The Stories We Tell (6 page)

“This is something that only time will tell.”

“My eye?” Willa asks quietly, reaching up with her free hand to touch the very edges of the swelling.

“When the swelling goes down, I expect your sight will be fine. You're lucky; even though I hate to use that word, you are. You took quite a smack to the head, but your blood work is normal. Toxicology clean and hematocrit strong.”

She continues in a foreign language about healing and injury, until these words jump out as if they were scrubbed to a high sheen, like foil stamping on paper.
Toxicology Clean
. I don't know a temporal lobe from a hematocrit, but toxicology? This I know. I spin around. “What do you mean by ‘toxicology clean'?”

“Meaning no drugs, no alcohol,” Dr. Lewis says.

Willa makes a noise much like a deep breath mixed with a sob. “See?”

“No alcohol?” I ask. “When did you take this blood sample?”

“We always take it on admission after a car accident.”

“I'm confused,” I say.

“Why?” The doctor squints at me as if I'm the one with the traumatic brain injury—a term I was unfamiliar with only days ago.

“Because my husband said she was drunk. Not just drunk but drunk as hell. And that he had to get her out of—”

“No,” the doctor says. “She was not drunk. I don't have any idea what happened before the wreck, but not alcohol.”

I turn to Willa. Tears run across the bridge of her nose. “Then why can't I remember anything?”

Dr. Lewis moves closer to the bed, placing her hand on Willa's matted hair as if just touching her head is the only answer. It isn't, of course. And now the questions will begin.

 

five

I'm not ready to ask Cooper the questions about what
really
happened. I need to know more about traumatic brain injury. I need to know how to defend Willa's sobriety when her memory of the night has been as good as erased. I need something to stand on.

It's late evening and I've been home for only an hour. I open my laptop and search the internet for TBI, for concussion and symptoms. I read quickly, scanning for only the most important parts, wanting to be able to ask Dr. Lewis real questions. I absorb facts and statistics that mean nothing in real life. It seems to me that the only cure for a mild TBI is prevention. And we are days too late for that. I read terms like
Glasgow Coma Scale
and initials like MTBI. One Web site calls it “broken brain,” which is the best description I can find before I hear my name.

“Eve!” Cooper's voice.

“Oh … Coop.” I shut the laptop. “What are you doing? Why are you out of bed?” I rise to hug my husband and I soften, tenderly touching his pale face. The bandage is tight against his head, shifting his face. In his right profile, I can't see the damage.

“I can't sleep forever.”

“You shouldn't be out of bed.”

“My parents are on the way.” He glances toward the back door and I hear the car then, an engine's purr coming closer.

“Your parents? They're here?” I point outside. “You called them?”

“No, my mom called me. Ten times, actually. So I finally got up.” He takes a breath and then asks quietly, in almost a whisper, “How's Willa?”

“Cooper.” My words rush out, unrehearsed, desperate. “She wasn't drunk.”

“Sure, Eve. She wasn't drunk. What else is she going to say?”

“She didn't say it; her blood report said it.”

“The what?”

“The thing that tells what's in your blood or not in your blood. That thing.”

He looks directly at me now, squinting, so the lines around his one good eye dig deeper. “Then she was on something else. Something that made her seem drunk. Some drug probably.” His voice is a hiss.

I don't answer; I can't. We stare at each another, and then our gaze is broken as Louise and Averitt come through the back door without knocking. They never knock, and deep down I understand this impulse to enter a house that was once theirs, the home where their son lives. But I'm annoyed and it's this feeling that rises up with its bitter taste.

I greet them both with a kiss on the cheek. Louise releases her husband's elbow and takes my hands in hers. “You said you'd call when he woke up.”

“Looks like you woke him for me.” I attempt to smile.

Louise rushes to Cooper's side and takes his face in her hands, one palm on each cheek, softly. “My baby. Are you okay? How bad is it?”

“It hurts, Mom. But I'm okay. Really, I am.”

Averitt looks to me. “His mother couldn't stand to think of him hurt and alone. We thought you weren't home.”

The disapproval comes in such cordial context, with soft voices and sweet smiles, and yet I feel it, the sinking-stomach, sweaty-palm feeling of inadequacy. “I'm sorry,” I say. And I am sorry, for everything, for all the things that have led us to this moment. I try for explanations and reasons, which I know won't matter, but I offer them anyway. “I went to check on my sister; I had to meet with the doctors. But I'm home now.”

Averitt clears his throat and turns his attention to Cooper. “I'm glad you're okay, son. I spoke to Chief Overman. It was a car wreck; we know that part. And you were driving.” It's not a question.

“Yes, I was driving, but it wasn't my fault.” Cooper is fifteen years old, defending his report card.

“Well then, what happened?” Averitt asks.

“That's what we're trying to figure out,” I say.

“Well, surely you know.” Averitt doesn't even look at me; he jabs his inquiry toward Cooper.

“Dad, it was pouring rain. I was driving Willa home from a singing gig and the car slid. When I tried to right it, she grabbed the wheel in panic and we hit a tree.”

Louise glances around the kitchen. “Where's Gwen?”

“Upstairs, I think,” I say.

“No.” Cooper holds out his hand to touch my elbow. “She wanted to see Willa. I let her go.”

“Oh…”

Louise smiles, but her lips rise only on one side—a smirk, I'd call it. “You didn't know Gwen was gone?” she asks.

“No.” I reach back to grab the edge of the counter. “But I'm so glad she's visiting Willa. I can't stand to think of my sister there alone.”

The pause is long and quiet. The wind outside whistles around the edges of the house, the edges of our conversation. Louise takes her husband's hand and leans into him. Cooper takes one step toward me and then stops.

“How
is
your sister?” Averitt asks.

“She's not doing so great. It's a head injury. A bruised brain.”

“Nothing broken or cut?” Louise asks.

“Just her eye. She has a small cut above her eye.” I point to the same location on my eyebrow.

Louise looks to her son as if comparing the damage. She opens her mouth and then places her hand over her lips. A small sigh escapes.

“So,” I say. “Let's all sit down in the living room. I'll make us some coffee.”

Averitt looks to me. “I'd like a scotch, please.” He nods his chin at Louise. “And I'm sure she'd like a Chardonnay.”

“Okay. Ya'll go sit down. I'll be right there. Cooper shouldn't be up like this anyway.”

The three Morrisons, the original Morrisons, stare at me blankly before they move toward the living room. Louise holds her hand on the small of Cooper's back and Averitt walks ahead with long strides. Exhaustion is working its way underneath my skin. “Coffee,” I say out loud to the empty kitchen. “I'm going to need more of that.”

*   *   *

While Averitt and Louise watch the news with Cooper, I return to the hospital, where my daughter and sister are waiting. I enter Willa's room, where Gwen sits at the bedside. Willa sleeps, her free hand flung over her chest, open and palm down, as if she is covering her heart; her other hand is flat at her side, with the IV fluid moving with invisible force into her vein.

“Hi, Pea.” I hug my daughter and use her childhood nickname, which she's asked me to “please stop using because I am not four years old.”

Gwen looks up at me, and there she is: the little girl. “She won't wake up. Is she going to be okay?” she asks. Leftover mascara clumps around her blue eyes. Her face is clean and unwaveringly beautiful. I am overcome with love, the kind that steps in front of a bullet; the type of love that cracks open a life. It's the kind of love that drives you crazy. I lean down and kiss my daughter on her forehead. “Willa is going to be okay. After something like this, nothing is ever exactly the same, but she'll be fine.”

“What is that for?” Gwen asks, pointing to the bag of fluid dripping into Willa's vein.

“To keep the swelling down.”

“What swelling?'

“Her brain,” I say.

“Her brain is swollen. What the hell? That can't be good, Mom.”

“No, it's not good, but it's not terrible, Gwen. Just sit here with her, okay? When she wakes up, she will be so happy to see you.”

Gwen nods, closing her eyes in the tight-squint motion she's done since she was aware enough to stay her own crying. “Sure.” Then she opens her eyes. “I'm sorry about sneaking out.”

“I know,” I say. “We can talk about that later. I'm going to run to the cafeteria and get something to drink. You want anything?”

“A Coke.” She answers me, but her gaze is on Willa, her hands on the bed rails, gripping them tightly, as if she can keep Willa from sinking further into oblivion.

When I return, Willa is awake. She smiles when she sees me, points to Gwen. “Your daughter. She's funny.”

I nod, nearing the bedside just as the IV pump begins to sound.
Beep. Beep.

“I had a terrible dream and Gwen turned it around,” Willa says. “Always making something bad into something funny, just like you do.”

“Like mother like—”

“Don't say it,” Gwen says. “Don't.”

Beep Beep.

I want to push a button to make that damn pump stop. Or unplug it. Or shatter it. My eyes are raw and dry; my muscles ache with the need for rest.

Willa speaks in an almost-whisper, her voice not fully awake. “I was telling her about this bad dream I just had where a man was running after me. I tried to hide in an old beat-up car, but he ran on top of the car and started jumping up and down on the roof.”

I make a groaning sound and swish my hand across the room. “Go, bad dreams, go.”

“Gwen said it sounded like one of those old ghost stories girls tell one another at slumber parties. You know, ‘The call is coming from inside the house.'”

We all laugh, but it is a weak and watered-down sound. “Who knows what crazy stuff our subconscious digs up,” I say, and try to smile.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“You're right,” Willa says. “That's probably where it came from.”

“That or the drugs dripping into your vein,” Gwen says, lifting the plastic tube.

“Or the hit on the head,” Willa says, touching her scalp next to her right ear.

“Or it was just a dream.” I reach for the intercom, needing someone to make the beeping stop.

“It's never just a dream,” Willa says.

That's what she believes—that dreams are messages, lyrics to a song she needs to write or memorize.

I push the call button, and when a voice comes over the speaker, I inform the disembodied voice that the machine is beeping.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I want to slam my hands over my ears.

The nurse comes into the room and enters a complicated sequence of numbers into the machine. She changes the IV fluid bag and pushes gently on Willa's needle site. “All good,” she says.

“Can I ask something?” I say to the nurse, and she turns to me.

“Not sure I can answer, but I'll try.”

“I need to get the toxicology reports for both Willa and my husband, Cooper.”

She smiles and I see her name tag:
LULA.
Seems like a name for a singer or dancer, not a nurse. “I can't give you those, ma'am. They are confidential, for the patient only.”

“But the doctor—”

“You can ask her, then,” Lula says, and exits the room.

“I'll get my report,” Willa says, quietly, sinking back onto the pillow. “You don't believe me, do you?”

“I do believe you; that's why I want it,” I say.

She nods, an almost imperceptible movement. She closes her eyes as the medicine drips into her vein and she drifts off again, into dreams and lyrics.

 

six

Two people came by to say hello to Willa: Francie and a man whose name I've heard but whom I've never met—Benson. He works at the Bohemian and arranges Willa's open-mike nights.

Their voices are a chorus of overlapping laugher.

“Remember that singer from last month with the dreadlocks?” Bensons asks.

“Carlton or something like that.” Francie looks up in the air, as if the name might be there.

“No,” Willa says. “Charleston. He was named after the city and he was so proud.”

“I wanted to flirt with him,” Francie says. “But I didn't have on enough mascara.”

Willa's laughter is loud and raucous. “Dumbest excuse ever.”

“You two are nuts,” Benson says. “His name was Clay and he just got a music deal in Nashville for that song we didn't even like.”

“The one about his mama?” Francie asks. “Ugh. It was sappy and ridiculous.”

“Well, some music muckety-muck liked it. I'm only telling you so you two don't give up. Keep at it.”

In their conversation and lyric lingo, I listen for hints of what happened the night of the accident. Finally, I ask Benson. “Were you there that night?”

“Yep,” he says. “I was. But I have no idea what happened. One minute she was practicing in the back room and then she was gone.”