Penny for Your Thoughts

Chilling dread flowed freely through my veins, flanked by doubts attacking me from all angles. A cold onslaught engulfed me, crippling me in ways that could never be seen.

It’s all my fault. I’m not good enough. I’ll never be.

Worry was etched in deep scars across my mother’s frenzied face, echoing the grief I could never voice.

“Honey, it’s not your fault. She’ll be fine...she will…” Dad’s voice trailed off, leaving a gulf between what he wants to think and what is practical; too large to ignore, too vast to overcome, and too ghastly to cover with feigned sweetness.

I started, replaying his words in my head. It’s not your fault...it’s not your fault… It’s not my fault? But how…? How did he know what I was thinking? And how could he say that, with Penny being poked and prodded by those doctors just on the other side of the doors? My dad put a hand on my mother’s shoulder, delicately trying to guide her to a stop from her restless pacing.

“Honey...sweetheart, please...”

Oh. He wasn’t trying to comfort me. I felt a twinge of jealousy, but I swallowed it, refusing to unearth the selfish emotion from the mound of feelings I shouldn’t be having. I’m not the one lying unconscious.

But maybe I should be.

The doors opened to reveal a brief glimpse of the nauseatingly sterile room, tinged with the scent of harsh disinfectants slightly diluted by the faint taunts of iron. Metallic. Blood. Out walked the doctor; a stern woman with a professionally detached air, though under her facade I could see whispers of her concern, and pity.

“Are you here for Penny Brooks?”

Mom and dad jumped, clamoring for information; any bit at all. Their worries overlapped each other’s, creating a montage of words too hectic to keep up with.

“How is she-”

“Is she okay-”

“What’s wrong-”

“Will she be okay-”

“Oh we’re so worried-”

“She’s comatose.”

“What?”

What? Comatose. I turn the word over and over in my head, unable to process any other words -sounds- falling off the doctor’s lips. Of or in a state of deep unconsciousness for a prolonged or indefinite period, especially as a result of severe injury or illness. Those words numbed me, leaving me…lost.

Beep. Beep. Beep. The monitor kept time, clearing the dead air, each sound like the tick of a bomb that was poised and ready to tear Penny away. My Penny. Mom and dad sat at the other end of the room, as far away as possible. From me, their hated, useless daughter who should’ve been lying there on that claustrophobic little cot instead of Penny. It’s all I’m good for anyway.

The helplessness rose in me tasting like bile and turning into anger. IT’S ALL MY FAULT. SAY IT, I challenged my parents. SAY IT’S ALL BECAUSE OF ME, I dared the nurses hurrying in and out routinely. My arms and legs lashed out, mercilessly striking at nothing. Great. Now I’m a useless spastic. Haven’t I caused enough trouble already? Frustrated, I scream. I scream, and I cry, and I shriek.

But no one listens.

Not even Penny. Penny, who understood me even without words. Penny, who I shared the language of the Universe with, a language of proportions far greater than mere English. We spoke with a stolen glance in the midst of a lecture, a tear that slipped despite all efforts to stifle it. She’s lost, wandering a strange land, clutching my soul, blind to my tears and deaf to my grief. I’m lost.

“It’s been weeks, why won’t she wake up? Wake up sweetheart...wake up...please...WAKE UP!” My mother broke down into hysterics, sobs racking her frail, thin body. Her eyes were ringed in dark circles, proof of her many sleepless nights spent with Penny, accompanied by the grief-stricken sobs my mother tried to stifle. Her cheeks hollowed out, her eyes lost their sparkle, and her once lustrous hair was becoming scraggly and unkempt. My poor beautiful mother was suffering much, much more than she let on. If only I could demonstrate my despair. If only I could hug my mom, who was doubling over in her hard, plastic chair with an untouched paper cup filled with watery coffee. Penny, who’d once been so bright and shiny, was now lying, dull, breathing barely enough air to make a candle flame flicker.

“I’m so sorry, but we had to hook her up to a life-support machine.” The doctor’s gentle yet grave voice drew yet another wail, followed by dry, heaving coughs. Mom cried every last tear she had; her blotchy, worn face was proof of her wretched mood. My dad was not any better, always being more of the crier than my mother anyway. His haggard face was a heartbreak, a million and ten miles away from the beaming smile he used to sport. His unshaved stubble tickled his upper lip, while his beard crawled up his jawline like so many suffocating tendrils of devil’s snare, casting a fatigued shadow across his features. My mom buried her face into my dad’s chest, and the doctor walked away, shoulders slumped in defeat. I thought I heard an ‘I’m sorry’ as she trudged away.

I hate Mrs. V. I hate her, I hate her, I HATE HER! My arms went flying, flinging everything on my wheelchair to the ground with a thundering CRASH! How dare she suggest that? Unwelcomed tears streamed down my face, tracing each of my faults. Starting from the brown eyes that failed as the windows to my soul. Over the ruddy cheeks that had to be repeatedly cleaned by another’s hand whenever I ate. Past the mouth that refused to emit words, the tongue that couldn’t form the syllables, and the vocal chords that abandoned me so cruelly. They caused this. They are part of me. I caused this.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

“All I’m saying, Diane, is that Penny shouldn’t have to suffer anymore. Let her go. Chuck, you know this is killing your entire family just to hold on. You have another child to care for, goddamnit!” Three pairs of eyes turn towards me, then at the mess on the floor they’d ignored earlier. My dad looked shamefully at the floor, while my mother turned away from me right to Mrs. V’s burning glare.

“Don’t you love her anymore?”

Her question slapped me in the face, leaving violent welts where it struck. My parents both looked at her, shocked. My mom’s eyes flashed, but all I could hear was my own thudding heart. They still do...right? A part of me sneered. No. They shouldn’t. They don’t. Realization snapped across my heart like a whip, searing red-hot on the broken pieces. They didn’t even want to look at me. Gone were the days of their cajoling, gone were the laughter we shared and their happy comments to me regardless of my inability to respond. I’m a monster.

The room roared with a deafening silence, choking me in its terse grasp. The group of doctors and nurses joined our motley crew, me in my pink wheelchair and retarded body, my mom in her dirty clothes and too-tired eyes, my dad in his dirt-freckled shoes tainting the sterile white floor, and Mrs V drowning in her absurdly meek outfit, worlds away from her usually flamboyant dress. We were broken pieces once held together by happiness. By Penny. But our glue flaked, leaving us to fall and shatter into a million awkward pieces, splintering into my heart. With a collectively held breath, the head doctor unhooked my baby sister, her golden hair reflecting the tentative light from the dying monitor.

Her eyelids fluttered.

“NO! PENNY!”

Time has passed. I can’t tell if it’s been hours, days, weeks, or even years. Everything passed by in a foggy haze. I haven’t tried to talk since, and I don’t think I ever will. The world blames me. My parents blame me. I blame me. I killed her.

“Melody. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, baby girl.”

I blinked, clearing the incoherence in my gaze. Tears flowed freely down my mother’s face, washing over the hill that was her nose, through the valley of her cheeks, following the delicate map of her face to her chin, where it dripped onto her rumpled shirt.

“It’s not your fault. Stop punishing yourself. I see it in your eyes, and I hear it in your cries. And I’m sorry for not taking care of you the way I should have.” She kissed my forehead, slick with blood from where the knife grazed it. The gleaming silver had looked so tempting, so untarnished and brilliant. Just one fluid moment, and I could’ve escaped.

Trees melted into buildings into open skies as the ambulance sped towards its destination. The blood thrummed in my head, keeping a steady pulse, as it washed through my ears with a dull roar.

Her voice cracked. “I get a funny feelin' up and down my spine. Cause I know that my Elvira's mine...My heart's on fire Elvira...Giddy up oom poppa omm poppa mow mow. Heigh-ho Silver, away.”