Mary E. Pearson - The Adoration of Jenna Fox

THE ADORATION

of JENNA.FOX

MARY E. PEARSON

California

I used to be someone.

Someone named Jenna Fox.

That's what they tell me. But I am more than aname. More than they tell me. More than the facts and statistics they fill mewith. More than the video clips they make me watch.

More. But I'm not sure what.

"Jenna, come sit over here. You don't wantto miss this." The woman I am supposed to call Mother pats the cushionnext to her. "Come," she says again.

I do.

"This is an historic moment," shesays. She puts her arm around me and squeezes. I lift the corner of my mouth.Then the other: a smile. Because I know I am supposed to. It is what she wants.

"It's a first," she says. "We'venever had a woman president of Nigerian descent before."

"A first," I say. I watch themonitor. I watch Mother's face. I've only just learned how to smile. I don'tknow how to match her other expressions. I should.

"Mom, come sit with us," she calls outtoward the kitchen. "It's about to start."

I know she won't come. She doesn't like me. Idon't know how I know. Her face is as plain and expressionless to me aseveryone else's. It is not her face. It is something else.

"I'm doing a few dishes. I'll watch fromthe monitor in here," she calls back.

I stand. "I can leave, Lily," Ioffer.

She comes and stands in the arched doorway. Shelooks at Mother. They exchange an expression I try to understand. Mother's facedrops into her hands. "She's your nana, Jenna. You've always called herNana."

"That's all right. She can call meLily," she says and sits down on the other side of Mother.

Awareness

There is a dark place.

A place where I have no eyes, nomouth. No words.

I can't cry out because I have nobreath. The silence is so deep I want to die.

But I can't.

The darkness and silence go onforever.

It is not a dream.

I don't dream.

Waking

The accident was over a year ago. I've beenawake for two weeks. Over a year has vanished. I've gone from sixteen toseventeen. A second woman has been elected president. A twelfth planet has beennamed in the solar system. The last wild polar bear has died. Headline newsthat couldn't stir me. I slept through it all.

I cried on waking. That's what they tell me. Idon't remember the first day. Later I heard Lily whisper to Mother in thekitchen that my cries frightened her. "It sounds like an animal," shesaid.

I still cry on waking. I'm not sure why. I feelnothing. Nothing I can name, anyway. It's like breathing something that happens over which I have no control. Father was herefor my waking. He called it a beginning. He said it was good. I think he may havethought that anything I did was good. The first few days were difficult. Mymind and body thrashed out of control. My mind settled first. They kept my armsstrapped. By the second day my arms had settled, too. The house seemed busy.They checked me, probed, checked again and again, Father scanning my symptomsinto the Netbook several times a day, someonerelaying back treatment. But there was no treatment that I could see. Each dayI improved. That was it. One day I couldn't walk. The next day I could. One daymy right eyelid drooped. The next it didn't. One day my tongue lay like a lumpof meat in my mouth, the next day it was articulating words that hadn't beenspoken in over a year.

On the fifth day, when I walked out onto theveranda without stumbling, Mother cried and said, "It's a miracle. Anabsolute miracle."

"Her gait is still not natural. Can't yousee that?" Lily said.

Mother didn't answer.

On the eighth day Father had to return to workin Boston. He and Mother whispered, but I still heard. Risky... have toget back... you'll be fine. Before he left he cupped my face in both ofhis hands. "Little by little, Angel," he said. "Be patient.Everything will come back. Over time all the connections will be made." Ithink my gait is normal now. My memory is not. I don't remember my mother, myfather, or Lily. I don't remember that I once lived in Boston. I don't rememberthe accident. I don't remember Jenna Fox.

Father says it will come in time. "Timeheals," he says.

I don't tell him that I don't know what timeis.

Time

There are words.

Words I don't remember.

Not obscure words that Iwouldn't be expected to know.

But simple ones.

Jump. Hot. Apple.

Time.

I look them up. I will neverforget them again.

Where did those words go,

those words that were once in myhead?

Order

Curious adj. 1. Eager to learn orto know, inquisitive. 2. Prying or meddlesome. 3. Inexplicable, highly unusual,odd, strange.

The first week Mother pored over thedetails of my life. My name. Childhood pets. Favorite books. Family vacations.And after each scene she described, she would ask, "Remember?" Eachtime I said no, I saw her eyes change. They seemed to get smaller. Is thatpossible? I tried to say the nos more softly. I triedto make each one sound different than the one before. But on Day Six her voicecracked as she told me about my last ballet recital. Remember?

On Day Seven, Mother handed me a smallbox. "I don't want to pressure you," she said. "They're inorder. Mostly all labeled. Maybe watching them will help bring thingsback." She hugged me. I felt her fuzzy sweater. I felt the coolness of hercheek. Things I can feel. Hard. Soft. Rough. Smooth. But the inside kind offeel, it is all the same, like foggy mush. Is that the part of me that is stillasleep? I had moved my arms around her and tried to mimic her squeeze. Sheseemed pleased. "I love you, Jenna," she said. "Anything youwant to ask me, I'm here. I want you to know that."

"Thank you" was the rightresponse, so I said it. I don't know if that was something I remembered orsomething I had just learned. I don't love her. I sensed that I should, but howcan you love someone you don't know? But I did feel something in that foggymush. Devotion? Obligation? I wanted her to be pleased. I thought about heroffer, anything you want to ask me. I had nothing to ask. The questionshadn't come yet.

So I watched the first disc. It seemed logicalto go in order. It was of me in utero . Hours ofme in utero . I was the first, I learned. There hadbeen two boy babies before me, but they didn't live past the first trimester.With me, Mother and Father took extra measures, and they worked. I was the oneand only. Their miracle child. I watched the fetus that was me, floating in adark watery world, and wondered if I should remember that, too.

Each day I watch more discs, trying to regainwho I was. Some are stills, some are movies. There are dozens of the two-inchdiscs. Maybe a hundred. Thousands of hours of me.

I settle on the large sofa. Today I watch YearThree / Jenna Fox. It begins with my third birthday party. A small girl runs,laughing at nothing at all, and is finally stopped by a tall, weathered stonewall. She slaps tiny starburst hands against the stone and looks back at thecamera. I pause the scene. I scan the smile. The face. She has something.Something I don't see in my own face, but I don't know what it is. Maybe just aword I have lost? Maybe more. I scan the large rough stones her hands restagainst. It is the small enclosed garden of the brownstone where we once lived.I remember it from yesterday on Disc Eighteen.

"Play," I say, and the scene movesforward. I watch the golden-haired girl squeal and run and hide her facebetween two trousered legs. Then the three-year-old isscooped upside down into the air and the view zooms up to Father's facelaughing and nuzzling into her belly. My belly. The three-year-old laughs. Sheseems to like it. I walk over to the mirror that hangs near the bookcase. I amseventeen now, but I see resemblance. Same blond hair. Same blue eyes. But theteeth are different. Three-year-old teeth are so small. My fingers. My hands.All much larger now. Almost a whole different person. And yet that is