Alex and I tried to guess what that was all about. We had two ideas: Maybe Carl Ray is going to ask her to marry him (unlikely), or maybe Carl Ray is going to break up with her (why?).
Carl Ray still isn’t home, so I don’t know yet what that was all about. I left a note on his dresser that said, “Carl Ray, you’re okay. P.S. It’s a rhyme! From M.L.”
The worst, worst, worst thing has happened.
Carl Ray is in the hospital.
We got the call at three this morning. He had been at Beth Ann’s, then he went to the cemetery, and then he was driving home and ran off the road and into a ditch and his car flipped right over.
You know what I thought when we got the call? I thought, “Snapper!” It scares me half to death, that something can happen just like that.
Carl Ray is unconscious. He has two broken legs, one broken arm and some broken ribs.
We spent all day at the hospital. The nurses only let Mom and Dad in the room. It’s real bad. Dad sent a telegram to Aunt Radene. I don’t feel much like writing.
I hope Carl Ray is going to be all right.
Please, gods, let Carl Ray be all right. He’s still unconscious. Please don’t let his time be up.
Aunt Radene, Uncle Carl Joe, all their kids, Mrs. Furtz and her kids, and all of us were at the hospital today. Everyone is praying like mad for Carl Ray to wake up.
I got to go in for five minutes today and see him. He looks so pitiful, lying there all pale and bruised and his plastered-up legs and arm sticking out and these tubes jabbed into him. I talked to him as if he could hear me. I said, “Carl Ray, you just have to wake up, because all these people need you to wake up. I have a feeling, Carl Ray, that a lot of these people still have some things to say to you.” And then I told him what I had to say. I apologized for every rotten thing I ever did to him or said about him. I told him he was pretty okay.
Then, when I was back in the waiting room, I kept thinking of the way Carl Ray grins sometimes, and all those presents Carl Ray bought everyone, and Carl Ray saying, “Mary Lou, you’re okay,” and I kept thinking about that note I left on his dresser that he never even saw.
Carl Ray is not okay. He won’t wake up, and the doctors told Aunt Radene and Uncle Carl Joe today that he might not ever wake up. How can such a thing like this happen?
I can’t write about it.
Uncle Carl Joe sits by Carl Ray’s bed all day and all night. He won’t leave. Mrs. Furtz invited Aunt Radene and all my cousins to stay at their house because we don’t have much room. In a way, I’m glad that Mr. Furtz isn’t alive to see what has happened to Carl Ray.
I read back over all these journals today. All those awful things I said about Carl Ray. I only hope that Carl Ray knows that I didn’t mean them and that it wasn’t his fault that I was being so insensitive. I was only starting to see all the good things about him when this happened. Most of those things that used to make me mad about Carl Ray (the way he didn’t ever talk and the way he snuck up on you and how much he ate and the way he didn’t make his bed) are the things that I most like to remember now—not just the good things, like the way he held Tommy’s hand that day at the funeral parlor and how he told Tommy all about God coming to get Mr. Furtz’s soul, and always driving me places, and never saying a mean word about anyone, and bringing me back home from West Virginia early just because I was homesick, and on and on.
Those other things that used to drive me crazy are just part of Carl Ray, and once you get used to him, you wouldn’t expect him to be any different. Suppose he did make up his bed and suppose he clomped around so you could hear him coming and suppose he ate like a bird and suppose he talked on and on like Beth Ann? Would those things be very important? Do they really matter? Remember Carl Ray acting like a monster, running around making funny noises? And can’t you hear Carl Ray saying, “Don’t rightly know”? Does anyone else say that? Isn’t it just like Carl Ray?
Carl Ray is still unconscious.
I read back through the journals again. When I was writing them, I thought I noticed everything. I was keeping a record. But I didn’t notice diddly-squat. I didn’t even notice anything about Carl Ray being homesick or Carl Ray and Mr. Furtz, or how he felt after Mr. Furtz died. How could a person like me go along and go along, feeling just the same from day to day, and then all of a sudden look back and see that I didn’t see much of anything? And that I’ve been changing all along? I don’t even recognize myself when I read back over these pages.
Once my father told me that bad things happen sometimes to remind us we are mortal and to remind us to appreciate people more. We’re not like Zeus or Athene, who can live forever and help people out of trouble.
I told Alex today that the awful thing about starting to like people was that if something happens to them, there is nothing you can do to make everything like it was before, and all the time you keep thinking of the things you wish you had said or done.
Alex said, “So does that mean you shouldn’t like people?”
And even though I didn’t know I thought this, I said, “Well, of course not! That’s just the way it is. If you didn’t let yourself like people, you’d shrivel up.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Exactly.” One kiss.
Aunt Radene says that you just have to do your best to make the world a better place. I said I wasn’t so sure I could make the world a better place, and she said, “Oh, you already have, Mary Lou, you already have.”
How does a person ever know that for sure?
Beth Ann told me today that when Carl Ray came to see her that night, before he had the accident, he told her that he was moving back to West Virginia. And then he went to see Mr. Furtz in the cemetery. Beth Ann was all upset because she had had a big fight with Carl Ray when he said he was moving. Now she wishes she could take back everything she said. I told her that I was sure Carl Ray knew she didn’t mean it, that she only said those things because she would miss him.
Alex visited Carl Ray in the hospital today, and he took Carl Ray a fishing lure. He told Carl Ray (even though Carl Ray is still unconscious and couldn’t hear him) that he would take him fishing when he woke up.
Carl Ray must like fishing, because he woke up today! You’ve never seen a happier bunch of people in your life than Aunt Radene and Uncle Carl Joe and all my cousins, and my whole family, and the Furtzes and Alex and Beth Ann and all the nurses who have been taking care of Carl Ray.
You know what Carl Ray said when his father asked him how he was feeling? He said, “Don’t rightly know.” Uncle Carl Joe said that that was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard.
Athene has just swooped down and anointed Carl Ray and saved him from being thrashed around in the sea. What a relief!
What a terrific day!
Carl Ray is smiling all over the place now, getting better every minute. Uncle Carl Joe still sits by his bed all day long, watching Carl Ray and talking to him.
I was allowed to visit Carl Ray for five minutes today, and I gave him the note that I had put on his dresser, the one about him being okay. He pointed to the bedpan and said, “Do you think I could borrow your socks for the pee pot?” Carl Ray’s getting a sense of humor. His wheel of fortune is spinning around to the top again.