It’s empty. A large flat screen television is lit up on the far wall, one of the national television stations on live. It’s muted, but we get the idea. The words scrolling along the bottom make it clear what’s happening: Miner #1 is coming to the top.
“I wonder who it is,” Lindsay says to no one in particular. Her voice is a mere rasp. “God, I feel guilty because I’m praying it’s Jiggs. But I know how much you need it to be Ty and . . . Cord . . .”
“There’s a good chance it is Jiggs or Cord,” I say. I fight back the poison in my stomach. “I can’t imagine Ty coming up before them.”
My spirits sink, just a bit, at the realization. I feel guilty about that too, but I can’t help it. He’s my husband.
TY
The make-shift elevator lands, sitting on top of the water. A part of me, a huge part of me, wants to slide inside, pull the rope, and get the fuck out of here.
But I can’t.
I’d never forgive myself if they didn’t make it out and I did. And how could I look at my wife and know I killed her brother?
“Jiggs, get in there,” I say, grabbing his shoulder and pressing him towards the box.
Water roars into the chamber like an open sieve. It inches up quickly, now chest-high.
“I can’t leave you guys down here,” he cries, tears streaming down his face.
“Yeah, you can,” I say. “You have a kid coming and I need someone to watch my wife and no one will do that like you. Now get your ass in there.”
“Promise me you’ll be up,” he says, climbing inside. “Promise me.”
“We promise,” Cord says. “Now hurry the fuck up.”
Jiggs reaches over head and yanks the cord. The machines groan as he is lifted up and out of sight.
“One down,” I mutter to myself. Turning to Cord, I blow out a breath. “You’re next.”
We wait for the box to lower, but it doesn’t come. I peer up and can see the glow of the lights at the ground level, but no movement from the box.
“We’re having a problem with the gears!” someone shouts down the air shaft. “We’re trying.”
“This water is chest high!” I shout. “Hurry the hell up!”
I look at Cord.
He looks at me.
ELIN
“Come on, come on, come on,” I repeat as we watch the man being escorted onto a stretcher. “Who is it?” I shout.
We can’t see close enough to tell, just a figure of a man that could be any of the three. My heart is in my throat, Lindsay’s hand nearly breaking mine, as we watch with bated breath.
My hand is on my stomach and I whisper, “Daddy promised to come home, little one. He’ll come home. Hang in there.”
“It was Jiggs,” Vernon says from behind us.
We whirl around as Lindsay screams, her hand going to her mouth. “Oh my God!” She looks at me and pulls me into a hug.
I’m stunned, frozen in space. I hear her talking and watch her ask me something, to which I nod. She leaves the room with Vernon and I’m standing alone, watching a television screen where nothing is happening.
I flick the buttons on the side until the sound comes on.
“They’re still working on the gears, Gerald. The problem stems from the lowering harness. We’re being told it’s urgent they retrieve the other two miners as quickly as possible because water is filling the cavern below. Everyone listening, pray for these men.”
Gasping, I back up until I’m against the wall. My legs sway beneath me as the television blurs from the tears.
TY
The cart begins to lower in our direction and I heave a sigh of relief. Then reality strikes.
The water is at my throat, sloshing around against my mouth. It’s cold and thick and bitter.
I angle my chin towards the ceiling and look at Cord. “Your turn, buddy.”
He shakes his head.
“Cord, get the fuck in there!”
“Only one of us is gonna make it, Ty.”
“Don’t say that,” I shout. “Get the hell in that cart and get up there before neither of us makes it!”
I grab his arm, the shoulder that got banged up, and he winces. Easing up, he takes advantage and I find myself spinning in the water.
My head jerks to his, my eyes wide. His teeth clenched, a look of pure determination on his face.
“No, Cord,” I say, my voice cracking as I realize what he’s doing. I fight back with everything I have left in me, but he overpowers me.
“Get in there, Ty.”
“No!” I shout as his hands find my shoulders and he shoves me into the cage. We continue to struggle, the water inching up. The walls of the shaft begin to crumble, water splashing in our faces.
He reaches inside and pulls the cord. Immediately, the cart starts to move upwards. “What are you doing?” I scream, tears pouring from my eyes. “Cord! Damn you!”
“Take care of Yogi for me,” he shouts over the sound of the dirt giving away.
I see his eyes in the sea of darkness as I ascend. I collapse into a heap on the floor of the makeshift elevator, trying desperately to hear his voice.
“Thanks for everything you’ve ever done for me, Ty,” he shouts as he slips out of sight. “I love you, man!”
“Cord!” I shout, slumping against the back wall, sobbing.
ELIN
“Mrs. Whitt,” Vernon’s voice says beside me. “One more is on the way.”
I’m afraid to look, but there’s no way I won’t. Taking a few tentative steps toward the television, I hold my breath.
The man makes it out of the cart, on his hands and knees, before a blanket is thrown over him and he’s helped to his feet.
“Who is it?” I ask, wheeling around. My heart threatens to explode in my chest. “Who was it!?”
Vernon pokes his head out of the door and pulls back inside. “It was Ty.”
I fall to my knees, weeping into my hands.
TY
“Get Cord!” I scream, my words broken with grief.
I know there’s no chance. The water was too high and the channel was disintegrating as we rose. The cart will never be able to reach him. I know that, but I can’t believe it. I can’t give up.
“Get Cord,” I shout again, my vision blurry as halogen lights shine brightly on me. “Hurry!”
“We’re going back down after him,” a man says to me, but I don’t see his face.
“You have to get him!” I throw my helmet to the side and tug at my hair. “Get him. You have to fucking get him!”
“Why did you do this to me?” I scream as tears stream down my face as I sob into the night. “Why? Damn you, fucker!”
My head buries in my hands as my body racks with grief that my best friend just gave his life for me. “Damn you, Cord!”
No one approaches me for a few minutes, giving me time to get myself together. Whether I look together or not on the outside, I’ll never be the same on the inside. A piece of me will be down that hole, a part of me as jagged as the walls of that room.
“Where’s my wife?” I ask, finally taking a proffered towel and wiping at my burning eyes. The white linen is smeared with grease and debris. “Where’s Elin?”
“We’ve sent someone for her. We need to take you to the emergency room, Sir.”
“Not until I see her,” I say, refusing to get into the ambulance. “I need to talk to someone. I need to know if they got Cord.”
A man in a black business suit comes into the tent set up with a look of defeat on his face. “Mr. Whitt?”
“Did you get Cord? Tell me you got him. Please . . .”
“I’m sorry. We hit water.”
“No!” I wail, covering my face with the towel. “No!”
ELIN
“He’s in there.” Vernon points to a grey tent.
I start running, bumping into people, tripping over cables and wires, ignoring requests for me to slow down and questions about who I am. I run, my focus clear: to get to
Ty.
Shoving the tarps open, I quickly scan the room. But I hear him before I see him.
My throat closes shut, my heart splintering, as I hear him sobbing from the other side near the ambulance.
Sprinting to the sound, I see him. He’s sitting on a chair, covered from head to toe in black mud. He’s leaned over, his face buried in a towel, his body shaking, nearly convulsing.
“Ty!” I scream and he looks up. I run to him and he stands, catching me as I nearly leap in his arms. “Oh, baby!” I cry, running my hands through his hair, burying my face in the crook of his neck.
I pull back and kiss his face, his lips, as he pulls me the tightest he’s ever pulled me into him before. His entire body is covered in some kind of oily grease. It’s caked in his hair, his ears, his eyes.
“Are you okay?” I ask, wiping the muck off his face. “Tell me you’re okay. Talk to me, baby. I need to hear your voice.”
“I’m fine,” he says. “But Cord . . .”
My heart stops. “Cord?”
“He didn’t make it.”
“No!” I gasp, my legs threatening to go out from under me. Lurching forward, my heart splintering into a million pieces, I reach for my husband.
His big, beautiful eyes fill with tears and our cries mix together, a haunting, lonely sound, as we sink to the ground.
“Cord!” I sob. “No . . .”
Those friendly eyes, his charming smile, his cheeky grin—it all flashes before my eyes. His voice drifts over my ears, not so much words, but the timbre. The ease of his spirit, the kindness in everything he did washes over Ty and I as we sit, entwined, on the dirt floor.
Ty breaks down in my arms, his body shaking violently. “I told him . . . I told him not to . . .” His words are barely able to be understood through his wails. “God, Cord. Why?”
Pulling my husband as close to me as possible, I soothe him the best I can in the midst of my own suffering. Just as I feel myself start to go over the ledge, I feel him. I feel Cord. Like a rush of warmth from a mid-afternoon sun, I know his spirit is here.
ELIN
His lashes are splayed against his cheeks, his skin cut and nicked from the ordeal. He’s clean now, lying in a hospital bed. I sit in the chair beside him and say a prayer of gratitude that it’s just for observation and a little hypothermia. That he’s going to be as good as new.
Jiggs is in the room next door, sleeping off his injuries too. Lindsay and I have switched rooms a couple of times over the past twenty-four hours, mostly because I didn’t want Ty alone and I wanted to get a visual on my brother.
Jiggs has been awake some and we’ve talked. He’s shared a little of what they went through, but I can tell it might be awhile, if ever, before he really wants to speak about it. The hospital said they’d send in grief counselors to help them talk it out, if they wanted.
Ty has slept almost constantly since we got here. The doctor said to let him rest, that it was the best way to heal. I’ve been able to sleep some, as long as I’m holding his hand. Even then, it’s a fitful sleep because he mutters Cord’s name and my tears fall again.
Like he feels me watching him now, he opens his eyes. It’s a slow, sleepy process, but one that makes me smile.
“Hey,” I say softly, bringing his knuckle to my mouth and kissing it. “How do you feel?”
“All right, I guess,” he says. “Better now that I see your face.”
“I’ve been here the whole time.”
He grins and I watch as it takes effort for him to manage the expression. The cut down his left cheek ripples, making him wince.
Even though he’s a little battered, a little bruised, I think his damage is internal. A broken heart. A scarred soul that may never be repaired. Like mine.
The loss of Cord still feels unreal. I expect his goofy smile, his warm voice to walk in the door at any minute and give me hell. I’d do anything to hear him call me a pit bull, to give Ty a hard time about playing pool, or Jiggs shit over the way he drives.
Nothing in our lives will ever be the same and I feel the loss of Cord McCurry constantly. We all do.
“How’s Jiggs?” Ty asks, struggling to get comfortable. I help him adjust in his bed before he tugs on my arm. “Will you lie with me?”
I laugh. “I don’t think the nurses would like that.”
“I don’t give a shit. I just spent . . . how long? . . . without you. I want you next to me.”
“How can I resist that?”
Slipping off my shoes, I climb in bed next to him. I rest my head on his shoulder, like I do every time we lie together, and drape an arm over his torso, careful to avoid the wires and bandages.
“Jiggs is okay,” I say finally, my words soft. “He has a few more dings than you and a broken rib, but he’s fine. Raising some hell over there.”
He laughs, his chest rising and falling, but I hear the hesitancy in it.
“How are you? Really?” I ask.
“I don’t know. You know, I’m physically okay. I don’t feel too bad. I just . . .” His voice trails and his body stills. “I don’t know that I’ll ever get Cord’s face out of my mind. Or what he did for me. For us.”
I squeeze him tight and blink back tears.
“He thought the world of you,” Ty says, sniffling, his voice breaking. “When we were going through our shit, he would be my voice of reason. He would tell me to keep at it, to not give up. That son of a bitch . . .”
We cry together, our hearts mourning the loss of one of the best people to ever walk the earth. To a sweet boy, a sweet soul, that maybe didn’t realize he knew how to love, but loved more than anyone I’ve ever met.
“I feel like we have to honor him,” I say, wiping my eyes with the bedsheet. “He gave his life for us to be together. We have to figure out how to give back to the world in his name.”
“We could never give back enough for what he just gave us,” Ty says. “It’s a hard gift to accept.”
I rise up and look him in the face. “But it’s one he gave knowing the consequences. For you to not just accept that takes away from what he did.”
He shrugs, not agreeing, not disagreeing. Instead, he changes the subject. “I want to take a vacation. Just me and you.”
“Where to?”
“The ocean. Cord always wanted to see the ocean and never made it. I want to do that. For him. Sound okay?”
“Sure,” I say, my heart racing. “But I might not be that much fun.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well,” I say, angling my body so I can see his face. “I can’t eat seafood.”
“Sure you can. I know you don’t like shrimp, but I think you’ll like lobster. And crab rolls.”
The corner of my lip twitches. “And my round belly might not look good in a bikini either . . .”
“What are you talking about?” he says, brushing my comment off. “You’re hot as fuck and I want to see youuuu . . .”
He stills. His eyes go wide, head cocking to the side. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying,” I say, bending over him so that my lips hover over his, “that I’m having your baby.”
“Really?” His voice is full of hesitation, his eyes twinkling, yet guarded, like he thinks I’m kidding.
“No, I’m making it up,” I giggle. “Yes, really! I’m pregnant, Ty.”
He pulls me to him, nearly suffocating me. Giggling, I try to pull back. “I can’t breathe!”
He lets my face loose, but then smothers it in kisses. His lips are still swollen from the accident, but that doesn’t stop him from kissing me senseless.
I settle in beside him again, noting the smile etched on his face. It’s inked on mine, as well.
“Mr. Whitt?”
We look to the doorway. A man is standing there with a large manila envelope in his hand.
“Are you Tyler and Elin Whitt? This is room 5431, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Ty says. “What can we do for you?”
“I’m with Blackwater. My name is Hugh Umbrose. How are you tonight?”
“Better than I have been.”
“Well, I’m actually here to see your wife.” Hugh hands me the envelope. I sit up and take it. “This is a copy of Cord McCurray’s papers. He listed you as his next of kin.”
I drop the papers onto the sheets. “What?”
“You are listed as his next of kin. As far as Blackwater goes, you are in charge of his business.”
I look at Ty and he just smiles.
“But we aren’t . . . I mean, I’m not his family,” I say, picking up the envelope again. “Not by blood.”
“Sometimes family isn’t made by blood, Mrs. Whitt. Sometimes it’s a choice, and Mr. McCurry chose you.”
TY
My reflection stares back at me in the mirror. I don’t look bad, just a little cut here and there. My hair needs trimmed and my limp is back pretty heavily, but there are no lasting effects of the accident.
Not physically, anyway.
I lay my tie around my neck and wait for Elin to come and do it. I’m not even going to fuck with it. Not only because I won’t get it right anyway, but because I like her attention on me.
I need it.
I crave it.
She’s the only thing that keeps me together.
Sleep has become my enemy. I wake up in cold sweats, sometimes from seeing Cord’s face slip into the darkness, sometimes as I feel the earth shake beneath me and listen for the rocks to start falling. Jiggs has this problem too. They say it’ll go away eventually. Maybe. Either way, I can deal with it because Cord gave me the chance.
I smile as I think back on his life. No one loved him like a parent, no one loved him like a husband. Yet, even with the absence of that kind of unwavering affection, he knew it.
I’m proof.
It’s made me realize how selfish we are with our emotions. How we blame other people for the decisions we make or the lack of opportunities we have and how stupid that is. Cord had an excuse to get out of anything; he had the hardest life of anyone I know. Yet he never used it as a crutch, and he didn’t let it keep him from choosing love. Even if he didn’t realize it.
Written in the Scars Page 25