Barrier Islands Read online

21

  Later that week, on a chilly and fog-bound day that seemed a return to winter and when Onion had gone straight from Coast Guard training to the restaurant and before she had got a response from her letter to Leah, Brooke was carrying Jodie from the couch where she’d changed her diaper and put on her pajamas to the crib to put her to bed when she hooked her foot on the leg of the coffee table and lost her balance. As she started to fall, she instinctively did two things. She tightened her arms around her daughter and she rotated herself so that her body would hit the wood floor first and Jodie would land on top of her, not vice versa. But with this combination of maneuvers, she fell toward the couch. The side of her face hit the wooden arm of the couch, then the back of her head smacked the floor.

  When she returned to consciousness, Jodie was lying on top of her chest, sniffling and gasping like she did after crying hard for several minutes. “It’s O.K., baby girl,” Brooke whispered. She wiped the tears from Jodie’s eyes and brushed her hair and ran her fingers over her daughter’s head. There were no bumps or blood that she could see. Jodie’s crying and gasping gradually calmed. Brooke used her arms to raise Jodie first to a sitting position then a standing one atop her chest. Jodie’s appendages were all in their former placement and in working order. Brooke began to cry then. She pulled Jodie down and hugged her to her chest. “I’m so sorry, baby girl.”

  Jodie quit sniffling and said, “Mommy.”

  Though Jodie had been making intentional sounds for weeks and those sounds recently started to be directed toward particular objects or people, this was her first clear use of a word for her mother. Brooke stopped crying and raised her daughter far enough above her chest to see her face. “Yes, baby girl. I am your mommy.”

  Jodie didn’t repeat the word, but her lips turned upward in a smile.

  Brooke slowly sat up, keeping Jodie in her lap. With one hand supporting Jodie, she used the other to check the stinging left side of her face, near of her eye socket, then the back of her head. Lumps were rising in both spots, but there was no blood or open wounds. She felt dizzy and leaned against the side of the couch. Jodie leaned forward against her chest, and Brooke draped both arms around her daughter. They both closed their eyes.

  After some time passed, Brooke opened her eyes, laid Jodie on the couch, then slowly stood by rolling onto her hands and knees and using the couch for support as she rose. Her whole body ached. But her legs and feet, arms and hands all functioned normally. She took several deep breaths to help clear her head, then picked up the sleeping Jodie and gently laid her in the crib before preparing two ice packs for the throbbing bumps on her head.

  The next morning, shortly before heading off to training, Onion lifted his glazed eyes and looked at his wife sitting across the table feeding Jodie her breakfast. He blinked several times and shook himself awake. “What the hell happened to you?” he asked when he realized the purple bruise on the side of her face and spreading to the soft tissue under her eye wasn’t a shadow or a sleep mark.

  “I tripped.”

  Onion waited a few seconds then said, “And?”

  “And I hit the side of the couch. I’ll be O.K.”

  Onion reached across the table and used his fingers to turn Brooke’s face into the light.

  Brooke tolerated the examination briefly before jerking her face away and returning to feeding Jodie.

  “I was just checking you, Brooke! Trauma evaluation is part of our training.”

  “Go train on somebody else. I’m fine!”

  Onion stood and left, headed out into the pre-dawn dark to open up the Coast Guard office and continue his training.

  Everyone who saw Brooke’s black eye assumed Onion had hit her. Nobody said so in words, but Brooke could tell it by the way they acted. Men would squint or flinch and look away. Women would gaze in sympathy, with some lightly touching her hand. She didn’t make any effort to correct them. Domestic abuse, particularly in late winter and early spring, was so ubiquitous on the island that trying to offer an alternative explanation, however truthful, was hopeless. “Of course you tripped and fell, darling. We’ve all done that.” She let it go and hoped the bruise would disappear soon.

  Of much greater concern was her shaken confidence in her ability to fulfill her maternal responsibilities. She could not convince herself that the fall was simply an accident and not the result of the four beers she’d drunk in fairly rapid succession while also skipping dinner. She’d never questioned her ability to love and care for her baby. It would always be her first and foremost calling. But in those lonely days following her fall, when she would frequently look at her face in the mirror and see the ever darkening bruise staring back, she wasn’t sure she could trust herself in that primary duty.

  Further complicating this inner struggle was the spotting that appeared in her panties the morning after the fall. That spotting turned into fairly heavy bleeding accompanied by some atypical cramping over the following days. After hardly being sick a day in her life, her entire body seemed to be rebelling, ached everywhere. Worse, her physical pain and emotional confusion came complete with outer symbols—blood, and not blood that was bright and red with life but blood that was dark and stale, purple to black.

  A box arrived from Leah on the Monday mailboat. At first Brooke didn’t open it, then she did. It contained not one but two pregnancy test kits and a neatly folded note on expensive pale-green stationery with Leah’s initials embossed in gold at the top.

  Dear Brooke,

  Do you need me there? Let me know and I’ll be on the next ferry.

  Love,

  Leah

  Brooke hid the pregnancy kits in the back of her t-shirt drawer, along with Leah’s note. She jotted a quick response:

  Thanks, Sis. I’m O.K.

  Now go study. Better yet, ask one of those charming hunks out to dinner.

  I love you.

  Brooke.