Left Neglected

  “Where’s all your hair?” Lucy asks, concerned and puzzled.

  So much for that theory.

  “I had to get a really short haircut,” I say.

  “Why come?”

  “Because it was too long.”

  “Oh. I liked it too long.”

  “Me, too. It’ll grow back,” I assure her.

  I wonder when the left will “grow back” and wish that I had a similar level of confidence in its return.

  “Is this where you live now?” she asks, still puzzled and concerned.

  “No, sweetie, I live at home with you guys. I’m just staying here for a little while for a special program, to learn some new things. It’s like school.”

  “Cuz you banged your head in the car?”

  I look up at Bob. I don’t know how much detail he’s shared with them. He nods.

  “Yes. Hey, who painted your pretty nails?”

  “Abby,” she says, now admiring her pink fingers. “She did my toes, too. Wanna see?”

  “Sure.”

  I look to Charlie as Lucy starts undoing her laces, bracing myself for the more sophisticated cross-examination I assume is coming. He’d normally see straight through the gaping holes in my political candidate answers to Lucy’s flimsy interview and sink his teeth into the interrogation. He’d tear apart my lame haircut story like a hungry pit bull with a juicy steak. But instead, he’s standing in front of Bob and staring at the floor. He won’t look at me.

  “Hey, Charlie,” I say.

  “Hi, Mom,” he says, arms folded, still looking down.

  “How’s school?”

  “Good.”

  “What’s new?”

  “Nothin’.”

  “Come here,” I say, extending my arm, inviting him in.

  He shuffles forward a couple of measured steps and stops at a distance from me that can just barely be considered “here.” I pull him into me and, because he’s still looking down, I kiss the top of his blue hat.

  “Charlie, look at me.”

  He does what he’s told. His eyes are round and innocent, worried and defiant, framed by those thick, black lashes. It’s so unfair that Lucy didn’t get his eyelashes.

  “Sweetie, Mommy’s fine. Don’t worry, okay?”

  He blinks, but the worried defiance hanging in his gaze doesn’t budge an inch. I’m selling a lie, and he’s not buying it. Some child expert once said or I read somewhere that parents should never lie to their kids. I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous. This so-called expert clearly doesn’t have an inquisitive child like Charlie. Come to think of it, this “expert” probably doesn’t have any children at all. There are days when I’ve had to dodge, fib, and outright lie a dozen times before breakfast. What are weapons of mass destruction? What are you and Dad fighting about? Where do babies come from? What is this [holding a tampon]? The truth is often too scary, too complicated, too … adult for kids.

  And lies are often the best parenting tool I’ve got. I have eyes on the back of my head. Your face will freeze like that. This won’t hurt. Spider-Man loves broccoli. Here, this [spray bottle full of water] will kill the monsters in your closet. In a minute.

  Then there are those white lies that encourage and protect what is wondrous and magical for kids. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Disney princesses, Harry Potter. I don’t want to know the parent who tells a seven-year-old there are no such things.

  The truth is, there is no Santa Claus, there are no wizards, parents pay cash for baby teeth, and pixie dust is store-bought glitter. There are people in this world who hate Americans and are this minute plotting ways to kill us all, and I insert that tampon into my vagina to absorb blood when I have my period. The cold, hard truth for kids needs to be wrapped in a warm and silky soft blanket of lies. Or in this case, in a hot-pink fleece ski hat.

  “Honestly, Charlie, I’m fine.”

  “See?” says Lucy, pointing her toes in the air like a ballerina. Her toenails are painted a rebellious metallic blue.

  “They’re lovely,” I say, lying. “Where’s Linus?”

  “He’s on the floor next to me,” says Bob.

  “Can you lift him so I can see him?”

  I wait and nothing happens.

  “Bob, can you lift him up?”

  “I did,” he says quietly.

  His face registers my Neglect.

  “Lucy Goose, will you hop down for a sec?” I ask.

  She crawls down to the foot of the bed, which is good enough, and Bob places the bucket car seat on the bed next to me. Linus is sound asleep, breathing long, deep breaths, the nipple of his nukie propped against the roof of his open mouth such that it is kept dangling in position, ready for sucking. Thank God he’s figured out how to do this.

  I love how his cheeks, which are like plump, ripe, delicious peaches begging to be pinched during the day, sag well below his jawline when he sleeps. I love his clenched hands, the dimples he has instead of knuckles, the creases of his chubby wrists. I love the sound of his breathing. God, I could watch this show all night.

  “I want to hold him,” I say.

  “You don’t want to wake him,” Bob warns.

  “I know, you’re right. I miss holding him,” I say.

  “Mommy, I want to sit with you,” says Lucy.

  “Okay,” I say.

  Bob removes Linus, and Lucy resumes her spot on my lap.

  “Will you read to me?” she asks.

  “Sure, sweetie. I miss reading to you at bedtime.”

  Bob came prepared with bedtime books and hands me a Junie B. Jones, Lucy’s latest favorite series.

  I open to the first page of the first chapter.

  “‘Chapter One, Confusing Stuff.’”

  Huh. The title couldn’t be more accurate. This page makes no sense whatsoever. B stands for I just years old. When you get to go to last summer Mother took and rolled me grown-up word for signed made me go. I keep going over the page like a rock climber stuck on a precipice, looking for the next foothold, not finding one.

  “Come on, Mommy. ‘My name is Junie B. Jones. The B stands for Beatrice, but I don’t like Beatrice. I just like B and that’s all.’”

  The Junie B. Jones books all begin the same way. Lucy and I’ve both memorized it. I know the words that should be on this page, but I don’t see them. I see B stands for I just years old. I try to think of what else I’ve read since my accident. The hospital meal menus and the CNN scroll. I haven’t had a problem with either. Then again, the menus have seemed rather limited, and the scroll appears one word at a time, from the bottom right. I look up at Bob, and he sees me realizing for the first time that I can’t really read.

  “Charlie? Oh my God, where’s Charlie?” I ask, transferring my panic, imagining that he’s left the room and is wandering the hospital.

  “Relax, he’s right here,” says Bob. “Charlie, come back over.”

  But Charlie doesn’t come.

  “Mommy, read!” says Lucy.

  “You know what, Goose, I’m too tired to read tonight.”

  I hear water running in the bathroom.

  “Bud, what are you doing? Come here,” says Bob.

  “I’ll get him,” says my mother, startling me. I forgot she was here.

  Charlie runs full throttle into one of the chairs, climbs it, and starts banging on the window with his open hands.

  “Hey, hey, that’s enough,” says Bob.

  He stops for a few seconds, but then he either forgets that Bob told him to stop or he can’t resist some overwhelming urge in his body to slap glass, and he starts banging the window again.

  “Hey,” says Bob, louder than a few seconds ago.

  “Hey, Charlie, you know what that is out there? That’s a jail,” I say.

  He stops.

  “Really?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s a real jail?”

  “It’s a real jail.”

  “Are there real bad guys in
it?”

  “Oh yeah, it’s full of ’em.”

  “Cooool,” he says, and I swear I can hear the lid pop clear off the container to his imagination.

  He presses his nose against the glass.

  “What kind of bad guys?”

  “I don’t know.” “What did they do?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “How did they get caught? Who caught them?”

  “I don’t—”

  “You live next to bad guys?” asks Lucy, nuzzling her face into my chest and clutching my shirt with her hands.

  “I don’t live here, Goose,” I say.

  “Do they try to escape? Who catches them?” asks Charlie.

  The volume of his voice has been dialing up with each question so that he’s practically yelling now. Linus whimpers and sucks his nukie.

  “Shhh,” I say, scolding Charlie.

  “Shhh,” Bob says, soothing Linus.

  “How about if I take Charlie and Lucy down to Dunkin’ Donuts for a few minutes?” asks my mother.

  That’s exactly what Charlie needs at bedtime. Sugar.

  “That’d be great,” says Bob.

  “Donuts!” yell Charlie and Lucy, and Linus whimpers again.

  “Shhh,” I say to everyone.

  Charlie and Lucy scurry down off the chair and my bed and follow my mother out of the room like rats on the heels of the Pied Piper. Even after the door closes, I can still hear Charlie barraging my mother with excited questions about criminals as they make their way down the hallway to the elevators. And then it is quiet.

  “How’s work?” I ask, avoiding the terrifying topic of my apparent illiteracy.

  “Still surviving.”

  “Good. And the kids seem okay?”

  “Yup. Abby and your mother are keeping them in their routine.”

  “Good.”

  Bob’s keeping afloat at his sinking company, the kids are managing without me, and I’m recovering from a traumatic brain injury. So we’re all surviving. Good. But I want so much more. I need so much more. We all do.

  You need to get better, you need to get out of here, you need to go home …

  “I want to go skiing.”

  “Okay,” Bob says, agreeing way too easily, as if I just said I wanted a glass of water or a tissue.

  “This season,” I say.

  “Okay.”

  “But what if I can’t?”

  “You will.”

  “But what if I still have this Left Neglect?”

  “You won’t.”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like it’s getting any better. What if this never goes away?” I ask, surprised that I’ve allowed this question a voice outside of my own fleece-covered head.

  I don’t know what I expect Bob to say to this, but I start crying, suddenly terrified that a plain and honest answer could forever change the course of our lives.

  “Let me in,” he says.

  He wedges himself into the space between me and the bed rail and lies on his side, facing me. It feels good to feel him next to me.

  “Is it possible that your brain will heal, and the Neglect will go away?” he asks.

  “Yes, it’s possible,” I say, still crying. “But it’s also possible that—”

  “Then, you’ll get better. If something’s possible, Sarah, it doesn’t matter what it is, I have complete faith that you can do it.”

  I should thank my lucky stars for Bob, and I should tell him that I love him for giving me this unconditional vote of confidence, but instead I choose to argue with him.

  “Yeah, but I don’t know how to do this. This isn’t like getting all A’s or getting the job I want or meeting a deadline. This isn’t ‘do these ten things and your brain will be back to normal.’”

  The more therapy I have, the more I realize that this is not a math equation. No one will give me any guarantees. I might get better, and I might not. The therapy might help, and it might not. I can work as hard as I’ve always worked at everything I’ve ever done, and it might not be any more effective than just lying here and praying. I’ve been doing both.

  “I know. I know a lot of this isn’t in your control. But some of it is. Do the therapy. Be positive. Use that competitive spirit I love. Think about it. Some people recover from this. You’re gonna let them beat you? No way.”

  Okay, now he’s hitting me where I live. I wipe my eyes. The goal isn’t to get better. The goal is to win! I know how to do that. Bob and I are cut from the same super-competitive cloth; I swear we each have a couple of threads from one of God’s athletic jerseys sewn right into our DNA. In pretty much every facet of our lives, we love any opportunity to compete. Our first real flirtation involved a bet to see who could get the better grade in finance (he did, and then he asked me out). We vied for the title of Person with the Highest Paying Job out of B-school (I won that one). When Charlie and Lucy were both in car seats, we used to race to see who could finish buckling first. When we play catch, we don’t just throw the ball back and forth. We keep score. And the only thing better than skiing down to the base of Mount Cortland with Bob is racing him there.

  And what does the winner get? The winner wins. This is exactly the pep talk I needed.

  “I believe in you, Sarah. You’re going to get better, and you’re going to come home, and you’re going back to work, and we’ll go skiing this winter.”

  He sounds like the Laundry List announcer in my head, but much nicer.

  “Thank you, Bob. I can do this. I’m going to beat this.”

  “There you go.”

  “Thanks. I needed this.”

  “Anytime,” he says and kisses me.

  “I need you,” I say.

  “I need you, too,” he says, and kisses me again.

  As we lie in my hospital bed together, waiting for the kids to come back with their bedtime donuts, I’m feeling wholeheartedly optimistic. I’m definitely going to conquer this. But when I try to visualize the “this” I’m competing against—the injured neurons, inflammation, the absence of left, the other people with Left Neglect vying for the same place in the winner’s circle—the only image I see with any clarity is me.

  CHAPTER 14

  It’s the first week of December, four weeks since the accident. I’m not back home. I haven’t returned to work. I missed the most important part of recruiting season at Berkley and Thanksgiving. Well, Bob and my mother brought the kids and an entire Thanksgiving feast here to Baldwin, and we all ate dinner in the cafeteria, so technically, I didn’t miss Thanksgiving. The home-cooked meal was delicious (certainly far more delicious than the grayish-looking turkey, mashed potatoes, and gravy I saw on the plastic trays in front of some of the other patients), and we were all together, but it didn’t feel like Thanksgiving. It felt sad and weird.

  I’m sitting in a room they call the gym. I chuckle a little to myself every time I come in here, thinking, Look at what it takes to get me into a gym. But it’s not a gym in the traditional sense, not like the one I never go to in Welmont. There are no treadmills, free weights, or elliptical machines. There is one Nautilus-like machine, taller than Bob, with pulleys and a harness hanging from what looks like the machine’s giant, extended steel arm. I want no part of whatever goes on in that thing.

  In addition to this medieval contraption, there are two long tables pushed against one of the walls. A tidy stack of paper-and-pencil tests rests on one and a wild assortment of Rubik’s Cube–type puzzles and games are piled on the other. There are some Reebok steps and blue PhysioBalls, which I guess can probably be found in a real gym, a set of parallel bars for practice with assisted walking, and a big mirror on one of the walls. And that’s about it.

  There’s a poster on the wall above the puzzles table that I’ve become fascinated with. It’s a black-and-white photograph of a fist positioned below the word attitude written in bold red letters. The message and the image don’t seem quite right for each other, but the more I visit the poster and tur
n it over in my mind, the more the combination inspires me. The fist is power, strength, determination, fight. And attitude. A positive attitude. I will bring a positive attitude to my fight to get my life back. I clench my hand in solidarity with the fist in the picture. I am strong. I’m a fighter. I can do this.

  I’m sitting directly in front of the wall with the big mirror. I spend a lot of time in front of this mirror, searching for the left side of me. I do manage to find pieces of me every now and then. My left eye for a second. The laces of my left sneaker. My left hand. It’s a lengthy and grueling effort for such a temporary and tiny reward. I have found that my left hand is easier to locate than any other left part of me because I can look for my diamond ring. I used to think of my ring as a beautiful symbol of my commitment to Bob. Now it’s a beautiful, two-carat, flashy target. I told Bob that my recovery would probably benefit from more jewelry—a diamond tennis bracelet for my left wrist, a cluster of diamonds dangling from my left ear, a diamond anklet, a diamond toe ring. Bob laughed. I was only half kidding.

  Martha’s late, and my mother’s using the restroom, and there really isn’t anything left to look at in here but me in the mirror, so I go ahead and check myself out. I’m not a pretty sight. It’s always hot in this room, so I’m not wearing my fleece hat. My hair has started to grow back but just enough to stick straight out in every direction. I look like a Chia Pet. I’m wearing no makeup. Yet. That’s part of what I’ll probably do in here today. Martha will ask me to put on my makeup, and I will, and then my mother, who is usually hovering in the background, will either giggle or gasp depending on how the day is going, and Martha will tell me that I didn’t apply anything on the left. The left half of my lips will have no lipstick, my left eye will have no mascara or liner or shadow, and my left cheek will have no blush.

  And then I’ll study my face in the mirror and really try to see what they see, and I’ll see myself in full makeup, looking pretty good, minus the Chia Pet hairdo. It’s a spooky and sometimes embarrassing moment, becoming aware of what they see, comparing it to what I see. And what I don’t. I’m missing a whole continent of experience, and I’m not even aware of it. I’m not aware that I’m not noticing the left half of my face, the left half of Martha, the left half of that page of Junie B. Jones. To me, nothing is missing.