Page 43 of The Sandy Page Bookshop

Lucy

On her one morning to sleep in, there was sudden banging on her bedroom door. Lucy looked up to see her mother’s face silhouetted in the morning light streaming through the doorway. “She’s talking!”

“What?” Lucy blinked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, trying to understand.

“You sister! She’s talking. Get up, we’re going to Spaulding.”

Her parents were both taking their breakfast standing in the kitchen.

Her mother wasn’t even eating, so much as pacing around with her still-full coffee cup.

If Ella was talking, this changed everything.

It meant she could tell them how she was feeling, what she was thinking.

It meant Lucy could talk to her about the accident, about what Jep said. It meant she was back.

“So the hospital called and said Ella started talking, just like that?” Lucy asked. The doctors had said the brain was mysterious, but to wake up talking was nearly a miracle. She popped a bagel into the toaster.

“Not exactly,” her mother said. “Her speech therapist, Karen, said she had good news. Ella’s articulation is stronger.”

“Wait. So she’s still not talking?”

Her mother was still pacing, talking fast. Lucy wondered just how much coffee she’d had. “When I called for my usual update, Karen said her speech was more intelligible today.”

“So they didn’t call us. You called them,” Lucy clarified.

Her mother looked hurt. “What difference does it make?”

It made a lot of difference. The optimism her mother had blasted her with in her bedroom doorway moments ago seeped out of her.

Lucy looked at her father, who leaned into evidence over emotion, always pushing the doctors and therapists for proof of any improvement.

“They said your sister is articulating,” he said. “This is excellent!”

So there was no miracle necessitating waking Lucy up and racing off to Spaulding. She yanked her bagel out of the toaster and buttered it, even though it was too early to be hungry. “Sorry, but I still don’t get what’s so excellent about it?”

Her mother spun around like Lucy had slapped her. “How dare you? Your sister is finally talking, and you want to stand around and argue about it? You can’t be happy for her? For all of us?”

Lucy reeled back. “That’s not what I said! I am happy, but you guys made it sound like the hospital called to say she was all better now. Like she could talk to us, tell us what happened.”

“Alright, enough!” her father interjected. “It’s early, and we’re all tired. Let’s go to the hospital and see for ourselves. Lucy, eat your bagel in the car.”

On the drive to Spaulding Lucy’s mind skittered from her last run-in with Jep to the way her mother acted in the kitchen that morning. She was tired of living on the edge, everyone’s emotions raw and unpredictable.

She was also tired of being the sole keeper of information.

Lucy had not done as Jep had asked. She hadn’t even told Reya what he’d said the other day.

First, she didn’t believe him. Sure, Ella went to parties and drank, but she would never have gotten behind the wheel drunk; she was too smart, her future too bright.

Her whole life Ella had worked hard to get to where she was.

Tufts loomed on her horizon, along with her future.

Ironically, it was the same future Jep claimed he was trying to protect.

What a joke. No one would take the blame for someone else’s accident, especially one that ended with his girlfriend seriously injured, and his classic car totaled.

Especially in a small town where everyone knows your business and your family, too.

Even if it wasn’t a prestigious college scholarship, Jep had his own future to lose.

Unlike Ella, his family business was right there in Chatham, where everyone would know who he was and what he’d done.

The ramifications for his garage were not small.

It didn’t make sense that he’d take the fall.

What did make sense was the timing: Jep was coming forward now with this claim because her family had sued him.

He was running scared. This was about him saving his own tail, not protecting Ella.

Lucy fumed, her indignation spinning along with the wheels of their family car on the highway.

Her sister had a right to know what Jep was saying: she had a right to set the record straight.

But it left Lucy with a burning question: At what cost?

One thing she’d learned that summer was there was no black-and-white when it came to doing what you thought was right.

People were influenced all the time, their reasons colored gray; by their beliefs, by their fears, by greed.

If Lucy told Ella what Jep had accused her of, it would crush her, and right at a time when she was finally demonstrating measurable signs of healing.

It made Lucy wonder if telling her parents was the better choice.

It made her wonder if she should just keep her mouth shut and say nothing at all.

Her father had barely turned off the car engine when her mother threw the passenger door ajar. “Come on,” she urged them, hurrying around to open Lucy’s door. “Let’s go, let’s go.”

It was funny the things that resonated with her parents when it came to signs of Ella returning to them.

For her father, it had been the fact that Ella could walk again.

The physicality of her sister rising up on her own, no matter how shaky, and putting one foot in front of the other had marked a turning point in his own healing.

For her mother, she’d been holding out all summer for words.

Ella being able to communicate with them again was the sign her mother counted dearest. No one had asked Lucy what sign she was holding out hope for.

If they had, she would tell them it was something she was still waiting for.

As they rounded the corner to Ella’s room, Dr. Forrester was standing in the hallway. She motioned to them. “Good morning!” she said, coming over. “Exciting changes today.”

“Yes!” Lucy’s mother kept turning toward Ella’s room. She did not want to be held up by whatever Dr. Forrester had to say. “I can’t wait to see her.”

“If I may have a word first?” Dr. Forrester’s expression grew more serious.

“I know you’re eager to see her, so I won’t keep you.

Let’s remember that Ella’s articulation is coming back.

She won’t speak as fluently and clearly as she once did, at least not at first. It’s important we give her time and adjust our expectations. ”

Lucy’s father wanted to know more. “Are you saying she won’t ever regain full speech?”

“Not at all, in fact the signs are promising. Karen, the speech therapist, will be in shortly to talk more with you and offer a clear explanation of what we can look forward to.” Dr. Forrester nodded to the doorway. “Go on, I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you.”

For all their eagerness to arrive, Lucy’s parents hesitated on the threshold of the door. Lucy understood. There had been losses and gains all summer. High hopes and dashed dreams. She squeezed between her parents and entered first.

“Hey there, Ella,” she said.

Ella was watching something on TV, and her head snapped in her family’s direction, a smile spreading across her face. Lucy felt her parents press in close on either side, like bookends.

“Hi,” Ella said, her voice raspy but strong.

Lucy’s mother burst into tears.

They stayed the morning at Spaulding. From the strained attempts at conversation, it became clear quickly that Ella’s speech was still very limited; she spoke only a few words, most in isolation.

Certain sounds were easier than others. But Lucy’s parents were overjoyed.

When Danny took Ella for PT, Karen, the speech pathologist, came to speak to them about the new development.

“The brain is a miraculous organ,” she told them happily.

“It’s what we’ve been waiting for,” Lucy’s mother said. “What changed?”

Karen shrugged. “Speech can return in weeks or months, sometimes longer. We don’t always know why. In Ella’s case, as you know she’s been dealing with dysarthria. That involves muscle control weakness from damage to the nerves or brain, which is why she’s had difficulty articulating.”

“Does this mean she’s over it now?”

“Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way,” Karen said sympathetically. “It’s a motor speech disorder, and that requires time and continued therapy. The good news is her gains are strong.”

Lucy’s father cleared his throat. “Ella is supposed to be at Tufts in September.” Hadn’t her father just seen what she had seen? It was both heartbreaking and infuriating. He was asking Karen for assurances she couldn’t give.

“Mr. Hart, Ella has suffered a traumatic injury. She’s young, and the neuroplasticity of her brain is in our favor. What lies ahead looks promising, but every individual responds differently. It’s something the team will discuss with you and Dr. Forrester at our weekly.”

Lucy knew those weekly meetings too well, and she’d opted out.

She blamed it on work, but the truth was she purposely scheduled shifts at the Sandy Page on those days.

Sitting around a table with the team under the glare of the fluorescent lights was too painful.

There were endless reports: OT, PT, speech, physiatrists.

No one ever had answers. And yet her father just kept asking for miracles.

“But she’s walking again!” her father reminded Karen. “You saw her leave with Danny. And her speech is coming back. So it’s still possible she could attend school, right?”

The hope on his face was too much. Lucy excused herself.

“Where are you going?” her mother asked.

“Coffee.” Lucy didn’t drink coffee. The last thing she heard Karen say was, “Let’s try and take things one day at a time.”

It was exhausting, the grip her parents had on hope.

Maybe it was better than the opposite, Lucy reasoned.

At least they weren’t drowning in depression, taking to their beds.

But still. They refused to come to terms with what Lucy felt all along in her bones.

There would be no packing of the car that August. Lucy and her family would not drive up the Mass Pike or decorate a dorm room or say a tearful goodbye in the campus parking lot.

Maybe that would happen next year. Maybe it would never happen at all.

For now, they were stuck here; the only drive for certain was the daily commute to and from Spaulding Rehab.

Only when Lucy knew Ella’s PT was over did she return to her room.

Lunch was brought in, and Lucy’s mom produced sandwiches she must have made and packed before Lucy even woke up that morning.

Ella was able to feed herself independently.

At least Lucy’s mom no longer cut up her food the way she used to, even when the OT had insisted they not.

Lucy watched Ella take a few bites of macaroni and cheese and a sip of her apple juice before turning her attention to her own turkey sandwich.

She would try to be more like her parents; she would try to believe life would return to normal.

They were eating in silence when Ella began talking. It wasn’t the kind of talking Lucy had expected. It was garbled, maybe because of her still developing articulation, or maybe because she was crying, Lucy realized with a start.

“Darling? What is it?” Her mother hopped up, leaning over the bed.

Ella looked at her mother through a stream of tears. Her lunch tray tipped precariously on her lap. Lucy grabbed it just in time.

Ella repeated herself a second time, then a third. By then Lucy understood.

“I’m sorry,” Ella cried, looking between her parents.

“Honey, no! There’s nothing to be sorry for,” their mother said.

“It’s alright,” their father said. “Everything is going to be okay.”

But Ella would not stop. Her words were slurred but her meaning distinct. “I’m sorry,” she cried. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

No one noticed Lucy slip out into the hall for the second time that afternoon. She had to. The clues were tumbling at her, too fast to hang on to.

Jep Parson’s words: She was the one driving. Ella’s gold bracelet, found on the driver’s side of the car. The note: Please don’t tell. The broken look on her sister’s face each time Lucy cheered her on. Clues, all of them.

Clues that Lucy had unwittingly collected all summer, like sea glass washed ashore. As Ella’s slurred apology warbled out to the hall, no one was sorrier than Lucy Hart.