Shattered (5 page)

The day was filled with non-emergencies: Why was the bathroom light switch under the front counter? Where was the toilet paper? How do you say “Do you want a bag?” in Japanese? When Mr. Hardcastle returned just before six, he wasn't smiling anymore. He had a serious case of five o'clock shadow. A bad smell—sour and burnt, like when you let milk boil over on the stove—wafted off him as he waved me out the door.

“See you tomor row,” I said. “Everything went well. No emergencies. Unless you count the occasional snowstorm.” I pointed at the snow globes, which I had lined up and dusted. I hoped he wouldn't notice that one small snow globe was missing. I couldn't resist. It had three zombies in it. Zombies in top hats. Tyler loved zombies.

Mr. Hardcastle grunted and locked the door behind me. Maybe he was a morning person.

I went to the library on my way to catch the bus to the hospital. It's not somewhere I usually hang out. Mom used to bring Augie and me here every Saturday afternoon for story time. I remember being so proud of having my own white kiddie card. It pissed me off that that kids could only take out ten books at a time though. It never seemed like enough. But I hadn't been to the library in years. Dad bought me an ereader last Christmas, but I still don't read much. I'm not sure why, exactly. Maybe it's because everyone else in my family is a hardcore bookworm. Piles of books everywhere. Even in the bathroom. My parents gave up on bedside tables years ago. They just have huge stacks of books next to the bed. The last book I read that wasn't for school was
The Secret Garden
. My bedside table is home to a Little Mermaid lamp and my phone charger. And now my red glasses.

It took me a while to figure out that weird library numbering system and find
Elizabeth Bishop: The Complete
Poems 1927–1979.
But there it was on the shelf: call number 819.15, right where it was supposed to be. And there was “Sestina.” Elizabeth clearly wasn't one for fancy titles. And I guess there's more than one way to spell
sextina
. I considered getting a library card and checking the book out, but it seemed like too much trouble. Instead, I made a copy of the poem and tried to memorize it on the way to the hospital.

When I got to Tyler's room, he looked exactly the same as he had the day before. No surgery after all. I managed to recite the first stanza of “Sestina” from memory. The rest I had to read from the copy I'd made. I cried when I was finished. Tyler didn't.

“I got you something,” I said. I shook the snow globe in front of Tyler's face. The zombies' top hats wobbled slightly in the flurry. “Zombies from
The Corpse
Bride
. In a snow globe.”

Silence.

“I'll put it next to the Mountie, okay? Maybe the zombies will attack Dudley Do-Right.”

More silence as I placed the snow globe next to the pencil-topper on the bedside table. Beside a vase of yellow roses was a lamp made from a figurine of the Virgin Mary. The light formed a halo around Mary's head. Mary wore her usual sky-blue robe, with a black-and-gold rosary draped over her clean white feet.

“Hail Mary, full of grace,” I mumbled. Then I giggled. “Hey, Tyler. Remember when you told your mom you'd done a great Hail Mary pass at a game? And she sent you to confession. And grounded you for a week for blasphemy.”

No response.

I got out my lip balm and ran it over his cracked lips. The scent of strawberries filled the room. I stroked his face—his cheekbones felt like blades and he needed a shave. His nails were growing too. That must be a good sign. A sign of life. I'd bring some clippers next time. Give him a manipedi. Maybe a shiatsu massage. Or a seaweed wrap. I giggled again. Tyler wouldn't be caught dead at a spa. Even thinking the word
dead
made my heart pound. He couldn't die. I wouldn't let him. We weren't done yet. I had things to tell him. If there was ever a time for a Hail Mary pass, this was it. An act made in desperation with only a small chance of success.

I picked up the rosary and ran it through my fingers. The glass beads were warm, as if someone had been touching them only moments before. I repeated the last stanza of the poem as I counted the fifty-nine beads with my fingers.
“Time to plant tears, says
the almanac. / The grandmother sings
to the marvelous stove / and the child
draws another inscrutable house.”
Over and over. Fifty-nine times. I knew I would never forget this poem. I wondered if this was how Hazel memorized her poems. Saying them over and over and over until they were seared into her brain. When I kissed Tyler goodbye, I imagined that his lips moved against mine. I poked my tongue into his mouth, past his parted teeth. I tasted something metallic and medicinal. But when I pulled away, I knew he hadn't moved. Not even an eyelash.

Chapter Eleven

“Natalie called me at work today,” Mom said over dinner. “She's very confused and upset.”

Welcome to the club, I thought.

“Shutting people out isn't helping, March,” Dad said. “We're all concerned about you, Natalie included. She's your best friend. Call her. Tell her what's going on.”

“She wouldn't understand.” I put my fork down and pushed my plate away from me. It hit my water glass, which Mom caught before it flooded the table.

“Frankly, March, neither do we,”

Mom said. “It's all so…extreme. And you're not being fair to Nat. Or to us.”

“How so?” I asked, standing up and dropping my dishes in the sink. “How am I not being fair? By dyeing my hair? Changing my job? Wearing glasses? Is it fair that Tyler cheated on me? Is it fair that he's in a coma?” My hands gripped the back of Mom's chair. “Maybe I like looking like shit, being invisible, selling Chinese crap to Japanese tourists. Maybe I deserve it. Maybe it's just more…honest.”

“You may be right,” Dad said. “But we're less interested in what you're doing than in why you're doing it.”

“And what do you mean—maybe you deserve it? And is that why you broke up? Tyler cheated on you?” Mom turned in her chair and looked up at me. There was no anger on her face, no judgment. Just love. And worry. For a moment, I considered telling her everything. The party, Kayla, shoving Tyler, visiting the hospital. But I didn't want the look on her face to change from love to disgust. Even though I probably deserved it.

“Nothing,” I said. “I didn't mean anything.”

I spent my days off on Blueberry Hill. Crying. Pacing. Pounding the rocks with my fists until the pain in my heart seemed almost bearable. I only went home to sleep. Mom and Dad left me alone. By Friday night, I knew what I needed to do.

On the bus to work on Saturday, the driver smiled and said hello to me. A woman in a nurse's uniform pulled a toddler onto her lap so I could sit down. I played pat-a-cake with the kid all the way downtown while the mother dozed, her head resting against the window. I got off the bus a few blocks from downtown and went to a café I sometimes go to with my dad. Funky wooden booths with benches lined the walls. The burnt smell of roasting coffee hung in the air. A guy in a faded Led Zeppelin T-shirt sold me two breakfast bagels: one with bacon, one without. I bought a large coffee, loaded it up with sugar and cream and walked into town. Hazel was on her corner, the cat in her lap. When I crouched down beside her, the cat hissed at me.

“No, Basho,” she whispered. Her voice sounded different, and when she raised her head, I could see that her lip was split and there was a bruise on her cheekbone.

“What happened?” I asked, putting the coffee and bagels on the blanket beside her.

“Nothing.” She unwrapped the bacon bagel. Her eyes widened. “Wow. This is a step up from McDonald's.”

“Do you need to go to a clinic?”

She shook her head and took a small bite, wincing as the food brushed the cut on her lip. “I'm okay.”

“You don't look okay.”

“Thanks.” She laughed. A short, sharp, not-very-happy laugh.

I sat on the blanket beside her and ate the other bagel. The cat butted my hand, and I fed him some egg. “What's his name?”

“Basho,” she said. “After a Japanese poet.”

I dug in my bag for some change and held it out to her. Three dollars and change. “Is this enough?”

“For what?”

“One of Basho's poems.”

“More than enough,” she replied.

“Most of them are only seventeen syllables long.” She peered at the money in my hand. “That's about twenty cents a syllable. Sure you can afford it?”

I nodded. Seventeen syllables. Even I could probably memorize that.

Clouds appear and bring
to men a chance to rest from
looking at the moon.

She wasn't kidding. Seventeen syllables is a short poem. A very short poem. Not even five seconds long.

I asked her to repeat the poem. Her voice was so beautiful, even with the slight lisp from her split lip. When she was finished, I recited it back to her, trying to pause in the right places. My voice sounded rough and raw after hers. She clapped softly when I got it right. As I walked away, she was feeding Basho the rest of her bagel.

At work that day, I stole a shot glass with a moose's butt on it. When I got to the hospital after my shift, I added it to the collection on Tyler's bedside table. As far as I could tell, nobody had moved anything except the rosary, which was now draped over Mary's clasped hands.

“I have a new friend,” I said to Tyler. “Her name's Hazel. She has a cat named after a Japanese poet.” I pulled the rosary out of Mary's praying hands and lay down beside Tyler on the bed. It was like lying beside a warm log on the beach. I recited the haiku. Fifty-nine times. The beads felt like shelled peas in my fingers. When I was finished, I put my hand on Tyler's chest and closed my eyes. Up and down. Up and down.

“Wake up,” I whispered. “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.”

The next thing I knew, Nurse Rosa was standing over the bed, a smile on her face.

“He opened his eyes a while ago,” she said. “Just for a second.”

I sat up suddenly and felt the room shift slightly. Nurse Rosa reached out a hand to steady me.

“Who was here?” I asked. “Who saw it?”

“Just me. But I've called his mother. She was pretty happy, as you can imagine. So are the doctors.”

I nodded and gazed down at Tyler. His eyelids were still and slightly purple.

“What does it mean?” I asked. “Is he going to wake up soon?”

“It's usually a good sign,” Nurse Rosa said. “All we can do is watch and wait and keep him comfortable.” She looked at the rosary in my hands. “You a Catholic too?”

I shook my head. “Nah. Just desperate.”

She laughed. “I know how that feels. You need to go now, hon. Visiting hours are over and I need to get some things done here.”

I leaned over to kiss Tyler goodbye. No tongue tonight, not with Rosa in the room. “See you tomorrow,” I said to Rosa, “and thanks for telling me about his eyes.”

“No problem,” she said as I left the room. “Nice shot glass, by the way. With any luck, he'll be sipping orange juice from it soon.”

Chapter Twelve

I didn't know what I was going to do when Tyler woke up. I just wanted him to wake up. That was as far ahead as I could think.

When I got home from the hospital, I wrote to Augie.

Hey Augie,

Tyler opened his eyes today. I wasn't there, but a nurse told me about it. Nobody can say when or if he'll wake up, but I'm sure he will.

The poetry girl's name is Hazel. I asked her for a sextina (or sestina, in case you didn't know). She recited one by a poet name Elizabeth Bishop. You should look it up. “Time to plant tears, says the almanac.” I feel like that's been my life lately. Planting tears. Today she recited a haiku by a poet named Basho. That one I have memorized. Seventeen syllables about how clouds give you a chance to rest from looking at the moon. Maybe that's what I'm doing—resting from looking at the moon.

I wonder what Hazel's story is. Today she had a split lip and a bruise on her face. I wanted her to go to a clinic but she said no. I bring her food, but it doesn't seem like enough. Maybe I'll ask Mom if I can bring her home. Her and her cat, Basho. Two strays. Mom loves strays, right?

Gotta sleep now. Love you,

March

The next morning when I arrived at Hazel's corner, she wasn't there. In her place, a young guy with filthy jeans and matted dreads sat on a flattened cardboard box. The sign in front of him said
I'm hungry. Please help.
I stood in front of him, coffee in one hand, a bag of breakfast bagels in the other.

“Where's Hazel?” I asked.

“Who?”

“Hazel. The girl who sits here. The one with the cat. The one who sells poems.”

“Hazel.” He turns the name over in his mouth as if it's a hard candy. “That's her name?”

“Yeah. Do you know where she is?”

“Dunno. You gonna eat that?” I shook my head and handed him the bag and the coffee.

“Hope you like cream and sugar,” I said. “Hazel likes her coffee sweet.”

He took a sip and grimaced. “No shit. Good coffee though. Thanks. Are you March?”

When I nodded, he stuck his hand deep into the pocket of his grimy gray hoodie and pulled out a crumpled sheet of lined yellow paper. “She said to give this to you if I saw you.”

I took the paper and smoothed it out.

Dear March,

I thought you might need this
sonnet.

Written below in small neat printing was “Sonnet 29” by Shakespeare. The one that starts
“When in disgrace with
fortune and men's eyes…”
We studied it in my lit class last year. The only thing I remembered is that bootless doesn't mean that you have no boots. It meant futile or useless. As I read the sonnet again on the street corner, I wondered how Hazel had figured out that I was in disgrace. Outcast, cursing my fate. At the end of the poem, Hazel had written:
Some things are forgivable, others
aren't. Figure out the difference. Be
kind to yourself. Your friend, Hazel.