by Brock, V. L.
Treading deeper into the apartment with tangible caution, I close the small distance between us physically. Mentally, the distance between us is immeasurable. I stand behind her right shoulder, towering over her, and battling every fibre of my body and my heart that screams to reach out and have her sink into my arms, to allow her to find the comfort that she needs in my embrace.
Hands that so desperately seek to support, freeze and loiter midcourse over her shoulders.
Obviously sensing me behind her, she forcefully mutters passed the constriction in her throat, “Don’t, please, Hayden.” She hangs her head as I respect her wishes and make no attempt to place my hands on her body.
Instead, I fist them through my hair before concealing them in the depths of my pockets.
“It’s strange. She wasn’t even born, yet I can sense the absence of her presence in the apartment. It feels so cold, so big…so empty.”
I must stay strong. I must stay strong.
“Yes. It does,” I retort barely audible. “Sam, is there anything I can get for you? Anything I can do?”
Inert and rigid, she turns to face me, her gaze gingerly traveling from the flooring, up the length of my body, to finally meet my eyes.
“Can you turn the clock back twenty-four hours?”
I screw my eyes shut and hang my head.
“Can you bring her back?” She cries, and I lift my head to see her mouth quivering and her eyes swimming in moisture.
“If I could, Samantha, don’t you think I would have?” I whisper, narrowing my eyes and pulling in my brow. My heart is beyond repair, but I seek a miniscule of inner-strength that I know is hidden somewhere to stop my voice from trembling.
“I’m tired, Hayden.”
I nod. “I know. Let’s get you into bed.”
Step-by-step, I sense Samantha’s apprehension as I guide her down the hall to the bedroom. She freezes on the threshold and gasps, lowering her face into the concealment of her hands.
An unkempt bed with the comforter thrown back to the footboard welcomes us. The horrific sight of a crimson stain, pooled in the center of the sheet, is a patent reminder of the onset of the most horrifying seventeen hours of our lives.
“Why don’t you go and sit on the couch, Sam? I will sort this.”
Docile, she nods her head, lets her hands slip away from her face, and backs away from the room.
By the time I have stripped, scrubbed, flipped and remade the bed, the sun has mostly set. I peek out of the floor-to-ceiling window on Samantha’s side of the bed and permit myself to be temporarily hypnotized by my perception of the heavens. With vibrant oils of blues, peaches and lilacs, dripping and streaming into each other gracefully, naturally––silver linings peek over the clouds as the sun sinks in the sky.
As I reach the apartment door, carrying the bagged soiled sheets readying to dispose, I take a moment to check on Samantha. Her fragile, enervated body curled up on the couch. Her hand balled into a fist, her chin propped up on her knuckles. She’s exhausted.
I drop the knotted bag to the floor against the front door and silently stroll to the couch. Scooping her limp body up into my arms, I make the most of this brief moment of contact, and summon the internal strength to get us through this traumatic time.
With my arms around her body, she answers me with a softly emitted groan and wraps her arms loosely around my neck while I carry her to the freshly made bed.
Groaning once more, she rolls away from me to face the window as I lower her into the center of the mattress. Once I cover her body with the comforter, I comb my fingers through her hair.
“I’m hurting, too, Sam. But I am going to be the rock that you need. I will be as strong as I have to be to get you through this. I love you, beautiful,” I press my lips to her temple with profuse tenderness, and then leave her to rest.
“Where have you two been? I have been trying to ring you both all day but your phones were off. Did you forget that we were supposed to be decorating today?” Jessie booms down the speaker.
Perched on the silver barstool at my kitchen island, I take tiny sips of my coffee. I found myself unwarily in front of the bottle of Southern Comfort, but I combatted the urge to drown myself in hard liquor––knowing that I can’t possibly be what Samantha needs if I’m drunk and choose a strong, black coffee as an alternative.
“Jess, we have been at the hospital since the very early hours of the morning. We haven’t long got back home.”
“You have what!? The hospital? Why? What’s happened?”
I rub at my brow, free a heavy sigh, and go into the details.
“Oh, fuck, I can’t believe this. That’s it––I’m on my way over.”
“She asleep, Jess. I–I don’t know what I can do to help her. I hate seeing her like this. I just want to help her, Jess…I just want to help her.” My tears irritate the flesh as they slip over my lips. I hastily brush them away.
“Hayden, we will get her through this. But it is going to take time. I’ve got Sammy’s car keys, I’m leaving now. Is there anything you need from the store?”
I briefly skim through my memory bank, but can’t think of anything in particular. Remembering the pamphlets, I hesitate, “Oh, um…” screwing my eyes shut, I take a profound breath, and mutter, “Could you pick her up some sanitary towels?”
“Of course I can. I will be there shortly.”
Concerned and terrified eyes stare back at me as Jessie stands waiting on the threshold. Her hair in pigtails, her pale pink, frilly blouse is tucked neatly inside her fitted indigo jeans. For some unfathomable reason, as soon as I set eyes on her, the apprehension and support which is reflected back at me, is like a green light for me to embrace my own repressed emotions.
Crossing my right arm across my chest, I strive to massage the weight off my left shoulder. In the depths of despair, I shake my head, my lips tremble, and my sight plunges into a sea of tears, as I surrender and release an ocean full of mournful sobs.
“Come here,” she whispers, stepping through the doorway with her arms open.
With her arms encircling my neck, I reciprocate her embrace, locking my hands around her waist, as I lower my head to rest on her shoulder. My muffled wails flowing unrestricted into the crook of Jessie’s neck.
“Let it out, Hayden. It’s okay. Just let it out.”
Three days…and I feel as useless as ever. If it hadn’t been for Jessie insisting on moving in for these disquieting, angst-ridden days, I don’t think I would I would have fared as well as I have.
Samantha has stationed herself into a ball, curled up in the bed ever since we came home Sunday afternoon. She won’t eat and will only have little sips of water, along with her pain relief and sleeping pills. I try to be there for her, I try to reach out and hold her hand, stroke her hairline, yet she recites the words that are as heart shattering as the first time she uttered them in supplication, ‘please, don’t touch me’. Inside I am crying out for a cuddle from my partner, as an acknowledgment that we are both there for one another––that we are both going through this together. Being there is breaking my heart, and I can’t defer to any help that I want to give to her.
Feeling as though I am prompting things to worsen, I decide to go to work. But before I leave, I write a quick note and rest it on my pillow:
Samantha, when I reach out to touch you, please do not feel that it is a form of sexual contact that I am seeking, for that couldn’t possibly be more further from the truth. I want to hold you and bring you comfort.
I am being as strong as I can be for you.
Please, I need to help you…let me help you.
I love you.
“Hayden? What are you doing here?”
Passing Victor’s office, I precede straight down the corridor to my own. “Well, I own this firm and I found it necessary for me to come in. But thank you for the warm welcome, Victor,” I hiss with unveiled disdain.
“I didn’t intend for it to sound that way, son.”
He follows behind me as I step into my office, closing the door behind him.
Rounding the desk, I stand in front of my chair and set my briefcase on the surface of the bureau. I unclip the locks and ruffle a few papers. “Yes, well. It seems that I am no longer needed anywhere these days.” I close my case.
“What I was implying, Hayden,”––he grasps the opposite edge of my desk, his paper-thin flesh on the backs of his hands causing each blue vein to protrude through his skeletal hand––“is that you should be on bereavement leave. You can’t come in after a few days. You need longer than that, son. You know that.” Resting into his arms, his glasses slip down the bridge of his nose.
I mirror his stance.
“Victor, being at home isn’t helping. I can’t help, Samantha. There is nothing I can do. I am being strong for her, but I cannot physically do anything. It is out of my control.”
“You’re in denial, son. You are being so strong for Samantha, that you aren’t able to mourn. And a part of you is blocking it out and refusing to believe it.”
Sighing heavily, I turn my back to the old man and face out the window.
“I am not pushing you, Hayden. But you and Samantha will need to deal with this together. And when you do, it will hit you like a freight train. You thought losing your father was painful? I am not going to sugar-coat it, Hayden, you are a grown man. Grieving for your child is the worst thing anyone has to do. And when that time comes, you will need to have time off. You will need to rebuild your relationship. And the firm will remain growing from strength-to-strength with Alexander, Chloe and I, during your absence. That is all I am saying.”
I gaze down at the thick cream carpet beneath my feet, my hands buried in my pockets.
“Thank you, Victor. I appreciate that,” I hum distantly.
“Your more than welcome, son.” Then I sense that familiar feeling of being alone once again and the small click of the door being closed behind him is my indication to finally breathe.
The morning passes tediously slow. Every minute seeming like an hour, every hour seems like a day. But after what felt like an eternity, lunch time finally arrives.
I shuffle my papers into a neat pile and push myself up from the warmth of my seat. Shrugging on my pale-gray suit jacket as I skirt my desk, I’m startled by the shrill noise of my office phone ringing.
Backtracking to the desk, I answer.
“Hayden Wentworth.”
“Hayden?”
“Hi, Mom,” I reply deflated.
“I rang the house and Jessie answered. What on earth are you doing at work?”
I drone on about my sense of powerlessness surrounding everything of the last three to four days. I am really getting irritated having to repeat myself over and over again. Why can’t people just leave me be?
“Listen, I will come up tomorrow. Let Jessie have a day for herself. I’ll watch over Samantha while you’re at work. You never know, it might help having a mother-figure to talk to.” I have to concur, it might help. I hope it will.
“Okay. Thank you, Mom.”
“I will be at the apartment for 11:00 a.m. If you need me before then, Hayden, you know where I am.”
“I know,”––I tap my fingers rhythmically on each of the silver studs that secure the leather padding on my desk––“all I need at the moment, Mom, is, Samantha.”
“Hayden, as a pregnant woman, when you visit the hospital, you expect to leave it with the baby still moving around in your belly, or nestled safely in your arms. Samantha went in as a mother-to-be, and left without a baby. You have to understand that what she is feeling, how she is acting, is completely normal under these circumstances.”
“I just…I want to––”
“I know you want to help her, Hayden. But if this is the way that is helping her, then you must let her continue. You can’t force someone to grieve differently. We all have our own ways; you of all people should respect that. I will see you tomorrow, my son. I love you.”
“Bye, Mom.”
I take a detour as I drive back home. It only lengthens the journey by an additional ten minutes, but its ten more minutes that creates a world of hope in my mind; a chance to imagine Samantha walking towards me as I enter the apartment and fall into my arms. When I hold her, she’s holding me, and we make a vow to get through this together, that we will talk to each other, express our feelings and not allow the chasm between us to grow, but to bring us closer, as we strive to strengthen the weakened foundation that is crumbling beneath us every day.
I park in my spot in the parking lot, and turn off the ignition and recover my briefcase in the foothold of the passenger side. Hoping that today is the day in which she has found the ability to take small steps and at least eaten something, I open my door and unfold my body from the car.
The room is empty, the light muted to only a soft golden glow from the table lamp beside the couch, as an eerie silence consumes the apartment. I stand my case next to the table, and loosen my black tie as I meander down the hallway.
I crane my head around the archway of the kitchen, only the strip lights shine from under the wall units, illuminating the black and silver countertops beneath them. The bedroom door at the end is ajar. I stroll towards it as nervous anticipation moulds and tighten into a gut-wrenching sphere in my stomach. I gingerly push the door open and step inside.
Jessie is propped against the headboard on my side of the bed, while Samantha remains curled up like a sleeping cat. The bedside lamp emits golden glow that covers everything at the top end of the room. Jessie’s fingers work through Samantha’s disheveled, auburn mane, taking long, gradual strokes.
She turns to face me.
“Hey,” she whispers. I pull my tie through my collar and rest my back against the tall, dark-wooden dresser.
“Hi. How has she been?” I cross my arms over my chest.
“Same. She’s cried, she’s slept, and she took some pain relief. But other than that,” she shakes her head, and glances back at Sam. “I think it might help if she had someone she could talk to who has been where she is now.”
I nod and breathe heavily. “I’ll look into some groups or something. Surely there must be some helpline even. The woman gave us some pamphlets at the hospital, and all they said is, ‘just be there for her’.”
“Sometimes that’s all we can do. Sometimes having a shoulder to cry on, or someone to vent out to, or just knowing that people around you respect you enough to allow you to be quiet, is all the help that you need. Stepping stones, Hayden, it’s what we all need.”
“Thank you, Jess.” She peeks up at me with a perplexed expression and shrugs her shoulders. “For being here, for her,” I concluded, showing appreciation.
Slipping herself off the bed, she stalks towards me and sets her tiny hand onto my shoulder. She cocks her head.
“Hayden, I am here for the both of you. You are both in the center of this, and until you can come together and be the life raft that you need to be for each other, then I’m the life raft,” she offers a sad smile. “I will help in any way I can to guide you two back to one another.”
“Thank you. Listen, my mom said that she will come over tomorrow and stand vigil. You should have the day for yourself.”
“Hayden,” she snorts, “my shoulders are broad for a reason. I have had the weight of mount Olympus bared upon them over the years since Sammy came into my life. I hold no malice and no burden for being here for however long is necessary.”
“I know and words can’t express my gratitude for that. My mom wants to see her. She wants to try and help.”
“I respect that.” She peeks over her shoulder as Samantha grumbles in her sleep. “It’s hard to believe that this time last year there was only me that cared for her well-being. Now, she’s surrounded by people that love her, people that want to help her.”
“And who would travel to the end of the world and back for her.”
She turns around to face me, holding me with he
r ivy green eyes. My breath hitches as she raises her hand, and with a tender touch, cradles the side of my face.
“I think you would both travel to the end of the world and back, if it was for each other. You have done. When obstacles are put in your way, somehow you both manage to overcome them, and you grow stronger as a couple. That, Hayden, is true love. And I am glad she has found it with you.”
I glance down at my folded forearms and display a shy smile.
Letting her hand fall from my face, she rubs my upper arm. “Coffee?” she asks.
“I think coffee is the soberest option.”
Thankfully Thursday passes easier and quicker. I’m uncertain as to whether it is because I know that my mother is with Samantha, or because I am hopeful that my mother has divulged her wise words and helped reach a part of Samantha I can’t seem to penetrate.
At 6:00 p.m. exactly, the elevator doors swiftly glide open on the thirty-eighth floor.
I stand at the apartment door, overhearing music echoing around inside. That means Samantha has gotten out of bed. She must have done something at some point in the day. The mere observation fills me with expectation. I open the door to be hailed by Marvin Gaye serenading about when a man loves a woman.
“Sam?” I call through the apartment. “Samantha?”
I wander through the apartment, down to the bedroom.
“Sam,” I call again, as I view the unoccupied bed. Butterflies try to escape my stomach through my mouth, my body trembles as a sudden panic lances through me.
“Sam?” I push the en-suite bathroom door open further, my blood turning to ice as it paths through my veins. My heart contained in a block of ice, smashes into a hundred shards as it free falls to my stomach, at the sight of Samantha sitting on the cold floor, her back propped up against the glass cubicle of the shower. She’s hugging her knees while grasping a dusty-pink baby’s vest, and a jumble of white, round tablets lay scattered against the tiling.