Anybody Out There - Marian Keyes (19 page)

"A mixed box. And last year, he saw the face of Martin Luther King in a tomato. Charged his
neighbors five dollars a look until the tomato went moldy."
Without warning, we zigged across Fifty-third Street and were thrown, with force, against the
right-hand door. I clutched Aidan. "And, of course," Aidan added, "there's the quality of his
driving. Brace yourself for a zag."
Funnily enough the accident wasn't the fault of our seven-out-of-ten driver. In fact, it turned out
to be no one's fault at all. Making quite nippy progress through the dense postwork cars, Aidan
and I had moved onto a mundane conversation about the state of our apartment and what a pig
our landlord was. We were totally unaware of the events playing out on the junction of the cross
street--a woman doing an unexpected dash across the road, an Armenian cabdriver swerving to
avoid hitting her, and his front wheel connecting with a pool of oil, there from when a car had
broken down earlier and spilled its guts onto the road. In blissful ignorance, I was saying "We
could try painting the--" when we passed into another dimension. With brutal impact, another
cab had plowed into the side of ours and its front bumper was trying to get into our backseat--
the sort of thing that only happens in a nightmare. My head was full of grinding and breaking,
then we were spinning backward in the road, like we were on an evil merry-go-round.
The shock was--still is--indescribable, and the impact broke Aidan's pelvis and six of his ribs,
and mortally injured his liver, kidneys, pancreas, and spleen. I saw it all--in slow motion, of
course: the shattered glass filling the air like silver rain, the tearing metal, the short gush of blood
from Aidan's mouth, and the look of surprise in his eyes. I didn't know he was dying, I didn't
know that in twenty minutes' time he'd be dead, I just thought we should be angry that some
asshole, going far, far too fast, had side-rammed us.
Out in the street people were screaming, someone yelled, "Jesus, Jesus Christ!," and whirling
past me were people's legs and feet. I noticed a pair of red spindly-heeled boots. Red boots are
such a statement, I thought hazily. I still remembered them so clearly I could have picked them
out in an identification lineup. Some details were imprinted on me forever.
I was really lucky, everyone said later. "Lucky" because Aidan took all the impact. By the time
the other driver had had his momentum broken by Aidan's body, he was nearly all out of steam,
with barely enough force left to break my right arm and dislocate my knee. Obviously there was
collateral damage--the metal in our ceiling buckled and tore and gouged a deep furrow in my
face, and the tearing metal in the door ripped off two of my nails. But I didn't die.
Our driver hadn't a scratch. When the never-ending backward spinning finally stopped, he got
out of the cab and looked in at us through the hole where his window used to be, then backed
away and bent over. I wondered what he was doing. Checking his tires? Then, from the sounds
he was making, I realized he was throwing up.
"Ambulance is coming, buddy," a man's voice said, and I wondered if I had really heard it or just
in my head. For a short time, things were oddly peaceful.

Aidan and I looked at each other in a "can you believe this?" way and he said, "Baby, are you
okay?"
"Yes, are you?"
"Yeah." But his voice was weird, kind of gurgly.
On the front of his shirt and tie was a sticky, dark red bloodstain and I was distressed because it
was such a nice tie, one of his favorites. "You're not to worry about the tie," I said. "We'll get
you another one."
"Does anything hurt?" he asked.
"No." At the time, I felt nothing. Good old shock, the great protector, gets us through the
unbearable. "How about you?"
"A little." That was when I knew it was a lot.
From far away, I heard sirens. They got nearer and louder, then they were right up beside us,
when abruptly, midshriek, they stopped. They're for us, I thought. I never thought this sort of
thing would happen to us.
Aidan was taken out of the mangled car, then we were in the ambulance and things seemed to
speed up. We were in the hospital and on separate gurneys and running through corridors, and
from the way everyone paid attention to us, we were the most important people there.
I gave our health-insurance details, which I remembered with crystal-clear, photo recall--even
our membership numbers. I hadn't even known that I knew them. I was asked to sign something
but I couldn't because of my right arm and hand being destroyed, so they said it was okay.
"What is your relationship to this patient?" I was asked. "His wife? His friend?"
"Both," Aidan answered, in the gurgly voice.
When they rushed him off to the operating room, I still didn't know he was dying. I knew he was
hurt, but I had no conception that he couldn't be fixed.
"Make him be okay," I asked the surgeon, a short, tan man.
"I'm sorry," he said. "He's probably not going to make it."
My mouth fell open. Excuse me? Half an hour earlier we'd been on our way to have dinner. And
now this suntanned man was telling me that Aidan might not "make it."
And he didn't. He died very quickly, barely ten minutes in.

By then the pain had started in my hand and arm and face. I was in such a fog of agony that I
could barely remember my name, so trying to understand that Aidan had just died was like trying
to imagine a totally new color. Rachel showed up with Luke; someone must have rung her. But
when I saw her I thought they'd also been in an accident--why else would they be at the
hospital?--and was confused by the coincidence. Sometime around then, I was given drugs,
probably morphine, and it was only at that point that I thought to ask about the other driver, the
one who'd rammed us.
His name was Elin. Both his arms had been broken but he was otherwise uninjured. Everyone
was adamant that the accident wasn't his fault. There were a million witnesses who insisted he'd
had "no choice" but to swerve to avoid hitting the woman, and that it was sheer, unadulterated
lousy luck that the patch of oil had been dumped right on that spot of road.
I spent two days in the hospital and all I can remember is a nonstop stream of people. Aidan's
parents and Kevin flew in from Boston. Mum, Dad, Helen, and Maggie came from Ireland. Dana
and Leon--who cried so much he was given drugs, too--Jacqui, Rachel, Luke, Ornesto, Teenie,
Franklin, Marty, people from Aidan's work, and two policemen, who took a statement from me.
Even Elin the driver came. Shaking and crying, both of his arms in plaster, he sat next to my bed,
apologizing over and over and over again. There was no way I could hate this man--he was
going to have nightmares for the rest of his life and he'd probably never get behind the wheel of
a car again. But my pity for Elin left me at a bit of a loss: Who could I blame for Aidan's death?
Then we were on a plane to Boston, then we were at the funeral, which was like our wedding,
but a nightmare version of it. Being pushed up the aisle in a wheelchair, seeing faces I hadn't
seen for ages, felt like a dream where a disparate collection of people are inexplicably gathered
together.
Then I was on a flight, then I was home in Ireland sleeping in the living room, then I was back in
New York, and I'd only just faced what had really happened.
Part 2
30
Extract from Never Coming Back by Dorothea K. Lincoln:
About a week after my husband died, I was in my sunroom, flicking through the National
Enquirer--the only reading matter I was able to concentrate on--when in through the open
window flew a butterfly. It was incorrigibly beautiful, intricately patterned in red, blue, and
white. As I watched in wonder, it flitted around the room, alighting on the stereo, a pot plant--as
if reminding me to water it!--and my husband's old chair. Then it flew to my copy of the
National Enquirer and landed heavily on it--it seemed to say, "Tut tut, Dorothea!" (Interestingly,
my late husband would not permit that particular publication in the house.)

As the World Turns was on the TV, but the butterfly hovered over the remote. It seemed to be
telling me something--could it be that it wanted the channel changed? "Well, okay, buddy," I
said. "I can try."
I flicked through several channels, and when I got to Fox Sports, the beautiful creature landed on
my hand, as if gently telling me to stop. Then it sat on my shoulder and watched half an hour of
the U.S. Open; the room was filled with a deep, deep peace. When Ernie Els went to three under
par, the butterfly stirred, flitted to the window, hovered on the sill for a moment, as if saying
good-bye, and finally flew away into the wide blue yonder. There was no doubt in my mind that
this had been a visit from my late husband. He'd been telling me that he was still with me, that
he always would be. Several other bereaved persons have reported similar visitations...
I put the book down, sat up, looked around my living room, and thought, Where's my butterfly?
It was about four or five weeks since my early-morning conversation at Jenni's with Rachel and
not much had changed. I was still working long hours and producing little of value, I was still
sleeping on the couch, and Aidan was still dead.
I had a nice, little daily routine going: I'd wake at the crack of dawn, ring Aidan on his cell
phone, go to work for at least ten hours, come home, ring Aidan again, construct elaborate
fantasies where he hadn't died, cry for a few hours, then doze off, wake up, and do it all again.
Crying had become a great comfort, but it was difficult to arrange times for it because my face
took so long to return to normal. It wasn't safe to do it in the mornings because I looked terrible
for work. And it wasn't safe at lunchtime for the same reason. But evenings were good. I looked
forward to them.
I got through each day and the only thing that kept me going was the hope that tomorrow would
be easier. But it wasn't. Every day was exactly the same. Horrific, unbelievable, like having
walked through the wrong door of my life, where everything was identical, apart from one big
huge difference.
I had hoped that by returning to New York and using normal stuff, like work and friends, the
nightmare would disperse. But it hadn't. The work and friends had just become part of the
nightmare.
This morning, like every morning, I'd woken horribly early. There was always a split second
when I wondered what the terribleness was. Then I'd remember.
I lay down again, a dull persistent ache in my bones, what I'd imagined rheumatism or arthritis
would feel like. When the pains had first started, I'd thought that maybe I'd caught a virus, or
was suffering side effects of the accident. But my doctor said that what I was feeling was "the
physical pain of grief." That this was "normal." Which came as a bit of a shock. I'd known to
expect emotional pain but the physical pain was a new one on me.

I looked terrible, too: my nails kept splitting, my hair was dull and broken, and despite access to
every exfoliator and moisturizer anyone could need, my skin was flaking off in tiny gray pieces.
I popped a couple of painkillers and switched on the telly, but when I couldn't find anything to
catch my interest, I flicked through Never Coming Back. Great title, by the way, I thought.
Cheery. Bound to perk up the spirits of the recently bereaved.
It was one of a deluge of books--arriving in the post from Claire in London, being left outside
my door by Ornesto, handed over in person by Rachel, Teenie, Marty, Nell, even Nell's strange
friend--and even though I could barely concentrate long enough to read a paragraph, I'd noticed
the butterfly motif was a common one. But no butterflies for me.
Funnily enough, I wasn't that keen on butterflies. It was a hard thing to admit because everyone
loves butterflies and not liking them is akin to saying you don't like Michael Palin or dolphins or
strawberries. But to me, butterflies were slightly sneaky; all they were were moths in
embroidered jackets. And, yes, moths were creepy and their flapping wings made a nasty, papery
sound--but at least they were honest; they were brown, they were dull, they were stupid (flying
into flames at the drop of a hat). All in all, they hadn't much going for them but they didn't
pretend to be anything other than who they were.
And what about that woman and her control-freak husband? Tut tut, indeed. She was well shot of
him. And how could I believe a woman who described something as "incorrigibly" beautiful?
Nevertheless, since I'd started reading these books, I'd been looking everywhere for butterflies
or doves or strange cats who hadn't been around before. I was desperate for any sign that Aidan
was still with me, but so far, I'd seen nothing.
People say it's the finality of death that they can't handle. But what was tearing me apart was that
I didn't know where Aidan was. I mean, he had to be somewhere.
All his opinions and thoughts and memories and hopes and feelings, all the things that were
unique to him, that made him a one-off human being--they couldn't be just gone.
I understood that his Aidan-ness was no longer contained in his cremated body, but his
personality, or spirit, or whatever you want to call it--it couldn't be just snuffed out. There was
too much of him to simply disappear: the way he didn't like Catcher in the Rye when everyone
else in the whole world did; the slightly goofy way he walked because one leg was a tiny bit
longer than the other; the way he sang like the Smurfs when he was shaving. He was so vital and
full of--yes, life--that he must be somewhere, it was just a question of finding him.
I still saw him in the street but now I accepted that it wasn't him. I still read his horoscope. I still
spoke to him in my head. I still e-mailed him and rang his cell phone, but I understood I
wouldn't hear back from him. But some days I'd forget he was dead. I mean, literally just for a
moment or two, usually when I had come home from work in the evenings; suddenly I'd find
that I was waiting for him to come in the door. Or something funny would happen and I'd think,
Oh, I must tell Aidan that. And then I'd be overwhelmed with horror--I'd break out in a sweat