In an Instant(33)

Already one toe on Chloe’s left foot and two on her right have been amputated, along with the top third of her left pinky finger. A plastic surgeon removed several infected blisters on her ears, and her lobes are now lopsided and misshapen. The toes that remain are black and look like they could snap right off, though the doctors are hopeful they can be saved.

Through it all, my mom remains, sitting vigilant at Chloe’s side, her stare nearly as unblinking. Only I see the effort it takes each morning for her to walk into the room, the deep breath she takes before opening the door.

But once she is there, in the chair beside her bed, she is stoic: silent and unmoving as she watches Chloe breathe, a look of such devotion on her face that it twists my heart and makes me wonder how someone can love another so much yet desperately not want to be near her. It was that way before the accident as well, the two of them in the habit of hiding from each other, listening for which direction the other went and avoiding the path.

“Oil and water,” my dad once said, but Aubrey shook her head. “Oil and oil,” she corrected. “Can’t you see how much they’re alike?” I think they might both have been right: the two are completely opposite on the outside but have the same stubborn mettle on the inside, making it impossible for them to get along.

Sometimes my mom thinks of Kyle. I know because I see her right hand open and close as her face contorts. And a lot of times she thinks of me, tears brimming in her eyes as her lip trembles.

And on and on it goes, an endless cycle of sorrow and torture as she waits for my dad and Chloe to recover—regret over Oz, Chloe, and Kyle, worry for my dad, and grief over me.

Mo’s suffering is different: so much lost so quickly she cannot wrap her head around it, her glass bubble shattered and the world now incomprehensible. Her perfect life, her perfect best friend, her perfect fingers and toes. Her fearlessness, her blessed ignorance, her indomitable spirit. Her belief in goodness and optimism and right and wrong. Her belief in herself and how she saw herself. All of it obliterated into a million razor-edged shards that make no sense and paralyze her to move beyond this.

“I was glad it was Finn,” she wailed to her mom the morning she woke in the hospital. “How . . . how could I think that? Finn was dead, and my first thought when I saw her was relief that it wasn’t me.”

“Shhh, baby,” Mrs. Kaminski soothed. “We do not control our reactions, only our actions.”

“Fine,” Mo answered. “Oz didn’t come back with Bob, and I didn’t do anything. Nothing. Inaction. I. DID. NOTHING.”

To this Mrs. Kaminski could only nod, wetness filling her eyes.

Mo cries a lot. She rarely sleeps, and when she is awake, she cries.

Her doctor has given permission for her to be transferred to Mission Hospital in Laguna Beach, where she will need to stay until her toes are no longer in danger of infection: at least another two weeks.

The doctors say her feet are getting better, though they look worse. Like a rotten onion, the top layer of skin is mottled brown and gold with splotches of black, and it is cracked and blistered, patches of the dead flesh peeling to reveal tender pink skin below.

Mo refuses to look at her feet or her new life, unable to accept that the grotesque parts belong to her.





37

The doctors have decided it’s time to wake my dad. The swelling in his brain has finally gone down, and his vitals are stable. It’s late evening: a time chosen for its proximity to night, since regaining consciousness can take time, sometimes hours, and the quiet and darkness will minimize the stress.

His right leg is in a complicated contraption with straps and bolts and springs, and dozens of tubes and wires grow from his arms like jungle vines. I marvel at it, amazed at modern medicine and the brilliant doctors who were able to save him.

His face is concealed by a week of thick beard, and he has lost a lot of weight, his cheeks sunken and his normally robust body almost frail beneath the sheets. But he is still him, a noble strength in the set of his jaw and a remnant of laughter in the lines around his eyes, and looking at him, I miss him so much I want to scream at the doctors to hurry up.

My mom stands beside the bed, holding his hand, her face a mixture of terror and concern, and I wonder what she is thinking.

The anesthesiologist injects his IV with a syringe.

Minutes pass, and finally the pulse on the machines grows quicker, and my dad begins to stir. His uninjured leg shifts beneath the sheet, and then the hand not held by my mom clenches. The vein on his neck begins to pulse, and his mouth screws up as it says my name. Then he calls out for Chloe, and the anesthesiologist looks at my dad’s doctor, concerned.

“Jack, it’s okay,” my mom soothes, stepping closer and wrapping her other hand around the first, and as if her words were laced with chloroform, he slumps back to the sheets. I sniff back my tears, fully realizing the pain he will face when he wakes again and discovers all that has happened.

Everyone exhales, realizing it as well, and minutes later, when he stirs again, the anesthesiologist stands ready, a syringe in his hands. But this time is only half as bad as the first, and I watch as his eyes dart around frantically as my mom says his name, then cling to her once they find her.

“It’s okay,” she says. “We’re okay.” It’s a lie, but it’s the perfect lie.

“Chloe?” he rasps.