PHIL BARR RETURNED to Bates College on Memorial Day to visit a ghost.
It was the final weekend of the year at the college, when students sift through the debris of another semester, pack their belongings, and move out of the dorms. Phil went to box up his possessions too, not knowing if he’d ever return. His old life here in Lewiston, Maine, was gone forever. The ghost he came to visit was his own.
Memories flooded back as he drove onto campus to his third-floor single at the Parker residence hall. It was his first time back since the fire, and a spooky feeling swept over him as he saw that his room remained intact from that day he left in February, when he was full of hope and anticipation and headed to Manhattan for those investment-banking internship interviews. His bed was still made, exactly as he’d done it. Nothing touched. Nothing moved. This wasn’t really his room, he thought. It belonged to someone else, a version of Phil that no longer existed. The man who lived here was not the same man moving out today. Maybe it should all be tossed into a dumpster, and then just walk away.
With morbid fascination he studied his surroundings. There were the term papers he’d been working on, still on his desk. He glanced down at the macroeconomics report he was preparing on English monetary policy of the 1800s. Phil grinned as he reviewed his paper’s premise of taking old notions of merchant banking and applying them to modern business. He’d been full of clever ideas like that at Bates, and so determined about the direction his life would take.
“I’ll start over here,” his father, Philip, said as he began to fill a box.
Phil wanted to come up to Bates alone, insisting that closing this chapter of his life was something he needed to handle by himself, but he was not allowed to drive. The fire had melted the corneas of his eyes and they required time to heal—he needed to pass a vision exam at the DMV to get his license back. The doctors said his eyes would recover, and Phil was grateful. Another fire survivor’s cornea was so badly singed that he’d lost sight in one eye.
There was also the gaping wound on Phil’s back. The burn was severe and doctors disagreed on whether to do a painful skin graft, so they left the decision up to Phil, who opted to let the wound mend on its own, even though that meant it would take longer to heal. Months later it was still an open wound and the dressing was changed every evening, something he couldn’t do on his own. He needed his dad’s help.
Phil thought back to the moment he’d first moved into the dorm. He and his friend Derek felt they had pretty sweet deals, both able to get single rooms across the hall from each other. Having his own room made dating easier, although one relationship had been too much drama. It’d be great for a while, and then they’d break up and hate each other before reuniting. If living through the fire had taught Phil one thing, it was that he would be more deliberate. The cliché was true: life was simply too precious and short. That emotional pendulum relationship was unhealthy, and he was done. From this point forward nothing is the same, he thought as he looked at his room, strangely frozen in time. The truth was that nothing in his life was untouched or unchanged from the fire.
Phil wondered if he was finished with Bates forever. His recovery was frustratingly slow, from his perspective. In the weeks after he’d come out of the coma he’d refused to stay in bed, forcing himself to walk to regain his strength, although not being able to fully inhale was maddening. The doctors, however, seemed downright gleeful about Phil’s progress, and he remembered the big day, Friday, March 21, at six in the evening when he was allowed to go home. It had then been one month and one day since the fire, and Phil’s journey from near death to release was considered miraculous. Indeed, his parents sent a dispatch to the Bates community that said, “We believe that the power of prayer by so many relatives and friends around the world, coupled with his youth and excellent physical condition before the incident, have combined to produce this joyous result.” The family popped a cork and celebrated with champagne when Phil returned home.
Despite his progress, Phil feared he wasn’t ready to go back to school, not now and maybe not even when classes restarted in September. Physically it wasn’t clear that he could be completely on his own anytime soon, away from the healthcare and the support system that continued to nurse him, especially his family. There had been an emotional price too. He was rattled by the horrors of that night, his entire system shaken. There was even concern about whether the drugs that placed him in a coma for so long would have a lingering effect. Before returning to Bates he needed to put his intellect to the test, since there would be no sense going back if he couldn’t do the work.
If he did return, it could never be the same without the swim team. His doctors were adamant: “You can’t do that.” When Phil was released from the hospital, his lung capacity was less than half, just 45 percent. Without enough oxygen intake, there was no way he could do any activity that required so much pulmonary strain. Swimming defined his time at Bates, and it was more than the joy he felt when he was in the water and the exhilaration of the race—the team had become the majority of his social circle at the school: he hung out with the same fifty people for at least twenty hours every week over the course of years. They practiced together, competed as a team, and took long bus rides to New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, and New York. He’d never been so close with any other group of friends.
The nightclub destroyed that too.
As Phil shoved his clothes and books into moving boxes, he decided to refocus. He would cut out trivial amusements and distractions, or people who were no good for him, like that former girlfriend. Such resolve was the only way he was going to get past this.
He knew his first two goals. Whether or not it involved Bates, he was going to find a way to have his shot at Wall Street.
And, somehow, he was going to get back in the pool.