Dana Spiotta - Innocents and Others

The first event was the phone call from Nicole/Jelly/Amy. It came long after Inward Operator had been released, when she was deep into the filming of Children of the Disappeared. Meadow got a message on her voice mail. She referred to herself as Jelly, not Nicole or Amy. Meadow called her back. She had no idea what was coming — she truly expected that the woman had seen the film again and was calling to say she liked it.

Jelly:I finally saw your film. The one you made about me.

Meadow:You did.

J:I didn’t want to see it before because I was scared of watching myself, my life.

M:I can imagine.

J:You cannot imagine. (A pause.) You have no idea. The fact is that some women do not get love. And I knew that, I didn’t need you to show me that. I didn’t need the world to laugh at me. I did not need you to humiliate me. There is enough pain. Only Jack had a right to judge me.

M:I think you are wonderful, and I tried to show how interesting you are.

J:Don’t condescend to me. I am not stupid, although I was naive to believe you. You had all the power, and you knew exactly what would happen.

M:I believed in you, I thought that Jack—

J:What?

M:I really thought that Jack would love and forgive you. That he would understand you.

J:You set me up to be humiliated. You knew how it would look. You filmed it.

M:I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know how it would go.

J:You did this to me. You did this to me. It was a hard, mean thing.

M:I am so sorry.

J:You played me. And then when you saw what you had, you put the film out there. Not everything needs to be filmed. Not everything needs to be seen, to be public. What good did it do? What was it for?

M:I don’t know. (A pause.) I don’t.

J:I just wanted you to get the picture on costs. What you did and what it felt like for me.

M:Okay. I’m sorry.

J:Some people — you, for instance — are very lucky in this life.

Meadow never told anyone about Jelly’s call, but it was impossible to forget what Jelly said. When Meadow later received a lot of criticism for Children of the Disappeared , she kept thinking back to Jelly’s reproach. Meadow needed to do something different, which led to the second event: the aborted Sarah Mills confession. And her weird lack of affect as she confessed. The experience shook Meadow completely, which led to the third event, the accident. The stupid, careless accident.

After the three-hour drive from Bedford Hills, when she was just a few minutes from home, she realized she had no coffee or food for breakfast tomorrow. Meadow stopped at the Price Chopper to get groceries. She swiped her credit card and waited. She was tired, and she heard the girl say, “Thank you,” and hand her the receipt. It didn’t occur to her to say “thank you” back until she had already started to walk toward the door.

“Excuse me,” she heard the girl shout. Meadow turned back and the girl was holding up her bag.

“Oh, my groceries! Sorry. Thank you so much,” Meadow said brightly and took the plastic bag. Where was the car? She clicked her alarm button on her key to find it. It clicked and the lights blinked. Of course, there it was.

Sarah’s hand had shaken a little, otherwise you would never know that she was fragile. It would be impossible to guess what she was talking about if you didn’t speak English. She was so cool, even after twenty years, could someone be so cool?

Meadow turned on the car. She cranked up the heat. She turned on the radio, then she turned it off again. It was like that Brother’s Keeper documentary. Wasn’t there a scene where the old guy confesses on camera to killing his brother?

People will tell you anything. “I would confess,” Meadow said out loud, and she was shocked at how her voice sounded in the car. She laughed. Maybe it is from watching so many confessions on TV and in the movies. Meadow’s hands held the wheel lightly at four and seven o’clock. Her neck was sore; she put one hand in her lap and moved the other one across the steering wheel so she could control the wheel with one hand. The setting sun was in her eyes. She was driving into the dusk, and even with sunglasses it was too bright.

“I confess,” she said. “I am a terrible, selfish person who just tries to make myself look smart,” she said, doubtfully. “But really, I am just trying to make myself. Out of looking at other people. I have no real self, I think,” she said. Meadow still couldn’t see and reached to lower the visor. Just then she changed lanes, to get into the lane that was for her turn, the turn she had made a thousand times before. Meadow was already in her driveway when she made that turn, already walking to her bed, to the sleep that she needed so badly. She looked to her left, but she didn’t look. She heard a horn, and she saw her car rushing toward the side of another car. She pressed the brakes, but her car did not stop, it swerved, and in the moment before contact, she knew this was a big accident, and she thought perhaps she would die.

When she hit the side of the other car, the front of her car crumpled and ripped away. There was an explosion, and her hands were pinned down as the airbag hit her face. Then it was over, just the burning smell. The airbag deflated, but she felt something sticking to her chin. She pulled the latch of the door and pushed. It creaked loudly but the door opened and she stumbled out.

“Are you okay?” a woman asked her. And Meadow nodded yes, but then she fell back against the car and the woman helped her to the curb.

“My face,” Meadow said, and tried to touch her chin.

“Don’t touch it. It looks burned from the airbag. And your knee, does that hurt? Don’t move. An ambulance is coming.”

The EMS people put a blanket on her. They made her lie down. They put something on her face. It was starting to hurt. The burning smell was awful, plastic and acid. She felt suddenly that she would be sick.

Only once she was in the ambulance did she think to ask.

“What about the other driver? Is the other driver okay?” The attendant nodded.

“They took her to the hospital. They are taking care of her right now.”

“Oh my god. Was she hurt badly?” Meadow tried to get up. The attendant gently pushed her back down.

“I don’t know, but she is getting care. Don’t worry.”

“What have I done,” Meadow cried. “Oh god, what have I done?” Meadow started to sob, which hurt all of her face and her chest.

“It was an accident. Just an accident. You need to calm down. Everything is okay.”

Meadow shook her head. She closed her eyes. No. You don’t understand. I am a terrible person, I do this all the time.

It was true. Lately Meadow had been reckless in her driving. She slid blindly into traffic, she barely looked over her shoulder when she changed lanes. She drove quite fast, and negotiated turns with one hand loosely gripping the steering wheel. None of this was on purpose. None of it broke the surface of her conscious mind. It was only in the hospital, where she was kept for a day and a night due to her concussion, that she remembered how much she had been courting an accident. Her own desire to hit a divider and bounce off, or a tree, or an embankment. Not to die, but to make something hit her, shake her up. But never — she swore — did she ever imagine hurting another person.

Her victim was a thirty-year-old woman. Her injuries were not serious. A broken hand from her airbag and some bruises and a stiff neck. Yet Meadow knew that she was lucky. The cost of Meadow’s carelessness could have been someone’s life, and Meadow would have fallen into it without a thought.