The Clay Lion (23 page)

Branson’s voice broke through the darkness and I
was instantly aware of my surroundings.  I could feel his presence in the
space with me.  I listened to his voice and felt him holding my
hand.  He was crying.  It occurred to me all at once that he was
crying about me.  Something had happened and he was sad about it.  I
reached into my memory, straining, grasping at thoughts that drifted around my
head like vapor. 

“Please don’t die, Brooke,” Branson wept. 
“I can’t live without you.  I’ll never be able to survive.  Please,
Brooke, open your eyes and wake up.”

All at once, images of the aftermath of the car
accident flooded my mind.  I realized immediately that I was in the
hospital.  I was hurt.  I was dying.  I panicked.  I could
not comprehend how it had happened.

I called out to Branson in my mind, “I’m
here!  I’m fine!  Don’t be sad!”  But as I thought the words, I
realized I had no idea if I was fine.  Perhaps I wasn’t.  I was aware
that no one could hear me.  Perhaps I was already dead.  

Branson continued to weep.  I could feel
that he was very close to me.  He kept repeating, “I can’t live without
you.  I’ll never go on.  Please don’t leave me.”

The thought of my brother being unable to go on
because I was not there crushed my spirit.  He could go on.  He must.

A calm
washed over me.  I concentrated on communicating with Branson.  “No,”
I told him.  “You will go on.  You will be okay without me.  You
are strong.  And brave.  Live your life.  Live well for
me.”  I squeezed his hand as tightly as I could.

Branson screamed.  I heard him calling to
the nurses to come quickly.  Suddenly there was a flurry of activity
surrounding me.  I heard machines beeping and felt something being placed
on my arms.

“Sis!”
Branson cried.  “Hurry up guys!  She squeezed my hand!  I felt
it!  I’m not making it up!”

My mother and father entered the room.  They
were there, calling to me, holding my hands, touching my face.  I tried
franticly to open my eyes.  It was hard. 
So hard.
 
I wanted desperately to stay with them but I was too tired.  Slowly the
voices faded and I drifted off to sleep once more.

Pain brought me from my slumber.  My arms
were heavy and felt restricted on my sides.  I wiggled my fingers and
found that if I concentrated I could lift my left hand off the bed.  I
attempted to open my eyes and I found that I could.  Unimaginable
brightness filled my world.  I squinted, blinking repeatedly at my
surroundings.  There were flowers in several vases and the smell of them
permeated the air around me.  I wondered how it was that I had not smelled
them before.  My mother was asleep in an arm chair, a magazine draped
across her lap.  I attempted to call to her.

“Ma,” I whispered.  She stirred, shifting
her weight slightly.  “Ma,” I repeated again.  Her eyes fluttered
open and she looked in my direction.  I called to her one final time.

Beaming, she threw herself across the room at me,
knocking over a tray of food in her way.  I laughed at the sight of her,
or attempted to, as the sound came out as more of a grunt.  Tears streamed
down my mother’s face as she covered me with kisses and called into the hallway
for any available nurse.  Within moments, she was whisked away and a large
team of doctors and nurses surrounded my bed, taking vital signs and asking
questions.  When they finished, a psychologist was brought into the room,
along with my mother. 

Together, they explained what had transpired over
the course of my hospitalization.  After the accident, I had been in and
out of consciousness during my transport to the hospital.  As soon as I arrived,
I had been taken into surgery to reset multiple fractures in both of my
arms.  After the surgery, the doctors were unable to bring me out of the
anesthesia and I had remained in a coma for five days.    I also
suffered from a concussion, but all testing indicated that there was no lasting
brain damage.  And since coming out of the coma, the doctors expected I
would make a full recovery.

“Dad and Branson?”
I managed to ask with great difficulty.

Mother glanced at the clock on the wall to
confirm the time.  “They should be here any minute,” she said smiling.

Mother spent the next several minutes chatting
with me about all that had transpired since Friday and then, true to her word,
my father and Branson walked through the door.

Branson sprinted across the room and practically
knocked the wind out of me, grasping me tightly in his embrace.  Tears
streamed down his face as he spoke.

“You didn’t die!” he cried. 

“No,” I
smiled.           

My father held a bucket of chicken in his hands
that I suspected would be dinner.  “Hey
Brookie
,”
he said.

“Hi Daddy,” I whispered.

My family and I spent the next three hours
laughing and talking about how lucky we were to be together.  They enjoyed
the chicken while I was served a delicious hospital meal of broth and Jell-O. 
No one brought up the condition of my car or the circumstances surrounding the
accident and I was grateful.  Finally, a nurse passed by announcing that
visiting hours were over and that it was time for my family to leave.  My
heart sank, but my mother promised to return first thing in the morning. 
Branson and Dad would return as soon as school and work allowed.

Conscious and alone for the first time since the
accident, the reality of what I had done rested heavily upon my soul.  I
had caused the accident on purpose and although I assumed that Branson had not
been camping while I was hospitalized, it suddenly did not seem to
matter. 

With great clarity, I acknowledged a truth that I
had been unable to face every day since Branson’s diagnosis in the original
timeline.  Perhaps my brother was supposed to die.  And if that was
the case, then perhaps I was supposed to go on living.

I remembered how heart wrenching it was to listen
to Branson begging me not to die while I was in the coma.  He said that he
would never survive.  That he would be unable to go on.  I knew in my
heart that if I had died, the last thing I would have wanted would have been
for Branson to stop living.  I would have wanted him to live more. 
Live bigger.  Live better.  Live for the both of us.

I had dedicated the last few years of my life to
saving Branson from dying.  In turn, I had kept myself from living. 
At that moment, alone in a hospital bed, I promised myself that regardless of
the outcome of my trip, whether Branson lived or died, I was going to return to
the present and live my life. 
For both of us.

As I drifted off to sleep, I thought about all
that had transpired.  Everything I had learned over the course of many
months about myself and about life.  Perhaps it was all part of a greater
plan.  I could only hope that was the case. 

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY

My recovery progressed quickly, or so I was told
by the hospital staff.  I had casts on both arms, which prevented me from
taking care of myself with any great efficiency.  However, after three
days, I had mastered feeding myself, albeit messily, and I was able to take
long walks around the hospital grounds.

I was delighted by the number of visitors who
came to see me throughout the week.  Sarah and Chad came with Branson and
a dozen donuts after school on Tuesday. 
Three of my
teachers stopped by with a get well card that had been signed by almost the
entire faculty at school.
 
A handful of other
classmates stopped by during visiting hours in the evenings to discuss
schoolwork and the gritty details of my accident.
  Even Paul
McGregor made an appearance.  Although I enjoyed seeing each visitor, I
strangely yearned for the tranquility that came with being alone.

On the Thursday following the accident, I was
enjoying a beautiful Indian summer day out in the courtyard closest to my wing
of the recovery ward.  I had just been informed that if my morning MRI
results came back indicating that there was no brain swelling, I would be
released by the following afternoon.  The prospect of spending the weekend
at home with Branson elevated my spirits to new heights.

It was amazing how much more beautiful the world
seemed since my brush with death.  I had seen interviews with people who
came back from debilitating illnesses or survived heart attacks who spoke of a
renewed outlook on life.  I remembered thinking how corny that sounded,
but I found it to be true.  After spending almost a week in the darkness,
the spectacle that was life seemed surreal.  The leaves on the trees were just
beginning to change and the greens of the world were shifting into
golds
and reds.  I sat for a while and watched a
squirrel busy himself with the acorns that littered the ground.  He
scurried with such purpose, but I questioned if he had any idea what he was
actually doing.

On my third lap around the garden trail, I
crossed paths with a man in a wheelchair.  He looked to be in his
mid-forties, with greying temples and a patch of thinning hair on the top of
his head.  He wore a hospital gown with a heavy blanket draped over his
legs.  I could just make out the casts concealing his feet.  He had a
book in his lap and glasses were perched on the tip of his nose, but he was not
reading.  He was gazing off into the distance, at nothing in particular as
far as I could tell.  There was a melancholy sadness about him.  I
hesitated to approach him but felt compelled nonetheless.

“
Whatcha
in for?”
I asked casually, walking up beside his chair.

His gaze shifted and he made eye contact. 
Several moments passed as if he was still processing the question. 
Finally he responded, “Car accident.”

I sat myself beside him on the neighboring bench
and replied, “Me too.”

We sat in perfect silence for what seemed like
hours, and I was beginning to regret having addressed him in the first place
when suddenly he spoke.

“I lost my daughter,” he whispered.

A wave of nausea hit my stomach.  I did not
have to be a rocket scientist to understand immediately that the car accident
that put him in the wheelchair had also killed his daughter.  Initially, I
found myself at a loss for words.  But then, it seemed appropriate to
share my truth with him.

“I lost my brother,” I said.

He had been fixated on his hands and looked up at
me once again. “In the accident or a long time ago?” he asked.

“Not so long,” I admitted.  He looked on
expectantly at me, waiting for more.  I did not know if I would be able to
continue, but I was surprised to discover that I was not only able to go on,
but I wanted to.

“He got sick. 
Really
sick.
  And it happened very quickly.  It was almost as if one
minute he was fine and the next minute he was dying.  We didn’t have
enough time together to figure it out.  We didn’t have enough time
together
period
,” I admitted.

“It was hard,” I continued when he did not
interrupt.  “I didn’t know how to go on without him.  There was this
hole in my life and I couldn’t fill it up.  I didn’t even want to. 
If I couldn’t have him, I didn’t want anything.  So I stopped
living.  I did nothing for a long, long time.  And then, when I
decided to do something, it was all the wrong things.”

He was still staring at me and I wondered if he
was even processing what I was saying.  His eyes were glazed over and I
was sure that he had retreated into his own mind.  I started to stand up.

“What kind of wrong things?” he asked.

I froze, midway between standing up and sitting
down.  Part of me wanted to walk away and leave the man, who was little
more than a stranger, to speculate about what I had done to ease the pain of my
loss.  I owed him nothing.  It was none of his business.  But
another part of me, a bigger part, thought that maybe it would help if he
knew.  I sat back down on the bench.

“I used my trip and went back to try and keep it
from happening…”

“Can you do that?” he interrupted.

I thought for a moment.  “No,” I responded.

“Why not?” he asked, finally coming out of his
fog.

“Because your life is bigger than you are,” I
responded.  “My brother died.  And so did your daughter.  And
the reason they are gone doesn’t make any sense.  And it hurts so
bad
.  But there
is
a reason we had them and
there
is
a reason why we can’t have them anymore.  And for us to
think that we know best about what we need in our lives is arrogant.  We
can’t stop living.  Even though they are gone, we have to trust that we
are right on course. 
Right where we are supposed to be.
 
So we have to keep going.  And maybe at first we just make it through the
day for them. 
Because if they were still around, it is
what they would want us to do.
  But then one day, maybe you’ll get
up and start living for you again.