Educated(34)

We were far from Buck’s Peak, so the cops took us to the nearest police station. Dad called Tony, but Tony was trucking long-haul. He tried Shawn next. No answer. We would later learn that Shawn was in jail that night, having been in some kind of brawl.

Unable to reach his sons, Dad called Rob and Diane Hardy, because Mother had midwifed five of their eight children. Rob arrived a few hours later, cackling. “Didn’t you folks damned near kill yerselves last time?”



* * *



—

A FEW DAYS AFTER the crash, my neck froze.

I awoke one morning and it wouldn’t move. It didn’t hurt, not at first, but no matter how hard I concentrated on turning my head, it wouldn’t give more than an inch. The paralysis spread lower, until it felt like I had a metal rod running the length of my back and into my skull. When I couldn’t bend forward or turn my head, the soreness set in. I had a constant, crippling headache, and I couldn’t stand without holding on to something.

Mother called an energy specialist named Rosie. I was lying on my bed, where I’d been for two weeks, when she appeared in the doorway, wavy and distorted, as if I were looking at her through a pool of water. Her voice was high in pitch, cheerful. It told me to imagine myself, whole and healthy, protected by a white bubble. Inside the bubble I was to place all the objects I loved, all the colors that made me feel at peace. I envisioned the bubble; I imagined myself at its center, able to stand, to run. Behind me was a Mormon temple, and Kamikaze, Luke’s old goat, long dead. A green glow lighted everything.

“Imagine the bubble for a few hours every day,” she said, “and you will heal.” She patted my arm and I heard the door close behind her.

I imagined the bubble every morning, afternoon and night, but my neck remained immobile. Slowly, over the course of a month, I got used to the headaches. I learned how to stand, then how to walk. I used my eyes to stay upright; if I closed them even for a moment, the world would shift and I would fall. I went back to work—to Randy’s and occasionally to the junkyard. And every night I fell asleep imagining that green bubble.



* * *



—

DURING THE MONTH I was in bed I heard another voice. I remembered it but it was no longer familiar to me. It had been six years since that impish laugh had echoed down the hall.

It belonged to my brother Shawn, who’d quarreled with my father at seventeen and run off to work odd jobs, mostly trucking and welding. He’d come home because Dad had asked for his help. From my bed, I’d heard Shawn say that he would only stay until Dad could put together a real crew. This was just a favor, he said, until Dad could get back on his feet.

It was odd finding him in the house, this brother who was nearly a stranger to me. People in town seemed to know him better than I did. I’d heard rumors about him at Worm Creek. People said he was trouble, a bully, a bad egg, that he was always hunting or being hunted by hooligans from Utah or even further afield. People said he carried a gun, either concealed on his body or strapped to his big black motorcycle. Once someone said that Shawn wasn’t really bad, that he only got into brawls because he had a reputation for being unbeatable—for knowing all there was to know about martial arts, for fighting like a man who feels no pain—so every strung-out wannabe in the valley thought he could make a name for himself by besting him. It wasn’t Shawn’s fault, really. As I listened to these rumors, he came alive in my mind as more legend than flesh.

My own memory of Shawn begins in the kitchen, perhaps two months after the second accident.

I am making corn chowder. The door squeaks and I twist at the waist to see who’s come in, then twist back to chop an onion.

“You gonna be a walking Popsicle stick forever?” Shawn says.

“Nope.”

“You need a chiropractor,” he says.

“Mom’ll fix it.”

“You need a chiropractor,” he says again.

The family eats, then disperses. I start the dishes. My hands are in the hot, soapy water when I hear a step behind me and feel thick, callused hands wrap around my skull. Before I can react, he jerks my head with a swift, savage motion. CRACK! It’s so loud, I’m sure my head has come off and he’s holding it. My body folds, I collapse. Everything is black but somehow spinning. When I open my eyes moments later, his hands are under my arms and he’s holding me upright.

“Might be a while before you can stand,” he says. “But when you can, I need to do the other side.”

I was too dizzy, too nauseous, for the effect to be immediate. But throughout the evening I observed small changes. I could look at the ceiling. I could cock my head to tease Richard. Seated on the couch, I could turn to smile at the person next to me.

That person was Shawn, and I was looking at him but I wasn’t seeing him. I don’t know what I saw—what creature I conjured from that violent, compassionate act—but I think it was my father, or perhaps my father as I wished he were, some longed-for defender, some fanciful champion, one who wouldn’t fling me into a storm, and who, if I was hurt, would make me whole.





When Grandpa-down-the-hill was a young man, there’d been herds of livestock spread across the mountain, and they were tended on horseback. Grandpa’s ranching horses were the stuff of legend. Seasoned as old leather, they moved their burly bodies delicately, as if guided by the rider’s thoughts.