Fly Away (48 page)

What if Tully woke up and wanted nothing to do with her?

It was certainly a likely scenario. Dorothy had been a terrible parent for so long,
and now, when she’d finally learned to be better, finally dared to let herself tumble
into motherhood, it was not real. Not for Tully, anyway, who had slept through the
whole thing.

“You’re humming again,” Margie said gently.

Dorothy pressed her lips together. “Nervous habit.”

Margie reached over and held Dorothy’s hand. It still surprised her sometimes, the
easy intimacy she’d found with Margie; it surprised her, too, how much it could mean
to simply be touched by another human being who understood you. “I’m afraid,” she
said.

“Of course you are. You’re a mother. Fear is the job description.”

Dorothy turned to look at Margie. “What do I know about motherhood?”

“You’re a fast learner.”

“What if she doesn’t want anything to do with me when she wakes up? I don’t know how
to go back to who I was without her. I can’t just walk up to her bed and say hi.”

Margie’s smile was sad, as tired as the look in her eyes. “She always wanted something
to do with you, Dorothy. I remember the first time she asked me what was wrong with
her, why you didn’t love her. It broke my heart, honest to God. I told her that sometimes
life didn’t work out the way you expected, but that you never gave up hope. She was
seventeen then. Your mother had just died and she was afraid of where she would live.
We took her in, gave her a place to live. That very first night, when she was in bed
in Katie’s room, I sat down beside her and told her good night. She looked up at me
and said, ‘She’ll miss me someday,’ and I said, ‘How could she not?’ and Tully said—so
quietly I almost couldn’t hear: ‘I’ll wait.’ And she did, Dorothy. She waited for
you in a thousand different ways.”

Dorothy wished she were the kind of woman who could believe a thing like that.

*   *   *

Time passed for Tully in blurry images and nonsensical vignettes—a white car, a woman
in pink saying something about feeling better now, a moving bed, a TV tucked up in
the corner of a white room, voices that were a distant drone. Now there was only one
voice. Sounds came at her, breaking apart, forming … words.

“Hello, Tully.”

She blinked slowly and opened her eyes. There was a man standing beside her. A man
in a white coat. She couldn’t really focus on him; the light in here was so dim. She
missed light. What did that mean? And she was cold.

“I’m Dr. Bevan. You’re in Sacred Heart Hospital. You got here about five days ago.
Do you remember?”

She frowned, trying to think. She felt as if she’d been in darkness for hours, years,
lifetimes. She couldn’t remember anything. Just something about a light … the sound
of running water … the smell of green spring grass.

She tried to wet her lips—they felt painfully dry—and her throat was fricking on FIRE.
“Wha…”

“You were in a car accident and sustained a serious head trauma. Your left arm was
broken in three places, as was your left ankle—though that was a clean, simple break.
Both bones healed nicely.”

Car accident?

“No, Tully, don’t try to move.”

Had she been trying to move? “How … long?” She didn’t even know what she was asking,
and by the time he said something—she had no idea what—she was closing her eyes again.
She would just sleep for a minute …

*   *   *

She heard something. Felt something. She wasn’t alone. She took a deep breath, released
it slowly, and opened her eyes.

“Hey.”

Johnny
. He was here, beside her. Behind him stood Margie and Marah and … Cloud? What was
her mother doing here?

“You’re back,” Johnny said quietly, his voice uneven. “We thought we’d lost you.”

She tried to find her voice, but even with her best effort, her words came out garbled.
She couldn’t think clearly.

He touched her face. “We’re here. All of us.”

She worked hard to focus, desperate suddenly to tell him something. “Johnny … I…”

Saw her
.

What did that mean? Saw who?

“Don’t worry, Tul,” he said. “We have time now.”

She closed her eyes and drifted back to sleep. Sometime later, she thought she heard
voices—Johnny and some other man. Words drifted toward her—
remarkable recovery, brain activity normal, give her time
—but none of it meant anything to her so she let it go.

*   *   *

Johnny was still there when she woke up again. So was Margie. They stood by her bedside,
talking quietly, as she opened her eyes. It felt different, this waking; she knew
it instantly.

Margie saw her open her eyes and she started to cry. “There you are.”

“Hey,” Tully croaked. It took concentration to find that simple word, to find
herself
in words. She said something—she didn’t know what, and she was pretty sure it didn’t
make sense. She could tell that her speech was slow, a little slurry, but the way
they smiled took all that away, made it meaningless.

Johnny moved closer. “We missed you.”

Margie came closer. “There’s my girl.”

“How long … here?” She knew there were more words that belonged in her question, but
she couldn’t grab hold of them.

Margie looked at Johnny.

“You got here six days ago,” Johnny said evenly. He drew in a breath. “Your accident
was on September third, 2010.”

Margie said, “Today is August twenty-seventh, 2011.”

“But. Wait.”

“You were in a coma for almost a year,” Johnny said.

A year.

She closed her eyes, feeling a little flutter of panic. She couldn’t remember anything
about a car accident or being in a coma, or—

Hey, Tul.

Suddenly, it was there in the darkness with her, a beautiful singular memory. Two
grown women on bikes, riding side by side, their arms outstretched and … starlight …
Katie beside her saying,
Who says you get to die?

It couldn’t be real. She’d imagined it. That had to be the answer.

“They had me on some big drugs, I guess, right?” Tully said, opening her eyes slowly.

“Yes,” Margie said. “To save your life.”

So that was it. In a drugged-out, half-dead state, she’d imagined her best friend.
It was hardly a surprise.

“You have some physical and occupational therapy to do. Dr. Bevan has recommended
an excellent therapist who will work with you. He doesn’t think it will be too long
before you’re ready to live at home by yourself.”

“Home,” she said quietly, wondering exactly where that was.

*   *   *

In her dream, she was in an Adirondack chair by the beach and Katie was beside her.
But it wasn’t the gray, pebbled shore of Bainbridge Island stretched out in front
of them, nor was it the choppy blue waters of the bay.

Where are we?
her dream self asked, and as she waited for an answer, light spilled across the turquoise
water, illuminated everything until it was so bright Tully couldn’t see.

When someone hip-bumps you or tells you that it’s not all about you or when our music
plays. Listen and you’ll hear me in all of it
.

Tully woke with a start. She sat up so quickly her breath caught and the pain in her
head intensified.

Katie
.

The memory of being in the light rushed at her, bowled her over. She’d been with Katie
somewhere—over there—she’d held her hand, heard her say:
I’ll always be with you
.
Whenever you hear our music or laugh so hard you cry, I’ll be there. When you close
your eyes at night and remember, I’ll be there. Always.

It was real. Somehow. Impossibly.

It wasn’t drugs, or her brain injury, or wishful thinking. It was real.

Twenty-nine

The next day was an endless series of medical tests: Tully was poked and prodded and
zapped and X-rayed. It surprised her—and everyone else—how quickly she was improving.

“Are you ready?” Johnny said when she’d finally been discharged.

“Where is everyone?”

“Preparing for your homecoming. It’s a pretty big deal. Are you ready?”

She sat in a wheelchair by the room’s only window, wearing a helmet in case of a fall.
Her reflexes were a little impaired and no one wanted her landing on her head.

“Yeah.” She had trouble finding words sometimes, so she kept her answers simple.

“How many of them are out there?”

She frowned. “How many of what?”

“Your fans.”

She gave a sigh. “No fans for me.”

He crossed the room and came up beside her, turning her wheelchair toward the window.
“Look more closely.”

She followed the direction of his glance. A crowd of people stood in the parking lot
below, huddled beneath brightly colored umbrellas. There were at least three dozen
of them. “I don’t see…” she began, and then she saw the signs.

WE
♥
U TULLY
♥
!

GET WELL TULLY

UR GIRLFRIENDS NEVER GAVE UP!

“They’re for me?”

“Your recovery is big news. Fans and reporters started gathering as soon as word leaked.”

The crowd blurred before Tully’s eyes. At first she thought the rain had picked up.
Then she realized she was remembering all that she’d gone through in the last few
years and crying for this evidence that she hadn’t been forgotten after all.

“They love you, Tul. I hear Barbara Walters wants an interview.”

She didn’t even know what to say to that. It didn’t matter anyway; Johnny was on the
move. He grabbed the chair’s rubberized handles and wheeled her out of the hospital
room. She gave one last thoughtful look as she left.

In the lobby, he stopped and set the brake. “I won’t be long. I’ll just send your
fans and the reporters on their way.”

He positioned her against the wall, with the lobby behind her, and went through the
glass pneumatic doors.

On this late August afternoon, a light rain drizzled down even as the sun shone. This
was what locals called sun breaks.

As Johnny came forward, cameras pointed at him, flashes blinked on and off. The signs—
WE
♥
YOU TULLY
♥
;
GET WELL; WE’RE PRAYING FOR YOU
—lowered slowly.

“I know you have been apprised of Tully Hart’s miraculous recovery. And it is miraculous.
The doctors here at Sacred Heart, especially Dr. Reginald Bevan, gave Tully exceptional
care and I know she’d want me to thank them for her. I know she’d want me to thank
her fans, too, many of whom prayed for this recovery.”

“Where is she?” someone yelled.

“We want to see her!”

Johnny held up a hand for silence. “I’m sure you can all understand that Tully is
focused on her recovery right now. She—”

A gasp went through the crowd. The people in front of Johnny turned as one, faced
the hospital doors. The photographers began jostling into one another, their flashes
erupting.

Tully sat just outside the hospital doors, which kept whooshing open and closed behind
her. She was out of breath, and the chair was cockeyed, no doubt because she was too
weak to roll herself steadily forward. A gentle rain fell on her helmet and splotched
her blouse. He went to her.

“Are you sure?” he asked her.

“Abso … lutely not. Let’s do it.”

He wheeled her forward; the crowd quieted.

She smiled uneasily at them, said, “I’ve looked better.”

The roar of approval almost knocked Johnny back. Signs shot back up into the air.

“Thank you,” she said when the crowd finally quieted.

“When will you go back on air?” one of the reporters yelled.

She looked out across the crowd, and then at Johnny, who knew her so well, who’d been
with her from the beginning of her career. She saw the way he looked at her: Was he
remembering her at twenty-one, when she’d been a firebrand who sent him a résumé a
day for months and worked for free? He knew how desperately she had always needed
to be
someone
. Hell, she’d given up everything to be loved by strangers.

She drew in a deep breath and said, “No more.” She wanted to explain herself, to say
that she was done with fame, that she didn’t need it anymore, but it was just too
hard to gather all those words together and put them in order. She knew what mattered
now.

The crowd erupted in noise; questions were hurled at Tully.

She turned to Johnny.

“I’ve never been more proud of you,” he said, too softly for anyone to hear.

“For quitting?”

He touched her face with a gentleness that made her breath catch. “For never quitting.”

With the crowd still yelling questions, Johnny took control of the wheelchair and
steered her back into the hospital lobby.

In no time, they were in the car and heading north on I-5.

Where were they going? She was supposed to be going home. “Wrong way.”

“Are you in the driver’s seat?” Johnny asked. He didn’t glance at her, but she could
tell he was smiling. “No. You’re not. You’re in the passenger seat. I know you’ve
recently suffered a brain injury, but I’m sure you remember that the driver drives
the car and the passenger enjoys the view.”

“Where … we going?”

“Snohomish.”

For the first time, Tully thought about her year-long coma. How come no one had told
her where she’d been all that time? Were they keeping it from her? And why hadn’t
the question occurred to her before this? “Have Bud and Margie been taking care of
me?”

“Nope.”

“You?”

“No.”

She frowned. “Nursing home?”

He indicated a turn and exited the highway toward Snohomish. “You’ve been staying
at your house in Snohomish. With your mother.”

“My
mother
?”

His gaze softened. “There have been more than a few miracles in all of this.”

Tully didn’t even know what to say. It would have been less surprising to hear that
Johnny Depp had nursed her through the long dark months.