Broken for You (31 page)

There was something else in the street too, and just then another figure moved like the dead out of the shadows from the other side and bent down to pick it up: It was the girl's shoe, a foolish high-heeled thing, the kind of shoe a woman wears when she has no faith in her own beauty. M.J. wondered again about the girl, what her reasons were for wearing that kind of fancy getup, in this neighborhood, on this night.

Her sweetheart cradled the shoe carefully in his two hands, as if it were a relic made of finest glass. And then he started to weep.

He was the only one here who knew her name,
thought M.J.
Poor boyo. Poor dear lad.

He could have easily taken up the cause at that moment too—he could have stood in for this young man's da, put an arm around him, led him to the nearest pub and bought him a beer and listened to his sad, sad story. He wanted to, in fact, and that surprised him.

But a police officer walked over to him—an older, heavier man who surely had more experience at this kind of thing—and laid a surrogate hand on the young man's shoulder, so M.J. turned away and headed north.

Easter.

Bloody hell.

He should never have come out in the first place.

Part 3

Twenty-Three

Post-ORIF

T
he language of medicine is varied and precise when it comes to skeletal fractures and orthopedic repair. As an example, let's say that a small-boned person with impaired judgment and stiletto heels ran into a busy intersection and was struck by an SUV being driven at 30 mph by a woman chauffeuring her son and his victorious soccer team to Pagliacci's Pizza. This unfortunate person would almost certainly incur bilateral Colles' fractures of the wrists upon impact. Other injuries might be comminuted, compressed, avulsed, compacted, blown out, and so on.

The professionals treating our patient would schedule her for "reduction"; this involves restoring a bone to its normal anatomical position and alignment. The manner in which a fracture is reduced depends upon its severity: In less serious cases, repair is accomplished without surgical intervention; when a fractured bone projects through the skin, however, it is fixed by an "open reduction with internal fixation," or "ORIF." Since our patient's injuries are especially severe, her body will be literally retrofitted—in much the same way structural engineers fortify buildings, bridges, and homes in earthquake-prone cities—through the insertion of steel rods, co
mpression screws, wires, nails,
pins, plates, and adhesives.

The hospital staff who treated Wanda when she was brought into the ER as a "pedestrian versus SUV" were presented with a smorgasbord of orthopedic challenges. There were many X-rays taken of Patient Schultz over the course of her hospital stay—X-rays obtained to confirm appropriate positioning of the orthopedic hardware and to assess for evidence of healing. On one occasion, a radiologist reading a standard three-view exam of her right forearm noticed a subtle detail, one that his colleagues had either overlooked or considered unremarkable. He dictated, "Incidentally noted is very slight palmar angulation at the distal radial epiphysis, suggesting evidence of a remote trauma with malalignment and/or nonunion. One wonders, did the patient break her arm as a child?"

It is often said, in consolatory tones, that "time heals all wounds." But radiologists, who study and interpret physical proofs of the body's ability to store memory, know that this is a crock of shit.

In the first weeks following the accident, Wanda slept; and while her physical body was tended by medical professionals, everything else— those aspects of her which could not be X-rayed, measured, laboratory-tested, or clinically assessed—was overseen and controlled by other entities, chiefly her dreaming self: a self which had been so long silenced, neglected, and relegated to the brain's cramped, under-the-table places that, once freed, it poured forth its messages nonstop.

Wanda's dream-self knew her helplessness and had no compunction about turning this to an advantage. It was relentless. It showed no mercy. Wanda—unconscious, immobile, unable to resist—could do nothing but watch as images were played out on the screen behind her closed eyes. The stories told by her dream-self were not structured in the long, smooth, leisurely, wide-screen Cinerama way of a movie epic. Uninterested in truth, beauty, accuracy, chronology, or narrative flow, Wanda's dream-self was a historical revisionist with a handheld camera and an unlimited budget. Wanda was forced to watch and participate in a nightmare, a horror film with endless variations on one theme:

But I'm not meant to be an actor!
she wanted to yell, as an unseen director cast her in production after production: as Eliza in
My Fair Lady,
Wendy in
Peter Pan,
Perdita in
The Winter's Tale.
The productions were underrehearsed, the dressing spaces were inadequate, she had no stage makeup, her costumes were the wrong size. She was clumsy, ill-prepared, the set pieces were flimsy, the doorjambs too low—the sets were built for children, it seemed, or for midgets—and she kept bumping her head, tripping, stumbling around like a colorless, unfunny clown. There was no privacy, her humiliation was public, the actors and actresses—some of them famous, all of them more beautiful and competent than she— were crowded together in the dressing rooms. The audience saw all the flaws. The wiring was faulty. There were no lights at the makeup tables. Where was her Cleopatra wig? How was she supposed to get out of a corset without help? How could she manage such quick costume changes? Why were there crayons and paint tubes and glue sticks and cracked coffee cups rolling all over her dressing table? Where was her lipstick? Where was she supposed to hang up her dress?

I'm calling the union!
she longed to shout.
I'm going to report this! You're in violation of Equity rules!

But she was the only one who cared. Everyone else regarded her as a pain in the ass, a diva without a diva's talent. Backstage, it was dark, so dark. It was dangerous. The set was hazardous, unorganized, a free-for-all. Where were the Equity lights? Who was the stage manager? And they hadn't rehearsed the "Rain in Spain" number! A pivotal turning point in the character's development! The showstopper! The audience was already out there, waiting, waiting for her. Could she even do the dance steps? The high kicks? And the singing! She had no musical background. Her voice was untrained, weak, it couldn't possibly carry to the back row. No one would hear her. Everyone would know that she'd been miscast. Someone else should be doing the lead. Maybe they'd throw things at her. Tomatoes and plates. Where was she supposed to stand? Where did she enter from? Where was she supposed to go? What was her blocking? Why did everyone else know their place onstage? And flying? She'd have to fly? No, surely not, her harness was ill-fitting, too loose; but suddenly she was up there, way up by the lighting instruments that were cold, turned off, up in a black starless sky, and she was looking down into the open jaws of hundreds, thousands of empty seats, and then she was falling, falling, with no net, no one to catch her. Where were the techies? The Flying Foys? They were supposed to be the best, but they'd abandoned her! Where was the father? The paterfamilias? Peter Foy? Troy? Where were the well-trained airographers? And then she was hoisted up again, and dropped, and hoisted, and dropped.

Who's manning this operation?
she wanted to know.
Aren't you supposed to die if you fall in your dreams} Am I dead already?

And the venues, they were so large, the largest she'd ever seen, like Greek amphitheaters, Shakespeare's Globe, like the outdoor theatres she'd heard about in the South, where whole communities gathered to see the crucifixion of Christ, the resurrection. Where hundreds of townsfolk acted out the story of the Passion Play.

Finally, she realized the truth:
She
was the stage manager. It was all her fault. She'd put on a costume, forgotten to do her job, and now she was suffering the consequences. No one had walked the set. No one had scheduled rehearsals. She deserved whatever she got.

I'm not meant to be an actor!
Wanda tried to scream, over and over. But her mouth would not open. It was a cage, and she was trapped inside.

The outward effects of this dreaming were evident—Wanda often cried as she slept, tried to move or make sounds. These physiologic activities were comforting to the doctors and nurses. They were proof of brain activity, a near-sure promise that consciousness would one day return to this young woman in whom they had invested so much of their time and skill. Her colleagues and housemates too were heartened by these signs of life—Margaret and Troy more than anyone. But the two of them recognized these signs as symptomatic of an untreatable sadness and isolation, and their relief was tempered by a terrible impotence. Wanda was in another country, one without access, one from which she could not be rescued. She would have to find her own way out. She would have to come to them.

When she finally opened her eyes, for reasons both physical and pharmaceutical, she still could not move or speak. Her legs, arms, and pelvis had undergone numerous open reduction/internal fixation procedures and were immobilized by casting material; fractures to her mandible and facial bones made it necessary for her jaw to be wired shut. Her needs for food and water were met intravenously. Percocet minimized her pain; it also kept her in a continuous, sedated haze. She was unable to write her affirmation.

Over time, she slept less. She started taking in more of the waking world: Sounds came first—the drone of hospital noises, electrical beeps and burps; a Muzak of voices. Doctors and nurses. Chatty visitors. She preferred to tune out content. Being unable to speak had given her a new relationship with words. She had a disdain for those who required them—a disdain which included her former self and all the cajoling commanding handling vocabulary she had used her whole life, all the ways she had labored with language to get the misbehavers to behave, the intractable to give a little, the fighters to make peace, the deserters to stay, the sons-of-bitches to do the right thing—and she had a new appreciation for those who could do quite nicely without. It was a relief, really, to be free of words. A relief to be silent.

Then came blurs of color, reflected light. Just as Wanda preferred to block out the content of sounds, so she refrained from focusing her sight in a way that delineated form. She liked the way matter blurred together so that whatever or whoever was in the room had no identity, no hard edges. Just an opus of color.

Nevertheless, sometimes content came through. Sometimes words and images took on more distinct shapes.

Taking care of that.
Margaret speaking.
Medical bills come to me.

Internal damage.
One of the doctors.
Possible infertility.

Everyone at the theatre.
Blah-blah. Actors. Directors.
Miss you! Job waiting! Can't wait!

Bruce has joined us.
Margaret again.
Marvelous cook! Everything ready when you get home.

Frequently, at night, she heard hollow spasms of breath: a man, sobbing. At other times she woke to see a still, shadowy figure in the bedside chair or standing guard at the window. Once she awoke to feel his face close to hers on the pillow, her skin warmed by his breath.

Come backj babe,
the figure whispered.
Don't run away.

Eventually, with medical attention, physical therapy, and time, Wanda regained full consciousness. She recovered some mobility and strength. She learned to maneuver a wheelchair. When she felt up to it, she could peregrinate slowly with the help of a walker. Her hands and arms once out of casts were free to flutter. Her bodily pain, although never completely absent, subsided. She was occasionally able to abandon prescription drugs—and their numbing effects—for over-the-counter ibuprofen. Her jaw could once again open and close—in a limited and painful way—and she could eat solid foods, if she chose. She had the ability to talk.

But for reasons not attributable to medical science or understood by her professional caregivers, Wanda chose to remain mute. She communicated through the use of facial expressions, or a simple nod or shake of her head. On the infrequent occasions when words were required, she scrawled her responses on a yellow legal pad. And in order to clarify her choice to those with whom she was unacquainted, she hung a sign around her neck.

"Not deaf," the sign said. "Mute by choice."

"Do you like it?" Margaret asked.

The current residents of the Hughes mansion were standing in the hall outside the first-floor guest quarters, otherwise known as the Aviary Suite—or rather, Margaret, Gus, Susan, Bruce, and Margaret's mother were standing; Wanda was sitting in her wheelchair. Everyone waited. Wanda nodded wanly, but affably. She wheeled in. No one quite knew what to do next.

"Maybe you'd like to be alone for a while?" Margaret suggested. Wanda's back was to them. She seemed to be looking out of the large bay window. It was a rainy July evening, still light outside.