Piece of Mind

  For my sister, Caren

  The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.

  —MOLIÈRE, The Imaginary Invalid

  PIECE

  OF

  MIND

  1

  I WAS BRAIN INJURED BEFORE IT WAS TRENDY. BEFORE THE football players and the boxers and the soldiers started coming out. Before other families emerged to talk about the devastation, before common people started looking for answers. I wasn’t hit by shrapnel or gunfire, by a fist or a flying object. I was knocked unconscious by pavement and a wheel, by a driver who wasn’t paying attention. By accident.

  I have no memory of before. For me, it all started after.

  I was hit by a truck. My neck snapped, my brain shook, and I almost died. I was three. Dad believed I was destined to live; in part because the day it happened, it was Tu B’Shevat, the Jewish festival of the trees, and according to some rabbinic law he read, fruit from a tree isn’t supposed to be eaten in the tree’s first three years of life. In its fourth year, it goes to God, and after that, anyone can eat it.

  I was a couple of weeks from my fourth birthday, so maybe on that day I was a piece of fruit, and my soul was still mine. Maybe for a moment I was one with a tree. At times I thought I almost remembered looking up and melding into branches, if only for a second—long enough to feel the leaves tickle, to hear the whisper of the birds, to be spared.

  But then, people sometimes feel things when certain parts of the brain are stimulated—an otherworldly presence, supernatural power, supreme calm. A few years ago, I was in a traumatic brain injury group with a girl who saw Jesus every time she had magnet therapy.

  Maybe my savior was a tree.

  2

  IT WAS THE WEEKEND BEFORE THE START OF SUMMER WHEN things started spiraling. It was hotter than usual, slightly more humid, but other than that, the day began pretty typically.

  On Friday morning, Dad and I had coffee. It was almost the same routine as every other day, the two of us sitting at the kitchen table before he went out to run errands, or go to meetings, or whatever else he did for the day, before I was supposed to hunt for a job, or get dropped off at a doctor’s office, or, once in a while, go to Manhattan with him. I was supposed to be preparing for an interview, though I couldn’t think about doing anything before my coffee fix.

  No one could brew it the way he could, with a pinch too much cinnamon, extra strength for impact. It was an aroma I didn’t tire of, the perfect temperature to warm the chill. Even on the sunniest days it was drafty in that house, a little dark.

  I PROBABLY SHOULD have sat facing him rather than the window, so he wouldn’t have had to compete with the diversions outside—those blond, unblemished kids riding their Big Wheels, the construction going on at the bottom of the cul-de-sac; the two squirrels scampering through the trees; and Nugget, the retriever from across the way, waiting for me on the fringe of our yard, ready to play.

  They would all have to wait for Dad to finish talking about miracles. He believed in those things, and in grand schemes. The lottery. Organized religion. Me.

  I wasn’t sure what I believed in. Comic books. Certain superpowers. A sixth sense for animals and toddlers and some people. Caffeine.

  “There’s a terrific article on that talk-show host who survived a motorcycle accident,” he said, nodding at the Times sitting beneath my Batman mug. “Did you catch it?”

  “No. Should I read it?”

  “Not should, must. The doctors said they never saw anything like it. Nobody thought she had a prayer, but she zipped through the entire recovery process. Unbelievable.”

  I took a swig and examined a picture of the host sitting on an Adirondack chair on the porch of a stately house. Everything appeared orderly—her makeup, hair, the newly stained deck. I wondered what was in the back of her closet.

  “You think she saw white light?”

  I thought I might have, even though I couldn’t really have remembered—not something so long ago, or so traumatic. Maybe what I remembered was seeing the sun peeking through those branches. Maybe that’s what I wanted to remember.

  “You’d have to ask her,” he said. “In fact—you know what? You should write her a letter.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  I spilled a little coffee as I was putting down my cup. There were already so many stains and rings on the table that it hardly mattered.

  “Why not?” he said, handing me a napkin. “She’d love to hear from another person who suffers from a brain injury, might even put you on her show. Have you seen her show?”

  “Of course I’ve seen it. I’ve seen them all.”

  He looked at me.

  “While I’m getting ready for the day, I mean. That’s what I watch. Background noise? She’s too brainy to pander, but she doesn’t understand how to talk to her audience.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt to send her a note. She could launch your career.”

  “What career?”

  I got up abruptly for a refill, but that didn’t stop him. He kept going from across the kitchen.

  “You have a lot in common,” he said.

  “As talk-show hosts? I hope you’re kidding because there’s no way—”

  “She runs a wildlife charity.”

  I turned around. “She does?”

  “Sure she does. And she’s had a long history of volunteering her time at the zoo.”

  “I doubt that. I doubt she spends her time getting her hands dirty in between takes.”

  “Not now. It’s how she got her start. Read the piece!”

  “I will, but if you think she personally reads her letters, you’re dreaming!”

  “Fine, so forget the letter. Forget I ever mentioned her.” He checked his watch. “Let’s get down to business.”

  When I resumed my place at the table, he handed me an envelope, references he’d written himself, names of old friends signed at the bottom. This was how it worked with each new job prospect, tiny alterations with every new want ad. I was supposed to be working toward teaching, aiding in the classroom. I could do that, technically, on paper. I made it through high school, and even college (in seven years), where I took a lot of art classes and majored in education. I liked art, and I liked kids, so teaching seemed to make sense, even though I never got the credential. I was qualified. If only I had that switch good teachers had, the one that gave them the ability to lead and delegate; to move forward, in straight lines; to stay on task; to be prepared with extra handouts; to know just when to hug the kid who was having an off day.

  I was that kid. I was the one who moved sideways, lagged behind, forgot my buddy in the partner system and lost the group.

  The one time I subbed (for the one principal who was willing to give me a chance), I lost the roll-call sheet within the first hour. And one of the students during lunch. And the job by the end of the week.

  It was probably because I didn’t have executive ­functions—which, among other basic skills, relate to organizing, prioritizing, reasoning, disciplining, goal setting, time managing, decision making, and impulse control. In a file somewhere there’s a report from the neuropsychologist who evaluated me. My executive function is severely impaired due to frontal-lobe injury.

  When I pictured the inside of my head, I didn’t see a lot of gray.

  This is a normal brain.

  When I pictured my brain, I saw a pinball machine lit up with pockets of potential; if you hit certain levers in particular spots, you could unlock special doors and this flood of creativity, or conversation, or crying might pour out. The rest of the board was filled with dead zones, where the lights were dimmed—where all of the functions I didn’t have, all of the could-have-beens, lay dormant.

  This is my brain.


  “So,” Dad said. “Are you ready for the interview?”

  It was another teaching position. I took a breath, and then a sip.

  There were parts of this job that seemed tailored to my skills. Because I did understand the keys to coloring outside the lines, grasped why the graham-cracker-apple-juice ritual mattered, and needed and loved reading those storybooks as much as any child could. The pictures came first. I got that. Arts and crafts I could do well. I knew how to make a mess with clay and paints and sand. If I could have found a job that allowed me to play all day, that would have been perfect. If the hours were flexible enough. And I didn’t have to be there all the time. If I never had to clean up.

  “I was trying to find my special interview outfit this morning when I realized Harry had one of my shoes,” I said. “Sometimes I wonder if he has a dog complex. You think I should buy him some cat toys, so he doesn’t get confused?”

  I motioned to take a sip of coffee. “Is there more in the pot?” I got up and brought it over. “You want more?”

  “In a minute.” He’d only taken a couple of sips. “So you have the shoe now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And when exactly is the interview?”

  “I guess I’m supposed to call.”

  “But you haven’t yet?”

  “No, because it’s really far away. And besides . . .”

  “Besides what?”

  “I’ll never get it anyway,” I mumbled.

  “What?” When he was annoyed, he claimed he couldn’t hear me. “What are you saying?”

  “Can we change the subject? I’m done with this.”

  “You’re done with this? Then what are we doing here?”

  I wasn’t sure, actually. So many times I wanted to ask him if we could start over, to tell him to stop marking up the classifieds with hopeless red stars and circles, to help me find a new path that didn’t involve the switch, that maybe didn’t involve a job either.

  But then we would have had to consider an alternative—a route that accepted my limitations, one that was different from his, and everyone else’s we knew—and we couldn’t do that then because admitting defeat meant giving in to disability. It was okay being known as someone who was a little different, or who marched to the beat of her own drum, or who had been through a lot, as long as she had other things going for her too (“clever,” “talented,” “funny,” “and so on,” according to Dad.)

  “Challenging,” sure, maybe even “challenged,” but never disabled.

  The job search had been an integral piece of our morning ritual for two years, ever since I had finished my coursework. It was a complex exchange full of limited expectation, consistent disappointment, generalized coddling, and overall dysfunction. But it was comfortable.

  Not that I could have articulated any of that to him then.

  “I don’t know why we keep doing this,” I said.

  He peered into my empty mug. “Take the last of it.”

  After he poured the remains, he peeked at his wrist again and said he had to go. Some kind of sales call, he said. For what, exactly, I wasn’t sure. The focus of our talks was never on him.

  “I’m putting this first on today’s list: I want you to call that woman to see if you can set something up. Ask her when, at her convenience, she might be able to squeeze in fifteen or twenty minutes to talk to you—”

  “I know what to say,” I said, because I wasn’t planning on calling, and because: Do you realize how old I am?

  I was what, twenty-seven? I didn’t want to remind either of us of that, and not of his age either—forever oldish, it seemed. I turned away whenever he winced going up or down stairs, when he ran out of breath.

  He kissed the crown of my head on his way out, and I watched his car fade beyond the driveway.

  3

  WHEN DAD LEFT, I SCANNED THE REFRIGERATOR, THE REGULAR spot where the schedule was posted, underneath the same dirty magnet we couldn’t bear to part with (a faded image of Wonder Woman that Mom had picked up years earlier), and I took it in:

  1. Call woman for interview!

  Of course he included an exclamation mark, and of course it was first on the list, because it was the last thing I wanted to do.

  Maybe later. Maybe after I did some research on that talk-show host. I wanted to read that article he had left for me. It would be interesting to see if she really had a brain injury, or if it was only a concussion. I could watch her show and see if I could make a diagnosis. That seemed like the right thing to do. At least then I could give Dad a more detailed evaluation of her performance.

  If I was going to watch TV, though, I would have to see what else was on, which meant I wouldn’t be able to turn away—no matter how ridiculous the talk-show topic, or how poorly animated the daytime cartoon, and it was already getting late.

  Maybe if I was going to watch, I could stick to educational programming, like Animal Planet, to learn more about animals’ natural movements and impulses, to better understand their bone and muscle structure.

  This would help me practice some of my animal whispering and sketching skills on Harry, or Nugget, who was still waiting for me to play outside. But before I could play, I’d have to shower. What number was that on the list? Four? I wasn’t there yet.

  2. Take pills.

  Done. Obviously.

  There was the Imitrex and Inderal for my massive migraines, and the Effexor to address my depression. I’d tried all of the SSRIs at different times, in different doses, until I found a cocktail that worked. Severe depression didn’t necessarily run in the family, but it did tend to run in brain-­injury groups. So not only was my head dented, but it was also chemically imbalanced, which presented a whole new set of issues—moodiness, irritability, lack of motivation, feelings of helplessness, extreme fatigue, lack of focus—issues that sometimes overlapped with symptoms of the injury, and had, in the past, warranted separate trips to the hospital, including a couple of stints in psychiatric wards (the last time was a full decade ago), and a general dependency on drugs.

  The pills had helped stabilize my moods, even if each one had a side effect that thinned my hair and slowed my metabolism, which meant more drugs to combat those issues, which meant more dizziness, and nausea and headaches from missed doses, which meant more coffee to combat the headaches and sluggishness. Sometimes it seemed the side effects were indistinguishable from the injury.

  Still, the pills offered me some consistency, which was preferable to clinical despair, and better than the hospital or too much time on therapists’ couches, so I didn’t have much trouble swallowing them. I had been steady long enough for my doctor to phone in the refills with a quick physical check-in a couple of times a year, and I only had to see a talk therapist on an as-needed basis.

  But in the end there was no prescription drug, or behavioral therapist, or cognitive psychologist, or support group that could transform me into someone else. Because each brain is variable, and mysterious, and there are no quick fixes. At least that’s what the doctors said.

  3. Feed Harry.

  Already done.

  By all accounts Harry looked about average, as far as orange tabbies go, not too old or young, though he had to be at least ten now, not too overweight or too slight. He wasn’t one of those adorable cats who somehow remained kittenlike into adulthood, but he wasn’t unattractive. Some cats were plagued with disproportionate eyes or ears, or tails. Harry was just fine the way he was, with his worn coat and mild arrogance. I appreciated that he never pretended to be anything else.

  Feeding him was the first thing I did most days. He’d sometimes mew, if he was starving, but mostly he just ate when he felt like it, which made things easy. I refilled his water bowl.

  4. Shower and dress.

  Clearly. Later.

  Luckily, I never had any problem with these basic skills, which is why I never needed a home nurse or any real kind of help, why I was perfectly capable of being alone for long stretches of time.r />
  So of course I needed to shower, but maybe I could go back to sleep first, just for a little while. I was beginning to feel sluggish. Or maybe another cup of coffee could do it, since I had held off for this long. . . . That would give me time to finish that comic book I’d found in the basement the other day, or the rest of the newspaper Dad left out. And actually, it was time for lunch, almost. Soon enough.

  So I’d come back to number 4.

  5. Find clothes for potential interview in the future.

  Fine. I could play along with the charade as well as he could.

  I went to my room and examined the mess. Clothes were everywhere—spilling from the closet; exploding out of the chests of drawers; on the floor, mingled with cat hair and dust; on the bed, where I would sometimes put them after I picked them up from the floor. There were a few things that were hanging, but they were smooshed and musty and moth-eaten and probably needed to be cleaned.

  I tried to fold a few shirts, a pair of pants, attempted to begin to organize my closet. But folding well required fine motor skills, and I didn’t have them. My hands were weak. I wasn’t able to make a tight fist or maneuver my fingers in precise movements (except sometimes with a charcoal pencil or paintbrush), so I did the best I could with broad, sweeping motions. Mostly what happened was my folds became clumps. Again, and again. This made me want to rip the clothes apart, to throw them at the ground and at the bed, to leave them everywhere, which made them especially hard to find when I needed them.

  There was a black skirt in the back of my closet I could probably use. And there was a blue shirt hanging next to it. It was only slightly stained on the sleeve, just a splash of coffee I could cover up—there were no light colors in my wardrobe; I knew better—but this shirt was too wrinkled for an interview.

  The iron was in the linen closet, but we didn’t have an ironing board, or a lot of other household items since Mom had died—the losses seemed to accumulate without our knowledge somehow, a new item disappearing whenever we needed it—so I figured I could just put it on the floor and work from there. It would only take a minute. But the iron got so hot so fast that it left a mark on the carpet, and when I moved the iron to the shirt, it singed a spot, and when I tried to move it away, I hit the edge of the metal with my palm, leaving yet another mark.