Shaken, p.1
Shaken, page 1
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Table of Contents
About the Author
Copyright Page
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This book is dedicated to a childhood friend, the original Jimbo—Jimmy Kuhlman—for your spirit of adventure, wildness, kindness, and (often!) good sense.
I THOUGHT THAT I WAS VANISHING, BUT INSTEAD I WAS ONLY COMING TRUE.
—CLIVE JAMES,
“THE RIVER AND THE SKY”
PROLOGUE
When I look back at the person I was, I don’t recognize her. I mean, not as me. She seems familiar, like a stranger wearing my old clothes. A kid in school I don’t know, who I’d glimpse in the halls.
So different from this current version of me.
That person was confident and carefree, unsmudged by the greasy world. Maybe everybody’s like that once? Before life swoops down and gets its talons into you and lifts you off the ground. After that happens, how can you not be changed forever?
After you’ve watched the earth fall away from your feet?
* * *
I have memories of her, photos on bookshelves, images that flash across flickering screens. Once she drank too many Shirley Temples and danced deliriously at a cheesy but magical wedding reception somewhere on Long Island, stepping on her father’s shiny black loafers and laughing, laughing. A little girl holding her mother’s hands and twirling round and round, head back, eyes dazzled by the glittering disco ball. She seemed fun, that kid. A good girl who did everything right. Young and athletic, with curly black ringlets and an easy smile.
And then one day she disappeared.
ONE
A SPECIAL PLAYER
Kristy alone on a soccer field. The sun barely up above the trees. The turf glistened, damp from yesterday’s rain. It was cold. She went through her warm-up routine.
High knees, side shuffles, Frankensteins, butt kicks, hip flexors, etc. No ball. Not yet. Fitness first, always.
Today was a game day; she wouldn’t overdo it.
Kristy walked off the paces, set out small orange cones in different configurations. Soccer was a game of changing speeds, spurts, sharp cuts, quick accelerations, and periods of rest. This morning’s plan was designed to replicate a game situation. If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you. Kristy heard her mother say those words so many times she now thought of it as her own original idea. She jogged the shape once, then began working in a pattern of slow jogs and sprints. At the end of the first set, Kristy waited, winded, shook out her legs, counted to thirty. She began a second set. And so on. Fitness wasn’t the fun part of soccer. But it helped win games. It made her a better player. And, at thirteen, Kristy was determined to become the best in the state.
Kristy could see her breath form into a misty cloud carrying tiny droplets of water. The air she breathed turned into liquid. Pretty cool, actually: science. Kristy was aware that her father waited in the car. Heater on. Large black coffee in a paper cup. A jelly doughnut on the dashboard. He watched her every move, and she felt his gaze.
Next: ball skills, foot drills.
The moves came as second nature to Kristy. Rollbacks and crossovers, dribbling through cones, left foot, right foot, it didn’t matter. She and the ball were connected as if by a string. It did what she willed it to do. Almost without thought.
This was her happy place. No matter what else was going on in the world, Kristy found peace and pleasure alone on the field. Even during a game, surrounded by teammates, crowded by opponents—pushed, knocked down, high-fived, and cheered—Kristy felt gloriously alone. Bubbled, sheltered, secure.
* * *
By the time she played her first organized practice at U4, anyone could see that Kristy Barrett was a special player. She was simply quicker and more focused than any other four-year-old on the field. Of course, half of them were clinging to their parents’ legs, or slurping on oranges, or plucking dandelions while Kristy raged up and down the grass like a creature possessed. Amazingly, that dynamic continued on through rec ball and travel, even when they let her play on the boys’ team. In seventh grade, Kristy was starting for the varsity high school team. She was special. That was the word, over and over: a special kid.
But wasn’t everybody?
Kristy didn’t much care what people said. She loved to play. That was all, the whole shebang. But after a video of one of her goals went viral—and was included on ESPN’s “Amazing Plays” Sunday feature, along with a thirty-five-second interview—everyone, absolutely everyone, knew. Not long after, a coach from the USA Development Program called, saying, “It wouldn’t surprise me if one day Kristy represents the United States in international play.”
Maybe even a future Olympian.
Altogether not bad for someone who hadn’t, at that time, turned thirteen. But that’s how it works at the highest levels of sports. When you know, you know.
It’s not just poets. Athletes are dreamers, too. Out on a driveway basketball court somewhere, right at this moment, there’s a girl murmuring to herself, “Three-two-one” as she hoists up a shot from the corner, swish, nothing but net.
And the crowd … goes … wild. The dream is everything.
The dream is bigger than any moment.
You have to dream it to believe it, to work for it, to make it come true. Like the poster says: A GOAL IS A DREAM WITH A DEADLINE.
For Kristy, one of those dreams was to score on a scissor kick. The ball bouncing high, bodies crowded around, Kristy’s back to the keeper, suddenly springing into an inversion, parallel to the ground, leaning back and scissoring her legs in a fluttering movement, the top of her right foot squarely on the ball, sending it blindly behind her, Kristy landing on her back with an oomph, knowing from the gasp on the field, the silence and stillness and then the eruption of cheers—the shock and the awe—that the ball had found the back of the net.
She’d done it in practice hundreds of times, getting Tia or any willing body to set her up before it was time to put the balls away. Just for kicks. Fooling around, laughing, seeing what she could make the ball do. Coach Izzy would shake her head, mumble something about trick shots, pretending to be annoyed but admiring just the same.
You can’t not watch someone take a scissor kick.
But games were different. It takes a perfect set of circumstances that come around as often as a blue moon. And then one day, amazingly, it happened. The score was deadlocked, 2–2, time winding down, and out of the chaos in front of the net Kristy buried a scissor kick from about thirty-five feet out to send her team and the crowd into a frenzy.
Even some of the opposing team’s fans stood and cheered. They knew they’d seen something special.
That word, again. Special. The moon was blue.
For Kristy, it was about the kick itself, the coolest thing ever. Kristy was thrilled and there was no wiping the smile off her face. It turned out there was a parent filming at the game. The father of the goalkeeper, actually, and he had quality equipment. That night he posted it on YouTube. He did a great editing job, too. A dad with skills. The viewer could watch the play develop, see the goal, and then up came the words: DID YOU SEE WHAT I JUST SAW? He ran the play again, this time in super slow motion, Kristy rising like an angel, meeting the ball at its summit, and the bullet into the net. The video ends with a tight shot of Kristy’s face, beaming, in her happy place.
That play changed the way people saw her. It opened their eyes to Kristy’s talent. But it wasn’t the play that changed her life.
* * *
The play that changed everything came in the flow of the game. As usual, Kristy was being marked by the opposition’s best defender, in this case a sturdy senior who had already committed to playing D1 at Wake Forest.
Kristy was faster, with better ball skills, but this girl, #22, clutched and bumped and banged and harassed Kristy’s every move. She was more physical, and stronger. It was clean, hard-nosed soccer and Kristy loved the competition.
Up 1–0 late in the first half, Kristy’s team, the Hornets, took possession at the midfield line. Kristy received the ball with her back to the goal. She was the hub by design, the center: the offense ran through her playmaking ability. Kristy deadened the pass and deftly flicked the ball with the heel of her left foot to Tia, the outside striker, who was streaking down the right sideline. Kristy pivoted left and sprinted to the net, creating space between her and her mark, #22.
Kristy and Tia had played together for the past two years. They were teammates on an elite travel team, though Tia was three years older. They knew each other’s moves and methods. Even as Kristy raced to open space, Tia had already sent the ball on its way to meet her. The timing was perfect. But the crossing pass was errant. It was slightly too far ahead, bounced too high. A defender rushed to the ball, the goalie charged aggressively forward. But Kristy saw the opening, the narrow path to the back of the net. She made a reckless lunge, launching her body like a missile headfirst toward the ball.
She thinks of that moment—the decision to go for it—and has remembered it every day. Even through the brain fog. Which is strange because she does not recall the collision that occurred immediately after. That specific “moment” cannot be retrieved from her mind. It’s been erased, like a file deleted.
The game is so instinctive, so above and beyond and outside conscious thought. There’s a ball in the air like a small sun over the water and Kristy is entranced, bedeviled. She dives …
If a player waits for the thought to take shape, it’s already too late. Kristy sees the ball, the charging keeper, the clear path to the net—and to her right, another body, a defender seeking to clear the ball. Her head, the defender’s cleat, the keeper’s knee. Kristy doesn’t recall the crushing pain, the questions on the sideline, or standing and falling on the turf even as she protests, “I’m good, all good.”
But, yeah, no. Not good at all.
* * *
Not long after Kristy was born, her mother jokingly placed a soccer ball beside her in the crib. There’s disagreement about how long it stayed in there, but somebody snapped a picture. Kristy has the photo for proof, framed on a shelf in her room. There it is, a spanking new sixteen-ounce soccer ball. A thing of beauty. And, oh yeah, next to it, a six-pound, eleven-ounce infant.
Kristy’s favorite old movie was Cast Away, starring Tom Hanks. The main character is stranded on an uninhabited island. For companionship, he has only a volleyball named Wilson. Tom Hanks and that ball grow close over the years until, at the end of the movie, Wilson is lost at sea. The sight of that ball drifting away on the open sea leaves him overwhelmed by loneliness. Crying in a salty sea, as if filling it with his own tears.
The only thing wrong with that movie, Kristy thought, was Wilson should have been a soccer ball.
TWO
A SNOW GLOBE OF WONDER
Kristy scarcely remembered the drive to Doctor Bob’s office. She felt lethargic, out of it, inclined to vomit. How to describe the feeling in her head? Tender, perhaps. Fragile. As if she were transporting a delicate, three-tiered cake on her shoulders. Just stick a warning label on her forehead: Do not jostle or make sudden movements. The short car ride was a small torture, stops and turns and accelerations. At one point—unbelievably—they passed an actual jackhammer on the side of Main Street. Workers and machinery. You couldn’t make this stuff up. Kristy shut her eyes and clenched her teeth through it all. Make it stop, she thought.
Make it all stop.
She found a chair in the waiting area while her parents spoke to the receptionist. Reassuring smiles, soft voices. The hum of a small motor and bizarrely loud bubbles from a fish tank. Weird that both her parents came for a bump on the noggin. Sure, heads were important. Kristy figured that much. A few days’ rest, let the cobwebs clear, and good to go. Sectionals started in a few weeks. She wasn’t going to miss it. Fortunately, it wasn’t like she snapped a bone or blew out a knee. She didn’t break anything. Kristy’s parents—both of them, annoyingly—took up chairs along the wall of the cramped examination room. They wore identical concerned expressions. Kristy would have protested if she’d had the energy, but it hurt just to focus her eyes to look at them. I can’t even, she thought.
The door clicked closed as Doctor Bob walked in, humming softly. He was a tall, gray-haired man with black-framed glasses and broad shoulders. He had been Kristy’s doctor all her life, a kind and gentle man.
Doctor Bob twisted a dial on the wall. The light in the room dimmed. He turned and gave his full attention to Kristy, speaking directly to her.
“So I understand you took quite a shot to the head,” he said.
Kristy nodded.
“And you scored?”
Kristy shrugged.
“Sure did,” Kristy’s father chimed in. “Put us up two-zip with about a minute to play. That’s why we’re here. For an evaluation. There’s paperwork from the school, forms to fill out. We’ve been through this before.”
Doctor Bob didn’t turn his gaze from Kristy. “Tell me what you remember.”
Kristy described the play in precise detail right up to the point of impact. “The next thing I know Coach Izzy was asking me questions on the sidelines.”
Kristy was aware that Doctor Bob was watching her, observing her, listening for any clues in her speech and demeanor. She wasn’t sure how to act. Should she try to pull herself together? Or try to signal him, show that it still really hurt? Was it time to be tough or … truthful?
Dizziness, nausea, sensitivity to light and sound—Kristy described her symptoms.
“Headache?”
“Oh yeah,” Kristy said. “Like a hammer.”
“Was there ever a loss of consciousness?”
Kristy didn’t know the answer to that. Doctor Bob glanced back to her parents.
“We think, maybe, yes,” Kristy’s mother said.
“Briefly,” her father interjected. “A few seconds at most. Then she popped right back up.”
The examination continued for some time, with Doctor Bob pausing to write brief notes, check boxes on a form. At one point, as if the thought had just occurred to him, he asked, “Hey, what did you eat for breakfast?”
And it wasn’t that Kristy didn’t remember. It was that the whole machinery for remembering couldn’t get started.
Like a phone with a dead battery. There was no charge, no nothing. Blank.
“That’s fine,” Doctor Bob said, recognizing the distress in Kristy’s expression. “I couldn’t tell you what color socks I’m wearing.”
He looked down, pulled up his pant legs, and smiled. “Hot pink.”
“So what next?” Kristy’s father asked. “When can we expect to get back on the field?”
Again, Doctor Bob spoke directly to Kristy. “There’s a protocol for these things. That is, a series of tests you need to pass before we can sign off to get you back with your team. For the short term, we’re going to have to shut it down for a bit.”
“I need to play,” Kristy said. But even as she said those words out loud, she couldn’t imagine it. Actually running, jumping, bumping, competing. With a glance in the direction of her parents, she admitted, “But I don’t feel right.”
“We can’t rush your recovery,” Doctor Bob stated. “You need to be patient and honest. Baby steps. For now, you need to slow way down. It used to be that we’d tell patients to lie in a dark room. Now research suggests that a little bit of light activity is optimal. It all depends on how you feel, Kristy. After a few quiet days, try a bit of walking. We need for your symptoms—the dizziness, headaches, the sick feeling in your stomach—we need for those to go away completely.”
Kristy slumped, still seated on the examination table.
She felt worn out, overwhelmed. This felt worse than the last time.
“The brain is a delicate organ,” Doctor Bob said, ever so gently. “It floats around in your head. A concussion is like a bruise to your brain. It whacks up against your skull. We don’t want that to happen again anytime soon, because it could do some serious damage.
“I’m also concerned,” he continued, “that you suffered one of these before.”
“A mild one,” Kristy’s mother said.
“Yes, relatively mild,” Doctor Bob said, replying to Kristy’s mother. “And she recovered quickly. But we worry when there’s amnesia about an event.”
“Amnesia? What kind of timetable are we looking at?” Kristy’s father asked. “A week, two weeks?” He tapped the keys on his phone, flicked to the calendar, turned to his wife. “Sectionals start when, about three weeks from now?”
“Can she go to school?” Kristy’s mother asked.
School, crowded hallways, lockers slamming, shouts and loud bells and quadratic equations.
That’s when Kristy barfed. It was the math that did it.
* * *
