The Sea in Winter: Chapters 29–40

I cry out as the pain crumples me. I sense my family in a flurry behind me, Mom’s and Jack’s voices pitched in panic as I lift my foot and try to hop to the nearest tree trunk to support myself. But the roots jutting out of the ground form a perilous web, and I trip again, catching myself on my hands.

The pain is searing. It empties the air from my lungs. Tears well in my eyes. I gasp and croak. The muscles in my knee throb and tighten to excruciating uselessness.

The pain is searing. It empties the air from my lungs. Tears well in my eyes. I gasp and croak. The muscles in my knee throb and tighten to excruciating uselessness.

I swallow a breath and try to hold it behind my sternum as I gingerly tilt and try to put weight on the leg, but I can’t.

The surgery that was supposed to fix everything. I’ve had the surgery, and I’ve been in physical therapy for months, I’ve been hitting every milestone. And for what?

And I know he’s being as careful as he can, but the moment his arm sweeps behind my legs to hoist me up, the pain turns black and twists through me. Leaves me gaping like a fish out of water. Suffocating on oxygen.

Connor is still calling out, still flailing in the back seat, and I hear the tears in his voice as Mom circles the car and hastily tries to readjust his buckles.

The ER nurses and doctors who see me say that I’m lucky. They say that the tendon didn’t detach again, that it didn’t sever or snap like a rubber band pulled too far.

But it is strained. And it will continue to be painful. And I did damage some of the other tendons and ligaments around my knee, so I will need to wear a brace and use crutches again, at least for a little while.

I’ve heard what the adults said as they spoke across my prone body, talking about diagnostic tests and next steps and recovery plans.

I’ve heard what the adults said as they spoke across my prone body, talking about diagnostic tests and next steps and recovery plans.

The commercials with smiling families in their bright, gleaming kitchens, wiping spilled juice with paper towels. The side-by-side comparisons of these paper towels, versus some other, more generic towels.

Then the show comes back on. And it takes me a moment to realize: this is the show Eva has been begging me to watch. Catriona’s Crown. It opens with a blonde girl in a burgundy dress, running across a lush green field filled with wildflowers.

There is a grand stone castle in the distance behind her, and she is dashing toward the rustic stables.

“Can you not?” I snap through my despair. “Why do you need to be on your ph-phone right now? Why are you always on your stupid phone?”

“That’s right,” she says. “An entire new generation of refugees. An entire new generation of orphaned children. Too much trauma. Far too many tragedies. And for what?”

I kept thinking: if only we’d done more to stop the war. If only we’d done more than march and petition, if only we’d found some other way to stop it all from happening. And when I realized this was irrational, I started to wish for other things: if only he had been stationed in some other place.

I kept imagining these impossible scenarios where something was different, where some small detail could have changed the outcome of our story.

“Well,” she says. “I turned to the teachings of my ancestors, for one thing. I looked back at our histories of resilience and survival...."

There is a short, stunned silence. Or at least, the silence feels stunned to me. Maybe not to Mom and Jack, who are both observing me with expectant looks on their faces.

“Sweetheart, Jack and I have already discussed this. We think you need to confide in a professional. We think you need some guidance. Someone who can help you sort through these feelings, this—this loss you’re going through...” She trails off. Looks at me with pleading eyes.

I remember growing older, growing taller, growing stronger, all while attending ballet. How I met my friends in the studio. How I started attending auditions and working hard through rehearsals. That soaring sensation in my heart, after every perfectly executed combination, after every onstage performance.

A cloaked figure is hunched over a worktable filled with bubbling cauldrons, vials of neon-colored liquid, and candles dripping wax.

“Aha,” the mysterious potion brewer says, lifting a vial of blue fluid in one hand. “At last. The perfect poison elixir, just as His Royal Highness requested.”

In this fluorescent lighting, the blemishes and wrinkles in his brown skin look more obvious than usual.

Jack walks briskly at my side. We pass by EMTs pushing gurneys, doctors striding out of elevators, nurses hurrying along in their sky-blue scrubs.

And we were late, of course. We were late, and everything was hectic, and I didn’t want to be there.

She adjusts her glasses and asks, “All finished reshelving in the nonfiction section?”

We talk on the phone at least once a week, and she texts me funny memes from the internet, or sentimental quotes about the importance of family.

In the left corner of the bulletin board, there is a new flyer with the headline The World Is Your Oyster! In a slightly smaller font beneath these words, it says: Join our new group for young activists, get involved with local politics, and create the change you wish to see!

Mom follows my gaze and says, “I’ve heard of this new coalition. They’re doing some great work.”

I politely look away, admiring the potted plants lined up along the edge of her desk. She has a collection of spiky cactuses, mint-green succulents, and orchids.

I give them all a sheepish smile. “It’s not certain,” I say. “But I think Ms. Porter secretly told me that I’m going to be in her creative writing class next year. Just like I wanted. She wrote it in my yearbook.”

Mom and Connor lead us out onto the blustery, sun-filled deck. My hair whips across my face, and the fabric of my T-shirt tugs and flaps against my torso.

Mom clears her throat and reaches into the depths of the tote on her shoulder. She pulls something out and hands it to me.