Train

The clock on the dashboard turned to midnight.  The rain pummeling the window distracted me.  I couldn’t see very much of the road in front of me, but I was still pushing eighty.  Back then, I didn’t care about stupid things like safety.

My cell phone buzzed in my pocket.  Looking at the screen, I saw that it was my mom.  Without slowing down, I answered it, trying to say hello.  She didn’t give me the chance.  “John Robert Simons, why aren’t you home?  Your curfew was two hours ago.”

I sighed.  “I’m on my way now.  I’m on Highway 27.  I’ll be there in half an hour.”

Mom gasped, shocked.  “You’re driving?  In this storm?  Why didn’t you ask Dylan’s dad to drive you?”

“Because Dylan’s dad worked a double shift today and wouldn’t have left his room even if the house was burning down,” I explained curtly.

“Well, you just get home safely, okay?”

I could hear the worry in her voice, so I replied gently, “I will.  Don’t worry so much.”

“Okay.  I’ll see you when you get home.”  She hung up.

As I was fumbling to put my cell phone back in my pocket, I was blinded by some headlights.  The rain let up for just a moment, and I could see that the car was in the wrong lane, coming straight at me.  Jerking out of the way, I blared my horn, hoping the driver would get the message.

“Jesus,” I muttered.  That was a shocker.  The rain came back with a vengeance, and I had to slow down to seventy to stay on the road.

In the distance, I thought I saw red blinking lights.  When I blinked, they were gone.  I decided that it had just been my imagination.  As I kept going, I could hear a horn blaring, or so it seemed.  I tried to listen, but the rain was too heavy.  I couldn’t hear a thing.

I went around the curve that told me that the train tracks were coming up.  I could barely see the thick yellow lines running down the middle of the road, but I did all right.

Now the blaring horn was a bit louder, so I knew it was there.  But what was it coming from?  Trains didn’t run at this time of night.  Did they?

I was approaching the tracks fast, not even touching my brakes like I knew I was supposed to do.  Lightning illuminated the surrounding landscape, and my heart skipped a beat.  One of those overnight freight trains was heading right towards me.  I tried to slow down, but it was too late.  I collided with the train going fifty miles per hour.

The last thing I remember thinking about is my promise to my mom that I’d get home safe.

I was in white.  I was surrounded by it.  There was nothing but white.  After a while, I could feel cold, and I could see gray.  A little while after that I could hear high whining noises.  Then voices.

“Why is he waking up?  He shouldn’t be waking up for another two weeks,” the voice was saying.  It was a woman’s voice.

A man said, “Maybe this is a good thing.  We just have to wait and see what happens.  If anything goes wrong, we can always put him back under.”

Back under?  How long was I out for?  What had happened?  I saw colors then, and I saw what was happening around me.  I was hooked up to numerous machines.  That’s what the high pitched noises were from.  I could see some photos on the wall to my left.  They showed a train.  The front of it was banged up a little, but there was no major damage.  Another one had a totaled red car.  I didn’t recognize it.  Then I saw the plates.  It was my car.

I remembered everything.

The lights.  The pain.  The sound of rain.

I screamed.  I screamed until I thought my eardrums would burst.  The man and the woman tried to hold me down, but I had broken my restraints and was thrashing about on the cold table  that I realized I was on.

“Where’s the anesthetic?  We need to find it!” the woman shrieked.

The man grunted.  I’d kicked him in the stomach.  “I used it already.  Apparently, it doesn’t work on him anymore.”

My voice cracked after one last scream.  Then I stopped.  It hurt too much to continue.  Besides, I wasn’t in pain anymore.  Why not?  I was hit by a freaking train, for God’s sake.

“Finally,” the man sighed.  “I thought he would never stop.”

“Do you think he understands us?” the woman asked.  My eyes flittered to her.  She reminded me of my mom, but she looked like she was only a few years older than me.  She had the same auburn hair that fell to wisps at her shoulders.  It was kind of reassuring.  I tried to nod, to tell that I understood her perfectly.  I’m not sure I succeeded.

The man smiled down at me.  It was kind of creepy, so I concentrated on the glare on his bald spot instead.  “I think he does.  Blink once for yes and twice for no.  Do you understand us?”  I blinked once.

“That’s incredible,” the woman murmured.  I wasn’t sure why that was so incredible.  I was just blinking.  I figured that I’d find out why soon enough.

The man nodded, his glasses slipping down his large nose.  “Again, blink once for yes and twice for no.  Are you in any pain?”  Twice.  “Can you see clearly?”  Once.  He sighed.  “I’ve never seen this kind of recovery.  I guess we owe it to his father.”

I was confused.  My father?  I’d never met the man.  I didn’t even know his first name, though we shared our last name.  Now I owed him something?  I was not happy with that.  I cleared my throat, hoping to talk to them and ask them what the heck was going on.  That caught the woman’s attention.  She smiled down at me and cooed, “Don’t try to talk, John.  It’s too soon.  The medicine isn’t fully working yet.”  Again, what medicine?  What was going on?

I heard a knock on a metal door.  The man grunted, “No one should be here.  It’s off limits.”

“Did you ever think that it might be something important, Dr. Jackson?” the woman asked, moving out of my view.  I tried to crane my head and look, but one glare from the grumpy old man stopped my squirming.

“Is the patient still asleep?” a man’s voice asked.  It was smooth and young, and it sounded like it belonged to someone you could trust.

“It’s incredible, Dr. Simons.  He’s awake and fully responsive, though we’ve warned him against talking.  I never expected the medicine would work so fast,” the woman gushed.  Did she say Dr. Simons?

The new man laughed.  “I designed it to work fast.  We’re making great progress.”  He came into my field of vision, and a shock went down my spine.  He was me, or at least an older version of me.

He smiled down at me, standing next to my metal bed.  A lot of people seemed to be doing that.  “Hi, John.  You probably don’t know or remember me, but I’m your father.  I’m here to help you.”

I glared up at him with indignation.  How could he possibly be helping me, after all this time of not caring?  I tried to talk, to tell him exactly what I thought of him, but he held up his hand.  “Don’t.  The medicine hasn’t healed up all of the damage  yet.”

“He looks confused.  Maybe we should explain some things to him,” the woman suggested.  I looked at her lab coat.  It said Dr. Peterson on the shiny gold tag.  I was liking her more and more.

The older man, Dr. Jackson, laughed.  “He wouldn’t understand it even if we taught an elementary school class about it.  The concept is much too complex for his juvenile mind.”  I glared, liking him less and less.

My father was staring at me thoughtfully.  “I think we should try.  Even if he doesn’t understand it now, he will later.”  He rolled over a cushy chair from the computer table and sat down.  “So, you’ve probably noticed that we’ve been talking about this medicine.”  I nodded.  He continued, “When your car was hit by the train, your arms were completely shattered, your head was bashed in, and you lost your legs.  Normally, someone wouldn’t survive that.  There would have been too much blood loss and damage to the brain.  But I’ve been developing a medicine that is injected into your spine and tells your body to create new, fast growing cells.”

“Like cancer,” I croaked before they could stop me.  Everyone stared at me in shock, and I smiled triumphantly.

Dr. Simons cleared his throat.  “Sort of, but instead of forming a noxious lump, the medicine goes throughout the body to help heal and regrow things that were lost.  This takes time, however, so you’ll have to stay inside for a while.”

“What’s the name of this med?” I asked.

“Excuse me?” he asked, looking slightly confused.

“The med you gave me,” I explained.  “I want to know the name of it, so I can look it up later.”

A worried look crossed his face.  He was about to respond, but Dr. Jackson spoke first.  “You wouldn’t be able to find it.  The medicine hasn’t been approved yet.”

I stared at him.  “So it’s illegal?”

“You’ve got it.”  He smirked.  “Any other questions?  It’s time for the next injection.”

Time.  That reminded me.  “How long was I out for?”

Dr. Simons chuckled nervously.  “Well, son, you had to grow your legs back.  Things like that take time.”

“How long?” I repeated pointedly.

“It’s been two months since the accident,” he finally replied with a sigh.

My mind did the math.  It had been April when I got hit.  That means it was June.  I’d missed the end of my junior year in high school.  Time that I would never get back.

I was thinking about that when Dr. Peterson injected my spine with the illegal drug.  It didn’t hurt, and it sent a tingling sensation throughout my entire body.  I was past the pain now, I guessed.

“We’ll let you sleep now, then,” Dr. Simons said.  I was going to have a hard time calling him dad, if he asked me to start.

I reminded him, “I’m on a metal bed.  It’s going to be hard to sleep.”

“Oh.  Right.”  He looked around hurriedly, looking for something.  He found it in the corner of the room.  It was a wheelchair.  As he was opening it up, he said, “I can take you to a bedroom.  We’re in my attic right now, actually.  Here, swing your feet over.”  I did as I was told, but it felt strange.  Looking down, I almost threw up.  Dr. Simons had a sheepish expression on his face when he explained, “I was going to warn you, but I never had an opportune moment.”

Where my old, strong legs used to be sat small, weak, lumpy ones.  They looked like they belonged to a small child.  I stretched the toes, or tried to at least.  It was hard, harder than it should have been.  I looked up to Dr. Simons.

He was smiling at me reassuringly.  “Don’t worry.  They’ve grown a lot in two months.  Before the medicine, you didn’t even have those.  You just had stumps.”

“Will they ever get back to normal?” I asked quietly.

“We think so.  That’s why we’re still giving you the medicine.  Everything else is fine, but you’ll get a shot once a day until they grow back,” he explained.  “Starting tomorrow, you’re going to have physical therapy to develop your muscles again.”

I nodded to show that I understood.  He picked me up and set me in the wheelchair, acting like I weighed no more than a bag of sugar.  I probably didn’t, considering I hadn’t had a proper meal since that night at Dylan’s.

The room that I was taken into looked like it would have been my room if I had lived with my father.  It had painted blue walls and a thick brown carpet, with a double bed in the corner.  Dr. Simons set me down and pulled the orange, white, and blue curtains closed.  A few minutes later, Dr. Peterson came in and hooked me up to a few machines that she had brought, and then tucked the blue and orange soccer ball blanket up to my chin.  Just like mom would have done.

“You remind me of my mom,” I told her as she was leaving.

She turned around and smiled.  “I should.  I’m your sister.”  Dr. Peterson left before I could regain my senses, so I never got a chance to ask her why I had never met her before.

That night, I tried to sleep.  I really did, but my body wouldn’t let me.  I couldn’t even get up to go on the computer since I was hooked up to all those machines.  So I just sat there and stared at the ceiling, wondering if I would ever see my friends again.

Around four o’clock in the morning I heard a small knock on my door.  Since I couldn’t exactly get up to answer it, I called out, “Come in.”

The door pushed open slightly, and Mom walked in.  I can’t say I expected to see her, but I wasn’t entirely surprised.  She was my mom, after all.  When she walked in, I almost immediately noticed that she had been crying and that she was a lot thinner.  She sat down on the edge of my bed.

“Hi, John.  How are you feeling?” she sniffled.

I shrugged.  “Not too bad, but I’ve been better.”

Her eyes were misty when she said, “This is all my fault.  I never should have gone.”

“Gone where, Mom?” I asked gently.

She shook her head.  “I’m too embarrassed.”

I laughed at her, sitting up in the bed.  The IV that Dr. Peterson had put in my arm tugged, and I winced.  Mom looked scared, but I waved her off, telling her, “I’m fine.  Besides, Mom, you don’t have to be embarrassed.  I’m your son.”

She shifted uncomfortably, fixing the blanket.  “I suppose you know by now that you have an older sister who your father raised.  When she was seven years old, Robert and I had an argument.  We got a divorce, and Robert got full custody of Kaitlin.  I had to pay a small amount of child support, but it didn’t seem too bad.”  Mom looked up at me.  “I didn’t know I was pregnant with you.”

Mom rummaged through her navy blue purse.  It matched the rest of the room.  Taking out a tissue and blowing her nose, she continued, “When you were about four or five, I was having trouble paying the regular bills and child support at the same time.  I found a good day care and dropped you off there for a day.  I went to see Robert to ask if I still had to pay the child support for Kaitlin.  He was already an accomplished surgeon, making more money in a month than I did all year.  So, we consulted a lawyer, and by six that night it was arranged so  that I didn’t have to pay for child support anymore, and you were best friends with Dylan.”

I nodded.  It made sense, except for one part.  “So how was my accident your fault?”

She broke down in sobs.  “Don’t you see?  If I hadn’t dropped you off at that day care, you never would have been friends with Dylan.  Then you wouldn’t have gotten hit while driving home from his house.”

I laughed.  “Don’t be silly, Mom.  My being friends with Dylan has nothing to do with the car accident.  I would have become friends with him anyway.  He was in my kindergarden class the year after that.”

I patted her hand, and she smiled.  “Well, I guess they’re not related, but I still feel like I could have done something to protect you.”

“I don’t think anything you said would have done me any good,” I replied, still laughing.

She started laughing along with me.  “I guess you’re right.  You’re too stubborn to listen to me, even if it’s for your own good.”

“Especially if it’s for my own good,” I added.

We heard another knock on the door.  Mom got up and answered it.  It was my sister, Dr. Peterson.  She said shyly, “I heard you two talking and wanted to know what was going on.  I hope you don’t mind.”

Mom smiled warmly.  “Don’t be silly, Kaitlin.  You’re always welcome.  Come on in, don’t just stand in the door all morning.”  She ushered Kaitlin in and set her on the edge of the bed.  Seeing that she had no room for herself in the room, Mom said, “I’d better leave and let you two catch up.  Besides, I still have to see Robert.”  Mom didn’t give either of us a chance to respond before she closed the door behind her, leaving us in complete silence.

After a few awkward minutes, Kaitlin asked, “So,are you feeling any better?  I can help you, if you aren’t.”

I shook my head.  “I’m fine, really.  I don’t have pain or anything.”  She relaxed noticeably.  I guessed she had been worried about that.

“Well, if you ever need anything in the middle of the night, just bang on the wall.  My bed is right on the other side,” she explained, trying to be reassuring.  I just nodded, not really knowing what to say.

We relapsed into silence.  I finally said, “This is a pretty amazing room.”

Kaitlin laughed.  “Dad and I hoped you’d think so.  We found you online as a rising soccer star, so we decorated the room for you.”  She thought for a bit.  “Well, I did.  Dad just payed for everything.”

I was shocked.  She’d done that for me?  She hadn’t even known me.  “Thank you,” I told her.  I really meant it.

She blushed.  “It’s fine.  If I wasn’t a surgeon like dad, I would be an interior designer.”

I smiled.  “My friend Benny wants to do that.  He’s already picked out a college for it.”

“What college do you want to go to?” she inquired.

I shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I have no idea what I want to do.”

“Well, you have some time to think about it.  You have bigger things to worry about right now,” she said.  “Speaking of which, you’re starting physical therapy tomorrow.  You might want to rest before that.”

“Kaitlin, I’ve been resting for two months.  I’m kind of tired of it,” I reminded her.  I added playfully, “Besides, I want to show Dr. Jackson how amazing my recovery is.”

She laughed.  “Don’t blame him for being grumpy.  His dog just died.”

“Poor puppy,” I muttered, and I wasn’t talking about it dying.

Kaitlin yawned.  “Well, if you’re not going to sleep, then I will.  See you . . . later this morning, I guess.”  She stood up and walked out of the room, remembering to smile at me before she left.

I hate to say it, but Kaitlin was right.  I was exhausted.  As soon as the door clicked shut, I was fast asleep.  When Dr. Jackson woke me up later, I was surprised to find that it was past noon.  Dr. Jackson had muttered, “Yeah, and you set our schedule back by four hours.”  I decided not to pay him much attention.  It wasn’t worth it.

Kaitlin came in a few minutes after I got up.  She was supposed to help me into my swim trunks for physical therapy.  But that would have been weird, so I insisted on doing it myself.  It took me half an hour to get them on, but I did it.  Kaitlin was beaming at me when I came out of my room.

As she was wheeling me to the pool, I realized something.  My dad’s last name was Simons, but hers was Peterson.  I asked, “Why do you have a different last name than us?”

She smiled brightly, and for the first time I noticed she had a diamond ring on her left hand.  “I got married last year.  He’s in the army, so I haven’t seen him since he was deployed, but you’ll keep me busy until he gets back, won’t you?”

“I sure will,” I reassured her.  “By the time he gets back, I’ll be playing soccer again.”

She laughed.  “We’ll see about that.”

Physical therapy was, to say the least, challenging, but I think I did okay.  I had to walk laps around the four-feet-deep pool.  I made it to three before my knees gave out, and if Kaitlin hadn’t been there I would have drowned.

“So much for progress,” Dr. Jackson muttered.

“I think I did great for someone with new legs,” I replied cheerfully, letting Dr. Simons help me out of the pool.

Dr. Simons laughed.  “You’ll do better tomorrow.  Let’s go get something to eat.  I bet you’re hungry.”

I thought about it for a minute, staring at my stomach.  “Actually, I don’t feel hungry.  Did you give me anything for food while I was unconscious?”

He shook his head.  “We just gave you the medicine.  It has some substances in it that could serve as food for a while, but it was just enough to sustain you. . . .”  Dr. Simons thought for a minute.  “Maybe you should eat something, just so we can see what happens.  What would you like?”

I immediately answered, “Ham sandwich with mayo and lettuce.”  It was my favorite sandwich.  It always had been.

Dr. Simons raised his eyebrows.  “Are you sure?  You haven’t eaten in a long time.  That would be hard on your stomach.  Maybe you should try chicken noodle soup to start out with.”

I made a face.  “That stuff is disgusting.  I’m having my ham sandwich, or I’m not eating.”

Dr. Simons put his hands up in defeat.  “Okay, fine.  You win.  I’ll make you a ham sandwich.  He picked me up from the green tile floor next to the pool and put me into the wheelchair.  He then wheeled me to the kitchen.  It was a small room, or at least it seemed that way.  Counters were crammed in everywhere, making it hard to navigate, especially in a wheelchair.

He clapped his hands together, leaning against the pale yellow walls.  “You said ham with mayo and lettuce, right?  What kind of bread do you want?”

I shrugged.  “White I guess, but it doesn’t really matter.”

He had already crossed the room and was rummaging through the big, silver refrigerator.  He emerged with an armful of food.  I was about to tell him that I couldn’t eat that much, but then he started making five sandwiches, one for every person in the house.

I watched him cook silently.  Dr. Simons didn’t seem to mind.  He went about it methodically, and soon he was calling for everyone to go to the dining room.  He carried the sandwiches on a tray, and he put the pitcher of water, glasses, and napkins on a tray on my lap.

Dinner was quiet.  Everything seemed quiet at that house.  Mom always had the radio blaring during meals, and we shouted out of tune to every song we knew.  It made me smile.  Mom was smiling as well, as though she was thinking about the same thing.

Finally, Dr. Simons asked, “Kaitlin, when is Andy coming home?”

I assumed that Andy was her husband because her eyes lit up and her voice became animated.  “In seven months.  He only has to be gone a year.”

“Seven months.  That seems so long to wait,” Mom murmured.  Or at least it seemed like it to me.  Everything was muted.  I couldn’t hear myself think.  Kaitlin responded, but I don’t know what she said.  My entire body was spinning.  I remember my glass spilling when I set it down on the table.  Dr. Simons was the first person to notice that something was wrong with me.  He ran over to my seat and injected me with something that made everything go back to normal.  It didn’t matter what it was, really.  All I know is that it saved me.  Dad saved me.

“Thanks, Dad,” I murmured as soon as we were sitting down again.  He didn’t say anything, so I looked over at him.  His eyes were teared up and he looked away.  Everyone was silent.  I asked, “What?  What’s wrong?”

It took a while, but Dr. Simons finally said with a shaking voice, “You called me Dad.”

I laughed.  “I guess I did, Dad.”

Everyone seemed more relaxed after that.  I guess that I was making everyone tense, probably just by being there.  I was determined to be better about that.  After dinner, I took the tray full of dishes and loaded them into the fancy dishwasher.  Kaitlin had to show me how to use it.  When that was done, I was wheeled back to my room and put on the bed.  They only put the pulse oximeter back on my finger.  I guess they figured I didn’t need the other monitors anymore, since I’d gone an entire day without them.

I couldn’t fall asleep again, so I thought about some things.  Thoughts of my recovery and my future floated around in my head.  My future was put on hold until I recovered, and I wasn’t sure how long that would take.  It might only take a few months.  It might take my  entire lifetime.  Who knew?  I sure didn’t.

Then I thought about what would happen after I recovered.  I couldn’t exactly go back to my old school.  I might not be able to go to any school.  The people there would have heard about me.  Article titles on Yahoo flashed before my eyes: “Crazy Teenager That Drove Into Train and Loses Both Legs Survives Using Illegal Drug.”

I fell asleep to images of myself.  I was in my thirties, and every day I got up and walked laps in the pool until the knees of my tiny legs gave out.

That’s exactly what I did for the next  seven months.  My legs were growing back fast.  Half an inch a week, one inch if I slept a lot.  I was able to do seventy laps in the pool a day, and I could use crutches instead of the wheelchair.  Dad said I would probably be able to go off  of the medicine in five months, one year after the accident.

One morning I got up like normal.  Kaitlin was supposed to bring me my newly washed swimsuit.  However, when she got to my room, she was holding a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, socks, sneakers, and car keys.

“Are we going somewhere or something?” I asked dubiously.  I hadn’t left Dad’s house since the accident.  She nodded, biting her lip to keep from smiling.  “Where are we going?” I asked.

“I can’t tell you!” Kaitlin sang.  “Hurry up and get dressed, or we’re going to be late,” she added, leaving the room.

“Late for what?” I shouted after her.

“I can’t tell you!” she sang again.

Not quite an hour later we were in her black convertible, racing down the highway.  The signs told me that we were heading toward the airport.  What we were doing?

Kaitlin kept looking at the dashboard, continuously speeding up.  It reminded me of my accident, especially when it started raining a little.  It scared me.  Thankfully, it didn’t last long.  We got to the airport, and Kaitlin screeched to a parking spot, narrowly missing a van.

“Hurry up, John!  We’re late as it is!” she called, already halfway to the door before I could even get my crutches out of the back seat.

By the time I hobbled to the building, Kaitlin had been inside for five minutes.  When I walked in, I stood at the door, looking for her.  It didn’t take very long.  She was standing in the middle of the room, tightly hugging a tall man with an army buzz cut.

Her husband, Andy Peterson.

As I watched them cry into each other’s arms, I realized something.  I had nothing to worry about.  I had a family who loved me and would take care of me no matter what.  I would have I good future.

I would recover.

Reviews

[YouoweYoupay]

"What we were doing?" Was that a question?

A very unique, warm-hearting story about misfortune, a miracle, and the trusted love of a family. It got tedious and slow right after he had awakened, but the pace grew interesting again. I enjoyed your short tale. Thanks for posting.

[Bella-Marie]

I liked this a lot. It was interesting and had me hooked. I'd love you to develop this into a story. Make the recovery longer. Maybe have John hate the medicine and his newfound family, etc. Have you read "The Adoration of Jenna Fox"? It'd be cool if you based it around that.