Chapter 46
Benny
H er eyes fluttered, and I thought for sure I was imagining it.
I could be delirious, seeing what I wanted to see after three long merciless days of waiting, worrying, pacing, praying, and sleeping a desperate, broken sleep on hard chairs.
But then I heard her voice, hoarse from disuse, and I was on my feet, calling nurses, grappling for the water jug, cup, and straw, thrusting it in front of her, waiting to see her take a sip, like that was proof she was alive.
“Oh, my God,” I said. “Charlie. You’re okay.”
She was mumbling. I watched her struggle to sit up, her eyes blinking rapidly, adjusting to the light. She was trying to talk, her limbs too heavy to lift the cup. Placing it in front of her, and guiding the straw to her lips, I helped her take a long slow drink of the water.
Finally, her throat cleared and she said, “Benny. Benny. You’re here. Benny. My beautiful Benny. I’m so sorry. I love you. I love you so much. Mom is gone. I can’t believe Mom is dead. I ruined everything.”
“Mom is what?” I asked, confused, not knowing if I heard correctly. I wanted to say more, but then a flurry of activity coalesced at the doorway and two nurses burst in, with Mom following right behind.
“WHERE’S MY BABY?” she screamed and when I looked at Charlie, her eyes were wide, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“MOM?” Charlie cried out, almost catatonic with shock. “Mom. Mom! You’re alive? Mom, oh, my God.”
Mom and I exchanged a panicked glance, but Charlie’s arms were outstretched for her and she moved a nurse out of the way to pull Charlie into a fierce hug.
I could see Charlie’s face over Mom’s shoulder and her eyes were tightly closed, cheeks red and wet with tears streaming down, hanging on like she refused to let go.
It startled me, this marked change. The last time I’d seen Charlie, she was leaving Quinn Canyon in the middle of the night, declaring she’d never see us ever again, and then she was in the hospital, fighting for her life.
It didn’t seem like enough time for her to have such a change of heart, but here she was, holding her hand out to me so I could hug them both, like she was finally the sister I had always hoped she’d become.
Within a few moments, we were shooed away to the lobby outside so the nurses and doctor could do a full examination.
We heard Charlie desperately crying for us, pleading, “No, don’t go. Mom, Benny, no. Come back!”
We looked at each other, too stunned to speak.
We’d all been waiting in agony for days to see if she was going to wake up.
Not in our wildest dreams did we expect she’d wake up as an entirely different person.
It was a miracle she was even alive. Her car had flipped three times on the Grapevine.
The first responders found her upside down and unconscious.
We were all prepared for the possibility that Charlie might die.
It had hung between us for three long excruciating days.
“What’s going on?”
Mom and I, still shocked, turned around to see Alex holding three cups of coffee and a paper bag collecting grease already.
All three of us had been here, waiting, taking turns between leaving to shower and get food.
Petra, Jasper, Willow, Aya, Ali, Ravi, and several of our friends had turned up over the last three days, but nobody had stayed like Mom, Alex, and me.
We couldn’t leave. We had nowhere else to go.
“She’s awake,” I told him, and he swayed, nearly dropping everything to the ground before I grabbed it and placed it on a side table.
“Is she okay?” he asked.
“We honestly don’t know yet,” Mom said. “The doctor is examining her now. We saw her for a brief moment, and she seemed out of it.”
“She thought Mom was dead?” I said. “She was so happy to see me? It was not what any of us expected.”
“The only thing that matters is she’s alive,” Alex said.
He looked exhausted, eyes bloodshot, skin a bit sallow from lack of sleep.
I had thought Alex definitely liked Charlie, but I hadn’t realized until the last few days that Alex was wildly in love with her.
Heart-stricken that she didn’t want him back, but still by her side, constantly, loving her from afar.
Even if he couldn’t have her for himself, he could not rest until he knew she was okay.
I had wanted to shake Charlie awake, to tell her that she was throwing everything away, that she was going to regret choosing to run when she could have stayed.
The doctor stepped out of the room, and came to talk to the three of us. Her smile made us all relax, like one big collective exhale.
“She’s doing very well,” Dr. Culpa told us.
“As you know, we have not been able to explain Charlie’s coma with anything we saw on her MRI.
Sometimes this happens, as the body is trying to heal itself.
It’s not always understood why people drop into comas, or even how they wake up from them.
But she’s alert now and I don’t see any lasting damage.
I’m a woman of science, but sometimes you need to call a miracle when you see one. And this is a miracle.”
“She’s okay?” Mom asked, voice shaky, her hand to her heart.
“She’s okay,” Dr. Culpa repeated, nodding. “We’re going to keep her here for a couple days to observe and make sure nothing changes. Once that’s done, she can go home.”
We said our thank-yous and when the doctor left, all three of us hugged each other, the relief palpable, as if all the energy in the hospital suddenly brightened just for us.
“What do we do now?” Alex asked. “Maybe you two should go in. I’ll wait out here.”
“Alex,” I said.
“I don’t know if she wants to see me,” he replied, cutting me off. “I just wanted to make sure she was okay.”
I vacillated between anger at Charlie and stark, unrelenting relief that she was okay.
Of course, I hated the way we left things, and I regretted some of what I’d said, but mostly I was so hurt that she could callously leave Mom and me behind.
That we meant so little to her that she could cast us away.
I never understood what we’d ever done to her.
Or, more specifically, why she stayed away, why she blamed Mom all the time.
Jackie Quinn wasn’t perfect, but she was a mom who loved us, wanted the absolute best for us, and was always there.
What else Charlie expected or needed, I didn’t know.
Charlie never let anyone help her. Never let anyone in. Never let her guard down.
And I was ashamed to admit when she left that night, I’d been perversely relieved I wouldn’t be hurt by her any longer.
Never having my sister’s love had wounded me deeply. I could never be enough for her. Neither could Mom.
The thing with Charlie was she was always building walls.
And I was always foolishly climbing them.
I couldn’t keep that up, was so tired of being rejected by my own sister.
So when Mom and I entered the room, I stood near the doorway, let Mom get closer to Charlie, let her forgive, because now that I knew she was alive, I was furious with her.
And I was prepared for this to be the last time we ever talked.
I was prepared for this moment to be a goodbye.