I come to in the tattooed arms of a nurse named Burt. He lays me down in the pediatric ER’s only open bed, its machines and gadgets all primed and ready to go. Burt is hooking up an EKG when my father takes him aside.
They share some words. Dad talks with his usual forceful brevity, while Burt nods along in gruff agreement. My mother stands on the periphery of their domain, wearing distress on her face like a second skin.
Another doctor comes into the room and joins the conversation. Meanwhile, I’m lying on a miniature hospital bed, staring at the ceiling while they decide what to do with me.
It’s my father who ends the discussion and joins me at the bedside. His voice is one note past concerned but not quite grave. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“I had a moment.”
“You syncopized.”
I shrug. “A fancy word for ‘a moment.’”
“Has this kind of thing happened before?” the other doctor asks. He wears sleek scrubs and Vibrams, which give him the appearance of going into battle—an unusual getup for a pediatrician, and all the more reason for me to run in the opposite direction.
“Many times,” I say. “Giving blood. Getting shots. Standing too long in the sun.” I glance at my mom and force a smile. “I get it from her.”
“You collapsed, Avery,” Mom says, sneaking a Kleenex back into her pocket. “It was awful.”
“I’m okay.” I grab her hand before she can reach for another tissue. “Really.”
The militaristic doctor frowns, but Dad seems satisfied. He lets Burt do the EKG, and they run a few more tests. Pediatrics is starting to feel like death row before they finally let me go.
Burt insists on a wheelchair, and for once, Dad gives in. As Burt wheels me out, I try to remember those final moments at the reception desk. Did that woman even see the envelopes? Or were they forgotten as soon as my knees hit the floor?
“Dad . . .”
He puts his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.”
“But—”
“I took care of it.”
I’m not sure what he means, but I don’t ask. It’s time to go home.
My second discharge of the day occurs without further incident, until a nurse announces the bad news that they lost my clothes. My mother, always prepared for the worst, runs out to the car and returns with the small bag of belongings I left behind at the other hospital. The inventory isn’t much: just a gray XXL long-sleeve shirt and black sweatpants, which I must have been wearing the day we were rescued. Both things used to belong to someone else, someone who’s dead now. I don’t want to take them with me. I don’t want to see anything that reminds me of Colorado ever again.
We go out the back, bypassing the news trucks and obsessed reporters that must have followed me from the other hospital. The fans, though, are inescapable. When someone with an IV drip asks me for an autograph, I can’t exactly say no. It’s a small price to pay for survival.
•
Planes are out of the question, so we drive the 1,968 miles back to Brookline in a rented Chevy Impala. I tell my parents I’m not ready to confront the rest of sophomore year, or the swim team, or California until next semester. This is only part of the truth. The other part—a huge part—is that I’m not ready to face my boyfriend.
Lee called the hospital the day we were rescued, but I don’t remember much about that day except the steady whir of the helicopter blades. He called the next day, too, and Mom answered and told him I was still too weak to talk to anyone. On the third day, he called four more times, polite as ever but refusing to take no for an answer.
At that point, he decided to fly to Denver. Lee had seen the headlines. He had as many questions as anyone—more, actually. He wanted to make sure I was okay, but he also wanted to know what had happened out there. The media hadn’t reported many details thanks to my standoff.
He was on his way to the airport when I finally called him. His flight from San Francisco to Denver was already boarding. He had to go; his mind was made up.
I don’t know if it was the psychiatric mumbo jumbo or the (faked) heaving sobs, but somehow I talked him out of it. Lee is a classic “tough guy”—he’s thrown up more than once after a hard workout, he measures progress in terms of pain, and he can drink more beer than all the freshmen put together. But that day, with me, maybe for the first time in his life, he just lost it. I could picture him wandering through the airport on his way to an empty seat at an empty gate, searching for a corner of privacy. Or maybe he didn’t care. Maybe he cried right there in line, in front of everyone, not really giving a shit because his girlfriend had almost died. Should have died. For days, he thought I was dead.
I needed to hear it, but it didn’t go down easily. Lee’s experience was too much to process on top of my own. I needed days. Weeks, maybe. I suggested he fly out to Boston for New Year’s. Maybe by then, I’d be in a better place to talk through everything.
He agreed to this only because he had to, although that hasn’t stopped him from calling. We talk three times a day about stupid, meaningless things. Tracy Callahan broke her foot attempting a backflip off the starting blocks. Tom Roche partied a little too hard before the UCLA meet and threw up on his second lap of the 100 breaststroke (he finished the race with a personal record). McKellan screwed everyone over with a ridiculously hard chem final, but Lee passed thanks to a generous curve (probably set by the water polo team, in Lee’s opinion). At first, our conversations felt awkward and stilted. Over time, they’ve become easy, routine. I tell him about my dad and the “acclimatization exercises” he imposes on me. About the books I’m reading thanks to a generous outpouring from elderly aunts. About the Christmas lights in Coolidge Corner, which shimmer when it snows.
But there are certain things we never talk about: The media. Newspapers. Ski trips. Natural disasters.
Plane crashes.
He doesn’t talk about Colin or Phil, not even in vague terms. Like a seasoned pro, Lee steers the conversation away from the past in general. We talk, instead, about the future: My return to school. The team. The way it will feel to swim again, surrounded by the familiar sights and sounds of Naudler Natatorium, bathed in the white wash of the overhead lights. We talk about the season: the races we want to swim, the goals we hope to achieve. We focus on what’s to come.
It’s easier that way.
•
As the holiday season makes its final push, the comforts of home start to ebb. Arrangements are made. Dinner preparations finalized. Family and friends swing by like it’s the most natural, polite thing in the world to do so. I dodge them all.
The day before Christmas Eve, when Lee calls, I’m hiding in my room, my bare legs folded in front of me—Indian style, the way Tim always liked to sit. I can’t remember sitting like this since elementary school, but lately, it feels comfortable.
“Hey,” he says, in his slow Hawaiian drawl. People tell me Hawaiians don’t have accents, but Lee does. I can hear it in the tempo of his sentences; the subtle blending of one word into the next, like a collective sigh. His first name, in the rare instances he uses it, sounds like poetry. Kahale.
“Hey.” I crawl onto my stomach, propping myself up on my elbows. “How’s life?”
“Great. Can’t complain. Got my ass kicked in practice this morning.” He proceeds to tell me about the mindless agony of swimming eight thousand yards at the crack of dawn. This is something I can relate to, something that feels safe.
Then he pauses, and the easy cadence of his words disappears. “Hey, uh . . .” He swallows a lump in his throat. “So—”
I cut him off. “What is it, Lee?”
“Did you get that e-mail from Coach?”
E-mail? My gaze drifts to the laptop on my desk and, beside it, a brand-new cell phone still in its box. They’re like dams, bursting with information I have neither the desire nor strength to release. When Lee and I talk, it’s on the landline preserved from my high school days. No Internet, no e-mail. Social media is a red zone.
“Um, no.”
“Look, I just—I didn’t want you to be surprised by it, is all.”
“Surprised by what?”
He sits down on his bed, springs creaking over the line. “It’s about Colin.” He inhales, long and slow. I’m not breathing at all. “Maybe you should read it.”
A flash of memory—blood, muscle, bone—flits across my mind. I blink hard, push it away. “What does it say?”
“Aves—”
“What does it say?”
The muffled chatter of the relatives infesting our house goes quiet. My shrieky voice has permeated the walls, poisoning the holiday air. A wayward sob escapes my throat.
“Aves . . .”
“I’ll call you back,” I say.
“Wait,” he says; it sounds like a plea. “I’m coming out, okay? I booked my flight and everything.” He takes a breath. “I miss you so much.”
I know he does. I know because missing someone has become a part of me now.
Maybe all of me.
•
As the chatter downstairs resumes, the silence loses its fire. I lie on my bed and stare at the glow-in-the-dark stars that pepper the ceiling. In the daylight, they’re a pale, putrid yellow, but when the sun goes down, they still twinkle. A two-dollar purchase that has withstood almost twenty years of dry winters and humid summers. How much does a commercial airliner cost? Two hundred million? And what about the part that broke? What’s fair about that?
After hours of cycling these thoughts until my mind goes numb, I give up on sleep. The laptop sitting on my desk is an older model, my grade school “baby” that stayed behind when I moved to California. It wheezes as the opening screen comes on, like it’s both excited and annoyed I’ve come to trouble it again.
The Internet is even slower than the processing system. The windows load in cumbersome sequence, and the hard drive is festering with viruses. When I got to college, my technical savvy multiplied by about a thousand; I bought what everyone else bought and installed when everyone else installed. I converted from IBM-ism to Apple worship. I ditched my BlackBerry and bought an iPhone. This was the price of fitting in, and I paid it willingly.
Finally, Internet Explorer flashes on-screen. I try to install Firefox and then Chrome, but both crash. It’s thirty minutes before I’m even in my e-mail account.
801 new messages.
I archive five hundred of them in one fell swoop, careful to avoid anything from Coach Toll. It takes only a few seconds to find it, with its bleak subject heading and familiar list of recipients. It says, simply, Update.
My fingers tremble as they pass over the keys. I don’t want to read it; I don’t want to know. Anything. All those people. Crying. Screaming. Phil Markey’s skull with its sunken look, blood draining from his left ear. Coach wouldn’t mention those details in an e-mail, but I know them. I carry them with me. I’ll carry them for the rest of my life.
I can’t bear the thought of reading about Colin’s fate. This is a fact of life, a simple acknowledgment of my physical and emotional limitations. For weeks, I wondered if time would change that, but it hasn’t. Colin saved my life on that plane.
And for what? Why? So he could suffer in an intensive care unit for weeks afterward? I stopped asking the staff for updates after hearing the words “critical condition” for the twentieth time. I worried that one day, “critical” wouldn’t suddenly be “stable,” or “fair,” or “good,” as I’d hoped—but “gone.” Had that day finally come?
I close the laptop and sit in darkness for a long time. In addition to the antique computer, my desk is cluttered with remnants of high school: handwritten notes, chewed-up pencils, a jar of change. A stack of envelopes crowds the far corner, as if banished there by some subtle force.
There are fifteen of them, all sealed. All addressed to Avery Delacorte, but with different return addresses. Newton. Watertown. Lexington. All Boston suburbs, all within easy driving distance. I open the one dated three weeks ago.
The spelling is horrendous, but someone has made the necessary corrections in a neat, tiny print. The writing itself evokes a strong sense of character that comes through in the straight lines and looping vowels. I know immediately who this letter is from.
Dear Avery,
I got your ledder (letter). I love (loved) it. You shud (should) come to dinner at my house. Granddad liks (likes) you a lot.
Love, Tim
I read the others. Some are written in Tim’s hand, but others provide colorful anecdotes of the boys’ lives.
One letter. I sent one letter to each boy, none more than three pathetic lines long. There were no personal details—no details at all, really. Just condolences and apologies and a vague sense of regret. In the aftermath of so much trauma and sickness and loss, I figured they would never remember me. The doctors assured me they probably wouldn’t.
In return, their grandparents and aunts and other relatives sent me pages upon pages of updates. Their words yearned for a connection I couldn’t give them. If Colin were able, he would have confronted me by now. He would have demanded, Why?
With this thought, I open the laptop.
Dear Team,
As you all know by now, our small community suffered a terrible loss when Flight 149 crashed over the Colorado Rockies. We lost an incredible person and a great swimmer in Phil Markey, who perished in the tragedy. He was a real asset to this team and will be sorely missed.
Avery Delacorte is recuperating in Brookline. She informed me via her father that she will likely return to the team in January. We all look forward to her return.
Colin Shea remains in critical condition. He has been transferred to Massachusetts General Hospital to be closer to family. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.
Best,
Coach Toll
“Avery? You up there?”
Mom. My heart stalls, then ramps back up again. It’s a full minute before I can even respond. “Coming,” I murmur.
I close my laptop and make my way downstairs. I don’t enjoy these dinners, with Mom overstuffing my plate and Dad asking intensely personal questions (Does your face still burn? What’s the pain like, on a scale from 0 to 10? Any issues with mobility in your fingertips? Tingling and/or numbness? And so on . . .). Every time I sit down, he launches into a new History & Physical, just like the ones he made me take in high school when he’d drag me into work for an “educational experience.”
For the first five minutes, we dine in silence. Everything tastes the same: like cardboard, sticking to the roof of my mouth while I swirl it around and gulp it down.
“I heard you on the phone, sweetie,” my mom says.
“Yeah.” I take a swig of chocolate milk. “Colin called.”
The silence turns painful. Mom sips her purified water, the ice clinking the glass. Dad slices into his pork chop.
“I meant Lee. Lee called.” I swallow hard, but the food isn’t just tasteless anymore; it’s nauseating. I feel like I’m going to pass out.
“Sweetie, are you okay?”
“Fine.”
Dad puts his utensils down. “Any nausea? Light-headedness?”
“No.” I force a glob of potatoes down my throat. “Where’d you get this from?”
My mom frowns. “Get what?”
“This pork chop.”
“Oh. The butcher’s. It’s good, isn’t it?”
I wince. So many unwelcome thoughts tumble around in my head. The word butcher makes me sick, as does the taste of meat, and yet I can’t stop eating it. It’s there; it’s mine; I need to finish it.
Critical condition.
Closer to family.
Thoughts and prayers.
“Honey, if you don’t like it—”
“No, it’s fine.” I try to smile, but she knows better. Her frown deepens.
“You don’t look good.” She glances at my dad, who studies me with his usual intensity. “Right? She looks pale to you, doesn’t she? Maybe it’s the pork—”
“I’m okay,” I manage.
I stare at my food, arranged neatly in little piles. It’s steaming hot, the way any decent dinner should be.
“Avery?” Mom kneels down beside me. She puts a gentle hand on my forearm, but it does nothing to quell the tremor in my hands. “Avery, it’s okay.”
I get up, knocking over the chair in my sprint for the bathroom. What follows is a violent, cleansing purge. After seeing the pork chop in reverse, I draw my gaze up to the mirror. The circles under my eyes are gone, and my cheekbones have lost their scary prominence. Even my hair is almost back to its natural hue, a soft, snowy blond.
Yes, it’s true: The person staring back at me looks healthier. Robust, even. It’s all such a magnificent ruse.
I return to the dining room to find my parents holding their breaths. Mom has that panicky look to her, but my dad manages to rein her in. “Are you okay?” he asks me.
Colin isn’t going to make it.
I’m not going to make it.
Instead, I say, “Yep. Perfect.”
She rises from her chair and reaches for my plate.
“Leave it,” I say.
“Sweetie—”
“Please.” Then, with desperation: “Leave it.”
The nausea returns in full force, even worse than before. But it’s not the food, and it’s not my sensitive stomach.
It’s me.