When He Fell (34 page)

Lewis sits next to me and we wait in silence for the food. Will we ever speak again? Will there ever be anything to say?

Lewis’s phone buzzes. He reaches for it and I tense, because a phone call now can only be bad news. But what if it’s good news? Hope unfurls within me, determined, desperate. What if Josh has woken up?

Guilt flashes across Lewis’s face as he looks at the screen, and realization slams into me.

“Answer it,” I say in a hard voice.

Lewis looks up, anguished. “Jo—”

“It’s Maddie, isn’t it?” I stare him down, unrelenting. “Answer it.”

And so he does. And the words he says—
It’s Josh
—fell me. I bow my head as the tears stream hotly down my cheeks. Lewis says something into the phone, but I can’t hear over the noise of my own sobs.

And then he is crying too, and he flings the phone away as he takes me into his arms and we cling together, knowing there is no comfort to be had.

29
MADDIE

It’s Josh.

The words reverberate in my head so loudly I can barely hear what Lewis says next. Josh had an accident—an
accident
—and is in a coma.

I pace the room for a moment, wanting to do something, but what? The last thing Lewis and especially Joanna want is for me to see them. Joanna hates me.

But then I think that I alone know what they are going through. I am the only person in their lives who has been where they are now. I feel like I should help, or at least offer to help. Except how would I really be able to help? I don’t know, but I know I want to try.

Lewis told me Josh was at Mount Sinai, on the Upper East Side, but it’s getting late and he sounded so raw with grief. I’ll go tomorrow, I decide. In the morning. And I won’t bring a basket of fruit.

The next day is Sunday and midtown is empty and quiet as I leave my building. It is only a week before Christmas, and lights and decorations adorn the shop windows, but they look tawdry in the early morning light, with no one to admire them.

I take the subway uptown and then walk to the hospital; when I ask at the desk for Josh Taylor-Davies, I am directed to the ICU.

Going inside feels like rewinding time. I’m hit by the smells and the noise, by the relentless beeping of machines and the urgent whispers of doctors and nurses. I glance at the people in the waiting room, their faces etched with tension and grief.

I go to the desk and ask for Lewis and Joanna; because it’s the ICU I can’t just waltz in there myself. A few minutes later Lewis comes through the heavy doors.

At first I don’t recognize him. He looks smaller somehow, and grayer, his eyes shadowed, his face pale and haggard. His clothes seem to hang on him although I know he couldn’t have lost weight in such a short space of time.

“Lewis…” I begin, and he just shakes his head. “How is Josh?” I ask. I am disconcerted to realize that I am on the other end of a situation I’ve been in too many times already, and I don’t know how to act.

“Not good,” Lewis says in a low voice.

“Well,” I say after a moment, not sure if I should pitch my tone as sympathetic or practical or somewhere in between. “A coma is a scary thing. But the doctors might start to bring him out of it soon. It takes awhile, but—”

Lewis’s bleak gaze silences me. “They’re not going to bring him out of it, Maddie.”

I stare at him blankly, and then I realize that I don’t actually know anything about Josh’s accident or his condition. I was assuming—naively, stupidly,
wrongly
—that he fell like Ben fell. That he hit his head like Ben hit his head. That he’d be okay like I now know Ben will okay. But looking at Lewis’s face I realize that’s not the case at all.

“Lewis…” I whisper. “What happened to Josh?”

His face crumples a bit before his expression irons out. He takes me by the arm to a waiting room, a small room like the one the doctor put me in when I first came for Ben. My stomach hollows out. “Lewis,” I say again.

He closes the door and turns to me, scrubbing his face with his hands. Then he drops them and says in a voice that is flat, lifeless, “Josh tried to kill himself.”

I cannot process that statement. Kill himself? But he’s nine. Nine-year-old boys do not commit suicide. They
don’t.
And Josh… gentle Josh with the silky hair and dark eyes and obsession with Lego?
No.
I cannot believe that. “But…” I say, and I cannot go on.

“He hung himself,” Lewis continues. His voice trembles but he keeps going. “With a rope. A rope I gave him, to teach him—to teach him how to make knots.” His face contorts with naked grief and I almost go to him. But that is not my place.

“Why…?” I ask. “Not because of Ben’s accident…”

“No,” Lewis whispers, and he sounds broken inside. “No, Maddie. Not because of the accident. Because of… us.”

I absolutely cannot make sense of that. I refuse. “Because of
us?
But…”

“Ben saw us,” Lewis explains. “That night. And he jumped to conclusions… He thought…he thought we were going to be a family. The
three
of us. And he told Josh.” Lewis sighs tiredly, the sound one of utter defeat. “And Josh believed him.”

I reel back, Lewis’s words hitting me like physical blows. My little fantasy that never hurt anyone. The questions that Ben had started asking, about Lewis. None of it was real. I knew that. But Ben didn’t. Josh didn’t. “But…that’s so…Ben couldn’t…Josh wouldn’t…”

“Sometimes we forget how little they are. They don’t see the world the way we do. They don’t understand…” Lewis breaks off, shaking his head.

“But why now?” I ask, my throat so tight it hurts to squeeze the words out. “Why did he…now?”

Lewis doesn’t answer and I feel a dread start to build inside me, a tsunami that threatens to crash over me and drown everything. “
Lewis…
”

Before he can answer, and I’m not sure he’s going to, the door is wrenched open and Joanna stands there, her face pale except for bright spots of color on her cheeks.

“What,” she demands in a raw, fierce voice, “are
you
doing here?”

I take a step back. “Joanna…”

“I was just telling her, Jo,” Lewis says quietly. “Everything.”

“Did you tell her it was her fault?” Joanna demands. “Did you tell her that?”

“Jo…”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I never meant…”

“But you did mean,” Joanna cuts across me. “You wanted to be a family, the three of you. Lewis is the closest thing Ben has to a dad. You love Lewis, and he could love you, if he let himself, because I’m not right for him!” She hurls each word at me, and with each one I realize what she is quoting. My texts. My stupid, stupid texts. Joanna has read them.

“I was drunk,” I blurt. “And miserable because…oh, it doesn’t matter. None of it matters. But I didn’t mean…” I feel tears gather in my eyes. “I never meant… did
Josh…
”

Joanna lets out a broken cry and slumps into a chair, covering her face with her hands.

I stumble backwards as the world wavers before my eyes. “No,” I whisper. “No, please…”

“Josh heard,” Lewis confesses quietly. “We were…arguing.” A sob escapes Joanna.

I can’t take it in. I can’t believe that my moment of stupidity had such devastating consequences. But it was more than a moment; it’s been a lifetime of stupid, selfish choices, thinking I was hurting no one with my desperate little flirtations. I swallow hard. “But Josh…he’ll…” I can’t quite make myself say the words.
He’ll be okay.
I’d sound like Juliet, trying to assuage my guilt, to make it better for
me.

“We don’t know,” Lewis says. “The doctors…the doctors say he has very little brain function.”

I remember the ER doctors telling me that Ben had ‘significant brain function’, and how that was something to hold on to. It felt like so little when my son was comatose and storming, but now I realize how much it was. How much I had, how much I’ve
always
had.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “So, so sorry.” I don’t know what else to say. What I can do.

“We just need to wait and see,” Lewis says with conviction that sounds hollow. “Maybe something will happen. They’re going to do some tests…” He lapses into silence. I’ve never seen two people look so broken, and again I think how lucky I’ve been. How lucky Ben has been. And how I have contributed to this. I am part, perhaps the biggest part, of the reason Josh is lying in that hospital bed.

“May I…may I see him?” I ask. Joanna looks at me, her gaze burning, and I realize how intrusive my request is. “I mean, I don’t…” I murmur, flushing, hating myself, but Lewis slowly nods.

“You can see him,” he says, and he reaches for Joanna’s hand.

The three of us walk into Josh’s room. It’s quiet, far quieter than Ben’s room ever was. Josh is hooked up to machines but they only beep intermittently. He is completely and utterly still.

I see the red mark around his neck and everything in me shrinks back in horror. I cannot conceive of a nine-year-old boy having the will, the conviction, the desperation to kill himself.

My throat thickens with tears and I force them down. This is not my turn to cry; I don’t have that right.

“Hey, Josh,” I say softly. “Hey there, buddy. Hang in there.”

Joanna lets out a muffled sob and shakes her head. I turn to them and I swallow hard.

“I know I can never make up for my part in this,” I say quietly. “There’s simply no way to do that. But if there is anything I can do…” How many times did people say that to me? “Anything at all,” I try again, “for either of you…” I let the words hang; they don’t respond.

And then quietly I leave the room.

30
JOANNA

The next week passes with agonizing slowness, and yet also far too fast. I am afraid what the next day will bring and so I hang on to each day, because at least today Josh is alive.

After Maddie leaves I sink into the chair by Josh’s bed, my head in my hands. Lewis puts his hand on my shoulder. My jealousy about Maddie seems so petty in this moment, so pointless. A couple of texts? A kiss? I let those things control my life; I let them
take
Josh’s. How could I have done that?

Yet Lewis and I cling to hope, because we have nothing else. We sit by Josh’s bedside and watch his eyelids twitch and think something must be going on in there. Our son is not lost. The doctors do test after test to assess his brain function. The words wash over me, meaningless even though I know they are important. Supra-orbital stimulation. Oculovestibular reflex. Araflexic extremities.

What I do understand, what I can see with my own eyes, is that Josh cannot live away from these machines.

The day after Maddie’s visit she comes again, bringing fresh clothes, takeout food, a few basic toiletries. I see in her eyes that she wants to help, perhaps to atone. And I know she’s been in the position we are in now, even if she had more hope. She knows what we need, and I can’t hate her anymore.

One afternoon, three days after Josh’s accident—I can only call it an accident—she comes and sits with me. Lewis has gone to have a shower in the visitors’ bathroom and so we are alone.

We sit quietly for a few minutes; I have no energy to say or feel anything.

“If it’s making it worse to have me here,” she finally says hesitantly, “I’ll go.”

I shrug. I’m not angry with her any more; I feel nothing.

“Joanna,” she tries again, “I want you to know—I
need
you to know—there was nothing between Lewis and me. Nothing. It was all in my head.” She lets out a choked sound, and then composes herself before continuing. “I didn’t think I was hurting anyone, just by pretending. I was so lonely…I’ve always been lonely. Not,” she adds quickly, “that that’s an excuse. There’s no excuse. I know that.”

“I’m not angry with you,” I say dully. “I know you could never have envisioned this. In normal circumstances…” I don’t finish the sentence, because I don’t know what normal is any more. What I do know, with a deep, painful certainty, is I cannot point a finger and blame one person. Who brought us to this point? Maddie, for kissing Lewis? Lewis, for responding? Me, for being so paranoid and fearful for my marriage? Ben, for being so hopeful he’d have a dad? Or we could spread the net wider, and point fingers at Mrs. James for being so inflexible, Josh’s classmates for shutting him out, the playground supervisors for not looking when they were up on the rocks.

If Josh had pushed Ben on the slide or the swing, perhaps none of this would have happened. None of us would be here now.

I cannot lose myself in such recriminations. We are all to blame. We must all atone, and perhaps in some distant day, we will find forgiveness.

“I’m not angry with you,” I say again to Maddie, and she bows her head in acceptance.

A week after Josh’s accident the doctor—I can’t even remember his name—sits us down in his office and tells us the results of all the tests they’ve done, the EEG and CBF, the injection of ice water into the ear canal, the testing of reflexes and pupil stimulation, the list goes on and on. Josh has not responded in any way at all. The conclusion, the doctor tells us gently, is brain death. He advises us to turn off the life support.

The words jolt us, even though I think Lewis and I were expecting this. How could we not be, after the last week? But it still hurts to hear the doctor state it in such stark terms. He wants us to pull the plug on our son.

“May we think about it?” Lewis asks hoarsely. “For a little while?”

“Of course,” the doctor says. “I understand it’s a big decision.”

We walk out of the hospital into a cold, bright day. It has snowed overnight, and the sidewalks are dusted with it, a glittering top layer that makes everything look clean and pure.

Without discussing it Lewis and I start walking downtown, out of Harlem, towards the Upper East Side. We walk in silence, holding hands; it feels like we are going on a journey, and I don’t want to reach the destination.

When we hit Ninety-Sixth Street Lewis stops and squints over at the entrance to the park. The sunlight and the snow have created a glare so it is hard to see.

“I want to be able to get past this,” he finally says, and I jerk because I cannot even think of getting past this—past Josh—yet. “I know it will take a long time,” he continues, his voice wobbling. “Years, decades. Forever.” He swallows hard, dashing a hand across his eyes. “But I don’t want this—Josh’s death—to be the death of us. Of our marriage.”
Josh’s death.
Two words we had not yet spoken, until now. He takes a deep breath. “I handled it all wrong before, Jo. With…with Josie.” It’s the first time he’d called her by name. “I realize that, and I’m sorry. If I’d been more understanding…more sensitive…maybe…maybe a lot of things would be different. Maybe even now, Josh would…” He stops, unable to continue.