The Return
I had spent most of my life trying to protect my little girl from so many things: cars, sharp edges, boogie-men —
I decided not to take the highway. I wanted more time with Alex. Just a little bit more time to stretch out the minutes sandwiched between her hospitalization and homecoming. I think it was the right decision, too, because I found the stop and go of the after-rush hour traffic on the El Camino to be relaxing. And I was no hurry.
Overhead, the traffic light changed to red. I pressed down on the brake and reached for my coffee. McDonalds. Luke-warm, bitter. Over-brewed, too, but there weren’t many options: the coffee maker had been packed away for 24 hours.
I glanced at Alex who was still staring out the window.
“Your little sisters are happy they get to use their rolling suitcases again. You know, the ones we took to our vacation to Yosemite.”
I knew Alex would remember. It was the last trip we went on all together.
Alex looked for a moment, then returned to her window, resting her cheek on the upholstered tweed, and fingering the envelope postmarked “Los Angeles.”
Outside, the day was mild and warm. Bright. Spring had bullied its way into winter, ahead of schedule this year. The March shadows, overcast, were gone, along with the rain clouds that had lurked overhead, thick and dark and waiting for the chilling gusts of still-winter wind which always seemed to appear out of nowhere — interrupting the best of our plans.
But not today. Today, the sky was clear and blue and cloudless. A happy March sky, and I couldn’t have asked for anything more, because today Alex was returning home.
For the first time in weeks there was no hat on her head. There was no wide cloth hair-band and no piece of gauze or cotton pressed tight to her ear to catch the bloody mucousy drip.
Instead, Alex’s hair was gathered loosely into a single French braid that trailed down her back. Both of her ears were naked and exposed to the air, and free of pain. Alex, at last, had returned to wellness; a life without I.V.’s and strawberry Jell-O and clear chicken broth, and, at last, a life without nurses who check vital signs at midnight.
From the driver’s seat, I could just make out the two-by-two-inch square of gauze hiding behind her left ear, protecting the little row of stitches. It was Alex’s badge of survival.
At Wolf Road, another yellow stoplight turned to red. I braked and glanced over to the frail seventeen-year-old who used to be my daughter. “Honey, I’m so excited to have you back — ”
Again, Alex didn’t respond. She continued to gaze out her window at the paused landscape. Maybe she didn’t hear me speak. Or maybe this was normal. After all, it had been six weeks since she was able to participate in life, and now, at last, life was all around her — everywhere.
It must be expected.
The light turned green, and engines around us hummed forward. For some reason, my thoughts went back to the hospital; standing above Alex, stroking her forehead, praying for her to wake up and to be okay. And the whole time I worried about Alex, I worried about the mortgage and the one thing they said would never happen.
But it did happen.
So how do I, her mother, just say it?
— By the way Alex, I was wrong: while you were in the hospital, your home was packed away — carted off to storage.
The thought of storage and the house brought me back to Thanksgiving dinner and T.J. ranting on and on about “subprime” and “interest rate.” Damn him! He knew this was coming.
On either side of street, the landscape was changing. Five minutes had brought us to the boundary-line and the signpost that read Welcome to the City of Santa Clara.
Here, the storefronts were familiar; small snapshots of my personal history, sidewalks alive with a lifetime of frozen afternoons: me, dragging my feet in sweaty sandals holding an ice-cold Slurpee; with my sister, backpacks strapped to our shoulders, waiting for the bus to take us home from school; all of three of us, crammed into the back seat of the Volvo. Years later, I would walk past with my own kids, pushing a shopping cart through Kmart, Big Lots, and Blockbuster Video. Yes, this was my neighborhood.
It was also Alex’s neighborhood.
I had tried to tell Alex about moving. Gently. Ever since I learned that moving was a possibility. But it was difficult, if not impossible, to speak to Alex about something that I barely understood.
Especially when she was connected to tubes.
But I was out of time. There was no other way.
“So, Alex, the hotel is nearby — just down the street. So, you can still walk to school. Things won’t change too much.”
It was a ‘sort-of’ truth, and I knew this, even as I said the words aloud. This time, Alex glanced over at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. Then she turned on the radio and turned away. I thought I heard the gentle folding — a crinkling — of the envelope in the heaviness that descended between us.
I didn’t know if I should continue to talk and explain to my child — yes, she was still just a child — that I was tired. I had worked all weekend long to downsize our belongings to move out. In fact, it was so downsized that I could recite the contents of our house in one sentence, without needing to take a breath: suitcases filled with clothes, paper plates and food, three air mattresses and one card table in the middle of the kitchen, and four folding chairs.
Instead, I said nothing, but listened to the emptiness that had grown from the pause. It leaked through, almost drowning out the rumble of the car engine and the radio newscaster who was talking on and on about a proposition on the ballot to build a stadium in Santa Clara.
Because the 49ers need a home.
I kept my eyes on the road. I thought about Mike, briefly, but it didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered now, except Alex and the sentence I had prepared to cheer her up.
I had practiced it in my head, again and again, but it was stuck — caught deep in-between my trachea and my esophagus. It was a tangled mass of disbelief and frustration and yuk; a rage that threatened to erupt and expose the future as something that I didn’t want it to be.
So, instead of speaking the words aloud, to my daughter, I whispered them to myself — you’ll see; we can start over.
Selfishly, I imagined what a wonderful moment it would be if Alex — suddenly wise from her near-death encounter — would turn away from the window and speak that one sentence, or word or phrase, that would ease my guilt. Maybe one magical observation that would put life and death into its proper perspective.
And losing the house wouldn’t seem so bad.
But Alex just continued to stare out the window, and my words lingered, their half-truth buried, waiting for us to pull up alongside the curb of 2667 Donovan Avenue. Then —
In the end, I recited little of — and Alex heard less of — the well-planned “It’ll get better” speech that was meant to prepare her for the empty house. I didn’t know if this was bad, or good.
On arrival, Alex tumbled out of the car, a big smile from ear to bandaged ear, her eyes bright. I climbed out behind her, scooped up her hospital bag and gave the car door a nudge. It took its time to swing shut and I watched as Alex stepped forward without me.
Still clenching her envelope in her right fist, Alex began her ascent up the brick walkway, past the mailbox that I’d meant to replace: one, two, three, four steps. Then she stopped, and leading with her shoulder, her chin last, she faced me.
“You o.k.?” I stepped onto the sidewalk.
She nodded, steadying herself, locking her knees. Fine grooves stretched across her forehead, and she inhaled through her nostrils. Her thin shoulders rose, then fell and she separated her lips, taking time to form each syllable, round and long. “M o m, I’ m — ”
In a minute, I was beside her, placing an arm around her waist.
“Here, lean on me — ”
She fell against me, and together we continued forward, one step at a time. In one sense, it was surreal that she and I were finally here, returning home; in the same way that her surgery had also seemed unreal.
The doorknob was cold against the center of my palm. It radiated outwards, moving to the tips of my fingers. I turned it clockwise like I always did.
As if it today was any other day.
The door surrendered with a “click.” I pressed my teeth against my bottom lip, feeling flesh between enamel.
A way-too-quiet silence leaked from the house, pulsing, and ready to swallow us up, whole.
Alex leaned against me and, at that moment, standing with Alex at the threshold of the empty house, looking in, the irony was clear. I had spent most of my life trying to protect my little girl from so many things: cars, sharp edges, boogie-men; however, when I opened the door, and her eyes took in “home,” I knew that I could never have prepared her for that moment, that loss. For home, as Alex remembered it, was gone. It was packed away in boxes, stacked up, and locked away in Public Storage on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara.
Waiting for the next chapter.
I could feel the echoing the rhythm of Alex’s heart — pounding, beating, reverberating — bouncing off the empty walls of the room. I could feel her gasp, voiceless, as she scanned the room and her jaw fell. Her breath strangled, caught in the exhale, and tiny tremors in her chest rose up, then paused, only to break.
She looked at me, her bottom lip quivering, her eyes searching and wet, blinking furiously as if to rid themselves of the teary pools that obstructed her vision. Their frenetic movement contrasted with the silence that had stagnantated between us.
It was a silence that moaned and whined and cried. It screamed out; asking and demanding. Over and over and over…
I could feel her eyes sear through me, as light might pierce the darkness, accusing, only to soften as they locked into mine. At that moment, I swear I could see into her world; a childhood world of memories soon to be lost. I pressed closer to my little girl, ignoring the sensation of falling — tumbling — as our futures, as we planned them, softly crumbled away.
Alex’s voice brought me back to reality, asking aloud that one question that I really still couldn’t answer “What happened?”
Join me:
