The Girl Who Thought She Was Dead

She was never the same but after she died, Imogene came back.

She’d been a risk taker at heart, a daredevil child always looking to show off, take a wild chance, accept a dare that no one else would.   It was Imogene who heard the whistle and tap danced her way – barefoot – across the Bear River trestle bridge and directly in the path of the oncoming train.  She jumped clear at the last possible minute and was very nearly blown off the tracks – it stopped all our hearts to watch – but she just laughed and called us all sissies.   It was Imogene who climbed to the very top of Melanson’s silo and swan dived in a hay wagon.  It was Imogene who set the woods on fire and then ran through the flames and back again, coming out a sooty, blackened mess with live ashes in her hair.  It was Imogene who found Sparrow’s old revolver and challenged us all to Russian Roulette – where in God’s name she’d learned of it we never did know – but when he saw she really meant to do it, Gene snatched the gun away and slapped her silly.  By the time she was nine, we all pretty much felt she was either invincible or loon-crazy and a good candidate for Dartmouth.  She died the year she would’ve turned eleven when she stole a dory and rowed to Peter’s Light, intending to swim back against the cold, unforgiving tide.  The dory turned up the following morning, battered, run aground but intact.  There was no sign of Imogene until that evening when her thought-to-be-lifeless body washed up in the cove.  There was also no doctor that summer and the islanders in the search party assumed she was dead – as indeed she was for a time, the mainland doctor was to say later – but to everyone’s astonishment, as they carried her to the church in a makeshift litter, she began to cough and choke and spit sea water.   It unnerved her rescuers so badly that they dropped her small body on the dirt road and almost didn’t pick her up again. 

Sweet Cryin’ Jesus!  Uncle Shad was heard to say, She ain’t dead!

Well,gawd-dayum, a startled Uncle Willie exclaimed, Somebody fetch Rowena!  Child’s still breathin’!

I’m cold!  Imogene wailed and as the men hurriedly shed their jackets to cover her, Who the hell turned the lights out?

Shut yer trap, girl, Sparrow snapped impatiently, You damn near drowned so show a little respect or sure as hell we’ll throw you back!

In typical Imogene fashion, she was cold and wet and smelled of fish but nothing except her pride was hurt.  Rowena doctored her, got her a warm bath and some dry clothes, and had her home and tucked into bed in no time.  It was, after all, Imogene, and no one gave it a second thought, expecting her to rally and be her same old, reckless self within the week.  Except that it didn’t happen.  She had grown reclusive after the near drowning, keeping to herself and no longer interested in risk taking.  She spent a lot of time skipping stones off the old breakwater and when we tried to speak to her, she often seemed not to hear.

What’s wrong, Imogene?  Ruthie asked, You being uncommon quiet.

Nuthin’, Imogene said distantly, I’m dead is all.

No, you ain’t!  Ruthie cried, You’re right here, real as rain!  Mama says you just re-pressed!

De-pressed is what she said, I corrected her without thinking that it might be thoughtless.

Imogene smiled at us, an old smile it seemed to me, far older than her years, and shook her head.

No, she said softly, You think that but facts is facts.  I died and I’m still dead.  

Ruthie began to cry and Imogene patted her shoulder awkwardly.

So what’s it like? Betty Jean wanted to know, Bein’ dead?

 It ain’t so bad, Imogene said softly, almost serenely.

You ain’t dead, Imogene!  Ruthie wailed, and I ain’t gon’ listen!  She stamped one small red sneakered foot for emphasis and took to running down the wharf and across the dirt road raising a cloud of dust behind her.  Betty Jean and I reluctantly followed while Imogene just sat cross legged at the end of the breakwater, staring out across the whitecaps.  I remember having the uneasy feeling that she either didn’t notice us leaving or worse, was glad to see us go.  We caught up with Ruthie just this side of Gull Rock and argued all the way home over whether to tell anyone. 

In a village of under 300 though, it’s near impossible to keep a secret and in a matter of weeks, everyone had an opinion.  Imogene was depressed after her near death experience.  Or it was all an act.  Or she was going through a phase.  Or it wouldn’t last.  Or you never could tell with head injuries.  Or she was delusional.  Or she’d been touched by heaven.  Or, and this was said only by one or two and in reverently hushed whispers, God works in mysterious ways and she really was dead.

Never heard such nonsense in all my born days, Nana proclaimed loudly at the covered dish supper, Child’s traumatized from near drownin’, ain’t no more to it.  Leave her be, give her time and she’ll be fine as paint.

Except that didn’t happen either.

Imogene spent her life on the island, never left, never married but somehow managed to sleepwalk through fifty years, staying on the fringes of village life and becoming, in some ways, more spirit than flesh.  Where she lived no one really knew, how she survived, no one was ever sure.  By the time she reached adulthood, you only saw her in glimpses – a solitary figure walking along the beach in the morning fog or a quick flash of her as she slipped into the woods at the approach of a car.  It was said that the bootleggers left her food and blankets and the church regularly set out care baskets in the small graveyard – tins of food, soap, second hand clothes, whatever the young minister could collect – there was rarely any sign of Imogene but the baskets would be empty the next morning.  When the weather turned harsh in the fall, he made sure to leave the church doors unlocked and saw to it that there was a pillow and a sleeping bag stashed in the back choir loft but in the end, like death itself, Imogene remained a mystery that no one ever solved.  One chilly October morning, Miz Clara arrived to tend the graves and discovered her pale, slender body lying in the fallen leaves by the cemetery gate.  Together, she and the young minister dug a grave and quietly buried her and in time the girl who thought she was dead became one more island fable for parents to tell their sleepy children at bedtime. 

Almost a metaphor, you might say.