Mon amie américaine (7 page)

You're just at the start of discovering the fear that made us tremble for so many months.

For you, this is an enormous, astounding piece of information.

You almost died, and you can't get over it.

When I entered your room, as soon as you saw my face, you let out a kind of minicry, held out your hand, your cheek, breathed in my perfume
and recognized it, which made you smile. You smiled with your eyes, and I nearly burst into tears. I don't think it surprised you to see me, and I sensed that it was giving you pleasure. You murmured my name, but your reedy voice was so thin, so close to inaudible, that I came very close to you and bent to speak to you in your ear. You were listening to my words, blinking, nodding, your eyes shining.

I didn't take out the pink envelope from my bag to put it on the bedside table, which was already too crowded. It would have seemed incongruous in this spartan room with its flaking paint, medical smell, lack of ventilation, and underfloor heating, which was already drying out my mucous membranes.

I did my best not to let you see the shock that I felt in discovering you on this metal bed.

My Molly, they've massacred your hair, cut it at every angle, which isn't serious; but your face … has gotten so drawn. It's still pallid, almost translucent. It's a face snatched from death but not yet returned to life, a face with ringed eyes in which I can read a terrible fear that goes right into me and punches a hole in my stomach. You
try to make the half gesture of a kiss, but your lips have trouble grazing my cheek.

Your mother, who is at your bedside as I'd expected, gets up to meet me. She's shorter than you, heavier, too, especially in that beige suit that's too tight for her. She's just as you have always described her, with auburn hair that has too much hairspray, hoop earrings, a “French manicure,” and misshapen athletic shoes. She takes me in her arms as if I were a family member, interrupts me as soon as I greet her: “Oh no, no ‘Mrs.' between us. You
must
call me Dora,” and then takes control of the conversation. She's staying at a hotel very nearby, not even five minutes by car, and luckily, right across the street, there is a “wonderful steakhouse” where she's a regular customer. Your father can only spend time with you on weekends, whereas she's at your side “around the clock.” This gives her a chance to have continuous contact with the medical team that is treating you. “And thanks to them, Molly is going to make
so much
progress!” Her forced enthusiasm is oppressive. It's as if her mouth were sucking in all the air in the room.

You have closed your eyes. I come and sit down next to you. I take your right hand. I can feel it trembling in mine. Your left hand is resting on the sheet. It isn't moving. Your mother covers it with hers. “And all this is going to take
a little
time.” She looks me straight in the eye. I get the impression she's trying to tell me something. I don't see what it could be.

The nurse enters without knocking, and from her stony face I understand I should leave. I get up quickly, bend over you, and murmur a few more words into your ear. I tell you how much I care about you, Molly, my Molly, I love you so much. I can feel your breath against my cheek. As I've always done because that habit amuses you, I add, “And quick, my two Parisian kisses.”

I place my lips against your cheeks.

One of them is very warm, the other not at all.

Your mother is still staring at me. Her eyes move from me to your left hand, still lying on the sheet. It hasn't moved since I came into your room.

Your unmoving hand. Your cold cheek.

Your inert leg under the blanket.

Your mouth, Molly, a corner of which does not manage to smile.

Peter and Paul say they had decided not to warn me so that I'd be as natural as possible in front of you. They were even hoping that the visit would be too brief for me to have the time to notice what was going on. In any case — and Peter's voice over the telephone increases in volume, as if that would make it easier to convince me — the doctors haven't lost hope about seeing you regain the feeling on your left side. That's the reason you've been transferred to this special unit. With intense rehabilitation, they say that they can obtain unexpected results. A real battle awaits you, and you will all wage it together.

Seated in front of my computer, I type these words the way tears spill out, without stopping, almost without breathing.

I no longer know very well exactly whom I write to.

To you, of course.

But not to the person I saw today, who wasn't moving, as if she'd been washed up onto her
overly stiff bed. To that person, I can't. Let's just say that for the time being, I'm speaking to your brain, which is functioning very well. You recognized me, asked me right away for news of Vincent and the children without mistaking their names; and you even remembered that Benoît was going to be six. I saw — or at least sensed — the glimmer of the old Molly in your eyes. Even if your voice has changed, even if those eyes appear haunted by a terror that seemed inexplicable to me until I noticed your left hand, I know that deep inside you're still there.

I've found you again, incredibly fragile and battered, but still near and still so familiar. I've missed you so much.

Describing my visit to anyone at all is out of the question. I'd rather turn off my laptop. Taking a small break is also prolonging the illusion for a few more hours of the Molly your three friends are hoping to see again. What can I tell them without lying? The truth?

I would have liked to record the following message for those who'll call the hospital for news of you: “Molly is not here for the moment.
She's away from herself. If you're looking for her, it would be better to find her again in your memories.”

Mine have disappeared, momentarily erased by your distorted voice that murmured in my ear, “You know I almost died?”

Tonight, I'm not there for anyone.

Four in the morning. Impossible to sleep. Lying in front of a nonstop news channel, I cut off the sound and play devil's advocate. I put myself in your place. When you're an adult, independent, a globe-trotter, and you find yourself infantilized by an overprotective mother and a glum nurse; when you're in shock about what has happened, and you find yourself dependent upon a body that you can't control as you did before; when your brain is laboring to process all this new data, can you find the energy in yourself to wage such a struggle? Poor Molly, you seem so destitute. Even the modulation of your voice has changed. It seemed more muffled, lower.

Normally, I would have called Vincent to tell him everything. But I can't handle speaking to him.
I don't know how to behave with him any more. There are few possible options and — you know me — I've already imagined all the scenarios. Confronting him will be a relief for me but will free him from the fear that he might have of hurting me. With no more need to conceal things, maybe he will want to live this story even more fully? Keeping quiet would require a superhuman effort on my part. I'm afraid resentment is making me aggressive, which is bringing grist to the other woman's mill, as she already has the advantage of being the younger one and now would also become the nicer one.

Molly, you've often criticized me for this, and you certainly are right, but I'm so used to reasoning in reference to him, from a point of view in which he's included, by taking him into consideration! He's my partner, my foundation, my base, the direction in which I aim all my serves. For the first time in twenty years of life together, I find myself alone on the court without him standing on the other side of the net. And I'm not talking to you about the children. Can a couple make themselves suffer without them becoming the collateral victims? If that were possible, it would be known.

Already they're complaining that I'm away too often …

Molly, I never told you about that famous night. I'm not boasting about it. I'm much too ashamed. The worst night of my life as a mother. The one when I felt stupendously guilty. Clara was barely three years old. She was in bed with a fever. I heard her coughing in her sleep. I opened the door of her room and bent over her bed. She opened her eyes; but instead of snuggling up in the arms I held out for her, she turned on her side, her expression shut me out, and she whined, “Not you. I want Lala.” I stood firm. I explained that at night the Lalas of the entire world were sleeping, whereas the moms got up no matter what time it was to give cuddles and take care of boo-boos. She ended up letting herself be cuddled and fell asleep again against my chest. I listened to her breathing, curled up against me. I felt her fevered head against my neck, and I took stock of the extent of the damages. Being able to juggle a profession and a family life was a myth; then, an illusion. A child doesn't relate to the concept of a proxy. She needs you, body and soul. If you're not there, she'll need someone else. That's the way it is. Nature abhors a vacuum.

All the same, books dedicated to child raising hammer one thing in: it's important for children to have a mother who is fulfilled. And what if the thing that fulfills me isn't taking care of my children exclusively from morning to night, but also working, traveling, using my brain cells, and experiencing life on my own? That's too bad, but that's what Lalas were invented for. They're hard to find; they make themselves indispensable, hold you hostage, and take your place in the hearts of your children. They possess the key to the harmony of your family, a key worth its weight in gold; and you willingly pay the price for it, without understanding that you're losing more than they are getting from it. Of course, there is life outside of them: Sundays, holidays, vacations, and school. Little by little, time will pass and children will grow. One day, Lalas will leave your home. Then it will be your children who will leave.

In the meantime, a pattern has been established. Your absences. Your negligence.

There it is, Molly. Something you've escaped. It's the lot of mothers who work. A special tax, a dash of daily anguish added to all the others. Forming a decoction men don't have to stomach.
That night, I was truly aware that you would exchange your life for mine without hesitation; your trauma for my anguish, your concrete fear of tomorrow for my conjugal trivia. With or without Vincent, my future is in front of me. Yours is a nebula that you're in no condition to apprehend.

On the television screen, an ad for Nike is ending on its famous slogan: Just do it. It never struck me how stupid, naive, and untruthful such an expression is. Infuriating. I stretch out my arm to shut those idiots up. When you want to, you can? If only that could be the case for you. You've managed to come back from your planet Comma, Molly. You achieved it all on your own. You'll definitely find a way to overcome this last ordeal in your obstacle course. Won't you?

THREE WEEKS AFTER MY VISIT, YOU STILL DON'T HAVE THE STRENGTH TO ANSWER THE TELEPHONE
. I call your mother, Suzie, Tom, and your three European friends, who all ended up making the trip.

Everyone's account is along the same lines.

It's not encouraging.

You spend your time lying down without sleeping, your eyes staring into space. You don't want the television turned on. You don't read the magazines that are brought to you. You don't want anything. Especially not talking. You were able to summon enough energy in yourself to send away the rabbi and the psychologist your mother had called in. You made it understood that she hadn't a clue, that you had nothing to say, to anyone.

You do say that you need to put your thoughts in order.

All you've asked for is your iPod. You listen to music nonstop, the earphones glued to your ears. You're loath for anyone to remove them, even for medical treatments.

You're experiencing head-on the repercussions of your weeks in a coma. You're sizing up the enormity of what has happened to you. Of what is coming. But instead of this giving you a desire to fight, you're not really making an effort. You put up with your daily rehabilitation exercises. The doctors say that your heart isn't in it. You don't believe in it. You aren't fighting. You find the effort too painful, the result too uncertain.

You say that you're ill and that unremitting effort is pointless.

You say that you're too tired, that you can't do it.

Molly, what are you doing?

Don't you understand?

Time, Molly, time is passing, and the days are piling up.

You're not getting any better.

You say you don't give a damn.

The doctors are discouraged. Peter and Paul are becoming pessimistic. Tom is becoming more important every day and, for lack of having been
officially hired to do your job, he's replacing you on a day-to-day basis. He says that he comes to see you every three or four days to keep you informed, but that you interrupt him by saying that it no longer interests you. Molly, I can easily imagine that movies are the least of your concerns, but you're being thrown a line to help you come back to us, understand? You've got to grab hold of it, even if you don't feel like it. It's the same with appetite: it's true — I promise — it comes back as you eat.

Molly, I can't believe that you've lost interest in everything apart from chocolate milkshakes. You've got to find a reason inside yourself to fight. Do it for yourself, for us, for the children you don't yet have, for the beaches of the South Seas you haven't yet discovered, for the memories that are still waiting to be made by you, for the years you have left to live. Do it for the miracle your surgeons have accomplished. Do it so that you won't have come back from your planet Comma in vain. Do it to give your life meaning. Do it so we can go back to seeing films and traveling the globe.

No one from the profession is rallying to your cause any more. Now that you've come out of the coma, your case is less interesting. It's no longer
a question of life or death. About you they say you've pulled through, that you're resting. Until when? No one knows. No one in the group of people around you will dare to make a prognosis.