Turtle Valley by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

intersection.
    “You just scurried through a red light!” Ezra said.
    “I know, I know. I didn’t see it!”
    When I finally parked in the Safeway lot, I sat a moment staring at my hands on the wheel. They were trembling.
    Ezra put his hand on my thigh. “I’m so sorry I got into flames at you when you offered to drive. I should have listened.”
    “You’re always sorry. After.”
    “When I’m stuck in it, I can’t see. It feels like it’s your fault. I think, if you’d just be hushed. But you keep talking and I can’t keep up, can’t think. I can’t get myself out of it. My head is clay; my words come out all balled up. I feel like I’m in the middle of a lake.” He waved his arms as if swimming, or thrashing.
    “Like you’re floundering,” I said.
    “Yes. That’s the word. Floundering. I see myself actingbadly, but its not
me.
It’s something else up here.” He tapped his head and for that moment, at least, I understood what it was like for him, to be inside his skull, watching, helpless, as anger drove him.
    “I expect this means you won’t be driving for awhile then?” Mom asked him.
    “Not until we get the seizures back under control,” I said.
    He rubbed his face with both hands. “Each time this happens I feel like my wings are pinholed.”
    “Why don’t you stay in the truck and rest while we go into Safeway?” I said to Ezra. “Would you like me to pick up anything for you?”
    “I’m okay,” he said. “I’ll go in with you.”
    I pulled a package of earplugs from my purse and held them out. “Sweetheart, you just had a seizure. I really think you need to take a break.”
    He wouldn’t take the earplugs and I could see him struggling to keep his anger at bay. “I’m not sick like you think.”
    I glanced back at Jeremy but he was looking out the window. Beside him my mother fretted with a Kleenex, rolling it over and over between her fingers.
    I got out of the truck. “Okay. Fine. Let’s just go.” I slammed the door and stood a moment to allow the palpitations in my chest to pass. The heat and smoke clung to my face, leaving me breathless and panicky, and yet others in this parking lot relaxed into the warmth as if into a hot bath. Ice-cream cones and cheerful faces, even as the mountains above us burned.
    I led Jeremy over to the shopping carts, with my mother and Ezra trailing behind, but when I slid a quarter into a Safeway cart it just popped back out. I tried a second time but couldn’tget the carts apart. A young man in his twenties, wearing a baseball cap and a fluorescent safety vest, pushed a line of carts toward us. He stopped and mumbled something to Ezra as he and my mother approached the store. “Pardon me?” Ezra asked.
    “I know you, don’t I?” the boy said.
    “I don’t think so,” said Ezra.
    “Yes I do.” Saliva foamed at the corner of his mouth. His voice was cracked and his speech was garbled. When he turned I saw a seam of skin in the close-shaved hair at the back of his neck.
    “People don’t always understand me,” he said. “I have a brain injury.”
    “Huh,” said Ezra. “I had a stroke.”
    “How long were you in the hospital?”
    “A couple of weeks.”
    “I was in a coma for seven months,” the boy said. “Na, na, nana, na. Beat you.” He waved as he pushed the carts toward the store at the far end of the parking lot. “It was nice to meet
me,
” he called out. Too late, I thought of asking him for one of his carts.
    “What’s the matter with that guy?” Jeremy asked. “He talks funny.”
    “He had a brain injury, sweetie,” I said.
    “What’s a injury?”
    “His brain was hurt.” I glanced at Ezra. “I’ll explain later.”
    Ezra took several steps away from us, and leaned against the entranceway to watch the boy rattle away. He wiped tears out of his eyes. I should have walked over to him, and held him. I should have told him that everything would be all right, that we would find a way through this as we