Before I Wake (6 page)

“Yes.”

“There are a number of children—”

Not feeling anything.

“Sherry could help a lot of—”

“No,” I said, the firmness of my voice hiding the confusion I was feeling. I wanted to scream. I wanted to tear things into pieces. I wanted to push these men away from my daughter and take her in my arms and not let her go. Instead, I repeated myself. “No.”

“I'm sorry?” The doctor turned toward me.

“Karen, it's for—”

“I can't. I just can't, Simon.” I shook my head. “It's all moving too fast. It's all just…Yesterday I was holding my daughter's hand as we walked down the street, and today—today you're asking me to decide, to decide if she should live or die. And I can't. It's all too fast. It's all too—”

“I'm not—”

Simon glanced at the doctor.

“There's still some time—”

“She's not in any pain?” I asked again.

The doctor shook his head.

“Then I'd like to wait. I'd like to wait and I'd like to get a second opinion. Maybe the tests were wrong. Maybe he's wrong, Simon.”

“Of course,” Dr. McKinley said. “Of course. I'll leave you alone.”

Simon shuffled out of my way as I sat down in the chair at Sherry's bedside. I took her hand and held it in mine, its warmth burning into me.

Not feeling anything.

SIMON

It began to rain shortly after three that afternoon. At first, I only noticed because I was standing at the window, but the wind quickly picked up and started to drive the drops against the glass.

Karen had not looked away from our daughter since the doctor left, rubbing her thumb in a slow circle on the back of Sherry's hand as she held it.

I had tried talking with her, but she hadn't responded. I couldn't tell if she hadn't heard me, or if she was ignoring me.

So I stood at the window, watching the water run in dirty rivulets down the glass, across my reflection.

In the gray light, the room could have been a painting. Everything was still, shadowy, except where the bedside lamp cast a pool of golden light on Sherry's face, a warm circle over my daughter and her mother in a world of cold darkness.

I walked over to the bed.

“I'm going for a walk,” I said in a whisper, not wanting to startle her. She didn't move. “Do you want me to bring you anything?”

I waited a moment for a response—a word, a gesture, something—but there was nothing. It was like I wasn't even there.

KAREN

Will I ever have this moment, this time, again? Will I ever be able to sit with my daughter, just sit with her and watch her sleep? Watch the rise and fall of her breath, trace the curve of her cheeks?

No. Never.

The machine breathes for her, and when it stops…No amount of wishing will make her whole. No amount of watching will bring her back.

How do you hold a moment, knowing that it is the last? How do you take in enough to endure a lifetime of absence? How do you remember enough to see you through?

How do you know what will last?

Will I be surprised someday to realize I've forgotten the color of her lips, barely pinker than her face? Or the way the corners of her mouth lift naturally to hint at a smile? Will I need photographs to remind me of the way her hair falls? The way her smile bursts open in pure joy?

What of my daughter will I take with me from this room? Nothing. Nothing if I can help it. I don't want to remember her like this—broken and bleeding, the sound of the machine that presses air into her tiny lungs, the IV line and the bag of urine collecting under the bedsheets, the way the edges of the bandages around her head are stained with blood.

I don't want to remember this room, the sound of the rain and the sight of her here. I want to remember yesterday, the way she laughed and ran, the way she looked at the flowers and rocks, the way she was so alive, so filled with joy. I want to hold the stones in my pocket—the three stones she picked up on the way to the mall—as a reminder of Sherry growing and learning, smiling and running.

But I know that I can't choose. I know that I'll remember this room as much as those mornings with the three of us in the big bed, snuggling and tickling and refusing to face the day. I know that I'll remember these bloodstained bandages as much as I'll remember last Christmas, her look of wonder as Simon read her the note that Santa Claus left her, thanking her for the cookies and the carrots for the reindeer. I know that I'll remember the moment I choose to let her go, the moment I feel her last breath, as vividly as I remember that gush of blood
and love I felt as I heard her first cry, as I first saw her, tiny and twisted and perfect, wailing to raise the moon.

Ashes to ashes. Blood to blood. Cries to silence.

SIMON

It was cold outside the emergency-room doors but sheltered from the wind and the rain. A small crowd had gathered around the garbage can, and the air was thick with smoke.

“Can I buy a cigarette from someone?” I asked the group in general. “A cigarette and a light?”

A kid near me, no more than sixteen or seventeen, wearing a plaid flannel coat, fumbled for his pack. “Here,” he said, handing me the du Mauriers, waving away the dollar I held out to him. “Take a couple.” It was only when he turned to share the flame from his lighter that I saw that his face was a mess of blood, most of it coming from a jagged wound near his hairline. His right eye was swollen shut, his cheek scraped raw and bloody.

“Thanks,” I said, inhaling the first lungful of smoke, handing him back the cigarettes.

“No sweat.” He seemed remarkably composed for someone whose shirt was crisp with dried blood. Shock, probably.

The girl with him, a pretty blond in tight jeans and a denim jacket, looked more concerned.

“Are you all right?” I asked him, the nicotine rushing through me.

He seemed puzzled by the question. “Oh yeah. Just a little spill off my bike.” He lit a cigarette for himself and offered the pack to the girl, who waved it away. “What about you?”

I shook my head. “Not me. It's my daughter. She got hit by a car. A truck, actually.”

“The one on the news?” the girl asked.

I nodded. “Sherry.”

“Oh shit, man, that's”—she shook her head—“I don't know.”

“I know.”

“Did the police get the guy?” She was wearing glittery silver lip gloss, and her cheeks were pink.

“What guy?” the boy asked, looking between us.

“I told you inside,” the girl said. “The guy who hit his—who hit Sherry. He just took off. The police are looking for him and everything.”

The boy stared at me and took another drag off his cigarette. “Oh wow, man. If it were me I'd fuckin' kill that guy. That's just, I mean, she's just a little kid.”

“Three,” I said. “She's three.”

“That's sick, man. I tell ya, I'd kill him. And there's not a jury that would convict me.”

“Yeah,” I said.

My cell phone rang as I was taking another drag. I didn't need to check the number to know who it was.

KAREN

Simon came back just before nightfall. No sunset tonight, no warm orange glow, just a slow darkening of the rain, the sky, the room.

“How are you?” he asked when he saw me looking at him.

I shrugged.

“I brought food.” He set the bags on the swing table next to the bed. “And coffee.”

I tried to smile. “Thank you.”

He leaned over the bed and smoothed back Sherry's hair, careful to avoid the bandages.

“You missed the doctor,” I said.

“What did he have to say?” he asked without looking up.

“Not Dr. McKinley. Dr. Tompkins. A specialist.”

He straightened up. “And?”

I couldn't do any more than shake my head before bursting into tears. Simon came around the bed and held me until I stopped crying.

“So nothing has changed,” he said, as he stepped away from me.

I nodded.

He busied himself with the food on the table.

“It's not much.”

“What?”

“The food. It's not much. Just doughnuts.” He shrugged, and I tried to think of where he might have found a doughnut shop nearby. “I thought we could get something from the cafeteria a little later.”

Eating was the last thing on my mind. I couldn't bear to watch as he picked up a jelly doughnut and bit into it, the sugar sticking to his lips. He washed it down with a mouthful of coffee.

“I talked to your mother,” he said, his voice thick as he chewed. “She called my cell. She could have got out earlier, but she didn't want to fly standby. She'll be here around one.”

I couldn't imagine my mother flying standby. “That's fine.”

“She sounded like she really wanted to be here.”

I nodded. “I know. It just makes everything so much harder. She'll have a priest in here, she'll be praying—”

“It's a comfort to her.”

“I know. But it's not a comfort to me. It makes everything so much harder.”

I could imagine trying to tell my mother that there was nothing we could do, that there was no hope for Sherry to recover.

“Of course there's hope,” she would say. “There's always hope.” Staring up at her God.

I wouldn't want to fight with her; I never do. But that's how we relate, I guess. She puts all of her faith in a God who either doesn't exist or who takes a particular delight in testing her very limits. The Lord will provide? The Lord will save my daughter? Where was your Lord when Dad was dying? What good was your faith when he was wasting away before our eyes?
Where was your God yesterday morning when a truck hit my little girl?

“One o'clock?”

Simon nodded. “She'll take a cab in from the airport so we don't have to worry about picking her up.”

One o'clock. It would all be over before then.

It would all be over.

HENRY

I couldn't do it anymore.

The day of the accident, I walked until I couldn't walk any farther, and then I collapsed in a small park, on the grass next to a cedar tree. I could barely feel my legs, and I thought I'd fall asleep right away. But I didn't. Every time I closed my eyes, I could see her, Sherry, hanging in the air in front of me, her eyes locked to mine, the sound of the engine drowning out her scream.

I wanted her to go away, but she didn't, and I lay there all night, not sleeping. By morning I was wet with dew.

I had nowhere to go, nowhere to turn. I had tried to go home, had stood in the hallway listening to the sound of my family, but I couldn't bring myself to open the door. What would I tell Arlene? That I had hit a little girl with my truck, and then run away? How could I face my boys, knowing that?

I kept replaying the accident in my mind, seeing her appear in front of the truck, spinning skyward. I couldn't shake the image. I couldn't turn it off.

I walked back to the hospital, in the pouring rain, trying to reassure myself,
She's still alive. She has to be.

If she made it through the first night, she'll make it.
Isn't that how it's supposed to work? She would make it. I knew she would.

I saw Mr. Barrett just outside the emergency room. He was leaning against a wall with his eyes closed, a cigarette burned to a column of ash between his fingers.

It took me a few minutes to find her room, just around the corner from the nurses' station on the fifth floor. I was standing outside the door when the specialist examined Sherry. I couldn't hear what he said, but the way Mrs. Barrett looked after he left—the way she fell against the bed, sobbing with her face buried in the blankets—told me all I needed to know.

She had made it through the first night, but she wasn't going to make it.

I had killed her. I killed that little girl.

The little girl I could still see, hanging in the air in front of me, as I fled the hospital.

I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't keep seeing her, seeing the accident, over and over in my head.

I needed to make it stop. I needed to make her go away.

SIMON

I fell asleep in the chair. I wouldn't have thought it possible; I don't think I've ever been less comfortable. But I guess it all catches up with you.

The dark window reflected the room, the half-drawn curtain, the bed. I checked my watch: midnight.

My back seized a little as I straightened up.

Karen was still at the side of the bed, her hands tight around the steel rail.

“Hey,” I said quietly.

“You fell asleep,” she said, not looking at me. Her voice was flat.

“Yeah.” I stood up and stretched. “Sorry.”

“You probably needed it.”

When I reached over to rub her back she flinched, and I drew my hand away. She finally turned to look at me. Her eyes were deep-set in gray pockets, her face lined and tight and pale. She looked like she had been beaten up, like she was barely able to stand of her own volition.

“How is she?” I asked, resting my hand on Sherry's knee.

“The same,” she whispered.

I looked away from Karen, down at my daughter, at the mechanical rhythm of her chest under the sheet. “Right.”

“Dr. McKinley said we could call him. Anytime.”

I lifted my eyes to meet hers.

“I think we should call him,” she said.

KAREN

I don't think I breathed as Dr. McKinley laid the stethoscope on the pale skin of Sherry's chest.

You can talk and talk and talk. You can make it all make sense in your head. You can lay it out and cry and plan and think and accept…

He lifted her eyelids and shone a light into her wide pupils.

Accept the inevitable.

He laid his fingertips against the warm inside of her wrist.