“Hannah,” I whisper, my forehead falling to the pillow. “Hannah, please.”
Drew is working so hard, his mouth against hers, giving her all he can. “Come on, baby, come on,” he says, pumping her chest.
I turn to the guy. He’s staring at her, at us, but totally out of it.
“When did she stop breathing?” I shout.
“I don’t know, I … I thought she was sleeping, I don’t know. Look, I didn’t do anything, she just—”
Brain damage begins four minutes after loss of oxygen, death eight minutes after.
Nate pushes his way into the room, and he’s on the guy in seconds. “What did you give her?”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
My cousin shoves the guy, hard, and I’m surprised, but that’s stupid—just because he’s wearing one of my blouses doesn’t mean he’s not strong.
“Listen, you Harvard fuck, you tell me what you gave my cousin or I’ll—”
“Okay, fuck, stop. Oxy, with a little—just a little—fentanyl in it.” The death drug. The one killing everyone. “But it wasn’t—”
“How much?” I say.
“Come on, baby,” Drew says just as the other guy says he can’t remember, maybe eighty milligrams, but she’d had something before he gave them to her and Drew says, “Fuck,” and I have never seen someone look at another person with so much love and terror as Drew looks at my sister and then I hear the sirens.
My sister is dying.
“Come back,” Drew says. Because she left. Because she’s gone. “Come back.”
Nate runs out and then the paramedics rush in and Drew moves away, his eyes never leaving Hannah. We all talk at once.
“What’s her name?” the paramedic says, all business. She checks Hannah’s pulse, frowns.
“Hannah,” I say.
“Nalaxone,” she says, holding out her hand. Her partner places a syringe in it and she takes Nah’s arm, finds a vein, and slides the needle in. Nothing.
We wait.
Nothing.
My sister is dead.
Then—
Hannah gasps, her back arching as the air rushes into her lungs. I call out to her, and she looks at me, eyes glazed and wide with fear.
“You’re okay,” I say. “It’s me. You’re okay.”
She doesn’t say anything. I push past the paramedics, grab her hand. It’s so cold.
“Hannah. It’s me. It’s me.”
I wait, and the longer I wait, the more my heart sinks. Brain damage. I’ve lost her after all.
A sudden, deep knowing fills me: I will survive this. I love her, and I will survive loving her. Loving anyone.
“Mae?” she rasps.
“Yes.” I’m sobbing hard, and I can barely get the words out. “It’s me. You’re okay? You’re okay. You’re okay now.”
There’s movement out of the corner of my eye, and Drew is turning around, his back to us, shoulders shaking, his forehead against the wall.
Nah turns over and vomits all over the floor. Everyone but me jumps back. I keep my eyes on my sister, one hand in hers, and I wipe her mouth with the sheet while the paramedics do things.
“Don’t be scared,” I say. “There’s help.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“It’s okay. Everything’s okay now,” I say.
I have to move so the paramedics can do their work, but I keep my hand in hers. They shine light in her eyes, and she winces.
“I was drowning,” she says as they load her onto a stretcher. “But it was nice. Warm. I don’t think it hurt them. Not the whole time, at least. Not at the end. I think it wasn’t so bad.”
A weight lifts off me then, as though a heavy bird of prey had been sitting on top of my chest since the wave. That had been the worst part, maybe, about all of this: not knowing how much it hurt when they died.
Hannah closes her eyes and sighs. I think she’s asleep, but then she says, “It’s okay that they weren’t together. You’re never really alone. I know that now.”
“Miss?” The male paramedic gently taps my arm. “We need to get her in the ambulance. You can come with, if you want.”
I nod and let go of Hannah’s hand, then turn to my cousin.
“Nate, can you—” I start, but he pulls me into his arms and my words get lost against his shirt.
“Go,” he says. “We’ll see you there. Text me which hospital.”
“Okay.”
Nah opens her eyes for a second. “Thank you,” she whispers to the paramedic.
She looks at my sister, surprised. Hannah’s eyes close, and the woman turns to me.
“You’ve got a fighter here.” She wheels Hannah out, past the throng of partyers, who stare at us all, shocked.
Drew is still in the corner, looking in the direction Hannah went.
“Thank you,” I say.
He blinks and looks around, as if he’s just noticing we’re here. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You kept her here,” I say. “You saved her. Again.” I wrap my arms around him. “My parents would have loved you.”
It’s the highest praise I could give anyone.
When I pull away, Drew looks down, overcome, and then I kiss Ben because you never know how many kisses you get and then I hurry out of the room, toward my sister. My sister, who is alive.
When I Died
some deaths give
life
Bed Railing
Emergency Room
Mass General Hospital
46
Hannah
I guess some people need to get as close to death as possible before they realize they don’t want to die after all.
Under the wave, I found out what I was made of. Realized no one is going to save me but me, that there is sometimes a choice—to stay or go—and that you might not know what you’ll choose until the breath has left your lungs and somewhere, past the blood pounding in your ears and the goodbye, world of a poppy high, you suddenly come face-to-face with the voice in your head, the hidden you, that spark of light that has been singing you out of the darkness for as long as you can remember. And she is wise and beautiful—maiden and mother and crone—and she says, she says, You are enough. And now you have a choice: to float or drown, and if you are enough, then drowning isn’t an option.
And just when you’re not sure how to keep your head above water, you see your mother doing boat pose on top of the ocean. Making herself a lifeboat. Looking at you like you can be your own lifeboat, too.
And then, far away on the shore, you hear a voice you love say, “Come back.”
So I did. I pulled my face out of that dark water, arched my back, reached behind me for my feet, and rode that wave that was trying to drown me, rode it all the way to the shore. One boat against the ocean. With the ocean.
But I didn’t come back for Drew. Or Mae. Or even for Mom and Dad. I came back for me.
Because this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb. That’s what the poem Jaipriya gave me was about. Rebirth. That poet was right: This darkness is the womb. One more chance to do right by the miracle.