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Isabelle shifted and yanked herself over so that the bed beneath Mila shook. Mila’s eyes scanned the curve of Isabelle’s cheek, all she could see in the soft grey light of this December 22nd morning. It was three days till Christmas and the third day in a row that Isabelle had fallen asleep alongside her mother, as though she was a much younger girl struggling with nightmares. Perhaps Isabelle was old enough, now, to uncover the truth: that nightmares were entirely real, the stuff of the every day, and you had to force yourself to hover above them with laughter and love and hope; otherwise, the darkness took over.
When Isabelle awoke twenty-five minutes later, she rolled into her mother and placed her head on her shoulder. She smelled of yesterday’s makeup and yesterday’s perfume, despite Mila telling her time and time again to cleanse and moisturize. Now wasn’t the time for that lecture.
“You want to get up, Momma?” Isabelle breathed.
Isabelle was already a master at the move-Mila-from-bed-to-wheelchair situation, so much so that she easily gossiped as she did it. Once Mila was safely in the bathroom, Isabelle remained outside the door, running her mouth into an endless stream of creativity and facts. She’d recently broken up with another boy at school, a Chemistry major, and now struggled with seeing his social media updates, as he was vacationing in Hawaii for the holidays and she was “aching with jealousy.”
When Mila wheeled herself out of the bathroom, she teased Isabelle with, “But didn’t you say he was about the most boring guy you’ve ever met in your life?”
Isabelle grumbled. “Yes. But I could make peace with boring if he took me to Hawaii for Christmas every year.”
Isabelle followed after Mila as Mila wheeled herself into the kitchen. Isabelle flashed through the Chem-major’s social media updates for Mila to see while Mila poured coffee grounds into a filter and blinked bleary eyes.
“See? He looks great. Six pack abs, Mom! Am I being stupid?”
“Honey, there are so many men in the world,” Mila told her. “If this one bored you, you deserve to find someone who doesn’t.”
“Is she still complaining about Chem-Major?” Zane stepped out of the shadowy hallway in a pair of pajama pants and nothing else. He scratched his hairy chest as he hunted through the fridge for something to eat.
“Whatever, Zane. Not like you ever make yourself emotionally vulnerable enough to fall for anyone.” Isabelle flipped her long tresses down her back.
Zane stuck out his tongue as he rustled cereal into a bowl.
“You’re both nineteen years old. I think you have some time before you make any big decisions about your romantic future,” Mila countered playfully.
“Nineteen and getting older every day,” Isabelle breathed dramatically.
“Oh my gosh...” Zane rolled his eyes as he snapped the top off the container of almond milk.
Mila hung around the house with Isabelle and Zane as they snacked on Christmas cookies, watched silly Christmas movies, played board games (all of which inevitably made Zane “bored out of his mind”), and teased each other. Toward the end of the afternoon, Isabelle and Zane showered and dressed to meet friends, as was their custom.
“I know. It’s so lame hanging around here with your mom,” Mila shot, only partly joking.
“Whatever, Mom. We just have to make ourselves seen on the island, you know?” Zane countered.
“Yeah. We aren’t here all the time, but we can’t let anyone forget about us just in case we come back,” Isabelle said.
Mila laughed. “I hope that means you’re coming back?”
“For the summer for sure,” Zane affirmed. “I wouldn’t know what to do with myself anywhere else.”
With her kids out of the house, Mila piled onto the couch and stretched her cast-legs out. Within the next month, the casts would be removed and she would be allowed to see her legs again. This filled her with a strange sense of fear. Would they be lined with scars? Unrecognizable? She knew she was meant to appreciate every stage of her journey, but occasionally, she hit a hiccup.
Jennifer texted to ask what was up. Mila invited her over for “snacks and a Christmas movie since my kids decided I’m too lame to hang out with.” Jennifer agreed and arrived at Mila’s place on Witchwood twenty minutes later, armed with a bottle of wine and everything to fill her chartreuse board, including various cheeses, pickles, various meats, and condiments.
“Look! Do you remember this Christmas movie?” Mila gestured toward the screen. “The Family Stone with Sarah Jessica Parker?”
“I think I really liked this one.” Jennifer churned the cork out from within the bottle of wine and poured them two hearty glasses. “She’s really uptight and dating Luke Wilson?”
“That’s it,” Mila confirmed. “Here. I think I can rewind it actually.”
“Newfangled technology,” Jennifer said, impressed.
“Isabelle made me realize I’ve been using our smart TV all wrong,” Mila told her. “It feels like I didn’t maximize all my days at home, but hey— I did manage to get through that whole stack of books.” Mila pointed toward a stack of fifteen novels, most of which involved romance in some capacity. She couldn’t help it. She was a sucker.
As the opening credits rolled on The Family Stone, Jennifer cleared her throat and said, “Listen. I heard a rumor about Liam, and Amelia just confirmed it. You know, she knows what’s-what and who’s-who around Edgartown.”
Mila’s heart stopped beating for a split second. “Okay. I want to know.”
“He took some time off the police force and is staying with family off the island,” Jennifer explained.
Mila nodded. Her eyes filled with tears. She blinked several times so that they would not fall.
“I sometimes wonder if I should reach out to him. Try to tell him how okay it is that we’re no longer in contact,” Mila murmured.
“I don’t think it’s your job to make things easier on him,” Jennifer said. “He hurt you, and in the process, he hurt himself. It all seems so useless to me.”
Mila held the silence for a long moment. Her heart remembered its old crackly nature and seemed to ache with old wounds. Just as she opened her lips to speak, however, her phone rang. It was Hannah.
“I have to get this, but I won’t be long,” Mila explained to Jennifer. “Hannah! Hi. Merry Christmas.”
For a long moment, the other line was filled only with silence. Mila’s eyebrows crinkled together.
“Hannah?”
Jennifer’s face was difficult to read. She mouthed, “Did she butt dial you?”
But just then, Hannah spoke in a meek tone.
“Mila. Mila... I made a horrible mistake.”
Mila’s heart quickened. “Hannah? What happened? What mistake?”
Jennifer snapped upright on the cushioned chair. She reached for her purse on instinct, ready for whatever.
“I... I did something awful,” Hannah whispered as her voice cracked. “I don’t know if I can take it back.”
Mila waved a hand wildly toward her wheelchair, trying to express to Jennifer just how quickly they needed to move.
“What did you do, Hannah? Just tell me, and we can fix it together.”
“Mila, I took so many... so many pills.”
Mila clenched her eyes tight. Jennifer positioned the wheelchair alongside the couch so that Mila could easily slip inside. Mila stuttered with her answer.
“I’m going to call 9-1-1, Hannah, okay? Just sit where you are. I’ll meet you up at the hospital. Do you hear me?”
Jennifer hurriedly grabbed her phone and dialed 9-1-1 instead. When she had the operator, Mila muttered Hannah’s address so that Jennifer could pass the information on. “She swallowed too many pills,” she whispered as Jennifer’s eyes widened.
“Are you still there, Hannah?” Mila asked, trying to make her voice sound soothing and calm.
“What?” Hannah sounded terribly confused and far away.
Jennifer donned her winter coat and wheeled Mila out to her car, where she helped her onto the passenger seat. All the while, Hannah mumbled nothingness into the phone as Mila tried to keep her conscious. After another few minutes, there was the blare of the sirens as the ambulance arrived outside Hannah’s place.
“I’m going to let you go, Hannah, okay? The men there will help you. And we’ll see you at the hospital. Okay? Okay?”
But Hannah seemed no longer able to answer. There was a horrible crashing sound as the EMT workers broke through the door to get to Hannah. Hannah’s confused shriek erupted through the phone. After a long moment, someone seemed to take Hannah’s cell and end the call.
“Oh my God,” Jennifer whispered.
“I knew she was lonely...” Mila began. “God, why didn’t I see that she was also...”
“It’s okay. You can’t blame yourself for this,” Jennifer tried to comfort her. “I’m just so grateful she reached out to you to tell you what she’d done. It could have gone very differently.”
Mila and Jennifer drove in stunned silence. It was now such a familiar route, this trek from Edgartown to the Oak Bluffs Hospital. Once outside the emergency room, Jennifer texted Camilla to see if she was on duty. Luckily, she was and hustled out to greet them in the waiting room between her duties.
“They have Hannah here already,” she murmured as she smeared a hand over her sweat-lined forehead. “And they’re pumping her stomach.”
“Gosh...” Mila dropped her chin to her chest as Camilla rubbed her shoulder distractedly.
“They think it was her husband’s old medicine,” Camilla murmured. “Stuff she still had on-hand after he died.”
“How much longer till we know if she’s...” Jennifer began.
Camilla shook her head. “She’ll probably be unconscious for a few hours. I’ll know more around nine or ten. You two could even head home. I’ll call you when she wakes up.”
But Mila protested this idea. “I can’t go, Jen. You can if you want to. But Hannah doesn’t have any family on the island. She’s allowed me a small part of her world for some reason, and I can’t squander that.”
“I understand.”
Jennifer and Mila perched in the corner of the emergency waiting room. Jennifer flipped through a fashion magazine while Mila stared into space. She often wondered about the hours her friends had waited just outside as she’d been unconscious on the operating table. What had run through their minds? Had they thought she would die?
How lucky Mila was to have lived through such a horrible event. Being back in the emergency room was a real reminder of that. She needed to learn to count her blessings each and every day.
After Camilla found another break in her schedule, she burst through the double-wide doors to report that Hannah’s stomach had been successfully pumped and she was “resting peacefully.”
“She’s been moved to another wing of the hospital,” Camilla explained. “But visiting hours are over, I’m afraid. You’ll have to come back tomorrow morning first thing.”
This wasn’t good enough for Mila.
“I don’t know. Is there a way you can just wheel me in? I practically look like a patient,” she protested.
“Mila, I mean, I would. But shouldn’t you get some rest tonight? My primary concern is your health, to be honest,” Camilla countered.
“I’m mostly fine,” Mila offered.
“Tell that to the casts on your legs,” Camilla replied curtly.
“Come on. I don’t want Hannah to wake up confused about where she is,” Mila blared. “It’s really crazy. She wanted to leave the world today. I want her to wake up and be grateful that she didn’t.”
Camilla sighed before she glanced back toward the hallway, which swarmed with beeping sounds and lights and frantic activity. “I can get you in through another entrance if you drive around. But just for the record, I’m not too pleased with the idea.”
“Jen. You in?” Mila asked, looking up at her from her wheelchair.
Jennifer grumbled as she stretched her arms over her head. “Who doesn’t love a night in the hospital? As far as I’m concerned, it’s the best hotel in town.”