Chapter Four
“I just want to understand why she lost consciousness,” my dad is saying.
“She didn’t lose consciousness,” my mom snaps. “She hyperventilated because she was having a panic attack.”
“And that doesn’t concern you?”
I pull the oxygen mask off my face. It’s been on for ten minutes, ever since I came to with about thirty people in my room. Dr. Voss made them all clear out, including the cops, and then she left, too. I wish she’d taken my parents with her.
“Yes, it concerns me, Eric. But if you knew your daughter at all, you’d know that—”
“Stop,” I say. My eyes are on the ceiling, the only safe space. “Please, just stop.”
They get quiet.
“How’re you feeling, Bear?” Dad asks.
“I want to talk to Dr. Voss,” I say.
“I’ll get her,” he says, and walks out.
I feel my mom trying to think of something to say to me. “Where’s Carl?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.
“With the boys,” she says. “He wanted to bring them up here to see you, but I thought it was probably best to wait.”
let’s not frighten the children honey
Neither of us says anything after that.
Dad comes back with Dr. Voss.
“Everything okay?” she asks, coming to my bedside.
“I want to know what happened to my brain,” I say. “Like, how exactly it got hurt.”
“In medical terms or plain English?”
“English,” I say.
“Okay. Your brain collided with the back of your skull giving you a big, fat bruise on the outer layer of tissue and making the whole area swell.”
“Can that cause brain damage?”
Dr. Voss frowns. “Well, by definition, that is brain damage. What specifically are you asking?”
I fiddle with my hospital bracelet. There’s a hum of TV noise from somewhere down the hall.
“I think it would help if I spoke to Jessa alone,” I hear Dr. Voss say.
“If she’s worried about something, we should know,” my mom protests.
“Jesus, Lydia. Can you please not argue with everything everybody says?” My dad pats my leg. “We’ll be in the hall, Bear.”
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” Dr. Voss asks when they’re gone.
My fingers push the bracelet around my wrist.
“It’s two things,” I say finally.
“Okay. Let’s start with the first.”
“Ever since I woke up . . . I can’t see anything in my head. When I close my eyes, it’s just . . . dark.”
“Dark,” she repeats. “Meaning there’s no visual quality to your thoughts?”
“Right.”
She pulls my chart from the tray on the door. “Any issues with your memory as far as you can tell?”
I shake my head. She makes more notes.
“I’d like to run a few tests before I rule anything out, but what you’re describing sounds like a condition called aphantasia. Mind’s eye blindness. People who have it can’t form images in their head.”
“So it’s a thing, then. Other people have it.” There’s a sliver of relief in this. If other people have it, it can’t be that bad.
“Yep. Some are born with it, actually. But we also see it in patients with cerebral cortex injuries, like yours.” She hesitates for a sec. “It can also have psychological roots.”
My throat goes tight.
psychological roots
code for crazy
like when you see things that aren’t there
I spin my bracelet faster. The cheap plastic, jagged where I’ve picked at it, scrapes against my skin.
“Are you having any psychotic symptoms?” she asks. “Intense feelings of detachment, paranoia, hallucinations, anything like that?”
I stare at the moving plastic, watch my name go round and round.
psychotic psychotic psychotic
I give my head a tiny shake. “Nope.”
“Good.” The relief in her voice makes my hands shake.
“So is it permanent?” I ask.
“It can be. But there’s no reason to assume it will be in your case. Your brain has suffered some pretty gnarly trauma in the last forty-eight hours. I wouldn’t be surprised if this resolves on its own within a few days.” She makes a note in my chart. “Hey, how’s your vision, by the way?” she asks. “Since those few moments of blindness when you first woke up, has your sight felt normal? Because it’s common for patients with acquired aphantasia — the ones who aren’t born with it — to experience hyper-vivid sensuality while the mind’s eye is dark.”
A silly flash of hope at the rightness of the phrase, hyper-vivid. I bob my head, yes, exactly that. “What does it mean?”
“The mind’s eye plays a really big role in perception,” she says. “We may feel as though we’re seeing things fresh all the time, but the neurological reality is that we’re predisposed to see things the way we’ve seen them before. Without mental images, though, the brain has nothing to fall back on. It has to start paying attention again, which can feel pretty intense.” She smiles. “So in a way you’re super lucky. You’re getting to see the world anew.”
“Hurray,” I say flatly.
Her smile fades. “Look, I know all of this sucks,” she says gently. “But I promise you, it could be much, much worse. You’re a very lucky girl.”
I nod, my eyes filling with tears. Some luck.
“So what’s the second thing?” she asks.
It hovers in the air between us for a second. The awful, ugly truth.
Then I shove it into a drawer and slam it shut.
“Oh,” I say lightly. “I was just wondering when I can wash my hair.”
Dr. Voss grins. “Crucial question. I’d like to wait at least a week before you really scrub, but I’m okay with your scalp getting wet in another day or so as long as we cover your incisions with waterproof tape.” She jots another note in my file then slips it back into the plastic sleeve on the door. “Speaking of dirty hair, I need to get out of here and go wash mine before patients start complaining,” she says with a laugh. “I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”
I stare at the ceiling as she updates my parents. I hear my dad’s stillness as he listens, taking it all in. Mom is the opposite of stillness, she is noisy breathing and fidgety hands and constantly shifting weight.
“Bear,” Dad says quietly when they come back in. “I am so sorry this happened to you.” His voice catches. “It shouldn’t have.”
“Oh, so now the accident is my fault?” Mom’s voice is shrill, like nails on a chalkboard, like nails scraping across my brain. “Because, of course, I’m somehow to blame for the fact that a stranger ran a red light and plowed into my Lexus, despite the fact that I wasn’t even in it.”
“I’m not blaming anyone but myself,” my dad fires back.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Mom. Stop.”
“I don’t understand why you were in the car to begin with,” she retorts. “You said you were staying at Wren’s. And then when he was here you didn’t even acknowledge him. Did something happen between you two? Are you in some sort of fight?”
I don’t answer her. Can’t answer her, can’t tell her what happened because that would require thinking about it, which it’s taking everything I have not to do.
She sighs heavily. “I give up.”
and yet you’re still here
“Lydia, go home,” Dad says wearily, rubbing his eyes, the feature we have in common. Hazel, with blond lashes, same shade as our hair, though his is mostly grey now. “You’ve been here since it happened. I appreciate that. Jessa appreciates that. But the two of us in this room together isn’t helping anything, certainly not our daughter’s recovery, so how about you go home and get some rest. I’ll stay with Jessa tonight.”
Mom bristles but doesn’t fight him. “Fine. I’ll be back in the morning.” She bends over to kiss my forehead then thinks better of it and kisses the air above me instead.
“So how long are you staying?” I ask my dad when my mom is gone. I am careful. There is nothing in my voice to give me away. No hint of how badly I want him to stay. My hand is already in my hair, twirling a crusty strand. Out of the corner of my eye I see him see it. Dare him to comment the way my mom always does. He doesn’t. Then again he wouldn’t, because my anxiety has never been his problem.
“Well, that depends,” he says carefully.
“On what?”
“On you,” he replies. He rolls the metal stool by the sink over to my bedside and sits down on it. There is a long moment when he just looks at me, sneakers planted, palms pressed flat on his jeans. “I want you to come live with me in Colorado,” he says finally. “Finish high school out there.”
Jessa Bear, I’d love for you to come out here, but your mom and I have decided that it’s best if you stay here in California with her and all your friends. We’ll see each other all the time, though — every Christmas, over the summer, whenever you want.
Try every other Christmas and one summer out of four.
“There are still a lot of details to work out,” he’s saying now. “I only just mentioned the idea to your mother, so of course we’ll have to navigate that, but technically we have joint custody and you’re seventeen, so—”
“It’s okay,” I say, stopping him before it goes too far. Before hope sneaks its way in and I start believing that he means it. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Yes, Jessa. I do. I should’ve put my foot down four years ago. But your mother—,” he shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. It is what it is.”
but it does matter. it matters a lot.
His voice softens. “Look, I’m not going to force this on you. You’re seventeen. If you really want to stay in L.A., you can. I know your friends are here, and your boyfriend—”
An urge, overwhelming, to plug my ears, la la la, i can’t hear you.
Because if I let myself hear him, let myself think about my life here and how little of it is left, my heart will explode in my chest.
“There is nothing here,” I say, loudly. Too loud. Dad stops mid-sentence, maybe mid-word. Neither of us says anything. Above us, the fluorescent light hums.
don’t ask me what i mean. please don’t ask me to explain.
“So,” he says finally. “You’ll come then.”
I hesitate. Live with my dad. In Colorado. A thousand miles away.
My chin jerks, an emphatic nod. “Okay. I’ll come.”