A. Homes - Things You Should Know

“I’m drunk,” he’d say going back for another.

“I’m drunk,” he’d say when they’d said their good-byes and were walking down the gravel driveway in the dark.

“I’ll drive,” she’d say.

“It’s my car,” he’d say.

“You’re drunk.”

“Not really, I’m faking it.”

An old Mercedes convertible. It should have been perfect, riding home with the top down in the night air, taken by the sounds of frogs, the crickets, Miles Davis on the radio, a million stars overhead, the stripe of the Milky Way, no longer worrying what the wind was doing to her hair — the party over.

It should have been perfect, but the minute they were alone there was tension. She disappeared, mentally, slipping back into the party, the clinking of glasses, bare-armed, bare-backed women, men sporty and tan, having gotten up early and taken the kids out for doughnuts, having spent the afternoon in action; tennis, golf, sailing, having had a nice long hot shower and a drink as they dressed for evening.

“Looking forward to planning a wedding?” one of the women had asked.

“No.” She had no interest in planning a wedding. She was expected to marry him, but the more time that passed, the more skittish they both became, the more she was beginning to think a wedding was not a good idea. She became angry that she’d lost time, that she’d run out of time, that her choices were becoming increasingly limited. She had dated good men, bad men, the right men at the wrong time, the wrong men a lot of the time.

And the more time that passed, the more bitter he became, the more he wanted to go back in time, the more he craved his lost youth.

“Let’s stay out,” he’d say to friends after a party.

“Can’t. We’ve got to get the sitter home.”

“What’s the point of having a baby-sitter if you’re still completely tied down?”

“It’s late,” they’d say.

“It’s early, it’s very early,” he’d say.

And soon there was nothing left to say.

“You’re all so boring,” he’d say, which didn’t leave anyone feeling good about anything.

“Good night,” they’d say.

He drove, the engine purred. They passed houses, lit for night, front porch lights on, upstairs bathroom light on, reading light on. He drove and she kept a lookout, fixed on the edges of the road, waiting to catch the eyes of an animal about to dash, the shadow of a deer about to jump.

When he got drunk, he’d start looking for a fight. If there wasn’t another man around to wrestle with he’d turn on her.

“How can you talk incessantly all night and then the minute we’re in the car you have nothing to say?”

“I had nothing to say all night either,” she said.

“Such a fucking depressive — what’s wrong with you?”

He accelerated.

“I’m not going to fight with you,” she said.

“You’re the kind of person who thinks she’s always right,” he said.

She didn’t answer.

Coming into town the light was green. A narrow road, framed by hundred-year-old trees, a big white house on the left, an inn across the way, the pond where in winter ice-skaters turned pirouettes, the cemetery on the far side, the old windmill, the Episcopal church, all of it deeply picturesque.

Green light, go. Coming around the corner, he seemed to speed up rather than slow down, he seemed to press his foot harder into the gas. They turned the corner. She could tell they weren’t going to make it. She looked at him to see if he had the wheel in hand, if he had any idea what he was doing, if he thought it was a joke. And then as they picked up more speed, as they slipped off the road, between two trees, over the embankment, she looked away.

The car stopped and her body continued on.

She remembers flying as if on a magic carpet, flying the way you might dream it, flying over water — sudden, surprising, and not entirely unpleasant.

She remembers thinking she might fly forever, all the way home.

She remembers thinking to cover her head, remembers they are by a cemetery.

She remembers telling herself — This is the last time.

She remembers when they went canoeing on the pond. A swan came charging toward the boat like a torpedo, like a hovercraft, skimming the surface, gaining on them. At first they thought it was funny and then it wasn’t.

“Should I swing my paddle at him? Should I try and hit him on the head? Should I break his fucking neck? What should I do?” he kept asking, all the while leaving her at the front of the boat, paddling furiously, left, right, left, right.

Now, something is pecking at her, biting her.

There is a sharp smell like ammonia, like smelling salts.

She remembers her body not attached to anything.

“Can you hear us?”

“Can someone get the swans out of here?”

Splashing. People walking in water. A lot of commotion.

“Are you in pain?”

“Don’t try to move. Don’t move anything. Let us do all the work.”

She remembers a lot of questions, time passing very slowly. She remembers the birds, a church, the leaf of a tree, the night sky, red lights, white lights in her eyes. She thinks she screamed. She meant to scream. She doesn’t know if she can make any noise.

“What is your name?”

“Can you tell me your name?”

“Can you feel this?”

“We’re going to give you some oxygen.”

“We’re going to set up an IV, there may be a little stick.”

“Do these bites on your head hurt?”

“Follow this light with your eyes.”

“Look at me. Can you look at me?”

He turns away. “We’re going to need a medevac helicopter. We’re going to need to land on that churchyard up there. We’re going to need her stable, in a hard collar and on a board. I think we may have a broken neck.”

She thinks they are talking about a swan, a swan has been injured.

“Don’t go to sleep,” they say, pinching her awake. “Stay with us.”

And then she is flying again. She remembers nothing. She remembers only what they told her.

“You’re very lucky. You could have been decapitated or paralyzed forever.”

She is in a hospital far away.

“You have a facet dislocation, five over six — in essence, a broken neck. We’re going to put you in a halo and a jacket. You’ll be up and around in no time.”

The doctor smiles down at her. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

She can’t nod. She tries to but nothing happens. “Yes,” she says. “You think I’m very lucky.”

In the operating room, the interns and residents swab four points on her head. “Have you ever done this before?” they ask each other.

“I’ve watched.”

“We’re going to logroll you,” the doctor tells her. And they do. “Get the raised part at the back of the skull and the front positioning pin lined up over the bridge of the nose, approximately seven centimeters over the eyebrows with equal distance between the head and the halo all the way around.”

“How are your fingers? Can you move your fingers?”

She can.

“Good. Now wiggle your toes.”

“You don’t want it too high, it pitches the head back so she just sees sky, and you don’t want it too low because then she’s looking at her shoes,” the doctor says. He seems to know what he is talking about.

“Feel my finger on your cheek — sharp or dull?”

“Sharp.”

“Let’s simultaneously tighten one anterior and its diagonal opposite posterior.”

“Thanks. Now pass me the wrench.”

“Close your eyes, please.”

She doesn’t know if they’re talking to her or someone else. Someone looks directly down at her. “Time to close your eyes.”

She is bolted into a metal halo, which is then bolted into a plastic vest, all of it like the scaffolding around a building, like the Statue of Liberty undergoing renovations. When they are done and sit her upright — she almost faints.