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Jessica Chiarella

And Again

To my parents, Joanne and Frank Chiarella, and my brother, Christopher Chiarella

“He could see plainly that she was not herself. That is, he could not see that she was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world. ”

— Kate Chopin, The Awakening

August

Hannah

Maybe it’s like being born. I don’t know. It’s impossible to compare it to something I cannot remember. When I finally come back to myself, it takes me a moment to realize I haven’t died. I choke my way back to consciousness, my eyes full of milky brightness, my heart a seismic pulse of energy inside me. I reach out, fumbling for something to anchor me here. I am lost, panicked, and adrift with the idea of death, when the room begins to take shape around me. Details sharpen, forms appear. It’s a small room with a window. Everything is colorless, washed-out, and overtaken by light. Unfamiliar. Then I register the smell, the metallic bite of antiseptic in the stale air, and I know I’m still alive. It’s a hospital smell. And even though I’m disoriented and sleep-addled and half-blind, I know for certain that Heaven would never smell like this.

I take a breath, try to slow my heart and pay attention. People will want to know what it’s like, how it feels, being born for a second time. They will want it to be tunnels of light and choruses of angels, messages from the other side. They will want God to have something to do with it. But it feels more like waking from a night of heavy drinking than anything profound. I feel wrung out and groggy.

Dehydrated. I blink against the brightness of my room, breathing deep the acrid hospital smell, and realize that I’ll probably have to lie to them.

Sam is sitting by the window. He looks older in these shades of white and gray, gaunt and worn and sapped of blood. As if all of his lingering boyishness has been finally wrung out of him, and suddenly his dark hair and sharp nose, the unshaven shadow around the calm fullness of his mouth, all of these things serve to make him look hardened. Even from here I know it’s his eyes that have changed the most, lingering somewhere far off, the pain in them. I think of my first drawing class in high school, how the teacher taught us always to begin a portrait with the eyes, how you can map a whole face once you get the eyes right. The sight of him brings with it a relief that is so potent I could cry. He’s here.

I try to say something, but the words are hot little barbs that stick in my windpipe. Sam glances up at the small sound I make, as if he is shocked to see me there. He moves toward me and reaches for the side table, retrieving a cup, and offers me a spoonful of ice chips.

“You’re okay. It’s the respirator. They took it out a half-hour ago. ”

I accept the ice, and it’s shockingly vivid, the taste of it like cold chlorine, blunting the soreness as I swallow. He glances down, taking my hand and squeezing it, almost to the point of pain. He looks afraid. I wish I could tell him that I’m all right, but I can’t speak, and I’m not even sure if it’s true anyway. Has the transfer worked? Is it supposed to feel like this?