The Fragility of Family

It was growing dark when the phone finally rang. I had done my chores by then, and my homework, and taken advantage of unexpected alone time to sneak episodes of both The Electric Company and 3-2-1 Contact. But as the clock ticked past six thirty, my sense of freedom dissolved into unease.

“Yanna? It’s Charlie.”

I expected my mother. Maybe my aunt Candy. Not the shop pressman. 

“Your mom has been in an accident. I’m on my way.”

Charlie hung up. The shop was 40 minutes away. Charlie lived in town, 20 minutes in the other direction. I didn’t know which he was coming from. I watched as shadows moved down the walls. The wicker lampshade over the dining table threw monstrous shadows into the corners, like grasping trees in a dark fairy tale. Our usually cozy condo was silent. My legs dangled uncomfortably from the wooden chair, so I tucked them under me. 

Charlie’s arrival prompted a flurry of activity. He blurted out what little he knew -- the accident had happened early that morning, mom was at the Philpott’s, Candy was with her -- while his wife collected my toothbrush and a clean pair of undies and helped me into my parka. He shut the door behind us as I clambered up into their giant red pickup. New. Mom and Candy had speculated about how he could afford a new pickup on his salary. I didn’t trust Charlie, with his thick mustache. His wife was nice, though, and from my spot in the middle of the bench seat I leaned my head against her arm as we drove the dark two-lane highway toward Aspen. Charlie chattered. I imagined our little red Volkswagen Beetle, Brutus, crushed. I didn’t dare imagine what had happened to my mother. 

Suzanne Philpott, family friend and my bonus grandmother, opened the door to us. The hall light behind her was warm and yellow and her familiar smoky rasp was a comfort. 

“Yanna, your mom is okay. She’s pretty drugged up right now, but they took good care of her at the hospital. She and Candy are in the living room.” Suzanne reached down for my hand, and walked me down the hall.

There were adults scattered through the wide open space. All the lights were on, and the living room glowed with the same warm yellow, which reflected from windows now black with night. My aunt Candy and her friend Suzie were on one couch. Jim Philpott was perched on another. Someone exclaimed too loudly that I was there. My mother wobbled to her feet and looked vaguely around. Jim unfolded himself and took her elbow to steady her.

No Halloween mask has ever matched her face that night. A T-shaped plaster cast gleamed across her eyebrows and down her nose. Both eyes were black, and bloody gauze dangled from both nostrils. She glanced at me and asked, “Yanna?”

It was only a moment. She had been pumped full of narcotics after surgery, and her disorientation was understandable to any adult. But I was only eight and my mama, my one and only, didn’t recognize me. My world slipped sideways as I shuffled toward the monster before me.

“Hi, Beanie!” she exclaimed when I got nearer. Her words slurred, and she wavered, but she reached for me and my world righted. She was too damaged to embrace, but I sat on a blue cross stitched footstool next to her knees and ate supper at the coffee table while Suzie told the story of seeing my mother, face split open and bleeding, in the hallway at the hospital waiting for a surgeon. My mom groggily described taking off the shoulder strap to adjust the car radio, and rear-ending a pickup truck. Of her face bursting apart “like a tomato” from impact with the steering wheel. She didn’t remember much else.

Not long afterward Suzanne escorted us both to the guest room. My mother succumbed quickly to the exhaustion of trauma and drugs. I lay awake. Light from the hallway shone on the print of Picasso’s Bouquet of Peace above my bed. I listened desperately to each of my mother’s ragged breaths, for the first time completely aware of the fragility of our little family.