Three Months after the Accident
JUNE 1983
It takes me a week after my outburst in the bar to find the courage to call Sab. The wound on my hand has healed and scabbed off, leaving a sliver of a scar etched along my left index finger, a scar Jude will never share. I focus on this difference as I dial his number and practice what to say: Sab, I’m so sorry, I can explain, there was an accident that killed my brain …
“Hello? Kat, is that you?”
I realize I said my rhyme aloud.
I hang up. I gnaw at my nails. I stare out the window and watch the morning hustle: a stray dog pawing through trash, a cacophony of horns, a teenager wrangling with a book-sized stereo—I try, but can’t recall the word for it—and a cassette tape twisted into a knot of plastic spaghetti. There’s no sign of Nancy, with her clipboard and her limp. After ten minutes I force my right hand—Jude’s preferred hand—to pick up the phone, pretending I’m her while I do it. My own left hand reluctantly dials, each spin of the rotary quickening my heart.
This time his voice is a recording—Yo, it’s Sab. You know what to do—and I try to match his casual ease: “Hi, Sab, it’s Kat. Sorry we got disconnected—I don’t know what’s wrong with this line. And, um, I am really sorry about last week. I have more to say about that, if you want to hear it, but only in person, if you want to see me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to everyone.” I glance at the phone number Jude had taped to the fridge and recite it twice, being careful to replace the phone as softly as possible, a firm signal that I am entirely normal and sane and definitely not someone he should avoid.
My hand is still on the phone when it trills again. “Sab?” I ask, and wince at my breathless tone.
“Who? What?” the caller asks. “Kat, is that you?”
It’s a woman’s voice, dulcet and soothing, a voice that could defuse bombs.
“It is,” I say. “Who is this?”
“My name is Wen. I know you don’t remember me, but I met you and Jude while you were in England. Jude told me you asked about the trip, and she wanted me to call. I’m so sorry for what happened to you. How are you doing?”
My objective appraisal, I think. A real one, from someone who knew me before.
“I guess I’m okay,” I tell her. “Although I don’t have much to compare it to, as you know.”
“It’s unbelievable. But thank the goddess you have Jude to fill in the blanks.”
Thank the goddess? I think. Is that a thing people say?
“Yes,” I say. “Every day she tells me a little bit more, fattening up my mind like a turkey.”
Her laugh is thick and throaty, an instigating laugh, the opposite of her voice. “Well, I’m ready to fatten it up some more, if you’re ready.”
I stretch the phone to the couch and position myself as I do with Jude, sprawled out, my own fingers making ribbons of my hair. “Gobble, gobble,” I say. “Tell me everything.”
I hear background noise: women’s voices shouting short, choppy commands; a flurry of staccato popping sounds.
“I’ll start with how you were,” Wen says. “Even though you were mourning the death of your mother, you were happy and free and hungry for new things.” She’ll never forget when and how we met—it was the queen’s birthday celebration, the second Saturday in June of 1982, nine months before my accident. Jude and I came to Wen’s favorite local pub in the Cotswolds. She overheard us debating a strange item on the menu, deviled kidneys on toast.
“You thought it looked intriguing,” Wen says, “and Jude said it looked like Filet-O-Placenta. I advised you both that it’s better than it looks or sounds.”
Jude and I proceeded to eat every crumb, washed down with several pints of beer, and by that time we three were chattering away, the loudest people in the bar. We told her how we fled the States for a chaotic tour of Europe, no direction or timeline or any plan to return. She shared her own history, the twisted journey from an industrial town in New York to her serene cottage in England, the inspiring and devastating things she’d seen along the way.
“I had just lost my mom, too,” Wen says, “and I understood the urge to run.”
My eyes shut, my fingers raking my hair, I let my brain try on Wen’s words to see if they fit—and they do, perfectly, as though made just for me. I update my personal definition: I am a person who likes exotic food and unplanned days and stories that strangers tell.
We stayed with her for six weeks, each moment languorous and magical. We helped tend to her chickens and went to the pub at night, learning old folk songs and stumbling home. We swam in Spring Lake, scarfed platefuls of black pudding, and chased each other through a topiary maze, delighting in being lost. We told her of our childhood farm and how we loved this kind of honest and simple life, leaving room for impromptu detours and wondrous surprise. We wept when we decided to leave for London, and she promised to visit us there.
“You said it was the best time of your life,” Wen says. “Considering the incredible life you’d had leading up to that point, I was truly honored. You’re a discerning person, but also open to anything—it’s a rare combination. And you’re strong, Kat. Stronger than you know.”
“Thank you,” I say, almost a whisper. Her voice is lulling, hypnotic, the words lined up in proper order, delivered for maximum effect. I want this objective appraisal to be correct and true. I want to summon it like a genie whenever my own mind turns against me. I am a person who is stronger than I know. But behind that wish comes a fear, potent and chilling: I am a person who will believe anything I’m told.
“Anytime,” Wen says.
The chorus of voices around her amplifies, drifting closer to wherever she is. I press my ear against the receiver, trying to identify words. Strike, I think I hear. Attack. Kill. A refrain to some strange and savage song.
“I should get going,” she says. “This might sound weird, but I miss you. It was good to chat.”
I don’t want her to hang up just yet. I stand up from the couch, my voice now calm and direct. “Where are you? Are you still in England?”
“Back in the States for now. Got a farm a bit north of New York City. It’s not quite the Cotswolds, but it’s good for now.”
I try to picture her, imagining a face that would fit her persona. She has spiky hair and lithe limbs, I think, and the kind of hands that could both nurse a baby lamb and throw a deadly punch. Hands built for stealth and efficiency.
I lift my own hand, finding my scars, the old and the new, the past and the present. Jude’s advice boomerangs across my mind—moving forward is just as important as looking back—but a piece of my history is on the other line. I want to know everything she knows, especially the things Jude has yet to tell me.
“Do you have any pictures of our visit?” I ask. I remember Jude’s explanation for why we don’t like them: the opposing and incorrect images, the disorienting feeling of seeing ourselves in the wrong way—a feeling that could be neutralized only by playing switch, performing as each other.
“Sure do,” she says. “I filled a whole album with them.”
I close my eyes and force the next words from my mouth: “Do you have any of me and Jude together? Apparently we lost some rolls of film in transit. We have plenty of pictures of scenery, but none of us.”
Those three sentences leave me so dizzy, I have to sit back down. I drop my head between my knees and clench them together, trapping myself, waiting for Wen’s response. It is vital to me that she confirms Jude’s explanation, that she says she has very few photos of us, if she has any at all.
“Of course! I have tons of really great shots of you two. I’ll find the best ones and send them straight away.”
My heart wilts inside me, leaden and sluggish. Instead it is my spine that moves, squirming and crawling, poking at me from within.
Jude lied. Jude lied to me.
I give Wen our address, which I now know by heart.