17. Jeanie
CHAPTER 17
Jeanie
The hums and beeps of the machinery keeping Angela alive fill the hospital room, and Jeanie sits in a chair in the corner, staring at the unmoving body of her teenage sister beneath a stark white sheet. Her neck is stiff and her shoulder black and blue, but otherwise Jeanie was incredibly lucky: she got up and walked out of the hospital the same night as the accident. Patrick, who'd lost consciousness after hitting his head on the steering wheel and spent one night under doctor's care for observation, is now awake and stricken with guilt. He can barely be in the same room as Angela, and Jeanie has taken up the charge to sit bedside as many hours a day as the nurses and doctors will allow her to.
"Hi, honey," Melva says, entering the room quietly with her purse over one arm. She's been there almost as much as Jeanie, keeping a watchful eye over her younger daughter, but has just taken a break to speak with the doctors. Melva comes to sit next to Jeanie, and she sighs deeply.
"Where is Wendell?" Jeanie asks. She has the gut feeling that this is a conversation for which her stepfather should be in the room.
“He’ll be here soon," Melva says. Her eyes are tired and red-rimmed, and she looks like she hasn't slept in days, though it's only been about thirty-six hours since the accident.
Jeanie reaches over and laces her fingers through her mother's. "What did the doctor say?"
Melva puts her free hand to her face and sobs quietly, covering her eyes. “They think she’s going to live, but we have no idea what things will be like when she wakes up.”
A chill runs down Jeanie’s spine. “Like, they don’t know what her brain function will be? Or they don’t know whether she’ll walk again?”
Melva makes a small, strangled sound. Angela is her baby; the second-born of her twins. Her last child. And, to be fair, the one most destined to live a perfect, solid life. Seeing her mother in such despair nearly wrecks Jeanie.
“Mom…” she whispers, putting one arm around Melva and then curling her body over the top of her mother’s like a shell. “She’s going to be good. This is Angela. She’s strong, and kind, and good, and she’ll wake up here soon. She has to.” But Jeanie has no idea whether this is true. She knows science, but not this kind of science. All she has here to rely on are her own hopes and prayers, which need to be fervent enough to bring her sister out of this.
They sit there for a long time in silence, listening to the machines, and ignoring the hot August sun outside the hospital window.
“Can I get you more chicken?” Jeanie asks her stepfather tiredly, walking around the table with a platter in hand. She sets another piece of fried chicken on her brother’s plate next to the one he hasn’t touched, nudging him as she does to encourage him to eat. Patrick has been despondent, and he is refusing to eat like he’s staging some sort of protest.
“I appreciate it, Jean, but I think I’m good.” Wendell puts up a weak hand. He’s been doing his best to hold everyone together, but the fact that his daughter still hasn’t woken up after the accident is clearly breaking him down.
Jeanie walks the platter back into the kitchen and sets it down before putting her hands on the edge of the counter and letting her head fall forward, eyes closed tightly. There’s so much pain in the house, it’s overwhelming. It almost hurts to breathe the same air as Patrick, who has stopped talking or meeting anyone’s eye. His decisions the night of the accident will no doubt haunt him for the rest of his life, but Jeanie wants him to understand that they all need him—that Angela needs him—and that he has to pull himself together right now in order to be the man she knows he can be.
Pushing away from the counter, Jeanie looks up at the bright light over the kitchen sink to dry her wet eyes, then wipes both hands across her face to catch the tears. She takes a deep breath and walks back into the dining room.
“Okay,” she says, hands on hips. “Let’s get this cleaned up. We all need to be at the hospital. Sitting around here while Mom holds Angela’s hand isn’t doing anyone any good.”
Patrick and Wendell both look at Jeanie in surprise; she hasn’t lived at home for years now, and hearing her speak authoritatively, like a real adult, shocks them both a bit.
“Isn’t it too late?” Patrick asks.
“Nope.” Jeanie looks at the thin, gold watch on her wrist. “Visiting hours are for another hour and a half, and if we’re already there and we’re quiet, I bet the nurses will look the other way and let us stay longer. So let’s go.” She waves both hands like she’s sweeping them up, up, and away from the table. “I’ve got this stuff, so go and get your shoes.”
The men stumble out of the room in a daze, doing as they’re told (which in and of itself surprises Jeanie, but it’s the response she’d wanted, after all), and she quickly puts the leftovers into containers and stashes them in the fridge. The dishes will wait for later.
It takes four days, but Angela finally wakes up. She has no idea what day it is, why she’s in a hospital, or why she can’t feel or move her feet, but she’s alive.
She knows her parents, her brother, her sister, and who the president is. “Lyndon Johnson,” she says in a raspy voice that hasn’t been used in days. And then the next thing she says is: “Where is Andy?” as she searches the faces in the room for that of her boyfriend.
Melva breaks into tears. “Oh, sweetheart. He would have come, but the doctors were only allowing family. Can her boyfriend come now?” Melva turns to the doctor, looking at him imploringly.
The doctor gives a serious nod. “It would be good for her to start seeing more faces, and for us to assess any sort of deficiencies in memory or thought process. But so far this is all very encouraging.” His stern face softens into a half-smile. “You’re a very lucky girl,” he says to Angela, touching her foot through the sheet on the bed. “We still need to figure out what’s going on with your legs and feet, but you’re here, you’re alive, and your family is so happy.”
Patrick looks like he’s about to faint from the joy of hearing his twin sister's voice, and Jeanie walks over to him, wrapping both arms around her younger brother, who is now at least six inches taller than she is.
Angela looks at Patrick and he reaches out a hand to her, which she takes. "I'm sorry," he says in a raspy voice that cracks with emotion. "I'm so sorry, Angela."
Melva, Wendell, and Jeanie leave the twins together to have their moment, and they step into the hallway with the doctor, who closes the door to Angela's room so that they can talk privately.
"She's still not out of the woods," he says with a worried frown. "And I have some very serious concerns about whether she'll walk again, but my most immediate concern is her being awake, and us having the opportunity to assess her brain activity and her memory. So far so good, but let's keep an eye on that, and tomorrow we'll do some reflex tests on her legs and feet, okay?"
Wendell is holding Melva to him like one or both of them might collapse if they let go, and Jeanie stands to the side, her arms wrapped around herself for lack of anyone else to hold her.
Angela has Patrick--and soon, Andy will join them--and her mother has Wendell. Everyone has someone, but Jeanie stands there in the cold, institutional hallway of the hospital as she realizes that, as always, she only has herself.
"Jeanie!" Carol Fairchild steps out of her car and immediately puts both of her hands to her lower back, stomach thrust forward.
No, correction: giant stomach thrust forward. Jeanie's eyes go wide at the sight of her old friend's pregnant belly.
"Hi, Carol," Jeanie says, stepping down from the front porch of her childhood home. She lifts a hand as Carol waddles her way. When Carol had called the house to say she'd heard about the accident (Oh, she was so sorry to hear!), she'd also asked whether it might be a good time to stop by and say hello to Jeanie, who rarely made the trip up to Chicago anymore.
The women meet in the middle of the walkway and embrace awkwardly around Carol's baby belly. Jeanie laughs as she feels a kick from inside Carol's stomach. "Wow!" she says, taking a step back and placing both hands gently on either side of Carol's abdomen. "Do you feel that all the time?"
Carol chuckles. "All. The. Time. You have no idea!" She's perspiring in the August heat, and Jeanie leads her up to the shade of the front porch, where she's placed a pitcher of lemonade and two glasses. With Angela in the hospital, Melva hasn't had a chance to dust or keep up the house, and she'd made Jeanie promise to meet with her old friend on the front porch so that Carol wouldn't see the unwashed coffee cups on the breakfast table, or the way the rug is rolled up on one side of the living room so that the floor can be swept and mopped.
"Sit. Please," Jeanie says, fluffing a small pillow for Carol's back and then holding her hand as she sinks into the chair with a loud exhale. "You look glorious, but I don't want you to get overheated. Let me pour you a drink."
Despite the fact that she hasn't slept more than four hours a night since the car accident, and ignoring the fact that her own back and neck have been giving her constant trouble, Jeanie feels okay. She'd gotten a gash on her forehead in the crash which she feels a little self-conscious about, but this is her old friend Carol--she can put aside her feelings and not worry about that for the moment.
"How are you?" Carol asks, accepting the cold glass of lemonade and taking a sip immediately. She slips her swollen feet out of her sandals. "And how is your sister? My mother heard about the accident at church, and she was beside herself."
Jeanie takes a deep breath as she pours her own glass of lemonade. There's a jade plant in a pot on the railing of the front porch, and a wind chime on the house next door tinkles gaily in the light afternoon breeze.
"Angela is awake, and she's doing fine. We're hoping to find out more about when she might get the feeling back in her feet, but...I don't know, Carol." Jeanie bites on her lower lip and narrows her eyes for a moment, willing the tears to stay put. "She's so young. She has her whole life ahead of her, and to think that she might not walk again."
Carol leans across the tiny round table between them and puts her hand on Jeanie's arm. "She will, Jeanie. She'll walk," she says so fervently that Jeanie almost believes her conviction. "God wouldn't do that to a girl like Angela."
Jeanie nods and pats Carol's hand, but she isn't so sure that she can buy into that idea as readily as Carol does. After all, she's a woman of science now, and while believing in the stars and the planets doesn't mean a person can't believe in God, it has made Jeanie question life and existence and meaning far more than she ever has before.
"I have all the faith that she'll be fine," Jeanie says as a compromise. "Now tell me about you. When is this baby due? And are you sure it's only one?"
Carol laughs. "Only one heartbeat, so far as we know. And I'm due on September second, but I'm ready now."
Jeanie steels herself; she's never ready to say his name, but over the years, she's been forced to whenever she speaks to Carol. "And how about Leonard?" she asks, trying to keep her voice neutral. "Is he ready for baby number three?"
"Oh, Leonard," she sighs, waving a hand. "He's as ready as any man ever is, I suppose." Carol smiles and looks out at the yard as a man walks by with a large dog on a leash. "He loves the older two, but they're boys, so that's easy. I have a sneaking suspicion that this one is a girl."
"That would be fun," Jeanie says, imagining what it would be like to have three kids at twenty-seven. She can't even picture herself with children at all, much less with three of them. "And how is work going for Leonard?" She sips her lemonade, willing her face not to turn red each time she says his name.
Carol shrugs. "Fine, I guess. He always wanted to be a police officer, but it's so dangerous, you know?" She wrinkles her nose. "I kind of wish he worked in an office somewhere."
Jeanie smiles, but her mind goes back to the Leonard Pickles she'd known in high school. The one who'd played basketball and walked home from school with her. The boy whose named she'd doodled all over her diaries. Mrs. Leonard Pickles , she'd written, not knowing then that Carol would be the one to walk down the aisle at the church in their neighborhood and accept the ring that would make her Mrs. Leonard Pickles, and not Jeanie.
But by all accounts, Carol and Leonard have been happy. And they have two little boys with another baby on the way. How can Jeanie fault that or question the rightness of how things have turned out? She can't. She most definitely can’t.
Jeanie looks at Carol with tenderness, remembering all the years where she thought this woman was her nemesis—when this woman was her nemesis. Mean little Carol Fairchild on the playground, who’d tormented her about her dead father, who’d made fun of her for her mother marrying Mr. Macklin, who’d secretly been suffering at the hands of her own cruel, abusive mother, had turned into a whole other Carol Fairchild. By middle school, she’d become the kind of girl who reached out to other girls and offered a hand, and by high school, she was able to catch the eye of Leonard Pickles and keep it. Jeanie had seen her whole evolution, and although she’d knowingly stepped away from Leonard to let Carol flourish under his attention, she harbors no bad feelings about it. After all, maybe Carol and Leonard were always meant to be, and she, Jeanie, had just been a nice girl for Leonard to walk home with occasionally. That wouldn't be such a bad thing.
Jeanie leans back slightly in her chair and watches as a station wagon full of kids drives slowly past her parents’ house. Maybe all she’s ever been destined for is to be the nice girl that guys sometimes talk to while they’re waiting for someone else. Maybe she’ll spend her whole life working at NASA and never get to the moon herself. Maybe she’ll end up living with Vicki and they’ll just be a couple of old gals who accept free drinks from old geezers at The Hungry Pelican on a Saturday night. She has no idea, but she has to accept that life has its own way of working out.
Jeanie reaches over and tenderly puts a hand on her old friend’s stomach, looking into her eyes. “I’m so happy for you guys,” she says to Carol, feeling the baby roll inside of Carol’s stomach like a tiny gymnast. “Everything is working out just perfectly.”