To Live

by C. G. Cooper

  “Eve,” said Melanie, “there’s a young girl at the hospital. She’s there with her family and she has a baby...”

  In less than an hour they were packed and on their way to the airport. The ticket was expensive and Elmore considered complaining, but one look at his wife said it all. Eve would’ve sold the house and everything in it just for the chance to have a baby.

  And so, they’d gone, far from home, back to the place they’d met. Elmore gazed out the airplane window over Eve’s lap and saw Central Park as they circled down.

  Melanie met them at the airport, had her driver take their bags to the waiting limo. The only limousine Elmore had ever been in was during his Medal of Honor tour, and the damn thing reminded him too much of hearses and their cargo. But there was no hesitating, no suggesting that maybe a cab would do.

  The drive seemed to take forever. Elmore couldn’t believe the traffic. It made him want to go home. He wanted to tell Eve that this was a fool’s errand, sheer lunacy to think that a girl and her parents would give away a perfectly healthy baby. Crazy.

  But it wasn’t. The story came to light as they drove.

  “The poor girl was in an accident. Hit head-on by a drunk driver,” Melanie explained. “Her parents weren’t keen on the birth in the first place and now… Well, you can imagine what they must be thinking. Anyway, I’m so glad I was there. I just happened to be meeting with the head of the hospital. I’m on the board, you know, and have been for years. Doctor Samuels, he’s a good friend of Father’s. Well, he got called down for this ‘situation’, that’s what they called it. We still had things to discuss, so I walked with him. I’m so glad I did. When I heard the story, I knew I had to call you.”

  “But how?” said Eve.

  “I’ve taken care of everything. You said you wanted the baby and the baby is yours. The papers are signed. You won’t even have to see the family.”

  That’s when everything began to sink in for Elmore, like a weight dropped into the pit of his stomach. How could they do it? His job barely paid for the roof over their heads. Sure, there was the money from the Marine Corps, but they put that away for their retirement. Then to add a baby to it all? How much did formula cost? Didn’t they need a crib? Would Eve have to go back to work?

  He wanted to speak up. He had to. He almost did, but he’d waited too long. Before the words of his valid concerns surfaced, they were at the hospital, limo idling.

  “Are you ready to meet your son?” Melanie asked.

  They met their son through the glass of the nursery. One of a dozen babies inside, lying like little loaves of bread.

  That was when the strangest thing happened. Elmore would later question whether, in fact, it had actually happened, but that baby locked eyes on him, on Elmore.

  His son.

  And that was it. He was done. Cooked. Creamed. Taken.

  So, he made the promise again. This time he said it like a priest blessing hallowed ground, “Lord, grant me the strength to raise that boy with love and everything that goes with it.”

  He’d said it in his head. Hopefully God heard. And then, as if she’d heard the words, Eve squeezed his hand and said, “I love you, Elmore Thaddeus Nix.”

  The first time he held the newborn, he thought he was holding nothing but an empty blanket. The ‘thing’ was so small, so fragile. But the nurses said he was healthy, ready to go home when the paperwork got straightened out.

  They told him that it was wonderful that two strangers had come to take the poor thing, the baby boy who’d lost his mother. Shouldn’t they have to take a lie detector test, a drug test, or something else? No, they said. He was all theirs. There was even a small procession as they were escorted out. The head of the hospital even shook Elmore’s hand. Imagine that. And that wasn’t all. Elmore was sure he’d seen tears in the older man’s eyes.

  But then again, hadn’t he been crying, too? He had. Just on the inside. Tears, sudden and powerful. Tears of joy for the boy, his son.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  He didn’t realize he’d been squeezing Sam’s arm too tight until she said, “Ouch.”

  “What? Oh, I’m sorry.”

  He swiped his hand away, swooning for a second. He really had to sit down. Maybe it was the surgeries. Maybe it was the cancer.

  No, he knew what it was. Weakness.

  “I’m okay,” he said, waving Sam’s offered hand away. “Come on.”

  He led the way out the side door. His chest constricted and his legs felt like they might fall to pieces. He felt two hundred years old and as spry as a spring chicken, all at once.

  The door opened and the sunlight blinded him. He raised a hand, trying to pick out his son through the glare. That’s when their eyes met. Like the first time, only now there was something different.

  There were two children there with him. One a girl of maybe ten. The other, a boy in toddler clothes sat on the ground, tugging at errant strands of grass. They momentarily distracted Elmore. Confusion set in.

  “Come on,” Sam said, grasping his arm and pulling him forward. She led the way, thankfully.

  “You must be Sam,” said Oliver Nix, rising to meet them. The man put up a hand. “Hi, Dad.”

  Dad. So much contained in three little letters. Purpose. Right. Responsibility.

  Elmore nodded. “I’m afraid I’m a little less than what you expected to see.”

  The man smiled politely. “Sam told me what happened. You look fine.”

  There was a long stretch of nothing, just the sound of the little boy playing on the ground, humming some tune to himself. Sam was no help on this one. Whether that was by choice or indecision, Elmore didn’t know.

  “So…” Elmore started, meaning to ask about the children. Meaning to start anew.

  “I only came for Mom,” Oliver said.

  There it was. The truth. He didn’t want to see his father. And beneath the hurt, Elmore understood that. He understood it like he expected the sun to rise each and every morning. There were things you could forget, things you could forgive. Then there were others…

  “I understand.”

  “Was she in pain? You know, when she…”

  “No, son. She wasn’t in pain.”

  Son. He wanted to say that over and over again, until the air left his lungs and his mouth dried like the desert.

  Oliver nodded. Elmore noted that his son looked good, handsome and healthy. Eve would’ve said he looked very put together. He wore a simple T-shirt and jeans, but Elmore could tell they were worth something to anyone who cared. His son had money.

  “There are some things I’d like to have of hers.”

  Oliver, thirty years old now, sounded like a teen again. Always close to his mother.

  But he and Elmore had been close too. That was before the thing. Before the bitter words that tore their relationship apart like crepe paper.

  “Of course. Whatever, you’d like.”

  Another long stretch of silence. Then someone else walked up. An unfamiliar face, handsome and perfectly setup like he’d stepped out of a men’s magazine for high-end wear. He grabbed Oliver’s hand and slipped it in his own.

  “You must be Mr. Nix,” the stranger said.

  “Hello,” Elmore responded.

  There were so many things he wanted to say. So many. But the words wouldn’t come. Damn, why wouldn’t they come?!

  “Well, I think it’s best if we get our son home for his nap,” the other man said.

  There were nods all around. Even Elmore nodded dumbly, like a deaf mute who’d just been sent to the gallows and didn’t know why.

  And before he knew what was happening, they were gone.

  Elmore sat down at the table once occupied by Oliver and the little girl. His heart felt like it would cave in on itself.

  God, why?

  Sam sat down across from him, took his hand.

  “You knew it wasn’t going to be easy,” she said.

  “Sure.”

  She
squeezed his hand.

  “Elmore Thaddeus Nix, tell me you’re not giving up.”

  He looked up from his pity, at those blazing eyes.

  “What?”

  “I said you’re not giving up. We’re not giving up.”

  “But you didn’t say anything. Why didn’t you…?”

  He stopped speaking at the look she was giving him. Like a school mistress who’d just caught her pupil in a bold-faced lie.

  “This is your fight, not mine.”

  He wanted to grumble, to tell her that she’d dragged him all this way. And for what? To be reminded of all the pain? To be shown that he really was a failure?

  Then he saw the truth. You can lead a horse to water…

  “I messed up.”

  Sam nodded. “Yeah, you did. So what?”

  “So you think there’s a chance?”

  “Of course, there’s a chance. There’s always a chance.”

  He couldn’t help but smile. “How did you get to be so wise?”

  She just shrugged. “Must be a brain defect.”

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  The next day it was back to treatment. They really did try to make the place comfy. There were magazines, tablets with movies and TV shows if you wanted. There was even the smell of something homey, something from his past that Elmore couldn’t pinpoint. Pie maybe?

  But no matter how they tried to mask it, the place reminded him of death. Death warmed over with treats and soda, but still death.

  “How much longer?” he asked Sam who’d taken a tablet and was watching some show on YouTube.

  “Fifteen minutes,” she said without looking up at the clock.

  He exhaled and tried to relax. This wasn’t the hard part. The stink of it came later. The nausea. The tiredness. He’d had a taste of it before, before the mess with Sam’s mother. But now, well, he really did want to get better. His son would be coming in a few days and he wanted…

  What did he want?

  For those last fifteen minutes, he tried to think on it. He tried to figure out the future. But as usual the answers didn’t come. Either God wanted it to be a surprise or a test.

  He remembered a line from a Woody Allen movie: “If He’s gonna test us, why doesn’t He give us a written?”

  The machine next to him buzzed and moments later a nurse appeared.

  “You’re all set, Mr. Nix.”

  She was all business and smiles as she detached him from the death device. The damn thing was made to kill. Kill cancer for sure, but it could just as well kill me. Imagine it. A torture device in plain sight.

  “Take your time, if you’d like,” the nurse said. He thought her name was Rachel, or was it Rita? Maybe his memory was going too. And for a harrowing minute, he wondered if that was one of the side effects, losing your memory. He went back through the checklist. Nausea. Restlessness. Exhaustion. Lack of appetite, on and on. Had the doctors and nurses mentioned memory loss? How would he remember if they had?

  He couldn’t lose the memories. They were all he had. They were his fuel.

  “Are you okay, Mr. Nix?” the nurse asked.

  “Um, yes.”

  “You went pale for a minute.”

  “Oh, I’m fine.”

  She had the look of someone who was about to correct him, maybe say that everyone tried to act tough. But she didn’t.

  “You take it easy for the next couple of days.”

  “I will,” Elmore said, wanting to be gone from this place. Why did the death smell feel stronger today? Was the reaper around the corner? Had they changed the potpourri?

  He felt fine walking down the hall. He felt fine climbing into the elevator. He felt fine climbing behind the wheel and heading for home. Their home. His and Sam’s now. That was official. It hadn’t taken much.

  Just the death of a mother, Elmore thought.

  He didn’t feel fine when they pulled into the neighborhood. He felt even worse as he gripped the front door handle. Now his body reeled and it was everything he could do to open the damn door and step into the delicious coolness of the conditioned air.

  Sam lagged behind or she would’ve seen his face. That would’ve given him away, his pallor, his pain.

  He gulped down the bile. “I think I’m going to take a nap.” He was quick from the door.

  “I got the mail,” Sam said behind him. “You got a letter, I think it’s from…”

  But Elmore didn’t hear the rest of the words as he slammed the bathroom door and knelt for the forthcoming tsunami.

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  ‘Oliver Nix’, written in that familiar handwriting, along with an address that must’ve been some well-to-do neighborhood. He touched the X in the Nix, noting the familiar way his son still curled the end of it.

  He flipped the envelope over and over in his hand. Sam hadn’t opened it. He wished that she had. If it was bad news, she’d know how to soften the blow. Yes, that was it. He’d give it to Sam and let her read it.

  Before laying it down, the envelope flipped two more times in his hands, mimicking the motion of his stomach hours before. After his fit in the bathroom, sleep had come quickly. His body wouldn’t allow even a word. Sam understood that, and the envelope with his son’s handwriting sat waiting when he awoke sometime late in the night.

  It was just after midnight. A new day. Was that some sort of omen? Had God wanted to clean out his guts before he felt the cruel sting of his son’s words?

  Suck it up, you old coward, he told himself. And he really was being a coward. It was just a letter. Just a bunch of words. How much could it hurt?

  But he knew. Elmore Thaddeus Nix knew that words, or even the lack of words, could be just as deadly as an axe to the head. Words had the innate ability to nuke, maim, slice, and dice their way into your soul.

  Open it.

  Live.

  He slipped a fingernail under one corner, slowly, carefully. His entire life now focused on this singular effort, so simple. The way the flap popped up surprised him. He half-expected a specter to float out and devour him.

  Great. Now I’m having living nightmares.

  No specters came forth, but he thought he detected the subtle hint of… no, it couldn’t be. But the nose told of the memory.

  My God, that’s Eve’s perfume.

  He put the envelope to his nose and closed his eyes and breathed it in until his lungs were full of it.

  Now his hands fumbled with the parcel, eager to find what was inside.

  There were two notes. One on thick paper, something you might buy at some high-end stationery store, something on 5th Avenue in New York City. The second was smaller and a bare blush of pink. He recognized it instantly. It was Eve’s.

  He opened Eve’s first, gulping when he saw her handwriting.

  Elmore, my darling,

  I can’t imagine what you must be thinking. I’m sure you miss me. I know you do. All I can say is that I love you, that you were one of the most important pieces of my puzzled life. Remember the puzzles we used to do, thousands of pieces? Well that’s life. I know you might not like that. You like things simple, black and white. That’s why I love you. I love you so much. I’ve loved you from that very first moment. You in your perfectly tailored uniform and me and my terrible temper and those boys in the park.

  My Elmore, I’m sure our love is one for the ages. One that God treasures. But there is another that we lost. One that we both screwed up. Our son, Oliver. He is our son. We were wrong to let him go. We were so wrong.

  Love him, my dear. Love him until your last day. For I love you, I love you both so much.

  Live, Elmore. And love.

  Yours for eternity,

  Eve

  He couldn’t stop the tears if he tried. They came after ‘darling’ and kept coming well through his third reading of the note.

  Oh, my Eve. My Eve, he said to the heavens.

  How had Oliver gotten the letter? Had his wife mailed it to their son? Only one way to fin
d out.

  He opened the second letter.

  Dad,

  Mom sent me this letter. I can only guess that it was soon before she died. I was there you know, at the funeral. I wanted to see you, but I hid. I’m not proud of that fact. But I was there to see mom. I wanted you to know that.

  I thought I knew what I was going to say, but every time I read Mom’s note… well, I’m sure you can imagine.

  Did you know that she used to call me once a day? Every day since the day I left. The day you let me go.

  I never picked up the phone. She always left a message. She always said the same thing: “I’m sorry and I love you. “

  Can you imagine? Over ten years and she never missed a day until she died. That’s when I knew. When the call didn’t come, I just knew.

  That’s my fault. That’s something I have to live with now. She tried to make amends. She tried.

  So there’s that. Do with it what you want. As for me, I don’t know what I want. I guess I just want to move on and remember her the way she was.

  I love her. She loved you. That’s it.

  Oliver

  The walls felt like they might crumble and bury him alive. First Eve’s note and then this. Elmore had no idea what it meant. Maybe Oliver didn’t know. All Elmore did know was that it confirmed every idea he had of what his son thought of him.

  And to be fair, he agreed with every silent accusation.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  It had been a day like any other. Elmore came home from work, tired but satisfied. He liked the feeling of a job well done, always had. It wasn’t until he’d stuck his shoes in the bin in the laundry room that he guessed something was amiss.

  “Eve?”

  “We’re in the kitchen.”

  He clomped his way in, his feet stiff from being upright most of the day. Oliver and Eve were sitting at their small table. The boy was home for the summer. He’d just graduated from college, something both parents were proud of. The Ivy League had made quite the dent on their savings, but the medal and some scholarships along the way had helped. Elmore had felt like a fish out of water going to that graduation, what with all the pomp and prescription, but it was all for Oliver. His plan was to go to New York City. Eve’s friend Melanie, who was Oliver’s godmother, had offered to give the young man an extra room in her house. Extra room! The place was a mansion. It was more like an extra wing.