Westlake Soul Read online

  Obsessive? A smidge, perhaps. But I draw the line. Same as with Mom and Dad, I never jump into her mind, even though I’d love to know what she’s thinking. I don’t snoop through her underwear drawer or watch her in the shower. I use my superhero talent to discover only the things I would if I were able-bodied.

  Believe me, I’d prefer a more traditional method of getting to know her. Talking, dating, and kissing. Gathering protons prior to collision. My process, while effective, lacks the personal touch. But that’s what comes of being unseen, unheard. Although it is not without reward; I hovered over Yvette’s shoulder while she Googled me, clicking on countless hits, reading about my surfing achievements and, of course, my accident. She brought up numerous pictures of me riding waves, or posing with my board, tanned and cut. I looked into her glittering eyes as she tried to collate the young athlete on her monitor with the broken man she was being paid to care for. Maybe she was Googling me out of curiosity, but I like to think it was because of the bond we had so quickly formed. We were, in a way, touching each other.

  And just last weekend she was talking to her mom on Skype. I didn’t realize Yvette was Québécoise until her mom’s voice floated through the laptop’s tiny speakers: “Salut, Yvette. Comment va ma belle petite fille?” I suppose her surname, Sommereux, should have given me some clue, but I had only ever heard her speaking English, even to herself, and was too preoccupied to register the accent.

  “Bonjour, Maman,” she said, waving at the webcam. “Ça va bien. Toi? Et Papa?”

  French was never my language. Had real difficulty with it in high school. But now, of course, I’m as fluent as Céline Dion.

  “Tout va bien ici, ma chérie. Mais tu nous manques tellement!” Yvette’s mom said, but what I heard was, “We’re both well, sweetheart, but we miss you like crazy!”

  “I miss you, too,” Yvette said. Her smile was real, but touched with a wistfulness that pulled it down at the corners. Her eyes shone, though. As always. “I’m enjoying myself, but I do get lonely sometimes.”

  “You can always come home.”

  “I know, Mom.”

  The conversation was long, and I should probably have given Yvette some privacy and zipped out of there. But I couldn’t. Not because I wanted to learn more about Yvette’s life (although I did), or because I wanted to stay close to her (I did), but because I was feeding on the energy between Yvette and her mom. They were conversing and laughing and loving. Interaction that had been absent from my family for so long. I ached for it so much that tears gathered in the corners of my eyes. Even my useless body—in my groovy bedroom three and a half kilometres away—reacted: head rolling, legs twitching. It was fuel to me. I couldn’t leave, even if I’d wanted to.

  They talked about Yvette’s father’s angina medication, her younger sister’s college application, the neighbour’s new dog that barked every time a car drove by the house. More besides, and so much was mundane, yet threaded with the delightful uniqueness that defines a family. A way of laughing. An unfinished sentence. A certain word or phrase. Everything was loaded with love and understanding—something you only get when talking to someone with the same blood. So many people don’t have this in their lives, but Yvette does. This makes me happy.

  “So what’s new and exciting with you?” Mrs. Sommereux asked as soon as she had finished recounting family affairs.

  “I have a new patient,” Yvette replied. “His name is Westlake Soul. Isn’t that cute?”

  I pricked up my ears and drifted a little closer.

  “Westlake Soul,” her mom said slowly, as if tasting the words. “Strange name. Is he black?”

  “No, Mom,” Yvette said, smiling. “He’s a blond-haired, blue-eyed surfer dude. Or at least he used to be a surfer dude. Now he’s . . .” Her words faded as the corners of her smile dropped down again.

  “He’s . . . ?”

  “It’s just so sad,” Yvette said, and proceeded to tell her mom about me. All of the things I have heard numerous times in the two years since my accident, and have come to expect: how I was once so handsome and strong, and how God can be inexplicably cruel—to cut me down in my prime, a young man with such joie de vivre (no translation necessary). She also said a few things that I didn’t expect, and that nobody has said before. I wrapped myself around her, scarf-like, while my physical body jerked and leaked.

  “He is like a cracked window that you have to wash so carefully, in case the pieces fall out.” Yvette wasn’t looking at her mom’s face when she said this, but down at her keyboard, and I knew that I shimmered in her mind. Cracked, perhaps, but more likely tanned and cut. “Everybody thinks he is broken, but he is still intact. And sometimes, if you press your face to the glass, you can see through the cracks—”

  “You shouldn’t develop attachments to your patients, Yvette,” Mrs. Sommereux said, frowning and motherly.

  “Sometimes you can see in,” Yvette continued, still looking at the keyboard. “It’s very dark, but every now and then . . .”

  Again, she trailed off. Lips turned down.

  “Daddy is thinking about trading the Buick,” Mrs. Sommereux said. Her image had frozen on the screen. A locked-in frown. As if the wind had changed direction. “He wants something a little sportier. Maybe a . . .”

  Their conversation continued, and I stayed wrapped around Yvette. Didn’t move until she shut down her computer and went to bed. I lay next to her as she drifted into sleep, stroking her hair, watching her small mouth move as she dreamed.

  I need to get closer to her. Get to know her. There remains so much to discover. I have seen her flower, but not her roots. Only strength will show me more. Recovery. I need to be able to take her in my arms and share everything—touch her as deeply as she has touched me. And I can do it. I am more determined than ever to fix the cracks in my window, and to show her the light inside.

  Yvette is twenty-four years old. Originally from Rouyn-Noranda, Québec. She has no pets. Only a plant that she talks to while she waters it. Her favourite singer is Alicia Keys. Her best friend’s name is Heidi. She has a box of gymnastics trophies in her closet, and two framed diplomas that she has not hung up yet. She reads three pages—max—of a book before getting bored and putting it down. Two hundred and twelve Facebook friends. Her favourite colour is yellow. There’s a picture of Johnny Depp in her wallet, behind her driver’s licence. She can text approximately forty-five words per minute on her iPhone. She drinks peppermint tea.

  Oh, and she has a boyfriend. His name is Wayne, and he is a fucktard of the first degree. More about Wayne later. But first, if you don’t think that feeding Jevity 1.2 Cal formula through a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tube can ever be sexy, check this out. . . .

  10. Soul Food.

  I haven’t tasted food or drink for over two years. The last thing I drank was a glass of grapefruit juice before heading to the beach on that fateful morning in July of ’09. The last thing I ate—food that passed down my throat and into my esophagus in the normal way—was a slice of cheese pizza. If I’d known it was going to be my final (real) meal, I would’ve gone for the meat-feast. Two slices.

  In order for my body to receive the nutrients it needs to stay alive, I am fed through a pencil-thin polyurethane tube that passes through my abdominal wall and into my stomach. From here the food (a liquid formula) flows into my small intestine, and the nutrients are carried into my bloodstream. It’s not pretty, but it works. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and supper. Four meals a day poured directly into my stomach.

  Yum.

  I used to have an enteral feeding pump that administered formula and water as required. This eliminated the less-than-delightful method of bolus feeding, but—after finally being free of hospital machinery—Mom got upset when she saw me plugged into yet more gadgetry at home. She said it took away my humanness. So the pump was discarded after a few short weeks, and Mom and Dad learned how to bolus feed. It’s not complicated, but needs to be done correctly to prevent infectio
n, aspiration, and clogging of the tube. Mom will feed me at breakfast and dinner time. Dad gets the supper shift. They have it down to a fine art, and are usually in and out within fifteen minutes. They never complain, and the PVR means that they can do it without missing even a second of their favourite TV shows. (The gadgetry they are plugged into is obviously acceptable.)

  My lunchtime feed always came courtesy of Fat Annie. Now, of course, this duty falls to Yvette.

  The beginning of the week. Monday. I heard the yellow Beetle pull into our driveway and felt my body flush with excitement. The only evidence of this, however, was two dime-sized spots of colour on my cheeks. Hub started yapping—She’s here, Wes. Right outside. Just heard her car—but she didn’t come in right away. Impatiently, I streamed from my body and into the Beetle’s passenger seat. Yvette was clutching her iPhone, jaw clenched, looking down at a text from Wayne the Fucktard. It read: UR LUCKY 2 HAVE ME BITCH I CN GET ANY PEICE OF ASS I WANT ANY TIME SO FUCK U. Yvette was debating how to respond. I touched her face and told her to ignore it, and she did. Pure coincidence, but it made me feel better, nonetheless. She shut off the phone, slotted it into one of the Beetle’s cup holders, and came in to see me.

  She wasn’t herself. Her smile was strained, her eyes shaded. She still touched me with the same care, but barely spoke. I tried to think of some way I could reach her—assure her that everything would be okay—but I had nothing. (Some superhero, huh?) I had to settle for wrapping invisible arms around her, inhaling the fragrance of her coconut shampoo while wishing for her happiness to return. After my bed bath, she dressed me in fresh clothes and lifted me into my chair (not hard; lifting is all technique, and I’m not exactly heavy; I’ve dropped from a toned one-eighty to a near-transparent one-fifteen). It was fine outside, so she wheeled me onto the rear deck while she changed my bedsheets.

  Hub came out and sat with me. We didn’t talk. Just enjoyed the sunshine. It flashed high above us, a golden hole punched into the centre of the sky. The maples around our garden flaunted their leaves, like hands filled with coins. The sounds of our neighbourhood. Lawnmowers and insects. Children splashing in a pool. A radio playing summery jazz. Hub dozed, his fur shimmering. I sat in my chair and breathed.

  Yvette came to get me just when I felt the right side of my face burning. I wished she’d slapped a little sunscreen on my cheeks, a floppy hat on my head, and left me out there for another hour or so. I was quite content, and the tranquility was refreshing. But she wheeled me back into the house, lifted me into bed, and then—amazingly—stroked my face where it had reddened in the sun. So tender, like a lover.

  “I left you out there too long,” she said. “I’m sorry, Wes.”

  I looked at her. A tiny vein in my left eyelid ticked. I imagined how the curve of her spine would feel against my palm. My hips pressed against her stomach. My other hand on her thigh, tracing the line of her underwear through a gauzy skirt painted with flowers.

  Her fingers moved from my cheek to my hair. Tousling and gently tugging. Dark blond at the roots. White at the tips.

  “Sweet Wes,” she said.

  I sighed and my lips turned upward. Almost a smile.

  Everybody thinks he is broken, but he is still intact, Yvette had said to her mother. And sometimes, if you press your face to the glass, you can see through the cracks—

  She was doing it now. Looking through the cracks. My heart roared.

  Sometimes you can see in.

  I gave her the sun. Everything in my soul—wanting her to not just see my light, but feel it. A solar flare that would suck all the oxygen from the room and leave us both breathless. Her thumb brushed the corner of my eye, where a tear had gathered. Her lips parted and for one magnificent moment (not nearly long enough) I thought she was going to kiss me. Instead she removed her hand from my face and stood up quickly. The slightest frown touched her brow and she gave her head a little shake.

  I trembled. Sighed again.

  Yvette stepped away from my bed and shuffled, in a somewhat distracted manner, to Westlake’s Wall of Achievement, where my surfing trophies are loaded onto shelves, and pictures of me in healthier, happier days hang in funky glass frames. Her back to me, she looked at the pictures (the glass not cracked) for a long time. I slipped from my body and floated by her side, wanting—needing—to see her expression. I watched as she reached up and touched one of the pictures. One of my favourite shots: shooting the curl at Banzai Pipeline. She didn’t touch the aquamarine wave, or the pale strip of sky above it. She touched me. Her fingertip followed the lines of my body, from my wet hair to where my toes clutched the board. Then she moved to the next picture—the one of me with Patrick Swayze. It was taken at the US Open in 2006. A close-up of our faces. High cheekbones, shining eyes, brilliant smiles. Neither of us aware of the darkness in our future. Yvette touched this picture, too. My face, but not Patrick Swayze’s. She ran her finger along my smile, then turned to look at me in the bed. From one version of Westlake to another. That frown again.

  “Je trouve l’existence incompréhensible,” she said. The first time she had spoken French—knowingly—in my presence.

  I don’t understand life, either, I replied. And I’m the smartest dude in the world.

  “C’est cruel.”

  Yes, I agreed. So cruel.

  She turned to the regiment of trophies, standing to attention, glimmering in the early afternoon light. Seven in total, and three medals, hanging from their ribbons, die-cast exclamation marks. She read every engraved nameplate. Touched the polished pedestals and figures. She caressed my Billabong Classic trophy—curled her hand around the column and slipped it up and down. Ran the tip of her thumb over the happy little surfer dude on top. I could be wrong, but I think she did this because she wanted to connect—on a psychometric level—to the former me. The trophies were solid and unchanged. As real now as they were when I won them. They could easily be my muscles or square shoulders. My firm jaw or the healthy part of my brain. My happiness . . .

  “C’est cruel.”

  I flowed back into my body and huddled, feeling the deep pain of loss. That vein in my eyelid still ticked. I groaned and Yvette turned to face me.

  “Sweet Wes,” she said. English again, and I watched as she reached back and pulled the band from her hair. Light brown hair tumbled across one side of her face. She took a step toward me. Her lips were wet.

  Beneath the sheets, my legs began to sweat.

  “It’s lunchtime,” she said. “You must be so . . .” She paused, took another step toward me, bit her lower lip, and finished: “Hungry.”

  The vein in my eyelid ticked quicker still.

  She smiled, brushed the hair from her face (it fell back almost immediately), and started to assemble the necessary supplies: a hand towel, a pitcher of tap water, two empty glasses, a stethoscope, a tin of my prescribed formula, a catheter tip syringe. She placed everything on a folding table beside my bed, smiling deliciously, partially obscured by that veil of hair. I followed her with my eyes, feeling (bizarrely) like I had when I was seventeen and about to lose my virginity. Rigid with nervous energy. My heart somewhere in my throat, restricting respiration. Anticipation like a 747 taking to the sky.

  Yvette pulled back the sheets, revealing my body. Legs flopped sideways and toes curled. My T-shirt had rucked up a little, offering a glimpse of my abdomen and the strip of pale hair that runs from my bellybutton to my groin (my Treasure Trail—that’s what Nadia called it). Yvette sanitized her hands with a squirt of Purell. The clear liquid glistened between her fingers, making wet sounds as she rubbed it in. Another dazzling smile, then she reached down and lifted my T-shirt up to my chest. I felt her fingernails drag lightly over my skin.

  “Let’s take care of you, Wes,” she said, but what my spinning mind heard was, Gonna take real good care of you, baby.

  She put on the stethoscope and placed the chestpiece on my abdomen, leaning closer as she listened for irregular sounds. Her long hair brushed
across my face. I inhaled deeply and imagined some coconut-littered paradise, reclining on a bed of husks as Yvette—her lips cold from the ocean—kissed my stomach. This little fantasy faded when she took the stethoscope away, but I didn’t mind. She touched me. So gently. Three fingers pressing my abdomen with exquisite care, feeling for bumps or swelling. Anything . . . distended. Satisfied, she slowly drew back her hand, raking one fingernail through the Treasure Trail, and raised the head of my bed to a sixty-degree angle. I felt the machinery vibrate through my body . . . bones trembling happily as I rose to a more upright position. Yvette nodded, flipped the hair from her eyes, and poured appropriate measures of formula and water into the two glasses. I waited, a little breathless, moisture leaking from the corner of my mouth.

  She snapped on a pair of latex gloves and I watched her upper lip curl. Both mischievous and enticing.

  “Don’t want you getting all messy,” she said, placing the hand towel on my stomach to catch potential spillage. Then she took my tube in hand, assessing its length, sliding her fingers up and down and tugging expertly, ensuring a clean connection. My eyes fluttered and I moaned. I wondered if her heart was drumming as passionately as mine—if we were feeling the same emotion: a strong hand that cradled us delicately, and lifted us to a place where the air smelled of sugarcane and the birds were multicoloured. I drifted there for a while, sensation coursing through me as if barrels of desire had been tipped over deep inside. When I came back Yvette had slipped the syringe’s catheter tip into the end of my tube, pushing it in nice and tight. She moistened her lips and administered the primary flush—thirty millilitres of water poured into the syringe, flowing through the tube and into my stomach. I felt it dripping inside me, cool and satisfying.