Memories

Chapter 6

The rest of my story growing up was relatively normal, boring even. The most mundane parts were David's favorites. That year, during Christmas, we visited my mother and father together. We took poppy's for my mom and white roses for my dad. We sat with them on the ground and ate leftover apple cobbler from the previous dinner. He, of course, has no recollection of these events. He once asked me about my family and, not having the strength to try and explain to him, I simply said they were retired in Miami. I think that the moment when I knew my love was really gone was when he asked about his own family. David's parents had perished in a plane crash three years prior and, when I told him, he simply shrugged and walked away. This man that I live with now—he's dangerous. He's got no beginning and no middle, no ties to this world, no feelings or emotions to keep him connected. He is a novel that was ripped apart and bleached clean, then desperately sewn back together. Where do those words go once they vanish? Nobody bothered to copy down those pages—it was left up to me to paraphrase his novel.

1990

During summer break, David's younger sister, Lilly, was in a bad car accident with her son, Jack. We rushed down to the New York Hospital and sat in the waiting room for seven hours while they operated to save their lives. The rest of David's family lived in California and wouldn't be able to catch a flight to New York until the next day at the earliest.

"Why don't you tell me about her? About Lilly?" I asked. I couldn't bear to see him pace the floors anymore, and I knew he was making the other families nervous, too.

Reluctantly, he came and sat next to me. "She's always had this long blonde hair that our mom would braid down to her feet. We used to call her Rapunzel and lock her in rooms, telling her that if she wanted out she had to let down her hair. Oh, don't look at me like that, Willa! We were her older brothers; it was our job to haze her. She's twenty one now and finally got her GED. She had Jack when she was real young and had to drop out of high school. Boy, was our father angry. She was an honor student—top of the class. Headed for things like neurosurgery and stuff. She used to play the piano—mom lived for the concerts she played at—but I don't think she's touched it in years. She wants to go back to school to be a vet tech, now. Jack is old enough to go to daycare and she's always loved animals..."

"Hey, she'll be okay. She raised a kid on her own when she was, what, seventeen? She's strong. She'll pull through this."

"Jack is too little...God, Willa, he's four years old and in surgery."

The doctors didn't come out for another three hours, at 3:46 in the morning. Wearing blue scrubs that were covered in blood, a young surgeon began to talk to us.

"The child was sitting on the left side of the vehicle, where they were hit. He's got multiple lacerations and contusions on his left side and he should be okay..."

"But?" I asked.

"He's in a coma. There is no medical reason why he should be, other than he is young and his body couldn't take it."

"What about Lilly?" David pressed.

The doctors shared a look and my heart sped up.

"No. No. She's okay. She's always okay."

"Mr. Yeager, she was hit head on by a truck much larger than her car. We did everything we could, but—"

And then he broke apart.

What are memories, really? And what is a person when you strip those away? The experiences we go through in life, the trials and tribulations we are put through, those exist long after the events have transpired. The ones we loved and lost live on in our hearts thanks to our memories. So when those fade, does the person no longer exist? All the people that person had kept in their heart, do they leave, too? Every Sunday since the accident, David would drive up to the county hospital and read stories to Jack. Jack had stayed alive but had never woken from his coma—he wasn't Jack anymore, but a shell of a person. The real Jack was kept alive through David; he came alive every time David would tell the child stories of how he used to be. David doesn't even know the Jack exists, now. I've gone to visit him in the hospital a few times, but it just makes me upset. If Jack doesn't live on through the one person who was willing to keep him alive, where is he now? Where did that sweet four year old go?

"David, honey, we have to go home. You're exhausted, you need some sleep. Come on," I grunted as I tried to pull him up from the floor by his arm. He allowed this and stumbled a few steps. His eyes were dazed and blurry—I don't think he was seeing anything in front of him.

"Sweetie?" I put my arm around his waist. "Come on, you need to walk forward. The car isn't parked that far."

He leaned some of his weight onto me and we slowly made our way outside. I think the cold air pushed him out of his trance a little, because he reached into his pocket and, with a shaking hand, gave me the car keys to our beat up Camaro.