by Roya Carmen
He was part of my life.
Gabe slowly tears himself from my arms. He looks at me, his big hazel eyes gentle. There’s no anger in him. “I know he loved you,” he says. “I’ve said he didn’t before, but that’s because I didn’t want to believe it. I could tell just by the way he looked at you.”
I stare at him, not quite knowing what to say. I can’t believe he’s said the words, finally admitted what he knew all along.
“But just know that I love you too,” he goes on, his voice full of emotion. “I love you more. And I’ve loved you for much longer than he has.”
I am seething as I stare at the glass of orange juice sitting dangerously at the edge of the coffee table. A half-inch of glass hovers over the very expensive cream colored area rug.
“Whose glass of juice is that?” I snap.
Claire looks at me with wide eyes and doesn’t dare say a word. She simply reaches for the glass. Her little pudgy hand slides it to a safe location in the middle of the table. “Sorry.”
I’m moody and I think everyone has noticed. We’re playing a game of Kids Monopoly. I roll the dice absent-mindedly, and move my plastic yellow dog the three spaces to one of Chloe’s property. I owe her five dollars. She is ecstatic. I frown as I hand her the small purple paper bill.
“I’m so going to win,” she squeals, rubbing it in.
Gabe lounges on the sofa, with a can of Coke in one hand and a slice in the other. After the day I’ve had, I was in no mood to cook, so we ordered pizza. The girls love game night and pizza in the living room. It’s very cheap fun.
Gabe clicks through the channels at record speed. This habit of his usually drives me insane, but tonight, I just don’t care. He usually stops here and there at repeats of old sitcoms, sports coverage, and the news. He doesn’t usually linger too long on the dramas and reality shows. I watch Claire as she moves the red plastic car excruciatingly slowly across the board. She’s only seven, I remind myself.
This is another very ordinary moment; one I would never remember if it were not for what happens in the next few seconds.
A single sentence delivered with the usual measured tone of a newscaster; in this case, a middle-aged blonde in a grey suit.
“Local developer and philanthropist Weston Hanson in hospital tonight…”
Gabe goes right past as he clicks away, shock morphing his features as he takes in what he’s just heard. He freezes at the realization.
My mouth goes dry as I look up at the television — pot-stickers in a pan — a cooking show. “Go back!” I scream.
Gabe fiddles with the remote control, scurrying to get back to the news channel.
When we finally see the blonde in the grey suit, my stomach drops as my eyes are drawn to the box in the upper right corner of the screen — a photo of Weston’s mangled black sports car.
Gabe gawks at me without a word.
“Weston Hanson is still in critical condition, with multiple injuries after the horrific crash on interstate eighty-eight. This was a single car accident. Initial investigations indicate the car has skidded off the highway and flipped numerous times. It is unknown at this time, if alcohol or reckless driving were involved.”
I bring my hand to my mouth, not believing what I’m hearing.
“Your turn, Mommy,” Claire says.
I remain motionless, not able to speak.
“Your turn, Mommy,” she repeats a little louder.
I roll the dice and move the little dog, the actions automatic, carried out without awareness.
“Weston Hanson is a well-known local developer and philanthropist, a pillar of our community. His real-estate development company Hanson & Hersch has been a leader in the development of sustainable living condos. He has also been a fixture in the increased awareness of a more green style of living, and he is a great benefactor to many charities.”
The woman in the grey suit goes on, but I don’t hear a word. Everything is a blur as visions of a horrific crash flash through my mind — Weston’s body slamming against the roof of his car, his body mangled, bloody. I’m suddenly nauseous. I feel like I’m going to vomit.
I close my eyes and breathe, willing myself to settle down. I’m sure he’ll be fine. He’s strong.
He’ll be fine.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Have you seen my baby?
Once the shock finally subsides, the waterworks officially start. “Why is she talking about him like he’s dead?”
Chloe looks at me with wide eyes, concern clouding her features. She finally turns to the TV screen and sees a photo of Weston in the upper right corner. “What happened?”
Gabe bites his bottom lip and doesn’t say a word. The slice of pizza sits on the coffee table beside the game of monopoly, which oddly enough, I’m still playing.
“Uh…” the newscaster falters a bit. “He is married to Bridget Hanson, attorney at Williams, Hanson and Brown. They have two children.”
Claire who hadn’t been paying attention, stares at me, openmouthed. “What’s wrong, Mommy? What happened? I’m sorry you’re losing.”
I take her in my arms. “It’s not that,” I tell her, my sobs drenching her tiny pink t-shirt. “It’s the news.” I don’t have the heart to tell her Weston was in accident.
“We will return with this coverage after the break,” the woman in the grey suit says, her voice unaffected. And just like that, a commercial for a sports drink pops on the screen — just another day, the world has not crumbled.
And suddenly, the truth dawns on me.
This is my fault.
I like to drive to clear my mind, blow off some steam.
He was upset because of me.
My whole body seems to ache when I think back to our last moments. He didn’t seem too upset. He pulled himself away and told me we should probably go. I sat beside him as he drove me back home. He seemed calm, and he drove carefully, safely. He seemed in complete control and relaxed, but almost too relaxed. There was something off about his calmness. I should have known he wasn’t fine.
I hug my knees and curl myself into a ball. I’m still wearing the same jeans, same pony tail. The olive tree is still tucked under the cotton of my t-shirt. “I should have known.”
I had kissed him on the cheek and said a soft goodbye. He had smiled and said goodbye too. “I promise I won’t come after you,” he had said, his last words to me.
I had smiled, not understanding.
As I shut the car door, I waved bye. And when I turned to face my house, my eyes were filled with tears, and I couldn’t look back as he pulled out of my driveway and drove off.
Gabe kneels by my side. “Should have known what?”
I can’t quite believe it. I can’t believe he would do such a thing. He would never leave his children. It doesn’t make sense. I’m sure it wasn’t intentional. I’m positive it was reckless driving. Perhaps it was a moment of madness. I refuse to believe he planned it.
He would never be that selfish.
I hold Gabe tightly. I can’t say the words. “I want to see him. I need to talk to him.”
“Yes,” he says, holding me still. “We will. If…”
If… He’s still alive.
Chloe and Claire know something is very wrong. Obviously, we’ve abandoned our game of Monopoly. They sit next to me on the sofa and I tell them our friend Weston was in a car accident.
Claire sits up straight, her eyes as big as saucers. “Weston? The nice man who got me my giraffe? Is he okay?”
I can’t seem to string two words together to answer her. Because I just don’t know.
I hold her tight. She starts to sob and I squeeze her tighter in my arms. I’m not completely surprised by her reaction, she and Weston forged quite the connection in New York. Every now and then, she and her sister ask about him. When will we see him again? Will we see Lizzie again? I usually answer with a ‘dunno’ and a shrug of the shoulders, trying way too hard to appear casual.
The phone
buzzes, the shrill ringtone is earsplitting. I throw myself at it, hoping it’s Bridget with some news. But unfortunately, it’s not her.
“Hi, Mirella,” Gwen says, her voice a little shaky.
I sniff and wipe my nose. “Hi, Gwen,” I reply, still in tears.
“You’ve heard,” she says softly.
My chin trembles as I say. “Yes.” I can feel another wave of sobs about to hit. “I saw on the news.”
“Is he in bad shape?” she asks, “Do you know anything more?”
I shake my head. “No, I don’t know any more than you do, or any more than anyone else knows,” I hiss, not meaning to take it out on her. “I-I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Mirella. I can only imagine what you must be feeling.”
No, she can’t. She can’t imagine.
She knows I like him. She knows I’m obsessed with him. But she doesn’t really know how much I love him. And she has no clue this is all my fault.
I don’t quite know what to say. “I’m waiting for Bridget’s call. I’m not sure what hospital he’s at. I’m hoping she’ll call.”
My shoulders fall as I utter the words. Why on earth would she call me? I am the woman behind the dissolution of her marriage. I am the little home-wrecker, the one who seduced her husband and made him fall in love with her. And she must know I had something to do with this accident, it happened on Interstate eighty-eight between Naperville and Chicago. She must have wondered where he was coming from.
I sink into the plush sofa cushions as the realization dawns on me, she will never call.
I need to call her.
I’m such a coward. I can’t call Bridget. I don’t want to face her after everything that has happened. I shudder at the memory of how she looked at me the last time we saw each other — like she wanted to rip me open, dig out my insides, stick them in a blender and pulverize them. But to be fair, she had just learned I was carrying her husband’s child. And then, to add insult to injury, Weston leaves her.
And now this.
I am the last person she wants to talk to.
The newscast has given us a bit more information, but not much — he’s in critical condition with a serious head injury, and several other less severe injuries. My heart sinks at the knowledge. I don’t know much about medicine, but I do know head injuries are usually very serious.
“I need to know more,” I tell Gabe who has been by my side all this time as I’ve sobbed over the other man in my life.
He holds me tight and tucks me in under the crook of his arm. “I could call Bridget,” he ventures, “find out more.”
I sit up and look at him. “You would do that?”
He fixes me with pure emotion. “I can tell this is killing you, not knowing.”
“It is.”
“I’ll call her.”
Gabe calls Bridget. He doesn’t reach her but he does leave a message. We pace around the house, flipping channels, hoping to get more information on other newscasts, but we have no luck.
I browse the Internet for additional sources of information, but no luck there either.
Gabe and I put the girls to bed with a kiss and a squeeze. Claire tells me she’ll pray for Weston. I smile and wonder where she’s picked that up, since, I’m ashamed to admit, we don’t go to Church. I pinch the sweet dimple on her cheek and say, “Thank you”.
“No problem,” she says. “It will only take a minute.”
So sweet.
I hope her prayers work. I start wondering if I should start praying too. I think back to a day not too long ago — the day I went to Church after all these years. I asked Him to watch over all of us, including Weston. I believe He will. Weston will be okay.
Gabe’s phone buzzes and from the pitch of his voice and his body posture, I can tell he’s speaking to her. I try to make out the conversation, but all I hear is lots of ‘uh-huhs’ and ‘sure’ and ‘I understand’, and the dreaded ‘I’m so sorry, Bridget’.
My heart hammers against my chest as he turns off his phone and ventures a look up at me, the color drained from his face.
No.
I throw myself at him. “What did she say?”
He holds me tight. “She said he’s in the ICU,” he says softly. “The next few hours are critical. Apparently, he suffered a massive brain injury. He’s not conscious.”
I feel a wave of nausea crash through me. I tear myself away from Gabe and run to the powder room.
Gabe darts after me and stands at the doorway while I hurl into the toilet. I’m brought back to the stomach flu I had a while back, the stomach flu which started this whole mess; the pregnancy, the resulting separations, the goodbyes, the car crash. Dominoes falling against one another expectedly. One incident will always result in another, a reaction to an action. It’s the basic law of physics.
I gargle some mouthwash before leaving the powder room and I crash back down on the sofa in the living room. “I want to go see him.”
Gabe shakes his head. “You can’t. Nobody can see him,” he tells me and then he bites his bottom lip and can’t seem to quite look at me.
“What?”
He scratches his beard. “Well, another thing Bridget told me,” he says, faltering, as if he’s trying to work out how to say the words. “She doesn’t want you there. She doesn’t want you anywhere near the hospital. She was pretty adamant about it.”
I feel my whole body sink. Of course she doesn’t. “It makes sense.”
“She did say she would keep me in the loop.”
“Oh, great.”
“Put yourself in her shoes, Ella.”
“I get it. I get what you’re saying. I completely understand.”
“Let’s just try to go on as normal, and hope for the best.”
He seems so calm, so unaffected. Of course, he is. He hates the guy.
I wonder if he hopes Weston dies.
And I realize that’s a question I don’t want the answer to.
Over the next two days, we hear nothing. And I do some on-line research about severe head injuries, driving myself crazy in the process. It’s all so overwhelming; epidural hematomas, subdural hematomas, intracerebral hematomas, brain hemorrhage. I suddenly wish I had gone to med school. I want to understand what’s happening to him.
I study the statistics. Apparently, according to one informative site, of all patients with severe head trauma, about 25% to 30% recover fully, with little or no bad long-term outcome. I like those odds. This makes me happy. But, the next numbers make my heart sink — about 17% sustain long-term disabilities.
And then…about 30% die.
As I stare at the number, I fall into sobs. Weston has a greater chance of dying than he does of making a full recovery.
Despite what has happened, I still need to move on with my life. I still need to teach. They don’t exactly let you take a day for secret lovers in critical condition. I could call in sick, but part of me knows the distraction of work will serve me well.
I try to be present for my students as much as I can. We do the usual routine.
On Tuesday, we start off with story time. I sit in my old rocking chair and the children sit around me in a circle, their sweet faces curious, attentive. I think this is a favorite part of the day for most of them, myself included. The story I read today is about a little white bear cub who has ventured too far and gotten lost in the woods.
His mother searches desperately through the forest, looking for her baby. “Have you seen my baby?” she asks the snow owl. “Have you seen my baby?” she then asks the white fox. “Have you seen my baby?” she asks the hare, and so on, and as the pages turn, her desperation becomes almost palpable. It is practically tangible, as seen in the soft beautiful illustrations.
The children listen with complete focus, little brows furrowed in concern — they want the mother bear to find her cub, healthy and happy. I can relate to mother bear. Although I’ve never lost a child, I am in the same anxious state of the unknown, wanting t
ime to speed, wanting to see the conclusion, to know it is a happy ending. And it’s not about passion, lust, romantic love. It’s about a friend. A friend I want to find healthy and happy.
The week goes on and I barrel through it, one hour at a time, one minute at a time. I’m in the perfect place to stop thinking about him. I have twenty-one distractions. Scratch that, I have twenty distractions since my little-troublemaking Sebastian is off sick today. But I could sure use him around.
Gwen and I eat outside, in the chill of autumn. We keep our jackets on and watch the leaves fall. And I confide in her. I tell her about my last moments with Weston. Now I think she understands a little more. I cry in her arms and of course, I barely touch my food.
Gabe is there for me, a constant source of support. He’s just as impatient as I am. He wants to know what’s going on, and he hates his silent phone.
I’m in the bath when I hear the familiar buzz of Gabe’s cell. It is almost inaudible in the distance. I hear Gabe speaking in serious, hushed tones. He barely says a word. I scurry out of the bathtub and wrap myself in my plush bathrobe. I barrel down the stairs, wanting to know.
Gabe puts his phone back in his pocket and looks at me with dull eyes. The already existing ache is my stomach spreads across my insides. “What?” I plead. “Tell me.”
He stands up a little straighter. “He’s in a coma. They won’t really know the severity of his injuries until he wakes up.”
I close the distance between us and wrap my arms around him. “There’s still hope.”
“Yes,” he says. “Apparently, he was lucky, and didn’t get roughed up too bad, other than the head trauma. Apparently some broken bones, but that’s about it.”
I look up at him, stunned by the way he has been; the kindness and understanding he has shown. “Why are you being so great?”
“I know he meant a lot to you. As much as I hate it.”
I hold him tighter, my gaze still plastered to his. “He doesn’t mean as much as you. You know that, don’t you?”
He smiles. “Well, I was starting to wonder.”
My own smile fades as I imagine the unimaginable. “I don’t know what I would do if it was you, lying in that hospital bed. I wouldn’t be standing. I wouldn’t be functioning. I would crumble.”