The Adoration of Jenna Fox (3 page)

He holds his palm out, and instantly there are
multiple chirps around us. "Hold still," he instructs. A small gray
bird swoops over his palm without taking anything. Another one dives, hovers,
and disappears like the other. Mr. Bender doesn't move. Still another one
swoops, flutters, and then lands on his wrist. It pecks a seed and flies away.
Within moments two more land on his hand and greedily peck at the seed, braver
than the rest. I am mesmerized by their perfect tiny beaks, their creamy clawed
feet, and their layered gray feathers that fold together like a beautiful silk
fan. I reach out to touch one, and they both skitter away.

"You have to be patient. Here, try
it," he says. He hands me the tub of seed, and I scoop out a handful. I
put my palm out and wait. They chirp from the nearby jacaranda but don't budge
from their perches. I thrust my palm out farther. We wait and are silent. I am
careful not to move. I
am
patient.

They don't come.

"Maybe they're full," Mr. Bender
says. "You come back anytime, Jenna, and give it another try."

I wonder. Anytime? The expressions that have
blended together since I came out of my coma are beginning to emerge into
patterns. Most of it centers in the eyes. Without words, the lids shape sounds.
They speak different things just by the faintest of angles. It is coming to me
now, the expression on Lily's face yesterday. Pain. And now, today, on Mr. Bender's
face, truth. He really does want me to come back. How can eyes speak so much?
It is another thing that I find curious.

"I will," I tell him. He stands and
throws his few remaining seeds into the boxwood. A ruckus of chirps follows.
They weren't full.

"I have to get back to work now, Jenna,
but I do thank you for coming by." We walk back down the pathway, but he
stops at the garden edge and rubs the back of his neck. "Be careful about
where you wander, though. We've had a few incidents around here. Broken
windows. Pets gone missing. And some other things. Most of the neighbors are
friendly enough, but some, well, you never know."

"And you do?"

"Let's just say there's not a thing you
can't find on the Net, and I've made it a point to know my neighbors." He
looks off in the distance at a white house at the end of our lane.

"Thank you, Mr. Bender.
Careful
is
a word I pay attention to."

Known

I have a friend. It changes everything. He may
not be the normal sort of friend for a seventeen-year-old, but I am not normal
either. For now, normal doesn't matter.

I don't know if I will ever remember Jenna. The
Jenna I was, at least. Father seems to think I will. Mother desperately wants
me to. But letting go of something old and building something new that is all
my own feels good. I want more of this feeling.

I smile and I don't even have to think about
lifting the corners of my mouth. It happens on its own. Mr. Bender is curious.
So am I. I'm not lost. I am no longer not known. Mr. Bender knows me.

I can see our house as I make my way back down
Mr. Bender's slope. I walk into the eucalyptus grove to where the pond is
dammed with earth and a weave of gnarled tree roots. I step on the first stone
that rises above the trickling creek, but then something catches my eye. A
white shimmer. The glare off the pond. It shoots up at me. Blinds me. Pulls me
into it.

My foot slips from the rock into the creek. I
hear noise.

Screams.

I feel myself fall, but I can't see where I am
falling to. The world spins. My mouth opens. Screams. My hands thrash. Water
pours in.

My nose. My mouth. Blackness. Gulps. Pain in my
chest.

The pond is everywhere.

"Na! Na!" I feel rocks cutting into
my knees. Glimmers. Flashes. Beams of muted light. Syrupy sound. Down, down.
Wet blackness covers me while glistening air bubbles rise above me.

"Jenna!"

I feel hands around my wrists. Hands shaking my
shoulders.

"Jenna!"

I see Lily looking into my face. Lily pulling
me to my feet.

"Jenna! What's the matter! What happened?
Jenna! Jenna!"

The pond is still. My clothes are dry. One knee
is cut. A small bead of watery blood forms. "I
—"

"Are you all right?" Lily's pupils
are pinpoints. Her voice pierces me.

"I think so." I'm not sure what
happened. Everything seemed different. The pond was so huge, and I was so
small. I thought it was covering me. I couldn't see.

I thought I was drowning.

Remembering

Mother signs off the Net with Father and
crosses the kitchen to where I sit. She has been talking to him privately for
fifteen minutes about the small cut on my knee. She tried to get Lily to treat
it, but Lily balked, saying she hadn't practiced medicine in fifteen years and
that she had never practiced
that
kind of medicine. "He said it
should be fine," Mother says. "It should heal just like any other
cut."

"It
is
just like any other
cut."

"Not exactly," Lily mumbles as she
sits in the chair opposite me.

Mother explodes. "I told you, Jenna! I
told you! I said don't leave the house!"

"But I did."

Mother crumples into another chair at the
table. She rubs one temple. "What happened?" she says more softly.

"I was crossing the creek. I stepped on
the first stone. And then ..." I try to remember exactly what happened
next.

"Then
what?"
Mother says, her
voice wrung tight.

I remember. More. "Did I almost
drown?"

"The creek's only a few inches
—"

Lily cuts her off. "Yes. A long time ago.
She wasn't even two."

"But she couldn't possibly remember
—"

"I remember."

I remember.
I look at Mother and Lily, their
expressions identical, like the air has been squeezed from their lungs. "I
remember birds. White birds. I remember falling. I fell so far. And I screamed
and water filled my mouth. ..."

Lily pushes back her chair and stands. "We
were at the bay. I let go of Jenna's hand for only a second, just long enough
to get money out of my purse for a snow cone. I was paying for it, and when I
turned around, she was already at the end of the dock. She ran so fast. It was
the gulls. There were gulls at the end of the dock and she didn't stop. She was
so focused on those birds, she didn't hear me scream. I saw her go over and I
ran. She was already sinking, and I jumped in after her."

Lily talks about me like she is talking about
someone else.

Like I am not in the room.

"You bought me another snow cone. A week
later when we went back. It was
—"

"Cherry."

Mother begins to sob. She scoots her chair back
and comes to me. Her arms wrap around my shoulders and she kisses my cheek, my
hair. "You're remembering, Jenna. Just like your father said. This is just
the beginning."

Remembering.

Jenna Fox is inside me after all. Just when I
was ready to move on without her, she surfaces.
Don't forget me,
she
says.

I don't think she'll let me.

Visitors

Kara.

And Locke, too.

They come to me. Mother and Father are right.
Bits. Pieces. More. It comes back. These pieces wind through the night. Faces
that wake me. I sit up, hot, afraid.

I had friends.
Kara and Locke. But I don't remember
when. Or where. School? The neighborhood? I can't remember where we went or
what we did. But I see their faces. Looming close in front of mine, breathless.

I knew them.
I knew them deeply.
Where are
they now?

I sit in my bed, in the dark, listening to the
midnight creaks of our house, trying to conjure more than their faces, trying
to push them into rooms, desks, and voices that will trigger more. But only
their faces, close, eye to eye, are revealed. They linger before me like they
have found my scent.

Tell me.
Tell me who you are.

Tell me who I am.

Timing

Lily slides the garage door up. It screeches
and shudders from lack of use until it finally completes its noisy path. Inside
the dark cavern is an old pink hybrid wedged between stacks of boxes.

"I'll back it out, and then you can get
in." Her voice is sharp.  "And don't tell your mother. I'll
catch it if she finds out I took you out in public."

"I'd rather stay home."

"I'd rather you stayed home, too. But I
have errands to run, and I'm not taking a chance on you gallivanting off
again."

"I wouldn't."
Gallivanting?

Lily grunts. She squeezes between stacks of
boxes and backs the car out, and I get in beside her. "Are we going to take
the T?"

Lily brakes. "You remember the T?"

I am annoyed with everyone asking what I do and
don't remember. It's all a matter of degrees. Do I remember riding somewhere on
the T? Having somewhere important to go? Riding with someone who mattered to
me? No. Do I remember what it looks like and what it does? Yes. I give the best
response I can. A shrug.

"Well, this isn't Boston, and there is no
T. And the shuttle doesn't go where we need going so I'm driving the whole way.
Problem with that?"

I don't answer.

She puts the car in gear and lurches forward,
passing the houses on our lane. There are only five. The others are not
Cotswold cottages. Each one is different. An English Tudor right next door,
then a large Old Mission style estate, next a sprawling Craftsman, and last,
the white house that Mr. Bender paired with the word
careful.
It is a
massive Georgian with tall, white pillars at the entrance. I am amused that I
know the styles. But I am sure in Mother's office there are volumes and volumes
on architecture. Maybe the old Jenna read them.

Mr. Bender said the homes in this neighborhood
cost a fortune. Looking at these, I believe him. We also still have the
brownstone in Boston, which I am sure costs a fortune as well. "Are Mother
and Father rich?" I ask.

"That's an odd question."

"I'm odd. Remember?"

"Yes. Pretty much filthy."

"Rich, you mean?"

"That's what I said."

"From restoring brownstones?"

Lily laughs.

"So it's Father then. Doctors make that
much?"

"No."

I see her hesitate. The car idles at the stop
sign. She sighs like she is giving up something precious and I had better
appreciate it. "He started his own biotech company and sold it four years
ago.
That's where he made his money. He developed Bio Gel. It changed everything
as far as transplants were concerned. Instead of just a few hours, organs could
be shelved indefinitely waiting for the right recipient. He was on the news and
made a big splash. Anything else?"

"If he sold his company, where does he
work now?"

"Same place."

I don't understand, but Lily isn't offering any
further explanation and I am tired of prying information out of her. I change
the
subject and gesture back to the street we have just exited. "Do you
know the neighbors?" I ask.

"Not yet," Lily answers. Again, she
doesn't elaborate. I know she'd rather enjoy the silence. I don't think that
will happen.

"You've been here for over a year. Why
haven't you met them?"

"
What makes you think we've been here that
long?"

"Mother said we moved here because
—"

"We've been here two and a half
weeks."

"That's impossible," I say.
"That's almost exactly how long I've been awake. We move here one day and
I wake up the next? What are the chances ..."

I don't say any more. Neither does Lily. I remember
Mr. Bender's comment about us only being here for two weeks, too. It's true.
How could Mother and Father have known? After I spent over a year in a coma,
how could they have predicted exactly when I would wake up and then move to
California precisely at that time? Was it only coincidence? Or did they decide
when
I would wake up? Why would they keep me in a coma for so long? Why would
they steal a year and a half of my life? What kind of parents are they?

Careful, Jenna.

I was wrong. Lily gets to enjoy her silence.

Agreement

I never asked about the accident.
Something told me not to.