After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away (21 page)

“No—I shouldn’t?”

Crow’s response is so quick and sure, I’m surprised.

Crow leads me across the footbridge, holding my hand. I feel like a convalescent, learning again to walk. The bridge is still scary, water rushing so close beneath the crude-fitted planks, if I stopped to stare at it, I would become hypnotized, the fear would mount inside me, but Crow pulls me forward—“No train, see?”—no train and the bridge doesn’t collapse, and suddenly we’re safe on the other side.

I’ve crossed the footbridge! I feel giddy, exhilarated.

In a rush it comes to me:
I can do anything now.

This side of Sable Creek the wood-chip trail continues to Yarrow Lake a mile or two away, not visible through the marshy woods. There is nothing unusual about this side, the trail is virtually identical to the trail on the other side. Red-winged blackbirds calling to one another in the cattails, a V formation of Canada geese overhead. These are gunmetal-gray geese, not snow geese. Yet they fly in the same kind of formation, beautiful to observe.

Flying north. Into the blue. Where?

Crow says, “You know it’s spring, the geese are migrating north. S’posed to like a colder climate.”

My eyes are filling with tears. There’s an incandescent look to the sun behind ribbons of cloud gauzy as curtains.

“Hey, Jenna, don’t tell anyone about today. It’s our secret, see?”

“About the hawk? But—if it’s true—”

“Actually, you don’t know what’s ‘true.’ If there was a hawk, your mother saw it, so that’s cool. Let it go.”

“But my father, he has accused Mom of—”

“No. You were hurt in the crash, concussed. Your memory isn’t reliable. Like in a dream, your brain gets scrambled. See, I’ve had concussions too, more than once. In the hospital, on painkillers, your head gets messed up. People confess to things they never did, only dreamed. Terrible things that ruin their lives. Sure, you could try to change your father’s mind, but probably he will remember what suits him. That’s how people are. You know, and I know. That’s our secret. Like my papa. He saw terrible things in Vietnam, maybe he did terrible things, but he doesn’t lay that shit on people. He never will.”

I’m stunned by this. I know that Crow must be right. But it’s so different from what somebody like Dr. Freer would say: She’d want to discuss the hurt hawk on the bridge, what my feelings were about it, whether I should tell people, etc., for months.

“But—can people forget? It isn’t good, is it, to forget?”

“Not talking about something doesn’t mean forgetting, Jenna. I will never forget my brother. Nobody in our family will forget Paul. But we don’t talk about him. Why’d we want to? He’s in our hearts. Like your mom is in your heart.”

Crow checks his watch, he has to be getting back to town. He’s got work to do in the shop, deliveries to make. I see the green coiled snake just above his wrist, the dark wiry hairs of his forearm. I want to reach out, to touch the tattoo. There is something about it that repels me but fascinates me too.

Crow recrosses the footbridge, taking long strides, like it’s no big deal, nothing to be afraid of; like he’s forgotten about me, my qualms. He doesn’t even glance back at me to see if I’m able to cross the bridge alone.

Of course I can.

“Gabriel, you saved my life.”

“Who’s ‘Gabriel’?
You
saved your life.”

I’ve run to catch up with Crow. Something giddy has come over me. I’m wiping my eyes, but I’m laughing.

In the parking lot, Crow’s motorcycle is the only vehicle. From a distance it looks sleekly powerful; close up it isn’t new or shiny but speckled with rust. The sheepskin saddle is frayed and dirty; the black paint on the chassis is chipped. A sensation of faintness comes over me; I will be riding with Crow, behind Crow and with my arms around his waist.

I think
Crow has hypnotized me.

I think
Crow has given me back my life.

How to make Crow know that I love him? I will never love anyone the way I love Crow.

Seeing the expression in my face, Crow regards me with a look like he’d give little Roland clamoring to be picked up and held and fussed over. He’s smiling like he’s happy for me, happy that I am feeling better about myself, but he isn’t so happy beneath, maybe. (Now I see the bruised-blue melancholy in Crow’s eyes and in the shadowy indentations beneath his eyes like the deeper indentations beneath his father’s eyes.) Almost, Crow is annoyed with me. But trying not to show it.

“You wouldn’t like me so much, Jenna, if you knew me.”

But I do know you!
I want to protest.

“I don’t believe that….”

“Ask your friend Trina.”

This is mean. This is cruel teasing.

“Trina isn’t my friend. No longer.”

“I thought she was. You didn’t listen to me.”

“I—I did listen to you. But you used to like Trina too. The two of you got tattoos together—”

“She told you that?”

“The snake. The green snake. There on your arm.”

“This I’ve had for years. Trina went to the mall to get one last year.” Crow laughs as if I’m very naive. He’s putting the crash helmet on his head. I’m hurt at how he’s keeping his distance from me.

“Jenna, I’m leaving Yarrow Lake after graduation.”

“Leaving? But—”

It’s as if Crow has reached out and slapped me.

“I’m moving to Quebec. I’ve got lots of relatives there, and I’m going to work with my uncle, who’s a cabinetmaker. Also”—Crow pauses, watching me—“Roland is there.”

The way Crow says this, an edge to his voice, I know something is wrong.

“See,
chérie
, Roland is my son.”

“What? Who—”

“Roland is my son. I’m his father.”

“His
father
?”

I sound like someone in a cartoon. I am so totally stunned.

“Claudette, whom you met at my father’s shop, she’s Roland’s mother, she’s divorced. I got to know Claudette a few years ago when I was visiting Quebec in the summer. We went out, we hooked up. Claudette’s five years older than I am, I think she was just kind of playing with me at first. Then we got serious…. Anyway,” Crow says abruptly, “Roland is our son.”

“Your son! You and…”

I’d thought Claudette was Crow’s sister!

For a brief while I’d even thought Roland was Mr. Saint-Croix’s son.

“We don’t always get along, Claudette sees other men. She says she can’t trust me. She doesn’t want to get married yet. She likes men, she even flirts with my old man—you’ve seen her.” Crow smiles to show that he’s okay with this, but his face has a tight savage look as it had when he was fighting with T-Man. “Anyway, I’m going. Claudette can be a bitch, but she agrees a boy needs his father.”

All this while I’ve been standing a few feet from Crow, staring at him, unmoving. My eyes are blinded with tears. I want to protest,
You are so much a better person than Claudette! You are the most wonderful person I know.

I want to protest how wrong this is. Crow is leaving Yarrow Lake, I will never see him again.

Crow says, teasing, “Now you can cross the bridge, Jenna, What’s to cry about?”

“I don’t want you to go away, Gabriel. Please.”

Crow, about to buckle the strap of the crash helmet beneath his chin, thinks better of what he’s doing and lowers the helmet onto my head. “For you,
chérie
. In case.” The helmet must look comical on me, it’s so big. The sides come down past my chin. Crow laughs at me, I’m so dazed. He frames my face in his hands. For a moment I think that he will shut my eyes with his thumbs as he did back at the creek but instead he leans down to kiss me.

A warm kiss, on my mouth. A kiss light as a feather.

“I’ll always be your friend,
chérie
. You know that.”

But Crow, I want to protest, I love you.

Instead I say, in the calmest voice I can manage, “I will always be your friend too, Gabriel. Forever.”

24

I guess I want to live, Mom.

I want to live forever!

25

Jenna! Jen-na!

Mid race I hear her. Pounding the dirt track, I hear her. In the final stretch of the half-mile sprint I hear her.

Jen-na!
In the rush of blood in my ears I hear her, a voice distinct among the others uplifted and aroused.

The lead runner flies across the finish line, in her bronze gold T-shirt and shorts—Yarrow High. Second runner flies across the finish line, dark crimson for Canaan High. Third runner, one of ours. And fourth: me.

Out of a field of ten. Fourth place!

Sweaty, panting like a dog. I’m limping and my hair is in my face and I was really losing it in the final stretch, but anyway, I am
so happy
.

My teammates are hugging one another. Hugging me. Dara Bowen is hugging me. Yarrow High has won the half-mile sprint. We’re giddy, laughing. We’re exhausted but triumphant. The next race, a mile sprint, other teammates are racing, maybe they won’t win. Maybe we won’t win the meet with Canaan High. But we’ve won the half-mile sprint, we’re jubilant.

Aunt Caroline comes to hug me. Not minding my sweaty T-shirt. “Jenna, you were wonderful! What did I tell you?” My little cousins Becky and Mikey are congratulating me too.

So I’m not the slowest runner on the Yarrow High girls’ track team.

I will never be the fastest, but who cares?

Mom didn’t. Aunt Caroline doesn’t.

The team captain, who’s a new friend of mine, gives me a wink. “Hey, J-J, somebody’s got to come in fourth.”

J-J is, like, my new name here. Why, I don’t know.

We’re all so sweaty it’s gross. We need to shower and change our clothes. I’m still panting. Could’ve come in fifth, could’ve come in tenth. Could’ve collapsed at the halfway point—my knee is giving me pain. This didn’t happen! I am
so happy
.

It’s a warm May afternoon. I am sixteen years old. It’s almost a year since the wreck. I can see the white Honda moving onto the bridge that’s so vast, it seems to open out into nothingness—into the blue. In the sky, snow geese are flying in V formation.

In the sky here, geese are flying overhead too. It’s these geese I have been hearing. Not snow geese but Canada geese. As they beat their wings, they emit strange honking cries that sound like human voices, fading. Why? I wonder. I wish I’d asked Crow, Crow might’ve known.

Crow said the geese migrate north to a colder climate. It’s a sign of spring.

After the meet, Christa Shaw has invited us to her house, which is close by, to celebrate. Maybe, I tell her. Maybe I’ll come join you, in a little while.

About the Author

JOYCE CAROL OATES is the renowned author of many novels. Her first novel for teens, BIG MOUTH & UGLY GIRL, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, followed by FREAKY GREEN EYES, a
Publishers Weekly
Best Book, and sexy. In 2003 she was a recipient of the Common Wealth Award for Distinguished Service in Literature. A recipient of the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, Ms. Oates is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

You can visit her online at www.joycecaroloatesbooks.com.

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A
LSO BY
J
OYCE
C
AROL
O
ATES
:

Big Mouth & Ugly Girl

Small Avalanches and Other Stories

Freaky Green Eyes

Sexy

Credits

Jacket art © 2006 by Katherine Streeter

Jacket design by Joel Tippie

Copyright

After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away
Copyright © 2006 by Ontario Review, Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

ePub Edition August 2006 ISBN 9780061756153

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Oates, Joyce Carol, date

After the wreck, I picked myself up, spread my wings, and flew away / Joyce Carol Oates. — 1st ed.

   p. cm.

Summary: Blaming herself for the car accident on the Tappan Zee Bridge that killed her mother, fifteen-year-old Jenna undergoes a difficult physical and emotional recovery.

ISBN-10: 0-06-073525-2 (trade bdg.) — ISBN-13: 978-0-06-073525-8 (trade bdg.)

ISBN-10: 0-06-073526-0 (lib. bdg.) — ISBN-13: 978-0-06-073526-5 (lib. bdg.)

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