Blue Wide Sky

by Inglath Cooper

  “Apparently.”

  “So do you think that’s why he went to Virginia without telling us? Because he wanted to see her.”

  Evan shrugs and looks out the window. I start to think he’s not going to answer when he finally says, “Finding out that you might have a terminal brain tumor would probably make you want to tie up some loose ends, if you had any.”

  “And she’s Dad’s loose end?”

  “When I talked to Uncle Ben, he said that — Gabby — would be at Johns Hopkins for the surgery too. So I guess we’ll get to meet her there.”

  “I don’t want to meet her,” I say, pressing my lips together.

  “Grow up, Lise.”

  “Shut up, Ev.”

  He looks at me and sighs. “Can we pause for a moment of maturity?”

  “Whatever.”

  “You know Mom and Dad weren’t happy for a long time.”

  “How would you know? Once you got your driver’s license, you were never around.”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “No, you weren’t.”

  “Okay, let me know when you’re out of primary school.”

  I fold my arms across my chest and fume at him.

  “You can keep your head stuck in the sand about what really happened between Mom and Dad or take a look at the actual truth.”

  “Dad worked all the time, and Mom got bored.”

  “She definitely got bored,” Evan says.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, frowning.

  “Right after I first went to college, I came home one afternoon during the week to pick up a few things. I didn’t call first. And Mom was . . . entertaining.”

  I lean back and give him a narrow glare. “Who? A man?”

  “Yeah, a man.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “No, but I doubt I would have recognized him with his clothes off.”

  “You walked in on them?” I ask, my voice rising.

  “The living room couch was their spot of choice. It wasn’t exactly something I could avoid.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Evan leans back and closes his eyes. “Keep living in Neverland then, Lise.”

  I stare at my brother’s clenched face, shaking my head. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “Because I didn’t want to be the one who made you open your eyes where Mom is concerned.”

  “So why are telling me now?” I ask, my voice rising.

  He lifts his head then and looks directly at me. “Dad’s been wearing the black hat in your eyes for a long time. Maybe I just think you should give him a break given the shit deal he’s currently facing.”

  Evan’s words are harsh. He’s never spoken to me like this, and I feel tears well up. “I didn’t know,” I say.

  He studies me for a moment, sighs and reaches for my hand, taking it between his the way he used to do when I was a little girl and got scared about something. “Just let up, Lise. You’ve punished him enough.”

  Now that I’ve let the tears out, they won’t stop, and I taste their saltiness on my lips. “Is he going to be all right, Evan?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “What if he’s not?”

  “Let’s not go there, okay? Uncle Ben is the best at what he does.”

  I know this is true. I’ve read the many articles Dad has saved about him throughout the years. I know how proud he is of his brother. But what if he’s not good enough to save my daddy?

  “I’ve been so awful to him, Ev.”

  “I haven’t seen him much during the past year,” he says. “I’ve been so caught up in my own world that I didn’t call as much as I meant to.”

  “Sounds like we both need a second chance.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What if we don’t get it?” I ask softly.

  “Then I hope we can figure out how to live with it.”

  The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.

  ~ W.M. Lewis

  Gabby

  I leave home at four a.m. The first part of the drive goes quickly because there’s almost no traffic. I stop for coffee a few times, but I can’t eat. Just the thought makes me feel ill.

  Outside of DC, the traffic starts to build, and I lose over an hour to constant starting and stopping. By the time I get to the hospital, my hands are shaking with anxiety. I’ve never been so glad to get out from behind the wheel.

  I check the notes on my phone for the information Ben had given me on where to go. I ask for directions at the front desk and take the elevator to the correct floor. Ben had told me there would a waiting area outside the operating room and that I might be able to see Sam for a minute before they take him in.

  I open the door to the waiting room. A young man and a teenage girl are standing by the window, staring out. They turn at the sound of the door, and I realize they are Sam’s children.

  “Hello,” I say. “I’m Gabby Hayden. You must be Evan and Analise.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Evan says. He walks over and sticks out his hand to me. His English accent, so different from Sam’s, is startling. “It’s very nice to meet you.”

  Analise walks over, her steps noticeably reluctant. “Hello,” she says in a pretty English voice.

  “Hello, Analise. It’s nice to meet you too.”

  “Have you seen my dad?” she asks abruptly.

  I lose my footing for a moment, but respond evenly with, “Not this morning, no.”

  “They wouldn’t let us see him,” she says, and her eyes go liquid with tears.

  “I’m sure there’s a reason,” I say, my heart softening for the girl’s pain.

  “We got here over an hour ago,” she says, “and we haven’t even seen Uncle Ben.”

  The door behind us opens just then, and Ben steps into the room. “Hey,” he says, his voice heavy with the weight of what he is about to attempt.

  Analise runs across the room and buries herself in his arms, crying. “Uncle Ben, tell me he’s going to be okay.”

  Ben closes his eyes for a moment, rubbing a hand across Analise’s beautiful blonde hair. “I wish I could make you that promise, sweetheart. But I’m afraid I’m just the instrument. And I will do everything I possibly can to have the outcome your dad would want.”

  Evan walks over and Ben also pulls him into the hug. “Good grief, you two have grown up.”

  “Yeah,” Evan says.

  “You’ve both met Gabby then?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Just now.”

  “We’ll be bringing Sam down the hall just outside this room in a few minutes. You can see him for a few moments then.”

  “How long will the surgery take, Uncle Ben?” Analise asks, her voice wavering.

  “It depends on a lot of things, sweetheart. Expect a long wait.”

  He hugs them again and then walks over to hug me. “A nurse will call the phone in this room as soon as we’re done, okay?”

  I nod. “Thank you, Ben.”

  “I’ll see you all in a bit,” he says and leaves the room.

  Once he’s gone, the three of us are silent, and it feels as if we’re trying to process all the possible outcomes.

  “We should wait in the hall,” Analise says. “So we don’t miss him.”

  “I can stay in here,” I say. “Give you some time alone with your dad.”

  “No,” Evan says. “He would want to see you. And this needs to be about him. Not us.”

  It feels as if the statement has been made for Analise as much as for me, and while I suspect she doesn’t agree with him, she says nothing.

  We wait in the hall for almost ten minutes before the elevator dings, and a young man with dark hair wheels a gurney out. I see Sam lying there, his eyes closed, his face pale.

  “Daddy!” Analise cries out and runs to him.

  His smile is weak, but he reaches out a hand to take hers. “Hey, sweet girl.”

  “Daddy,” she says, and, like a c
hild needing her father’s comfort, leans over and hugs him tight.

  “It’s going to be okay, Lise. Please don’t cry.”

  “Daddy, I’m so sorry . . . for being so awful to you.” She tries to add something else, but her sobs won’t let her.

  “Analise. I love you, sweetie. We’re good, okay. Whatever happens today, just don’t ever forget how much I love you.”

  Evan stops at the other side of the gurney, taking Sam’s hand in his. “Hey, Dad. I love you. You know that, right?”

  “I know that, son. And I love you.”

  He looks up then and finds me. We hold each other’s gaze for a long moment, and I let him see everything I feel for him. It doesn’t need words. It never did.

  “Ev and Lise, I need you to promise me something.”

  “What, Dad?” they ask in unison.

  “That if I’m not around after this, you’ll take care of each other. Be kind to each other.”

  “Don’t say that, Daddy,” Analise says, crying harder now.

  “Gabby,” Sam says, “can you come here, please?”

  I walk over to the gurney with my heart pounding in my throat.

  “There’s one more thing I want you both to know, Ev and Lise. If I wake up from this, and I don’t remember certain things, I need for you to know that I love Gabby too. I don’t know whether we’ll ever get to be together or not. Whether I’ll wake up or not. But I love her. And I love you.”

  None of us is able to stop the tears streaming down our faces.

  “Onward,” Sam says to the man behind the gurney.

  And as we stand there watching it disappear down the hall and through the doors marked “Surgery,” I wonder how any of us will possibly survive the wait.

  People seldom actually fit into our pigeonholes.

  ~ Author Unknown

  Analise

  I really don’t want to like her.

  I’m sitting across the room from Evan and Gabby, staring at my phone screen and acting as if I don’t hear what they’re talking about. Don’t care what they’re talking about.

  A text comes through from Mom. I decide not to answer it. If she really cared about what is happening to Dad, she would be here.

  Like Gabby.

  “How long has your family lived at Smith Mountain Lake?” Evan asks her.

  “My great-grandfather bought the land in the late 1800s. He had no way of knowing that some of it would later be turned into a lake, but lucky for my family, it was part of the Appalachian Power project, and we ended up with a lot of waterfront property.”

  “That’s really cool,” Evan says.

  “Like most things,” Gabby adds, “not too many people were for it in the beginning.”

  “I can imagine. What year was the lake started?”

  “The dam was started in 1960. I think it took about four years to—”

  “Will you stop?!!?” I bolt out of my chair, screaming, “How can you sit there and talk about stuff that doesn’t matter in the least?”

  Evan gives me a look and says, “Chill, Lise. We’re just trying to make it through here.”

  “By talking about trivial crap?”

  “Now you’re being rude,” Evan says, his mouth taking on a disapproving straight line.

  “It’s okay,” Gabby says. “We don’t have to talk.”

  Her tone is so nice and sympathetic that I instantly feel like the world’s biggest bitch. “I’m sorry,” I start, shaking my head. “It’s just—”

  Gabby gets up and crosses the floor to sit down next to me. She puts a hand on my shoulder and says, “You don’t have to be sorry.”

  I start to cry outright then, great rivers of tears that make me feel as if I am drowning.

  “Come here, honey,” Gabby says, pulling me into her arms.

  I resist at first, but honestly, her willingness to offer me comfort pulls me in, and I press my face to her shoulder, realizing I’m getting her sweater all yucked up. But she doesn’t seem to care. She just holds me tight and rubs my hair, the way Mom used to when I was a little girl, and she actually seemed to like being a mother.

  Evan comes over and sits down on the other side of me, patting my arm in the awkward way a brother does when he wants to show you affection, but realizes his cool factor is in jeopardy.

  I stop crying eventually, my sobs becoming sniffs. But even after I do, Gabby keeps her arms around me. And I stay where I am. Because for the first time since Uncle Ben called and told us about Dad, I feel like someone else really gets how scared I am.

  It’s not the straightest of lines — the walk between hope and faith.

  ~ Author Unknown

  Gabby

  We’ve been in the waiting area for almost nine hours when the phone on the small table by the door rings.

  “Will you answer it, Gabby?” Analise says, her voice small and afraid.

  I look at Evan and he nods once.

  I pick up the receiver, my hand shaking as I say, “Gabby Hayden.”

  I listen as the nurse on the other end gives me the update we have all been waiting for. My heart initially lifts, wavers on its plateau and then dips again.

  “I—thank you,” I say. “We’ll wait here for Dr. Tatum to come in.”

  I replace the receiver on the phone, closing my eyes for a moment before turning to face Analise and Evan.

  “Your dad is out of surgery. But he will go from recovery to the ICU. They have him listed in critical condition. The nurse said your uncle Ben will be in to talk to us in a little while.”

  I see the effect my words have on each of them. They are feeling the same things I’m feeling. Gratitude that he has survived the surgery. Terror for what will happen from here. I sit on the chair behind me, feeling suddenly too weak to stand.

  Both Analise and Evan come over and take my hands in theirs. And we all hold on to one another.

  ~

  BEN WALKS INTO the room almost an hour later.

  I don’t think I have ever seen anyone look so exhausted. Fatigue hangs on him like a weighted coat.

  Analise jumps up to hug him. He wraps his arms around her and squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. When he speaks, his voice is ragged with emotion.

  “I was able to get almost all of the tumor. As we thought based on the scans, it appears to be benign, although it will still be biopsied.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Analise says, crumpling against him.

  Ben hesitates, as if having trouble getting out the rest. “I’m afraid he did experience a significant bleed though. He has a fight ahead of him over the next forty-eight hours or so. Let’s just pray he’s strong enough to get through it.”

  I stand and take Ben’s hand in mine. “He will, won’t he?” I ask, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

  “It’s up to him from here,” Ben says, his eyes shadowed with worry.

  “Can we see him?” Analise asks.

  “Not for a while, sweetie,” Ben says. “Let’s give him some time, okay?”

  “Okay,” she says quietly.

  Once Ben leaves the room, we each take our seats again.

  Waiting, while Sam fights.

  We can change courses, if we know the direction of the storm.

  ~ Author Unknown

  Gabby

  I’m alone in the waiting room. It’s been three days since Sam’s surgery.

  Analise and Evan left a couple of hours ago to go to their hotel and try to get a little sleep. I told them I would call if anything at all changed.

  The door opens, and Ben walks in. My heart throbs with painful expectancy. He still looks so tired. It’s as if he’s siphoned off much of his own life force in an attempt to infuse Sam with it.

  Please don’t let him be worse. Please don’t let him be worse. The words pound through my head with the beat of a heavy drum.

  Ben says something, and I shake my head a little, not sure if I heard correctly.

  “What did you say?” I ask.

  “Sam is
awake.”

  I drop onto the chair behind me, my legs unable to support me. “Oh, thank God. Thank you, Ben. Thank you.”

  He comes over and sits down next to me, putting his arms around me and pulling me to him. “I thought we were going to lose him, Gabby.”

  “I know. I could see it in your face, even though you were trying to hide it.”

  “I did my best to stay objective, but he’s my brother. And I love him.”

  I nod, crying now as I have not let myself in the past few days. It felt as if crying would mean I had accepted that Sam wasn’t going to win the battle. Now that I’ve started, I can’t stop.

  Ben rubs my hair and lets me cry. I suspect he would like to do the same. Probably needs to do the same.

  He starts to say something, then stops, as if he can’t figure out how to say it. “Gabby . . . he . . . Sam doesn’t recognize me.”

  My heart drops. We had known it was a possibility, but I guess I have been hoping for a miracle. “Do you think . . . will it be permanent?”

  “The memories can come back. Some of them. It’s really going to be a matter of wait and see.”

  When I can finally breathe again, I say, “I’ve heard that it’s only in nearly losing something that we can truly understand what we have. It’s true. I knew I loved Sam. Knew that I had never loved any other man the way I love him. But I will never be able to explain the gratitude I have for this second chance we’ve been given to start over. If he’ll have me, that’s what we’ll do.”

  “You’ll take good care of him?” Ben asks, leaning back to look down at me. “He’s going to need you, Gabby. He’s going to need a lot of help for a while.”

  “I will do everything I can,” I say.

  “Would you like to see him?”

  “It’s okay?”

  “Yes, I think it would do him good to see your face. But you have to be prepared for—”

  “I want to see him, Ben.”

  “Come on, then,” he says. I follow him from the room, my hands shaking.

  Ben walks with me to Sam’s room, but just outside, he says, “I’ll let you two have some time alone. Be back in a few minutes.”