by Kim Holden
When we part, perhaps a minute has passed, and Faith smiles at me through teary eyes. “Thank you. You might need your own sign.” She sniffles through the smile and points at me. “People are definitely missing out. You’re good.”
That makes me smile. “Oh yeah?”
“I’ve hugged a lot of people, Seamus. You may have just dethroned and taken over the top spot.” Her eyes tell me that was both truth and compliment.
I nod, and I want to tell her that aside from my kids, because their hugs are some of the most cherished things in my life, her hug was the best hug I’ve ever experienced.
The best.
I didn’t know people could hug your soul with their soul.
Faith can.
He’s not perfect anymore
past
“Mrs. McIntyre, there’s an urgent call from Seamus’s school. I think you should take it,” Justine, my assistant, says from the doorway of my office. Her voice sounds urgent and concerned.
I don’t have time for urgent or concerned. “Take a message,” I command.
“It’s Seamus. They’ve taken him to the hospital.” I look up, and she’s piercing me with her eyes. She’s always direct.
I sigh. The first thing that runs through my mind is, I’m going to have to leave work early and pick up the boys from daycare. And I don’t even remember where their daycare is. Goddammit, I don’t have time for this. “Put the call through,” I huff.
“Mrs. McIntyre? This is Janet.” She says it like I’m supposed to know who Janet is.
“I don’t have time for chit chat. What happened?” I say while reading through an email on my laptop screen at the same time.
I hear her stunned irritation through the receiver before she answers, “It’s Seamus. He’s been taken to the hospital. He says he can’t feel his legs from the waist down. He said it started this morning. He’s scared and asked that I call you because he’s left several messages on your cell phone today and you hadn’t answered him.”
I pick up my cell phone from my desk and look at the missed calls and voicemails. Twelve. All from Seamus. I toss my phone back on my desk. “I’ve been busy. Meetings. Trying to run a company,” I offer flatly. How dare she try to call me out.
“He’s at Mercy General,” she adds.
I hang up without acknowledging the information and glance at the time on my laptop. Four o’clock. Daycare is open until seven o’clock I’m guessing. I tap the button on my phone for Justine.
“Yes?” Justine answers. She still sounds concerned.
“Find out what daycare the boys are at. And what time they close,” I order before tapping the disconnect button.
Ten minutes later Justine calls. I pick up the receiver, and she immediately starts talking because she knows I don’t like to waste time with greetings. “They’re at Big Hearts Daycare. I have the address and phone number for you. They close at five-thirty.”
“Five-thirty?” I question incredulously. “That can’t be right. Call them back, there must be some mistake.”
“I’ve just confirmed with them that they close at five-thirty,” she challenges. Justine is feisty and outspoken, which I usually appreciate because she’s using it on others in my favor. I don’t appreciate it being turned on me.
“Confirm. Again,” I grit out.
Justine confirms with the daycare again. And then confirms with me again. Five-thirty. Fuck. I don’t have time for this. I have emails to answer and a report to complete and get to Loren by midnight tonight.
I leave the office at five-thirty to pick up the boys.
It’s six o’clock when I walk into Big Hearts Daycare. The woman seated in a chair holding a sleeping Rory in her lap greets me. “Can I help you?” She looks exhausted, but with a patience that only a loving heart can display to a stranger. What a sap, I think.
I point to Rory and say, “You’re holding my son.”
When I say it, Kai walks out of a door with signage that reads Boys, I’m assuming the bathroom, and looks at me with mild shock racing across his features. “Where’s Daddy?”
“He’s at the hospital. Get your stuff. Hurry up. We need to go.” I know I probably should’ve softened that so I don’t scare him, but I’m too irritated to censor.
“The hospital?” he questions timidly. Kai has always been softhearted. He’s so much like his father, not an ounce of me in him.
“Yes. Hurry up,” I repeat.
The woman holding Rory looks as if she’s driving by the scene of a horrendous car accident, mouth gaping, eyes wide with alarm. “Oh my goodness, is Seamus okay?” she asks with a tremble in her voice. “I’ve been trying to call his cell, and he didn’t answer, which is so unlike him. I tried the back-up emergency number, too—your cell number, Mrs. McIntyre—but there was no answer.”
I think back on my phone ringing from my purse as I drove here. I ignored it. So, I lie, “My phone didn’t ring. Must have a bad number.”
“Is he okay?” she repeats.
“I don’t know. I’m sure he’s fine. It’s nothing life threatening if that’s what you’re asking.” Numbness hardly indicates he’s on the precipice of death.
She looks at me oddly, judging me for my lack of concern I’m sure, and says, “I need to see some ID, please, to release the boys to you.”
I look at the ceiling and shake my head as the frustration in me mounts. “Goddammit, I’m their mother. What do you need ID for?”
“Security purposes,” she says as she stands with Rory in her arms.
I dig through my purse for my wallet and instruct, “Wake him up and put him down.”
“Don’t you want to carry him out to your car?”
I widen my eyes to reinforce the point that I’m done with this conversation. “No. I don’t. He’s three. He can walk.”
She begins talking softly to him as she looks over my ID. His eyes flutter open, and a look of confusion momentarily takes over his sleepy eyes. “Sweetheart, your mommy is here to take you home. Can you wake up, honey?”
Rory blinks several times and then looks at me. “Mom?” he questions, as if me standing here is an impossibility. He’s always been the straightforward, outspoken one of the two boys. No doubt this one’s mine. He knows how to push my buttons.
“Yes, Rory. Let’s go.” The last five minutes of motherhood have already exhausted me; I don’t know how Seamus does this shit every day.
“Where’s Daddy?” he asks.
Kai answers, “He’s at the hospital. We need to make sure he’s okay.” There are tears dripping down his cheeks as he says the words.
Rory wiggles in the woman’s arms, and she puts him down. He immediately goes to his brother and hugs him, attaching himself to his side. This need to comfort is Seamus through and through. It’s a good thing he’s the one parenting or these two would likely be stabbing each other in the back instead of hugging it out.
When we get to the car, I open the door of my Mercedes convertible and push the driver’s seat forward so the boys can crawl into the cramped backseat.
“What about our booster seats, Mom?” Kai asks.
“Shit,” I mutter under my breath. I hadn’t thought of that. They’ve never ridden in my car. “We’re not using them tonight. Buckle your brother in,” I instruct.
It’s almost seven o’clock when we walk into the emergency room entrance of Mercy General. It smells like antiseptic, sanitizer, bodily fluids…and suffering. I hate hospitals. They remind me of my grandmother. She died four days after sustaining injuries from a car accident. I was driving the car. The front tire blew out and put us into a ditch. The passenger side hit a tree. A big, solid, centuries-old tree that wins battles against a cage of steel rolling at high speed.
I was fine.
She wasn’t.
Fate is a fickle motherfucker.
Four days I sat by her side in the ICU begging her to stay with me, to fight.
Four days of the rank stench emanating from her mangled
body and the room I was trapped in assaulting my nose, a foreboding indicator that death was coming…inescapable and diligent in its duty to claim her.
Four days of watching her suffer while life was forced upon her through tubes and needles and devices, her body rejecting every attempt to save it.
Four days of listening to her cry—my strong, ruthless grandmother weeping in defeat and saying her goodbyes.
I hate hospitals.
I would burn this building to the fucking ground if I could to escape those memories. They haunt me. Every day they haunt me. But here, inside the belly of the beast, makes them insufferable.
Kai is standing beside me holding Rory’s hand.
After talking to the woman at the desk, I discover that Seamus is still undergoing tests with a neurologist. We take a seat and wait to speak to the doctor.
We haven’t been sitting here five minutes before Rory announces he needs to use the bathroom and that he’s hungry.
I make Kai take him to the bathroom while I buy them both a Pepsi, a bag of chips, and a candy bar from the vending machine. Mother of the year I am not.
We wait an hour before a nurse collects us and asks us to follow her. The smells grow stronger as we make our way into the depths of the hospital. I feel nauseous, and I’m not sure if it’s a physical reaction or a psychological reaction driving the bile up my throat. The memory of my grandmother’s cacophonous cries in my ears is so loud that my head starts to pound.
Seamus is propped up in a sitting position under the sheets of a hospital bed. He’s in a cloth gown, and his right arm is exposed, the needle for an IV is inserted and taped to the inside of his forearm, but there’s no tube running to it. I’m ashamed to admit that I’m taking everything else in so closely because I’m scared to look at his face. I’m scared that he’ll look different than the perfect man I’ve been with for years. Because, now that I’m standing in this hospital room being barraged by horrific memories of my grandmother, I know in my gut that something is wrong. He’s not perfect anymore. And he never will be again.
“Hi,” he says quietly. The boys run to him.
I wait until the boys are at his bedside and he’s talking to them before I scan his face. When I do, I ask myself when I did this last…really looked at him. It’s been years. Most days, if I see him, it’s in passing at home. We talk briefly, and my eyes pass over him. I might catch a glimpse of the graphic on his t-shirt, or the scruff on his chin if he hasn’t shaved, or notice that his hair is in need of a trim, but I never really look at him. Not like I am now.
He’s pale, washed out with worry. His eyes look like they’ve been open for days and seen nothing but disappointment. His hair is rumpled and in disarray. He looks older, defeated, though the sparkle that only the boys can bring to his eyes is there behind it all. Today, he’s a shell, no longer vibrant. It plunges me back into the nightmare with my grandmother. My nightmare. I can’t do this. I can’t take this. Whatever it is, I can’t deal.
I turn to walk out of the room, and he calls my name, “Miranda.” It sounds like please, and help, and I need you. All the things I would usually run away from.
But I hear my grandmother in her last days, so I turn around and walk to his bedside. When he takes my hand, I ask, “What’s wrong?” Tears are threatening. I haven’t cried since my grandmother’s funeral.
He shrugs. “They’re not sure yet. They took blood, ran an MRI, and performed a spinal tap to try to narrow it down.” He glances at the boys like he’s not sure he should be talking in front of them and then swallows hard and shakes his head. “I can’t feel my legs, Miranda. They’re numb. I sat at my desk all day trying to figure out what was going on and trying not to panic, but it didn’t pass.” A tear escapes and he swipes it away. “I didn’t know what else to do. I tried calling you.” He swallows again. “I asked one of the teachers to bring me here. I had trouble walking. I didn’t feel safe driving.” He closes his eyes and turns his head away from me and tears seep through his pinched lids.
Just then a doctor walks in. He introduces himself and asks that Seamus spend the night for observation until all of the test results can be reviewed, interpreted, and corroborated.
We spend the night in the room with Seamus because I can’t persuade the boys to leave him and come home with me. I work through the night on my laptop in the corner of the room while they all sleep in the twin bed.
Daybreak brings a diagnosis—Multiple Sclerosis.
A neurological disease.
No cure.
I was right, he’s not perfect anymore.
My body was busy deconstructing itself
present
I silence the alarm on my phone by feel, unwilling to open my eyes just yet and give in to the dawn of a new day.
But when I do it’s darker than usual.
Something in the pit of my stomach tells me it shouldn’t be this dark.
My thoughts are stirring.
It shouldn’t be this dark.
As I stare at the ceiling and then track my eyes from one side of the room to the other, I feel icy terror rise in me.
I close my eyes and try to push the terror down, but it’s lodged in my throat behind my Adam’s apple and threatens to cut off my breathing as if my lack of confrontation and acknowledgment is being punished and bullied. My body was busy last night deconstructing itself; it wants to be noticed for its efforts.
When I realize the dread isn’t going to pass, I open my right eye. Everything looks normal. Which should calm me, but it doesn’t, because I know when I close it and open my left eye…
Nothing.
I see nothing.
Just the blackest darkness I can imagine.
If nightmares have a color it’s this, darkness so black it blots out everything until there’s…nothing.
And then I start whispering to myself, “Why me? Why me? Why me?” I repeat it and repeat it until I’m crying, unable to speak. Until the words are choked off by silent sobs into my pillow. I’ve perfected crying silently, keeping it all to myself. And when words become impossible my mind starts racing. Why does my body hate me? What have I done to deserve this? When do I get a break? I just want a fucking break! I can’t do this!
When the tears stop, my mind goes into Dad mode. Even in the midst of health crisis, it’s in Dad mode—problem-solving mode. I need to get in the shower and wake the kids up and figure out how to get them to school so I can deal with this.
After I’m showered and dressed, I wake the kids and set bowls, spoons, a box of cereal, and the gallon of milk on the counter. When I return to their bedroom Rory is already in the shower, Kai is dressed, and Kira is sitting on the edge of her bed with Pickles the cat under one arm and her eyes closed. She looks like she might be sleeping sitting up.
“Kai, I need to run next door to talk to Mrs. Lipokowski. I’ll be back in a minute, but please make sure everyone starts eating breakfast. It’s on the counter.”
Kai nods. He’s not a talker in the morning.
As soon as I step outside on the W…E mat I feel like a failure. Like I’ve failed at life. Being out in the open, out in the world, is scary. This is the place people label others. This is the place people notice when you’re different.
Walking next door is hard. I don’t know if it’s my imagination and my legs are even less cooperative today, or if seeing the world through off-kilter eyes is throwing me off, but I feel drunk. Oh, how I wish I were drunk. Drunk out of my fucking mind would be preferable to this any day.
The knock on the Lipokowski’s door goes unanswered. I’m sure they’re down at the deli getting ready for the day’s business.
Shit.
What the hell am I going to do?
Faith. I’ll try Faith.
The walk down the stairs isn’t really walking. My equilibrium is off, an unwelcome side effect of the nightmare in my left eye, and I don’t trust myself, so I sit and inch my way down the stairs like a toddler. I’m beyond humiliated
by the time I knock on Faith’s door, and if it weren’t for my kids I would probably lock myself away in my apartment and never come out.
I knock twice, and as I turn to walk away, she answers the door to my back. “Good morning, neighbor,” she murmurs sleepily.
I don’t greet. I apologize. “I’m sorry,” I say it before I turn and face her.
And when I face her, her eyes are locked on my face, searching it, pulling every detail from the despair etched on it. She tilts her head and says nothing, but her gaze says it all. Sadness, mild shock, and the need to help are kindheartedly apparent. “What can I do, Seamus? Just tell me what you need.” It’s her soft voice, my place to land if I fall.
She’s in her pajamas, just a large t-shirt that barely covers her underwear. It’s old and the lettering on the front reads, Our ribs will stick to yours. Rick’s BBQ. I’m momentarily distracted by how awful that tagline is, which makes me want to hug her because it’s the first time all morning every cell in my body hasn’t been tied up in this shitstorm.
Then I want to hug her because I have access to the world’s greatest hugger standing right in front of me.
So I do.
I hug her.
And she hugs me back.
And I try not to cry.
But I fail and wet the shoulder of the awful BBQ t-shirt.
“Can you take the kids to school for me this morning and drive me to the hospital?”
She releases me. “Of course.” She’s nodding. “Of course.”
I wipe the tears from my eyes quickly.
“When do we need to leave?”
I check my watch. “Fifteen minutes.”
She’s still nodding, I don’t think she ever stopped. She’s lost in thought. “Okay. Meet you at your car in fifteen minutes.”
“Thank you.” I’ve said thank you thousands of times in my life. Most of the time I mean it to some degree. There are times when I’ve said it and felt the gratitude behind the words wholeheartedly, but I don’t think I ever understood what those two words truly meant until this very moment. Now I think I need a new phrase because thank you is insufficient in this situation.