Readers of my first book, Our Town: A Novel, may remember Clover, Dorothy White's daughter. She is featured, too, in the book I just handed in, thus far titled Low Bar.
This story follows her after and between the events of those two novels and continues her adventures.
Fiction can have “a greater impact than the truth, and be more truthful.”1
Wink.
So get involved, if you feel up for it!
I love you very much.
K
Clover awoke in panic. She was in a small room that was barely big enough for her hospital-sized bed. No padding.
She could think. Her thoughts were as follows. Where am I? Why? Who are they? And then, soon after. Oh no.
Not again.
She looked at her wrists - she was connected to her hospital bed. She looked at her feet – she wore blue socks. As she tried to look farther she was halted by the tubes in her mouth. She laid back down. She tried to close her teeth but couldn’t. She was intubated, and this made her scared. It wasn’t the first time – she was a heroin addict, for a long time, after all – but that doesn’t necessarily make it easier. In fact, sometimes – and this is often true – this would be considered a fate worse than death. That to fall out, and go off, comfortably, is the process of many, and it’s natural, and sometimes even the goal. To enjoy the process is to fight falling asleep and feel it – all of the nothing all around you, and swim there a while.
But instead to wake up somewhere you don’t know, un-high and without the ability, isn’t even fathomable, and thus never considered an option. It’s the worst case scenario. This road means something went wrong.
It means somewhere you got lost, and for that sometimes you beat yourself up for all the mistakes you made - you make - and how you continue to. It means you hate yourself, and you should – or, at least, your behavior and actions might warrant that. Spending a lot of time loathing yourself means spending a lot of time considering yourself. It leaves you with a trying attitude.
She wondered if wondering about someone else might help. She fell back to sleep trying just that.
Soon, after re-rousing, she realized she was still strapped down with knit cuffs, but they’d been loosened, but the tubes were still in her mouth and nose. She looked down, but this time past her feet. Her eyes widened. One of her walls was a window – but locked – and it looked into what seemed to be a busy, buzzing nursing station. All of them wore strange blue masks – or larger white ones – over their mouths and noses. Some also had plastic shields, which swung down from their foreheads, atop those, like beekeepers. Her eyes got even bigger as she watched them, but soon, again, they began to close. She didn’t have the energy to hold them open - the meds - and so her lids became heavy. They fell down again and it got dark.
Even though she could think – she knew because her thoughts made her sad – when she tried to speak past the plastic tubing she couldn’t. She fell in and out of consciousness. She had an IV in - she must be on something - but she felt more than she could remember. She wanted to say she was in pain because she knew to do that every other time and she knew that might help, but she couldn't. And she was, but not in the same way she was used to. She was in pain because she was scared. She was in pain; she was uncertain. She wasn’t calm, and that hurt. She was all of the things she didn’t like to be. All those things felt worse than living.
When she woke up again, tubes were still in her mouth, but her hands were free. She shook more so someone entered and changed her banana bag – she must be on something, she thought as she got sleepy, but not something she liked. Not the way she needed it. Her son would have to help her.
Where’s my son?
Every time she woke back up she grew more and more suspicious. She thought without speaking. When her eyes started talking, or she bit down on the tube in her mouth, an orderly came back in and changed her IV and put her back down. They noticed very quickly that to do so they’d need more, and it was growing. For a long while she remained this way – progressively twilit – as she recovered. It was deemed better for her, but it was also easier for the staff to manage.
They were also afraid for when she’d wake up.
Another day – eyes opened – the muscles that did so the first to gain strength, she watched an orderly lather himself in sanitizer – disgusting – and then put on gloves and one mask, and then another, and then a face shield before picking up a tray. A female one opened the door while the first one backed in – tray second – and made his way to Clover’s bed.
“Hi Clo! How are you?” asking mechanically. Hollow, tinned. He didn’t expect an answer. There hadn’t been even an attempt at one yet.
They had just taken the tubes out that morning, and her throat felt scratchy; she was weak. She didn’t try the first few hours - she grunted to herself - but she’d grown curious. She gathered as he came in.
He put the tray down and she beckoned for him to come closer.
“You want me to come in?”
She nodded. He leaned.
Clover swallowed and started groaning, but he couldn’t quite make out what she was trying to say. It was hard to tell if she was still in there - most in her condition, decidedly, were not. The first time they unlatched her hands from her bed post she tried to pull out her feeding tube so they re-latched them, but now they found they could just keep her medicated. What they didn’t know was that some of her restfulness was her choice.
She tried, again, to whisper, for internally she felt strong. Just give her a chance. She was capable. Like she could do anything if she set her mind to it.
Little girls can do anything, my father used to say.
“Clo,” came out, garbled and drooly and yet somehow also hoarse. She swallowed again. “Clo-vuh.”
“Hey!” he answered. “That’s your name!” And he clapped his hands.
“Clobuhhh,” she tried again.
“Amazing! Look at you go!”
“Clo,” and then she just grunted for the second syllable. That was it. That was all she could muster.
She breathed through her nose tightly. He could tell she was done. He used his heels to stand and he gave her a standing o.
“Bravo!” He cheered for her. “You keep it up! You keep trying, honey. You’re more and more yourself every day.”
She started with her name, or at least an attempt at it. “Clova. Me,” she said, later. She tried pointing to herself but her hand just got to her belly button.
“Clo. Clovuh,” quiet scratching. Hissing. Frothing, even though her mouth felt dry. Spitting, like a bulldog, she coughed out who she was when she had the energy, and me. That’s it. Me, Clover, and she pointed to herself. Clover. Me.
No matter her thoughts, that’s all she seemed to say. That’s all that she had in her - that’s all that could come out.
“Oh, Clover! You’re doing good with that one! I’m so happy you’re trying to try!”
Another nurse was with her, now, and her enthusiasm moved her. She was a woman - she figured the man was just being nice to her because he had a crush. “You just keep talking, sweetheart. You’re doing great!” Now she’d gone too far. Now she was too lively. Great wasn’t honest, and she knew it.
You’re doing too much, Clover thought to herself. Inauthenticity was Clover’s litmus test.
It was time for her to go.
Clover watched her leave. She didn’t have much strength for anything other than breathing, but it was growing. When she woke up in the morning, she could growl. Her hands weren’t as heavy anymore – better than the beginning – and she’d lost weight. Not eating all those weeks besides through her feeding tube was helpful, she thought. That part was a plus.
A few weeks of this later – uncuffed and without feeding tubes – Clover began to grow restless, as was her way. She wasn’t progressing, and their enthusiasm was no longer enough. She took notice of the nurses; which ones were prompt and proper. When were their shifts? Who watched TV, on the propped up TV in the station’s corner, and when? Which shows, even though sometimes that was obvious. She always could tell when someone watched Judge Judy. She could always spot her own.
For the ones who did crosswords, how long did they keep their eyes down? Who worked graveyard, in particular? Who paid the least attention to her?
Who isn’t paying me enough attention?
She could tell from their skin who smoked, and from their fingers. Who had a boyfriend, boy or girl, and who was happy. Who judged her. They all judged her, but perhaps some could empathize, too. None seemed happy, but the least judgmental she took notice to. They were the marks.
So she waited, and she waited. She bided her time. She had a few more meals with them, over a few more days, and weeks. Jell-O and government chicken. Beans and rice. Quesadillas. A club sandwich, if she was lucky. A hot pretzel on Sunday nights.
Whilst plotting, she considered her life. Her children didn’t care about her. In fact, maybe they put her here? Maybe they think I should be in jail? I’ve been with them since they were born. At least I wanted to be. Those ingrates! They have no respect for me. You can’t lock me up! I birthed you.
But now you’ve backed her into a corner, and she lives for that.
You underestimate me - you don’t love me. Forget me, like they all do. Forget me, just like my dad. Forget me, just like my dad always has my whole life.
You’re just like my dad.
Clover found herself outside, that night. She’d waited until cigarette time – about 2:15 AM, Wednesday, during their break - and she was beyond the parking lot by three. Without the ability to read, write, talk, or particularly walk, she’d found freedom. Against all odds, she was free.
Her hips had faltered while in the coma, and they had begun to split when she fell – “I cracked,” she’d later say. Her muscles had atrophied, and she was on wobbly legs, but even still she did it. She was lousy with grit.
She unclasped the window and she crawled over the side, onto the grass – it was a first floor facility – and she made her way to the gate. Falling, some - stumbling - but every time she fell she got back up. With bruised hands and knees, and gravelly paws, she got out. She unlatched the latch and pushed through the gate and was on the side of the highway. Without the ability to talk, she flagged down a KIA. It pulled up beside her and rolled down its window.
With a heavy tongue, Clover would explain herself. She’s an actress; she was a star! I’m trapped here against my will. My kids did it to me! They don’t care about me at all! I need your help, okay? So, help me? Help me! Please help me!
But that’s not what came out.
Eventually they found Clover crawling by the highway near an entrance ramp. Still in her blue hospital gown, but untied. The car she’d stopped quickly sped away. Luckily there weren’t many others. Covid was new, so the roads were clear. That saved her.
Claudette finished her cigarette and looked back in on the room and saw that it was empty and that the window was open. She couldn’t understand how Clover was capable, and more so willing, to escape from care. But it was hard not to admire it.
Soon after that they called her son, Jack, to tell him.
It was time for her to go.
Part 2 coming soon!
The Clover series will be a multi-part new project for premium subscribers, once or twice monthly, so, as I said before, get involved!
Also, I’m thinking of a new mailbag called Questions for Tatum, so if you have any join the chat or send to me directly, if you’d prefer to be anonymous.
I love you all,
KJM
Vigdis Horth.