Maybe it was the chicken.
It was the only thing Susie Banks’s father ate that nobody else did. They had gone out to their favorite Italian restaurant for dinner and upon returning home all seemed normal, until her dad complained of feeling queasy. He went upstairs to lie down. Moments later, Susie heard the sound of him retching in the bathroom.
Nothing about the meal had upset Susie’s stomach, but it was knotted just the same. Tomorrow she would get the results of her blood work and MRI. Nobody could yet explain what had brought on the episode of what her doctor had called myoclonus.
The word itself sounded scary to her. It had the ring of a rare disease—oh, I’m so sorry you’ve come down with myoclonus—but it was not, according to her doctor, a disease at all. It was a symptom of something else gone awry.
Susie had experienced more twitches and jerks since the first incident. Though none were as severe as the initial attack, each episode induced intense spikes of anxiety and fear. They occurred as a sequence of muscle contractions and relaxations, but sometimes had no discernable pattern at all. Susie’s doctor told her most people experienced some form of myoclonus—a hiccup, or a sleep start when the body jerks as it falls asleep—but this gave her little comfort. Most people did not experience such a violent attack while onstage, performing for a sold-out audience. She felt like a bomb was ticking away inside her, only she couldn’t see the timer and had no way of knowing the intensity of the forthcoming explosion.
Her doctor had rattled off a litany of possible causes, including brain tumors, infections, and even issues with Susie’s kidneys, describing the condition as a short circuit in the electrical activity in her brain, which made it sound treatable. But when Susie got home she did what most people would do: she Googled the term.
An onslaught of information greeted her, most of it distressing. Whatever disease caused the symptom, Susie sensed it was progressive to the point where she might not be able to walk, or talk, or heaven help her, play.
Since the horror show at the Kennedy Center, Susie had yet to play her backup violin (the cracked one was still in repair). Twice she had gotten as far as holding the instrument in her hand, but before she could draw the bow across the strings, a flash of that terrible night made her stop. The scenario played out in her mind in excruciating slow motion. She would see her arms flailing out in front of her; feel the violin slip from her grasp; hear the gasps of the startled audience ring loudly in her ears.
She wondered if she would ever find the strength to play again. These occasional moments of self-pity made her think of athletes determined to walk after being paralyzed playing a sport they loved, or a young child with cancer committed to beating the odds. That was when the guilt would set in. She’d feel ashamed for allowing one incident to define her. But the memory would return like a speeding train, and fear would take hold, and the violin went back into its case.
Susie sat on the living room couch, absently flipping through a Home & Garden magazine, wondering what her life would be like without her music. Upstairs she heard her father get sick again.
“Mom, is Dad okay? He sounds awful.”
“He’ll be fine, dear,” her mother called back. “I’m afraid he may have food poisoning. Are you feeling all right?”
“I’m okay.”
Actually, she was feeling a bit light-headed, but did not say so. Her dad needed her mom’s attention right now.
“Have you taken your pills?”
Her mother was like a clock when it came to the TPI supplements. Why bother? Susie asked herself. Unless she could take a pill to rein in her myoclonus, her playing days were all but done.
She went to the kitchen anyway, and took the supplements mostly out of habit. Her nightly ritual felt weighty and pointless. Three pills down the hatch: one white, one yellow, and one brown. She did not know what exactly these supplements contained, but her parents approved of her taking them, and that was good enough for her.
Susie’s mother called down to her from upstairs. “Sweetheart, could you please bring Dad a glass of ice water from the kitchen?”
Susie traipsed upstairs with the water glass in hand and recoiled slightly at her father’s green and sickly pallor.
“Daddy, are you all right?”
Douglas Banks clutched at his stomach. “Just be grateful you didn’t eat what I ate,” he said.
Addressing her husband, Allison said, “I’m going to tuck you into bed, and I think I’m going to go to bed myself. I’m not feeling all that great, either.”
Her mother had the fish, and Susie ate pasta, but at some point they must have eaten the same thing, Susie thought, because she was starting to feel worse. Could it have been the olive oil?
Doug Banks staggered over to the bed and collapsed onto the mattress with a thud.
“I’m a little queasy myself,” Susie said. “We are never going back to that restaurant.”
“Three cases of food poisoning from three different meals,” Allison said. “Maybe I should call the restaurant.”
But her mother did not look well enough to call anybody, and Susie doubted she would pick up the phone.
Susie’s stomach clenched and released. For a moment she feared another myoclonus episode, and was strangely relieved to realize it was just plain old nausea.
“I’m going to bed, too,” Susie announced. “Feel better, Daddy.” She kissed her mother on the cheek and gave her father a little hug. Doug mustered enough strength to pat his daughter on the arm tenderly.
“I love you both so much,” Susie said, feeling tears come to her eyes. She could cry at soap commercials these days. She was so moody and out of sorts, lost without her music. “Thank you both for being there for me.”
“We love you too, sweetheart,” Allison said. She gave Susie’s forehead a gentle kiss. “Get some rest. If you don’t feel well, come wake me. We have some Imodium or Pepto that might help. Damn restaurant!”
Susie let out a little laugh and off she went. Her bedroom had become her sanctuary in the days since the incident. The incident—what other name could she give it? Decals of the Eiffel Tower, a symbol of Paris, a city where she dreamed she would play one day, decorated her closet door. She kept her room intentionally uncluttered. It flowed like a good piece of music that way. She liked things to be simple and understated. She had sleek furniture, and mini blinds on the windows, and pretty framed photos hanging on the walls. She wondered what would happen next year—if she’d go to college or somehow resume her music career.
She slipped on her pajamas and slid into bed, feeling the light-headedness a bit more intensely. She hated throwing up, and the idea of having food poisoning on top of her other issue felt like an unfair string of bad luck. She contemplated getting that Pepto, but decided to wait it out. If it got really bad she’d wake her parents, but it wasn’t that awful. Just a little queasiness was all. Her heart felt like it was beating funny, but that had to be a trick of the mind. The fear of getting sick must have made her heart race. A good night’s sleep was all she needed.
As she drifted off, Susie’s last thought was of her arms shooting forward as her violin tumbled from her hands.
* * *
SHE AWOKE later with a shattering pain ripping through her head. The room seemed to be spinning and the dizzy sensation would not let up, even after she managed to get both her feet on the floor.
Food poisoning, she thought, standing on wobbly legs. She took a tentative and unsteady step toward the door, then winced. The headache was like a vise compressing her temples with brutal force. She felt incredibly light-headed as she stumbled down the carpeted hallway, careening off the walls. Her balance was so off it seemed as though the house were riding atop ocean waves.
“Mom, Dad—I don’t feel well—”
Susie’s weak voice sounded far away and very faint in her ears. Her head was buzzing like static on the radio and the pain kept intensifying, making it hard for her to see. Her stomach was doing spins.
“Mom—”
She staggered into her parents’ bedroom, breathing in sputters, and saw them on the bed. Their bodies lay perfectly still.
“Mom! Dad!”
Fear wormed into Susie’s gut as she pulled on her mother’s arm. Her mother’s skin felt cool to the touch. The arm fell limply back onto the mattress. Terror replaced worry. The room teetered and twirled. Intense nausea and a blinding headache eclipsed her dizziness. With great effort, Susie managed to come around to her father’s side of the bed, where she tried to rouse him. She shook his body, but he did not wake up. Instead, his head lolled awkwardly from side to side as though he had no muscles in his neck.
Not food poisoning, Susie thought. Too sick … feel … too strange …
“Help—” Susie’s voice sounded like it was underwater. “Help me—please—”
Her parents’ eyes remained closed. They seemed so at peace.
Peace …
Susie saw a strange blackness coming toward her, a shapeless thing, like a rolling cloud of pure emptiness. It was an entity swallowing everything in its path, leaving nothing in its wake. It felt so difficult to breathe, as though air were being systematically pumped from her lungs. A thought came to her. If she closed her eyes—if she slept—if she let the blackness overcome her, then all these feelings would go away.
Susie resisted the urge and tried to push the blackness back, but it was coming on stronger, moving faster. Through the haze of her vision she spied a lamp on the bedside table. Wielding it like a spear, she hurled the lamp through the bedroom window, shattering the glass on impact.
Air—I want to breathe …
A gust of wind seeped into the room and filled her lungs with a rejuvenating effect, but only for a precious few moments. The blackness was once again sliding into her mouth, burrowing up her nostrils. She grabbed the cordless phone from the table and lurched out of her parents’ bedroom on legs made of rubber, gulping for air as she went. She peered down from the top of the stairs. They seemed to descend into infinity. She took an awkward step, lost her balance, and tumbled the rest of the way down. She fell end over end, feeling the hard wooden stairs as they slammed into her legs, back, head, and arms. Something might have broken, but the sharp pain of the fall was nothing compared to the burning sensation inside her head.
After landing in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, battered and badly bruised, Susie managed a slow crawl to the front door. From there, she reached up, and, using the doorknob for leverage, got onto her knees. She pulled the door open and fell outside onto the concrete front stoop. The phone was still clutched in her hand. Fresh air filled her lungs, but the blackness was a relentless predator and would not let her go. At last the pain and nausea were lessening. She had the wherewithal to dial three numbers on the phone: 9-1-1.
She managed two words before the blackness finally took over.
“Help me.”