Lifestyle: Trust Fall

THEN

LEXI

Her lungs couldn’t get enough air. It turned to sludge in her chest as the car tilted further and further. The sense of weightlessness made her dizzy and her heartbeat tripled. In the middle of folding a ratty sweatshirt, Alessandra stood frozen.

The rush of water from the machine next to her echoed through her memory. Her mind returned to the backseat of her parent’s black sedan, watching water spew into the car from all sides.

Mommy- it felt like slow motion that she turned her head to look for her mother.

Mommy’s long black hair spread around her head, the tendrils blowing up around her in the water like a mushroom cloud.

The waving of her mother’s hair was the only movement that she could see. It reminded her of a jellyfish.

A sharp pain near her left shoulder numbed her fingers, and without realizing she dropped the sweatshirt. With one foot braced against the dryer, she was frozen in the scene. Water. No air. Mommy.

A piercing, incessant ringing in her ears brought her back to the present.

From the kitchen the phone shrieked. With a gulping breath, Alessandra shook it off - just like she did every time.

With a hand only shaking a little, she reached for the phone.

Still half-trapped in the drowning car, her voice was deeper than normal.

“Hello?”

“Hi, I’m looking for Mrs. Porter?” With a shaky inhale, Alessandra closed her eyes tight. The twist in her thin chest had nothing to do with the scars where her clavicle had pushed through skin. She put on her best grown-up voice.

“This is Miss Porter. How can I help you?”

The line went quiet for a long moment, and when the woman spoke again she was reluctant.

“This is the Surgical Center at Robinson, Miss. Porter. Is there a guardian I can speak to?”

“You have my only guardian.”

Again, silence on the line.

“I’m seventeen anyway. Did something happen with my father?”

He’d gone in for reconstructive surgery - again.

The day before. He hadn’t wanted her to miss school or be stranded at the medical center, so he went alone.

When she’d called the night before to check on him, all she was told was that the surgery was still ongoing.

She’d barely slept. What would happen to her if her father died too?

“Mr. Porter made it through the surgery, but there were… complications. He’s going to have to stay here for the next couple of days so we can keep an eye on him. Maybe just the next day or two, if everything goes well. Is there someone else I should call?”

There was that twist again. It bled viciously from inside her.

“No,” she heard herself say. “There’s no one else.”

The woman asked if she had any questions. Alessandra cleared her throat.

“Does he - does he need anything? Like from home?”

“Not just yet. But when he’s able to go home, he’s going to need to be on bed rest for a while. He’ll need a lot of help, alright?”

“Okay.”

The word was a whisper. She’d do whatever it took. She blurted out before the woman could disconnect, “What went wrong? I mean, what was the complication?”

She knew from the hesitation that it was bad. Adults always hesitated before giving people bad news. She’d gotten enough bad news to know.

“Your father had a bad reaction to the anesthesia. He never has before, so we were unprepared for-”

“Unprepared?”

Was this woman serious? Her father’s life was in the balance and they were unprepared?

“We weren’t expecting it,” the woman corrected. “But we stabilized him, and we wrapped up the surgery. The doctor will give you more details. Now your father is still under, but I’m sure once he’s awake he’d love to hear from you. Do you have our number?”

“Yes, I have the number.”

He’d died. Or almost died. The woman made her goodbyes and got off the phone, leaving Alessandra staring at the faded receiver.

It was old-school, she knew, to have a house phone, but her mother had liked to have one in the house.

Even though they were in a new apartment - a shitty apartment, she corrected - her father had insisted they needed a house phone.

She went back to the little washer and dryer, tucked into the corner of the kitchen.

On shaky legs she melted to the floor, bracing her back against the dryer.

Its warmth seeped into the back of her shirt as she laid her head on her raised knees.

He almost died. Just like that. She didn’t remember dying.

She remembered the accident. Hell, it played in her mind every day.

Different bits and pieces, but she could recall every moment.

The cold water around her legs, the pain blossoming from her shoulder and chest…

little Danny, who looked like he was sleeping.

Short, choppy breaths, like she was doing now, accompanied her shock, and her seatbelt was too tight up on her neck…

Mommy, with her black, floating hair. She remembered the darkness.

The next thing she remembered clearly was being in the hospital, with people shouting.

She raised her head off her knees and stared sightlessly at the pocked wall in front of her.

But she came back from the hospital. From being dead.

And Daddy would too. Daddy had to come back.

They’d brought her back, and she was fine, right?

He would be fine too. And when he came home, she had to have everything done.

With a new glimmer of resolve, she pushed up off the floor and went back to folding laundry.

With a little smirk, she thought of the stupid lady on the phone. She had to lie. Alessandra couldn’t imagine what kind of fake answers she would have gotten if the woman knew she was only twelve.