Chapter Thirteen
Wendy and Rebecca were still in the kitchen when I entered. They didn’t say a word to me, but both gathered me in their arms and just hugged me. After a few moments, Wendy spoke first. “Honey, I want you to know everything you are feeling is normal, and we all deal with these things differently.” My mind got defensive and wanted to say, ‘these things?’ But then I realized they probably saw me and my few emotions showing themselves all sitting in a row in the beach together, and maybe they’d decided I‘d lost my mind or gained my nerve, so I didn’t say anything at all. Wendy however, kept talking. After missing most of what she’d said, I finally heard her finishing with, “Mary will have books for you to take home. Just remember to let it out when you can.”
“Thank you, Wendy. Who is Mary?” I asked trying to appear as if my mind weren’t in the middle of an argument with her while she was talking.
“Mary is another Hospice nurse. They all have different shifts, and we will probably meet a few depending on when we need them and if it’s night or day or the weekend. Will likes Mary.” Rebecca was just as matter of fact as she could be, like she was just speaking of the sky being blue. I was simply reminded this was a job for these people. At some point they would not be there. They would be at home with their very alive families, watching TV or playing games with their kids while we sat there on death watch. Anger was talking to me again.
Rebecca and I spent the next few hours talking, crying, and even laughing a little bit. She shared some stories with me about the past year. We tried not to talk about the things I wasn’t really aware of, the treatments, the days in the hospital, or the obvious, Will dying. She told some big fish tales, concerts, drives through the mountains, and even a road trip all the way to the Canadian border just because Will wanted to see how far away they could get before having to turn around and come home. He’d said he didn’t even have any interest in seeing Canada, but wanted to see as much of the United States as he could. Rebecca laughed through the whole story and at how adamant Will was about simply turning around and heading home. It took them three days to drive to the northern border and back.
Before we knew it, four hours had gone by, and it was time for Will’s medication again. “Would you like to do it alone this time, Nikki?” Rebecca asked me.
“No, let’s do it together. I’m…uh…I don’t know, Rebecca, I’m scared. I’m nervous. Let’s go together.”
“Come on, bud! You and me, we got this!” Rebecca grabbed my hand, and we walked to the kitchen counter, where various bottles were lined up. I stifled a giggle, and Rebecca looked at me like Crazy was here again.
“I’m sorry, Rebecca. I have two little girls. I couldn’t imagine just leaving this many bottles…or even one bottle of medicine on the counter like this. I guess I’m just always thinking like a mom!”
“Nothing wrong with that, my dear. Nothing wrong with that! I can’t even imagine just how much is here. Drugs, I mean. You know what some people would do to get their hands on stuff like this, and here we have it just sitting out on the damned kitchen counter!” We both giggled. Maybe we would make it through losing Will. And together even!
“Let me show you everything here.” Rebecca picked up each bottle of the seven from the counter and explained each one and what it should be doing for Will.
We walked into the living room, where Will lay in the hospital bed sleeping. He hadn’t been awake much at all since Wendy was here and he’d been given his last dose.
“He’s going to be tired a lot. We’ve increased his morphine because of his pain just in the last two days, so he’s sleeping more. But,” Rebecca paused, “I guess for him, it’s a good thing.”
I sat on the floor next to his bed and put my hand on his arm. His skin remained the same gray, almost translucent, color. His body stirred a bit, and he moaned in his sleep. I whispered to him, “Hey, Will.” I was afraid to rub his arm. His skin looked like it might just peel right off the bone. “Will?” I said a little louder. “It’s time for your medicine. Will?”
He was very short with me when he woke up, almost yelling, “Owwww, wha?”
“I know you’re in pain, dawling, I know. It’s time for your meds, so the pain can go away. Okay, there, it’ll be real quick like, and you can get back to sleep once we are done.” Rebecca was all business, throwing in a little ‘darling’ that came out as ‘dawling’ with her southern accent.
“I just want to sleep!” Will yelled at us.
“I know, sweetie, I know. We’ll let you sleep, but you need these meds first. Mary says these will help you feel better.” I was impressed with Rebecca’s sense of calm. Tears were flowing down my eyes. I wasn’t sure I could ever give him these medications on my own with the same compassion and solemnity Rebecca had.
Will didn’t say much else except something about ginger. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but I saw Rebecca pull a can of ginger ale seemingly out of nowhere. She popped it open and stuck a straw in it and put it on the TV tray table near his bed. Rebecca put the two pills we’d gotten from the kitchen onto the table near his soda can and drew the syringe of blue morphine for him. With a frail arm filled with anger, he grabbed each pill. Sadly, it took him several tries to actually grip each pill, but he was determined to do it on his own. I watched him with tears still streaming down my cheeks, wondering if this was going to get easier, pausing in my mind, knowing it wouldn’t get easier for Will. Each time Rebecca reached out to help Will, he’d wave her hands away and mumble, “I got it. I said I got it. I can do it!”
Watching him, I could see my toddler I’d left at home, saying to me, “I got it, Momma, I do it.” I know I’ve heard in life when one dies, they are often much like they were when they were much younger; like a toddler who wants to be independent but can’t actually do everything by themselves. Only Will was much too young to be at that stage in life. In his thirties, I thought he shouldn’t be lying there in his home, in a hospital bed, dying. He should be helping a toddler of his own learn to do something on their own.
Once he took all three medications on his own, Rebecca took away the empty syringe, put the straw in his mouth, and told him to sip. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water a few times and kept saying, “Yuck! Yuck,” while shaking his head. Just like my kids did when they took medicines. Only my kids giggled because children’s medicines actually tasted like cherry. I can’t imagine his morphine was flavored like kids’ medications. I jumped from my own thoughts when I heard him yell, “Leave me A-LONE! Why don’t you leave me alone?”
Rebecca kissed his forehead and gently touched his shoulder, grabbed my arm, and led us back to the kitchen.
“He’s not having a good evening,” she said to me. “I know when you got here, you visited with your dad a while before coming over here. You are welcome to stay here with us if you’d like, or you can get away and stay with your dad if you’d like. He won’t let me wake him in the middle of the night for his medications. He needs them. All of the nurses say he needs them, but he won’t listen. He wants to take them when he’s awake and already in pain, but what he’s not really getting is the morphine has to build up in his system. It will only work if he’s medicated all the time. He’s not there yet. I mean, he won’t let us give it to him every two hours like we are supposed to do. So he sleeps through the pain for a while, and then when he wakes up, he’s in so much pain he can’t handle it. Maybe you can talk him into a better schedule tomorrow, but I don’t think he’s going to want to be bothered any more tonight. The past two days I’ve had to blame Mary when he’s a grump. He doesn’t want to take his medications, but he seems to be more open to the idea of taking them if I remind him Mary told him to take them. He likes Mary. I think she’s his favorite nurse.” I could see tears in Rebecca’s eyes. It hit me suddenly she was hurting too. Of course she was hurting. She’d spent the past year caring for Will, taking him to appointments, watching him hurt, loving him regardless of the fact he could never promise
her forever. I grabbed her and wrapped my arms around her.
“Oh, Rebecca, I’m so sorry. I’ve been so selfish. This is all so new to me, and I’ve been in shock. You’ve been so wonderful to me. Patient with me. But you’re hurting as well. Will is your husband. I know you love him. Oh, God. I’m so sorry.” I was out of words. We just stood there holding one another, bonding over the pending death of a man we both loved.
After several long moments and more tears, Rebecca pulled back and said, “You are welcome to stay here, hon, but if you want to stay at your Dad’s house tonight, it might be the best night. I don’t know how long Will is going to hang on, but you might find yourself here more and more.” She paused. “It might be good for you to get a break. Take a long bath, spend some time with your dad. Take a break from this house. Will’s moods come and go. There’ll be times he’ll want you here and maybe times he won’t. I don’t know. But I can tell you he’s changing. His personality is different. He’s angry. Shoot, we’re all pretty damn angry, I guess, aren’t we?”
“Yeah, Rebecca. I think I will go to Dad’s tonight. You have my number. Call me if you need anything. But also, if you need a break, want to go for a walk, get out of the house, please let me know, and I’ll be right back here in minutes. I also think maybe you need some time here alone…with Will.”
Once we offered a few more hugs and some promises to call if there were any changes or needs, I got into my rental car and started the drive to Dad’s house. The world was different. The light seemed paler, speed bumps seemed higher and felt harder than ever before. Sounds seemingly stopped. I didn’t hear birds, I didn’t hear the waves hitting the beach the way they had done for millennia. I heard nothing. I felt nothing. Until I got to Dad’s house. I could hear the sounds of singer songwriter music from the ‘70s playing from Dad’s stereo when I pulled up. It was the only recollection of any sound I’d heard since leaving Rebecca and Will. Dad came out and met me on his big deck he’d power washed since I was there earlier. I just fell into his arms.
“Oh, Daddy, why is this happening?” I sobbed into his chest. “Why Will? Why am I here? Is this fair to Chris and the girls? I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what I am supposed to do. I don’t even know if I can do anything.”
My Dad always knew when to talk and when to say nothing. He said nothing. I was sure my questions didn’t have any answers to them anyway.
When we got inside, I sat down, and Dad brought me a drink and sat in a big arm chair near me. “I don’t know why he wants you here, Nikki. Love is something I was never very good at, so I can’t tell you if it’s the right thing to do, but I do know Chris and the girls are fine and will be fine without you for a little while at least. I’ve talked to Chris, and he’s not sure what to say to you or what to do, but he thinks you should be here too, if it’s what you want to do.” Dad paused and turned down the volume on the stereo. “Nikki, if you don’t want to be there, stay for a few days, visit with me and some friends, see your sister, and then head back to your family. You don’t have to do this.”
“I don’t even know what to say, Daddy. Will wants me here.”
“Nik, I was with Poppa when he died. It wasn’t all pleasant. He was scared, I was worried. It’s a sad thing. I just want you to think about it for a while before deciding to put yourself through all of this.”
With those words, I lost it. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t hear the music. Everything was at a standstill again.
“I didn’t mean to sound heartless, Nikki. I love you and don’t want you to have to go through all of this. Will has spoken to me a lot this past year. Maybe you don’t know all of this yet, but Chris and I have known this was coming. We knew he’d ask you to come home. He asked Chris’ permission before calling you. He told me not too long after the wedding last year.”
“He told you what, Daddy?” I was shaking, and my words came out as a whisper.
“Well, Nikki. He came over here one day with a six pack of beer. He even told me he remembered I don’t drink, but he thought it might be best if we ‘crack a few,’ is how he put it, and talk. I was a bit surprised. I haven’t seen him much in years. I mean maybe around town I’d see him, but we’ve never said much more than a hello here and there over the years.” Dad paused and took a drink of his soda. Before he continued, he got up and walked over to the stereo. I could tell by his inability to sit still he was nervous. This was a conversation he didn’t want to have with me. But I had to know when he knew Will was sick, what he knew, and hope it could all help me find closure or answers to the questions I didn’t even know yet. When he spoke again, his voice was softer and slower. “Well, he came in with a six pack. I think he drank a few, and I had two, so we managed to get through the evening. I even ordered some steamed shrimp, and oddly enough we even had a laugh or two.”
“Daddy. You’re not answering the question here. What aren’t you telling me?” I asked.
“I guess I just don’t know what you know and what you should know, Nikki. He never gave me instructions. He just told me he’d want you here, you know, when the time came.” Dad’s voice got even quieter than before.
“You’re still not telling me something, Daddy.”
“Nikki. I don’t know what to say. He was sick. He’d known for years he would probably get sick. Or sicker, I guess. He told me how his mom had died when he was young and how he’d been very sick with a childhood cancer when he was a toddler. His mother didn’t share much with him. I guess she never handled life very well anyway. He was sick again sometime after his mother died. Before he moved to Deltaville, I think. His grandfather knew enough to tell him is was the same thing that had made him sick when he was a baby, and it would likely come back. I think he felt like he was a walking time bomb. He didn’t know enough about it. He didn’t know what could happen, but it was a burden he’d carried with him since he was a boy. He knew he could never fall in love, have a family, have a wife. He knew he couldn’t live a normal life. Honey, when you were together years ago, he decided he couldn’t ever marry you. Because he thought he’d end up leaving you and maybe your children before you all were ready. I guess it was something he’d thought about since losing his own parents at such a young age.” Dad paused again, went into a bedroom, and returned with a blanket and a box of tissues. “Honey,” he started again, “He loved you more than anything. He told me he became mean to you before you broke up. Did he…did he ever do anything to hurt you?”
I took the blanket and tissues and didn’t say a word. For the second time in a few hours, I was bowled over. My mind kept going back to the letter I read in the boathouse. I left it there, sitting next to the guitar, and I couldn’t remember what it said. Some of what Dad was saying felt familiar, but it hurt so bad and so deep.
“Nikki?” I could hear my dad’s voice, but it was faint. “Nikki, did he ever hurt you? What did he mean by those words? How was he mean to you?”
“No, Daddy. He never hurt me. I mean not in the way you’re thinking. He broke my heart, Daddy. I loved him so much. I wanted to marry him. I wanted to have his children!” As I said those words, an image of Chris came into my mind, and guilt flooded my senses. I still loved Will. And I was losing him again. But truly forever this time. “Daddy, he left me. He told me we didn’t want the same things. He told me he couldn’t love me and give me what I wanted, what I needed.” I was speaking quickly, and my voice was sharp. I took a deep breath and slowed down. “Daddy, it all makes sense now. He did love me. But he knew he’d probably die in the height of our lives. Daddy, if I’d married him, he would be leaving us, in my life now…with two babies.” I knew what I was saying didn’t make sense. I wouldn’t have Emily and Bella if I’d married Will years ago. If we’d had kids they’d probably be much older because we would have started earlier in our lives. Instead, it took me years after our break up to meet Chris and more years to have a family. Anger overtook me again. I felt a wave of heat rush over my whole body. I stood up, threw the
blanket to the floor and screamed, “Fuck him, Daddy. Fuck him.” I cried. Falling to the floor, I hugged my knees and cried, my whole body shaking.
Daddy sat on the floor beside me and hugged me. Once I felt his arms around me, I started rocking. Finding a rhythm matching my anger, I rocked and sobbed and rocked some more, then I pulled away and said, “He chose my path for me, Daddy. I wanted to marry him, Daddy, and he decided for me it wasn’t best. He took away what could have been the best years of my life. I was heartbroken for years. I couldn’t date, I couldn’t move on. He decided for me. Without me knowing why. He just told me he couldn’t be what I wanted. Dammit! Dammit, Daddy. Didn’t I deserve better? Why didn’t he tell me and let me choose to spend all these years with him? What if he didn’t develop this illness? What if it never happened? He never gave me the choice! Ugh! I’m so mad at him, Daddy. I’m so mad.” I couldn’t stop crying, and my words were becoming mumbled and not making sense.
“I knew it would upset you, Nikki. That’s why I was hesitant to tell you all he told me.” Daddy rubbed my back while I began rocking again. “He told me he loved you more than anything, and he wanted you to have a full life without having to lose him, who knows when, and he…,” Daddy paused again. “He never wanted to put children through what he went through, losing his mother so young and then losing his father after not having him while growing up. Both before he was a grown man. Nikki, I think he thought he was doing what was best for you. Because he loved you so much. He loved you more than I knew, and I think he loved you more than even you knew. He broke up with you because he loved you, and he wanted you to find true love again and live a full life, with a husband and children. He knew you’d find love again. And his hope was you wouldn’t lose it like when his father left his mother at the height of their lives.”
“Didn’t he think? Think about life? All we missed together? All we could have had? And Daddy, just because I haven’t lost my husband to something like an illness that has haunted him for a lifetime, doesn’t mean I won’t lose him to other things, like a car accident, walking in front of a bus, a motorcycle accident, an airplane falling from the sky…” I was beginning to feel sick thinking of all the many ways I could lose Chris. And I was still pissed because Will took away all of my choices so long ago. “Daddy, Will could have been hit by a car the day of our wedding. If we’d had a wedding.” I just stopped talking. The familiar feeling of numbness washed over my body again. My whole future had been essentially decided for me. Then it hit me. He chose Rebecca to go through everything, but maybe never thought I was strong enough to handle losing him myself. Yet he called me home to watch him die. He’d asked me to leave the family I’d created years after he broke my heart, so I could be here to watch him die. Feeling numb, I just let the tears roll down my cheeks.
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