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Whatever it was, being confronted with the fact that right now, the thing I’d wanted , I felt the fear begin to take hold of me I wasn’t ready I’d been put in a dunk tank, only instead of water, I’d plunged into a botto me? This didn’tJust nice, boring ho life before the accident

The accident, the recovery What had happened in February sometimes sounded like another person’s dream, endlessly retold tome about case studies where brain-trauma victims are forever attacked by headaches and auras or episodes of vertigo That we’re susceptible to night sweats, treain en, or about half, or sometimes even all of it

But so is lost

Studies had proved soI’d experienced in connection with my accident seemed to have another person’s case study already stapled to it Dr P said I was lucky to have lost only six weeks ofto Dr P, this wasn’t a lot

Studies had proved the normalcy of my ordeal

As the car E-ZPassed over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and then hooked up with the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to Atlantic Avenue, I breathed through the kink in et back to Brooklyn had been strong as a riptide inside ton increase my desire to return to the safety of the hospital?

I felt light-headed, es Things I needed No, no, no, I wasn’t ready, I wasn’t complete, I couldn’t face down the real world

Because Addington hadn’t been the real world It had been a space to rebuild ain

Dad drove impossibly slowly and ss and bowls of goldfish Onto Atlantic, left on Hicks, and another left

Sae of catalogs and flyers on the front hall table My parents were a tag team of worry

“Ember, why don’t you leave your suitcase for us to take up with the boxes?”

“Some tea, sweetie? You look tired”

“No, I can handle it I’m not thirsty I feel fine”

I left theain, it had always been so like this Mom was a math professor and Dad up till his retirehtthose roles Right down toand Dad’s inability to exist in a roo a harmony into it But when it came toat me like catnip with the nervous paws of their excess fears

On the landing, I felt faint I caught the railing andmyself, before I opened the door into my past Hello, bedroom of slanted pine floors and wildfloallpaper Hello, faded friendship quilt Hello, braided rug, ballet bar; hello, faro, the summer I turned fourteen All that July, I’d watched him sand and finish it, then paint it my specially-picked-at-Sherwin-Williams color, periwinkle, and mount it on blocks for me to use as a desk

The rooerbread smell, but it was also olds Mo in this room was as natural as my own voice

Almost

The back of my neck prickled hotly My roo here So was off

Deep breath I was just in shock to be home

And s, like these fancy arty pens, fanned out in the lopsided glazed pot I’d ht them? Slowly, I picked up a silver pen, popped its cap, sniffed the ink, and thensideways A