Burning Blue

After that little bit of peacefulness with Emma: another horrendous Nye session. I told him I didn’t want to take the Xanax, that the stuff is too strong. He might as well have rolled his eyes as he said, “What do you think: Is it okay to be happy?”

He means numb. Dr. Schmidt tells me it’s okay to feel the pain. To face it.

After Nye left, David came over.

We whisper-fought in the living room while Mom made hot chocolate for us.

David: “I was driving all over Brandywine looking for you.”

Me: “You ditched me.”

D: “I did not.”

Me: “You said, ‘Well, that’s just messed up, Nic. Seriously. I can’t believe you. You know what? Forget it.’”

D: “That doesn’t mean I wasn’t driving you home. How did you get home, by the way?”

Me: “Walked.”

D: “Alone?”

Me: “Save it. Mom already gave me hell about it.”

D: “Okay. Look, I’m sorry. I am.” And then he asked me about it again.

I’m not lying for him.

I told him to leave. He tried to kiss me, and I gave him my cheek, the wrong one, by mistake. He went into the kitchen and said good-bye to Mom. He was teary as he left. I was too. Mom plunked next to me on the couch. We sipped hot chocolate, and then she held out her hand, the pills in her palm. I took the antibiotic but passed on the Xanax. I needed to be able to think clearly. Jay Nazzaro. What was it about him that made me act like a complete idiot, practically begging him to walk me home even after he lied about following me into CVS?

I headed upstairs to my bathroom.

They’re all lined up so neatly on the bathroom counter: the vacuum-packed dressings coated with topical pain reliever, the latex-free surgical tape, the hydrogen peroxide, the prescription-grade antibiotic gel.

The bandage change. The horror movie I’m too terrified to watch. The freak show I can’t turn away from. Who is that girl sitting in front of my bathroom mirror? The FedEx delivery guy used to come right up to the door with that warm smile, and now he backs away. Not in his movement, not in his smile, but in his eyes. He’s afraid to look at me. At the same time he’s afraid not to look at me, and he just ignores the fact that half my face is bandaged and stares really, really hard into my good eye. Not asking what happened is conceding that what happened is cataclysmic.

How will I do college interviews now, job interviews? For the rest of my life, do I just not acknowledge what happened? They’ll ask me to tell them about some of the formative experiences in my life. If I acknowledge It, will they think I’m asking for pity? If I don’t acknowledge It, will they think I’m just not able to confront difficulty, challenge, hurdles, this absolute nightmare?

This is the worst part of the bandage change: too much time to think. No, it’s the quiet. Nine months to the day after Dad left, and I still hear it. The yelling, the nastiness, the echoes trapped in the walls. Mom begs him to tell her how long it has been since he stopped loving her. The accusations. His denials. His growing exasperation with her cutting him off. Then, “To hell with it.” The stairs groan as he stomps toward the master suite. The suitcase clumps to the floor. I’m listening to all this from the tub, the water hotter than I can stand it, to waylay the cramps snaking into my calves after two brutal tennis matches that day. I believed him. He’s not the type to cheat. Too classy, too proper to have a girlfriend on the side. To betray his wife, his daughter. To lie.

The lie.

The stranger in the bathroom mirror.

Or is she the truth? The real me, hiding just beneath the gauze?

“Mom? Mom, please.”

She appears at the bathroom door instantly, as if she’s been waiting just outside, and she has, of course. She pulls the tape away quickly.

Six weeks after the burn, and I haven’t yet dared touch it. I regard it as if it isn’t part of me, an invading species that will never quite overtake me, or at least not the rest of my face. How do I live with this, being branded? My mind drifts back to my horse riding lessons. That sweet little red roan with the omega seared into her left shoulder. Riding her into the Meadowlands with Daddy on a clear Saturday morning, letting her graze the salt hay and cordgrass. She looks back over her shoulder to me, as if to ask if it’s okay we’ve stopped.

“Is it okay?” Mom says, her eye on me, on It, what used to be my left eye. I clamp my good eye shut, but I easily picture what’s happening. I feel the pressure stream. Mom pushes down on the hypodermic syringe full of saline to flush the wound. I keep seeing it, over and over. The bottle’s nose. Coming up to my face. An explosion of liquid.

After the scrubbing comes the salve, a low-grade sting, then the dressing and the tape with its epoxy-like adhesive. Then comes the kiss to the top of my head, the hug that lasts a long time. She never says it’ll be okay. I’m grateful.

“Mom, how can I ever ask anybody to be with me now? To put up with the way people look at me or see me or can’t see me? The way I can’t see me anymore? Where did I go?”

“Easy now, Nicole. Breathe. You’re still here. You’re with me, and I love you.”

“This is crazy. I always saw myself loving somebody forever. Being there for him. Lifting him up when he was down. How do I do that now?”

“Honey, there are a lot of guys out there who. . No, there aren’t a lot.”

“Exactly.”

“But there are a few. The good ones. You’ll see.”

“I always saw myself with kids. How do I bring a child into my life now? Say I adopt as a single parent. How do I ask my kid to make eye contact with me? I read about it. It’s all in the eyes, the facial expressions, the thousands of tiny movements in the muscles around your eyes, your lips. The child reads them without knowing it. How is she supposed to feel I’m her protector when she’s reading a horror story? I mean, how are you doing this?”

“It makes me feel good to be able to do this for you.”

I tap her heart. “How are you keeping it together?”

“You’ll get past this. We’ll get past it. Find the good in this, Nicole.”

“The good?”

“You and me. Us. You were running here, there, and everywhere before. Now we have this time together. And when we’re together, we’re stronger. I really mean that. I feel it. I feel stronger, seeing you overcome this. Being with you. You’re empowering me, giving me the courage to face it.”

“I don’t know how you can even look at It. You don’t even flinch.”

“I don’t mean the burn. I mean face the. .”

“What?”

She sees herself in the mirror. Suddenly she’s exhausted. She strokes my hair. “You’re allowed to cry for exactly three more minutes. By that time I want you in your Snuggie and in bed, and I’ll scratch your back.”

We hug and rock in front of the mirror for a while. My eyes are closed. When I open them, I catch Mom eyeing me in the mirror. She sees I’ve caught her and holds me a little closer, but she was staring at me for just a half second too long.

“What?” I say.

“Nothing,” she says. She winks and I try to wink, but it hurts too much.

She holds out her hand, palm up. The little blue pill. “You just seem so agitated, Nicole. Please, sweetheart.”

I pop it. For her, I swallow the Xanax dry. Anything to get out of this bathroom, to escape the sterile bandage smell, except it’s always with me, the faint scent of bleach. Still, I have to get away from the mirror. From that girl. Me. It.

Mom tucks me into bed. She cuddles with me and combs my hair with her fingers. The Xanax is starting to work. I think I only blinked, but my eyes are closed for hours. When I open them, Mom’s gone and the sun is strong. I haven’t dreamt a thing. Time just stopped.