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It was a difficult thing to wake up at the time you wanted to when your body ached for more sleep. Mila’s eyelids slowly widened to reveal a blistering white room around her as a machine-marked time on her heartbeat directly beside her, like a nagging robot. A familiar voice mumbled something before directing all attention toward Mila.
“Mom! You’re awake.”
That term: Mom. It dragged Mila’s psyche out of the depths and back on planet Earth. As her neck still felt terribly stiff, she peeked her eyes rightward to catch Isabelle, all bundled up in her father’s college sweatshirt and a pair of flannel pajama pants. She wore no makeup, and her hair was greased slightly, just some strings hanging near her eyes. Behind her stood her brother, Zane, who’d arrived back from college the afternoon before.
“Did you kids have a party at the house last night?” Mila asked in a sneaky tone.
Isabelle’s jaw dropped. “Mom! We would never.”
Mila tried to laugh just as her stomach tensed and spasmed with pain. “That was always your thing. Don’t gaslight me into thinking it wasn’t.”
Zane rolled his eyes and stepped around to sit at the edge of her bed. Once there, he took her hand. God, he was handsome, the spitting-image of Peter at his age. Mila hadn’t met Peter till he’d been in his forties, still a jaw-droppingly handsome man.
“We’re grown up now, Mom,” Zane articulated.
“Oh right. I forgot,” Mila teased.
Zane and Isabelle exchanged glances. Mila struggled to remember what day it was. Sunday, probably? The accident had happened on Black Friday. Yesterday had been a blur of conversation and stress from her parents, who’d been flustered after their quick trek back over the ocean from their planned adventure through Europe. When Mila had suggested they shouldn’t have come home, they’d spat with silly anger.
“We were thinking,” Isabelle began.
“Uh oh,” Mila tried. Bit by bit, she felt more engaged with the world.
“That we might want to do our classes online the next few weeks so we can stay home and take care of you,” Zane finished.
“No. No way.” Mila’s eyes widened. “I won’t be the reason you miss classes. I’m willing to bet you’ve already missed your fair share over the semester.”
Zane grumbled inwardly. “We’re allowed to miss three per class...”
“There we go,” Mila quipped.
“Mom, seriously. We’ll be all freaked out about you if we’re off the island,” Isabelle admitted. Her right hand shifted over her left arm, which was armed with a cast.
Something strange and cold shifted into Mila’s belly. She’d done this to her baby. What did she care, truly, about her own body? The small gashes across Isabelle’s face were additional reminders of how foolish she’d been. The previous afternoon, when Liam had visited, he’d told her over and over just how safe she should have been. She couldn’t take it back. Guilt enveloped her.
“Mom?” Zane waved a hand to catch her eyes. “You still there?”
“I’m here.” Mila closed and reopened her eyes. Focus. She needed to focus. “I just don’t think it’s necessary that you two stick around. You should head back to your dorms. This afternoon, even. I have my girls and I have Liam.”
Did she have Liam, though? He’d looked at her with eyes like voids.
“I love you,” Mila said, her voice firm. It was her mother’s voice. “And all I would do if you stayed here is worry that your education was falling apart because of my stupid injury. I do not want this to impact our lives any more than it already has to. Is that clear?”
**
ISABELLE AND ZANE LEFT to catch the two p.m. ferry. Their departure sent shatters through Mila’s heart. Again, in the silence of herself, she tried to “feel” her legs, but as far as her mind was concerned, her body ended halfway down her thighs. It was a remarkable and eerie development. It terrified her to death.
Around two, Liam appeared in his police officer uniform, something Mila had previously thought to be ridiculously handsome. He greeted her with a cold kiss on the cheek and sat in the same chair Isabelle had sat in. He looked strangely defeated.
“I’m sorry about this,” Mila finally offered, not knowing why she’d just apologized.
Liam tried to find a smile. “Your girls are down the hall. I asked them to give me a few minutes with you.”
“What can I say? When you’re this famous, you always have a posse,” Mila countered.
Liam coughed into laughter. “Did you get some sleep last night?”
“I did. Weird dreams, though. Not that I want to be your crazy girlfriend who tells you her dreams,” Mila returned. “Nobody wants to hear them.”
Liam gently splayed his hand over hers upon the white sheet. The robot gave a resounding beep, a reminder that she remained alive.
“I hate that I have a shift today. I tried to take the day off, but you know— the holidays and all that jazz. It’s such a busy time.”
“Busy is right,” Mila echoed.
Her legs had created a strange rift between them. She could visualize the next steps just as well as he could: him, wheeling her around in a wheelchair as they tried to handle “date night.” Him: helping her into a bathtub so she could wash herself. Him: picking her up and splaying her into the bed they’d once frequently shared. How would sex work? How would they continue to build their fledgling relationship?
Had they already lost something she’d thought was rather beautiful?
“Anyway. I’ll send the girls in, now,” Liam said as he shot to his feet.
“I know you didn’t ask for this,” Mila offered.
Liam stopped short as his arms hung sadly at his sides. “Nobody asks for a lot of the bad things that happen. I’ve seen them time and time again.”
Mila gave a half-shrug. “But this isn’t everyone else. This is us.”
Liam scrubbed a hand over his forehead. “I have to go.” He then turned and headed down the hallway, leaving Mila in the silence of herself and really unsure of what would happen next.
**
WITH JUST ABOUT AN hour left of visiting time, a familiar woman appeared in the doorway of Mila’s hospital room. She was sixty-four-year-old Hannah Arlington, a recently hired employee at Mila’s esthetician salon. Mila had been mesmerized with Hannah’s beauty secrets, which had led to a conversation about Hannah’s actual age versus the age she looked. “You don’t look a day over fifty,” Mila had breathed at the time. “You have to bring your magic to the salon. The women of the Vineyard need you.”
Hannah carried a bouquet of pink lilies and wore a periwinkle winter coat and a pair of heels. Her styled-sterling-white hair curled around her ears delicately, and her bright blue eyes twinkled as she peered out at the five women before her. At sixty-four, she brought an earnestness and timidity of a much younger woman.
“Hannah!” Mila cried. “I didn’t expect you.”
Hannah bowed her head gingerly and gestured with the flowers. “I couldn’t handle just sitting around the house and thinking about you. I wanted to come to see you for myself.”
“That’s so sweet of you. Girls, this is my newer employee at the salon, Hannah. Hannah, these are my best friends, Olivia, Amelia, Jennifer, and Camilla.”
Hannah greeted them with soft words as she splayed the lilies across a table that had already been stuffed to the gills with other bouquets. Silence stretched between the six of them, so much so that Mila asked for a few minutes alone with Hannah to “catch up.”
One by one, the women Mila loved the most stepped out of the hospital room, which allowed Hannah the seat closest to Mila. In the strange silence that followed, Mila realized that she knew very little about her newest employee, save the fact that she had one of the best skincare regimes she’d ever heard of.
“It’s so sweet of you to come by,” Mila tried again.
Hannah blushed. “I’m sure it’s silly. You’ve got your family and your beautiful friends. I just wanted to come to tell you how much you’ve meant to me over the past few months. The job really saved me during a dark time. And I wanted you to know that, well, I’m happy to pick up extra shifts now that you won’t be able to work for a while.”
“Thank you, Hannah. Really.” Mila swallowed as she hunted for something else to say. “How was your Thanksgiving?”
Hannah’s nostrils flared the slightest bit. “Oh, just about as quiet as every other year. I don’t like to make a big fuss.”
“What about your family? Don’t they drag you into one celebration or another?”
Hannah’s lips parted in surprise. “I don’t have much in the way of family these days. My parents passed on, as you can imagine, and my sister lives in California. She sends me the most beautiful postcards, but I always tell her, there’s no life for me off the Vineyard.”
Mila’s heart felt bruised. What good was looking any way at all, of having any beautiful skin routine, of fighting to fit in with the world of fashion if you had no love to call your own?
“You should have told me you didn’t have plans,” Mila said softly. “You would have been very welcome with my family. My mother can be a real piece of work, and my sisters are know-it-alls, but otherwise, we have a pretty good time.”
“And your twins. They must have been around, too,” Hannah tried.
Mila’s guilt deepened. It was clear this woman knew a great deal more about her than she did about Hannah. She’d been nothing but a dutiful worker over the past few months. Why hadn’t Mila allowed herself to be curious about her? She knew a great deal about her other employees, mostly because they gabbed and gossiped endlessly about their boyfriends, husbands, and potential dates.
Probably that Sunday evening, Hannah had looked around her empty house and reasoned— well, Mila is one of the only people I know. Why not pay her a visit?
“It’s so wonderful to see you,” Mila tried again, as though they could have a proper conversation without any background information. “You always give me hope for fashion over sixty.”
Hannah chuckled kindly. “I always longed to be an artist. I found that my artistic eye is better used through clothing. Although to be honest with you, I recently set up a little painting studio in my house. Silly, maybe, to start painting at my age, but how else should I spend my time?”
Mila was accustomed to the same-old stories with the same-old people she had loved her entire life. Here was a woman who was hardly heard. And here Mila was: in a hospital bed, unclear about the rest of her life, yet eager to listen.
“Why don’t you tell me more about yourself, Hannah? I’d really love to know,” Mila whispered. “I can’t promise I’ll stay awake much longer. The medicine they have me on knocks me out cold. But I’d love to hear a story if you’re willing to tell it.”
Hannah’s eyes shone with excitement as she dove through the first story, which involved her and her sister’s wild cross-country drive from the Vineyard all the way to her sister’s new home in California. Sometime between a bad mechanic job in Oklahoma and a handsome motorcyclist in Nevada, Mila crept into the darkness of sleep. Hannah’s voice was a welcome relief. It guided her toward comfort.