, for God’s sake. You’re skinny as a rail.”

“Coma diet.” She could tell two-word jokes. No one knew if they were stolen from rehab. “Then . . . prison food.”

Now their laughs were too hearty.

“Prison food!” Caleb twirled in a circle, his arms straight out as he spun. “Potatoes fried, potatoes boiled, potatoes with tomatoes.”

Everyone laughed. Maddy became dizzier and dizzier watching him. “Fuck . . . potatoes.”

What, no laugh?

•  •  •

So tired she could die, she went up for a nap. She heard her sister, Vanessa, Sean, and their kids swim into the house.
Not swim. Swan? Swami?

Sworm?

“Everyone ready? Ben, want to get the guest of honor?” Her mother’s voice drifted up the stairs, through the door, sounding shaky. Because of her, or had bitchy Vanessa already made their mother craaaaaaaazy? And why was her mother calling her a guest? Become
half dead and you’re demoted from family to company? She heard Ben climb the stairs.

She wanted to stay up in the bedroom. Her eyelids seemed taped shut. Taped shut by fairy sleep angels flying over her head, wearing skirts make of pink crinoline.

“Maddy?”

The bed sagged. Ben.

“Honey? Are you awake? Supper is ready.”

She didn’t think she could speak. She tried to crack open an eye. He lay next to her, but not touching.

“Maddy?” He brushed away her curls with feather fingers. “Everyone is ready to eat.”

So eat. Eat, my fairy subjects.

She heard more footsteps. Not kid feet. Not man feet. Sister feet.

“What’s going on?” Vanessa asked. “My mother’s waiting. Is she okay?”

Is she okay? Am I deaf, dumb, and blind?

Maddy forced a slit of eye open and saw her sister standing there waiting. For what? Did Vanessa want her to jump out of bed? Give Vanessa a big sloppy hug and kiss? Was she jealous that Maddy had been getting all the attention since the accident?

“Me. Talk . . . to me.”

“Whoa! Look who’s awake!” Vanessa flopped on the bed. “Don’t worry; it didn’t insult me when you went to your room the moment we came in.” Her sister leaned in and kissed her on the cheek with her shiny red mouth.

“Ick.” She wiped off the Vanessa lip glop.

“Ick?” Vanessa lay with her legs straight out; now Vanessa and Ben jailed her.
Bound me? Boundaried?
Maddy the hot dog in the Vanessa-Ben bun. “I missed you.”

Vanessa turned so they were almost nose-to-nose.

Missed you, tootsie.

“I . . . Me miss.”

“I know, I know. You missed me also.” She traced Maddy’s hip and thighs. “Look how much weight you lost!”

“Coma . . . diet.” A signature line? “Not worth . . .”

Vanessa turned on her back, running her hands over her flat stomach and jutting hip bones. “I don’t know. Lose weight. Get away from the kids. Is it actually that terrible?”

“There’s a reason Maddy calls you the bad seed,” Ben said.

Maddy kicked him as well as she could. “Mean.”

“Vanessa knows I’m teasing, right, Ness?” Ben asked.

“I’d never predict what you mean and don’t mean, Ben.” Vanessa’s smile seemed odd. Maddy frowned, unable to follow the conversation.

Caleb charged into the room. “Are we eating? Mom, are you coming?”

Maddy tried to respond to her son, but nothing happened.

“Mommy?” He came over and poked a finger at her arm. “Mommy?”

Stop!
He rapped her skin with an iron rod. Poke, poke, poke.

“Stah,” she shrieked, needing them to stop.

Caleb shrank, backing into Emma, who’d just come into the room. Would they all leave now? Please leave. “Leave,” Maddy said.

“Mommy wants us to leave,” Caleb told Emma.

“I heard.” Emma wrapped her arms around Caleb.

“She’s not upset with you,” Ben said. “It’s just the recovery. She needs to sleep when she needs to sleep.” He put a hand on Caleb’s head.

“But she didn’t say please or thank you,” Caleb said.

Please. Thank you please thank you please.

•  •  •

Morning sun made a pattern on her hand.

Where was she?

Not prison.

Not hospital.

Ben lay next to her.

Home.

She smiled. Touched him.

How strange, sleeping with another person. Did they wake covered with bits of each other? Is that how they become family? Maybe it was just that. That’s why they drifted apart when they were separated.
People reconnected with cell matter! If she nestled right up against Gracie, Emma, and Caleb, would they get closer quicker?

Sleeping soothed her. Tired, her thoughts became soup. First morning thoughts were her best.

“What . . . day?” she asked.

Ben opened his eyes, his waking gestures familiar. Rub left, then right eye. Stretch face out with a series of movements she’d copyrighted to him. Jaw in, jaw out, Ben woke his face.

“It’s Sunday.” He yawned. “Are you okay? Are you hungry? Want to shower first?”

She could only hold on to one question. Yes, she wanted hot water running over her body, but without bars to hold and buttons to push for nurses, she might slip and hit her head and lose more brain. She didn’t know how to tell him all these things one word at a time.

“Coffee?” he asked.

“Yes! Coffee.”

“Okay, give me five minutes and I’ll go down and make it.” He turned over, offering his warm back, shoving the pillow under his head. Rain spattered on the windows. The cloudy room felt like a safe cave.

She stayed on her side, watching Ben. What did they used to do on Sunday? She scrunched up her face trying to remember. Envision it, Zelda told her in rehab. If you can’t remember, imagine.

Lying in bed with all the kids, watching cartoons on their bedroom television. When they were oh-so-little that even Emma liked being part of the pack.

Hazy thoughts of mornings after angry nights. She and Ben each rolled to the edge of their own side of the bed. Why had they fought?

She squeezed and pressed, trying to remember things Zelda had told her might be gone forever. Her mind had washed away memories. Some might roll back.

She kept asking Ben to tell her
how it happened
until he seemed angry. He didn’t want to say it over and over, he told her. Didn’t like going to the place where she got hurt. No one liked to tell the accident story. For her it didn’t matter. Not really real since she couldn’t
remember. Just a scary story but
her
scary story, and she wanted to hear it so she could find her way out of the fog.

Once upon a time Maddy and Ben drove on the Jamaicaway. A Ford forced them away from the right spot. The Ford ran into them. She fell out of the car. The end. Oh. Rain fell.

Cold. She turned to Ben’s body. She stroked his back, tracing the indented line, the spine, pressing her nose to his shoulder. Taking in Ben—the soap he used. What was the name? Brown soap flecked with gritty bits. His arm smelled like sleep-Ben.

She turned him on his back. Touched him.

“Wait. Let me lock the door,” he said, climbing out of bed. “The kids.” He walked awkwardly, his erection leading him.

“You . . . fun.”

“I’m funny?” he repeated as he climbed back into the bed.

She stood and stripped off her thin white nightgown. “Like. This.” She walked toward the door, tipping out her pelvis as though it forced her to swing forward one hip at a time. When she reached the door, she pivoted on one foot to head back to Ben.

Arms out, she walked toward him slowly. He pulled her to him. The length of his stiffness pressed into her stomach. She buried her face in the sweet spot of his neck.

He pulled her close.

His embrace crushed her. His breath smothered.

Off off off.

She needed to get away.

“Stah,” she whispered. “Stah. No breathe.”

Ben let go. She rolled away. He followed, placing a hand on her hip.

“Can’t breathe? You can’t breathe, Maddy?”

She shook her head. He jumped up and pulled at her until she sat at the edge of the bed. He patted her back. “It’s okay, baby. This is what all the books say: Sometimes you’ll want it like crazy, and then you can change your mind in a flash.”

“Whah. Do I. Do?” she asked.

“With what? Do with what, Mad? You don’t have to do anything. It’s okay. It doesn’t bother me.”

“Not. That!” She stood and looked around. She walked to the bookshelf and grabbed the first book her hand hit. “
Can’t read.
”

“You can read, Mad. It’s just slow coming back.”

“No!” She pulled out volume after volume, throwing them to the floor. “Can’t.”

She stopped. They stared at each other. “My . . .” She couldn’t catch her breath. Her chest pumped up and down. “Life. Whah about. My life?”

CHAPTER 25

Emma

Emma scrubbed at the white gunk stuck on the table, working so hard she thought the wood would crack, determined to erase the lump of solidified sugar adhered to the counter. Did Caleb twirl when he sugared his cereal and then deliberately splatter milk to ensure that the drippings turned to resin? Dried bits of it stuck to the side of the sink. Grandma had attempted to clean the kitchen the previous night, but her father forbade it. Those were his exact stupid words: “I forbid it, Anne. You and Jake have done more than enough for today. Get some sleep.”

Once she’d loosened the worst of the crap, she sprayed water over the pile of dishes and pots and started pulling things out to stack in the dishwasher. Clearly her father didn’t think that she had done more than enough. Oh, no. Always more for Emma to do. No forbidding Emma against housework!

Caro probably was snuggling into her comforter while Caro’s mother readied a bowl of low-fat oatmeal with sliced bananas and pretend brown sugar. Zach’s mother no doubt had made whole-wheat apple pancakes for everyone, as his father read the Sunday
New York Times
aloud to her.

She wanted to get out of here. She wanted to run, do cartwheels, leap on and off the balance beam at the community center, or swim a million miles—anything as long as she moved—but if she tried to go anywhere, her father would flip out. Her mother probably wouldn’t even know. She’d just stare at her, empty-eyed. Scary puppet eyes that made Emma want to knock on her mother’s forehead and ask,
Anyone home
? But then it changed—just as she got used to having a zombie for a mother, the next moment she examined Emma so intently, it was as though her mother possessed X-ray vision.