“You never told me.” I would have made sure Brandon did any tests he needed.
“We can’t tell you because of the HIPPA laws.”
“That’s stupid!” I couldn’t believe this. “I’m his wife. I have a right to know.”
“Believe me, if we could have told you, we would have. But according to the law…”
“Are you serious?” I yelled. “You knew he was going to die and you didn’t do anything to make sure he got the tests done that would save his life?”
“Luisa, that’s not the way it was. We didn’t know he was going to die. I didn’t even know for sure that anything was wrong. Often people can have an irregular EKG and it turns out to be nothing. Sometimes a single test isn’t conclusive. That’s why we do more tests.”
“It wasn’t nothing! He died! Isn’t that conclusive enough for you?”
I left.
I couldn’t bear to hear his voice any longer. If he had done what he was supposed to, Brandon would be alive right now. If I had known that there had been problem, I would have convinced Brandon to get the tests done, and he would have because he loved me. If he had understood how serious this was, he would have taken whatever tests he needed to take. He wouldn’t intentionally neglect this, knowing it could be serious. The doctor must not have explained it clearly.
I hated that man.
. . . . .
A few weeks later I received a letter from the doctor. It was short and to the point. He had decided to sell his practice. He would be leaving in a few months, and if I wanted to see the doctor who was buying his practice, I should call the office and make the arrangements. He thanked all of his patients and wished everyone well.
And me and Brandon?
CHAPTER 22
That night, alone in our home again, I wandered from room to room, the lights out. I could still smell Brandon’s cologne in the living room. I remembered his laugh when I went to the living room. Upstairs, I felt the touch of his hands on my skin.
I cried again that night, as I did every night. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. I just kept thinking about Brandon and what had happened. If only I had another chance. If only the doctor had told me. If only I could go back in time. Everything would be different. The if only’s tormented me. The house tormented me. The studio tormented me. Loneliness tormented me. Life tormented me.
I went to the bathroom where I’d found him and as I had done many times sank to the floor in the same spot, desperate for a connection to him. I’d heard his voice once. I needed to hear him again. If I closed my eyes, I could see him lying there, see myself pressing on his chest, begging him not to die. I opened my eyes to the reality of the emptiness around me.
I should have died, not Brandon. I was older. He was so strong, so sure. I was the weak one, the one who needed him. How could he be the one to die?
Lying on the bathroom floor, the pain of losing my soul mate overwhelmed me, and I wailed, tears spewing. I pounded the tile floor, kicked at the sink cabinet and yelled at Brandon, at God. I couldn’t go on without my husband, my love.
“I can’t!” I yelled. “No!”
. . . . .
I sat alone in the kitchen on Sunday when the gym was closed. For hours I didn’t move. I ate nothing. I didn’t even go to church. I just thought and remembered.
The premonition I’d had months earlier, about my father dying, I had come to understand. The figure in the dream had been unclear. Of course, now I knew who it was. I should have been smarter. I should have understood the signs. God had been trying to tell me, but I didn’t listen. I could have done something. I could have saved Brandon. I’d failed him.
Staring outside at the white covering of winter, I felt that my heart was like the snow outside, frozen over, lifeless. I started thinking about how much Brandon, unlike me, enjoyed the winter. For him to die during that time, what did that mean? Was that a good sign for him? For me, it made it so much worse. So much darkness, isolation. But maybe for him, it was a sign that his death was…
My train of thought was suddenly broken. Outside the window, on the back porch, I saw a shape in the snow. I got up from the stool at the kitchen island where I was sitting and walked to the window so I could see it clearly. Still questioning what was before my eyes, I went to the sliding door that opened onto the deck and pulled it open. The deck sprawled out before me, covered in white. There, at the edge of it, was a shape in the snow, the unmistakable form of a heart. But not just a heart. It was a heart separated in the middle with an unsteady line, as though it were broken into two pieces.
It took my breath away.
. . . . .
“It represents the two of you,” she told me. “And it’s also his heart and your heart, separately. Both of you are heartbroken.”
I sat in the kitchen, my laptop on the granite island, staring at the medium who I had Skyped in hopes of getting answers, clarity, relief.
“He is still with you in spirit,” the medium said.
“I want to feel his presence,” I said.
“You will. Be patient. Right now all you feel is pain. When that subsides, you’ll be able to feel him. He’s there with you.”
“How do I know? How do you know?”
“I can feel his intentions, his thoughts. Jewelry,” she said.
“What about jewelry?”
“I’m getting a sense of the importance of jewelry to him. Do you know why I’m getting that? Does that mean something?”
“Yes!” I held up my wrist in front of the laptop camera. “He gave me this bracelet just a few days before he died and asked me never to take it off.”
“Well, that does mean a lot to him.”
“So he is here?”
“He’s with you, Luisa.”
“I need a sign.”
“I think the snow and the jewelry are signs.”
“I need more.”
“What more do you need?”
“I want to feel him. I can’t bear being without him. This house is so empty and lonely. I miss him so much. I need to know for sure that he’s still with me. Ask him to move something in the house, this chair I’m sitting on, the microwave, something so I’ll know for sure.”
“I think what you’re asking is too large,” she told me.
“Please. I need it.” I started to cry. “Please. Brandon,” he said, looking out into the emptiness of the house. “Please give me a sign.”
The medium was silent for a moment, her eyes closed. Then she opened them and looked at me through the computer.
“Put something small in the bedroom,” she said. “He’ll move it for you.”
. . . . .
We ended the call. I went straight to the bedroom and placed a lipstick tube on the left side of the dresser. I made sure there was nothing else on top, nothing to interfere, only the photo of the two of us in Jamaica on the far right side. I made a mental note of exactly where the lipstick was. If it moved even an inch, I’d know.
Then I went to bed. I struggled to sleep, staring across the darkness at the dresser, hoping to see the lipstick slide. But it did not move. Finally I drifted to sleep. When I woke in the morning light, I sat upright and glared at the dresser. The lipstick was exactly where I’d left it. No sign. Hope slowly seeped away from me. Maybe I was all alone and would always be. If that was the case, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go on. It would be so much better to be with Brandon.
Catholicism had ingrained in me that suicide was a mortal sin. If I killed myself, I would not go to Heaven where Brandon was. I would never see my love again. That realization, at the lowest moments, like rig
ht then, seeing the lipstick tube unmoved, that realization was the only thing keeping me from taking whatever pills I had to in order to kill myself.
. . . . .
I continued my routine as much as possible in the next days. Work, sleep, little else. Every evening I pulled into the garage and sat, trying to gather the strength to go inside the emptiness of our former home. Each time it got more difficult.
Every time I entered the bedroom I checked the lipstick. Every single time it was exactly where I’d left it. Every single time, my heart sank deeper into the darkness. The photo of us in Jamaica stared back at me, reminding me of how happy we’d been, how much I’d lost.
I stopped eating. I didn’t care. I realized there was one way out, the only way out. I couldn’t kill myself. But people died all the time from not eating and drinking, and they were not condemned for it. They were not denied Heaven.
CHAPTER 23
I pulled into the garage and left the motor running. Tears blurred my surroundings. As I climbed down out of the Escalade, I smelled exhaust in the garage and heard the engine ticking as it cooled. It made me so angry that I couldn’t just let the fumes do the job and end my pain.
The house was silent. I couldn’t stand it. My footsteps echoed off the tile floors and bare walls, reminding me of how empty the house was. I sipped Grand Marnier on the sofa, trying to disappear. Then, feeling strange, like maybe it was finally time, maybe God was finally going to take me, I went upstairs so it would happen in the bedroom.
“God, please let me make it to bed,” I said out loud, my voice echoing in the emptiness.
Dizzy, I collapsed onto the bed. I felt a strange sensation, as though my soul was separating from my body. God was taking me.
“I’m ready,” I said.
I had almost no strength left. The dizziness had become a noise in my head, a deafening cacophony. I squeezed my temples. It was painful.
“Take me, God,” I shouted.
Relief. Salvation. I will have both at last, I hoped in desperation.
“God, is this my time?” I called out.
Through the noise in my head and the darkness surrounding me, I heard his voice. Yes…
I started crying, thankful that it was finally happening.
Wait, I wanted Brandon’s ashes with me. But they were downstairs, on the fireplace mantel. I wasn’t sure I could make it. But I wanted him there. I needed him. I pushed myself out of bed. My head was spinning. I had to hold the bed for a moment to steady myself, and then I found the strength to walk toward the door.
“God, please let me get the ashes,” I said out loud.
As I passed the dresser to get to the door, I glanced down as I had done dozens of times in the last several days. It was automatic. My eyes went to the lipstick tube. To where it had always been, never moved.
Except tonight it was not there.
I stopped. Confused. That was the spot, wasn’t it? My eyes wildly searched the darkness of the room, thinking at first that I was confused about where I’d left it, but then knowing that I was not mistaken. It had been there on the far left side and had remained on the far left side, day after day, unmoved, proving that I was alone.
Then I saw it.
“Oh, my God…” I couldn’t move, just stared. I know I hadn’t touched it. I hadn’t moved it. It had to have been Brandon. And the place it moved to made complete sense.
I took a step toward it and leaned closer to make sure I was seeing it right. Yes. The lipstick tube had moved all the way across the dresser top and was now resting against the frame of the photo of Brandon and me in Jamaica.
I picked up the photo and stared at the two of us in one of the happiest times of our lives, when we were the closest we ever had been, the most in love. With my eyes fixed on the two of us smiling, I staggered backward to the bed and slowly sank down, sitting on the edge.
The image became blurry and I realized now that tears were flowing from my eyes. I squeezed my eyes closed, pressed the picture to my chest and settled backward until I was lying on the bed.
With my eyes still closed, I suddenly felt a presence in the room. Someone was beside me. I smelled Brandon’s body. Not cologne this time, nothing like that. But rather him, his natural scent.
“My love,” I whispered. I felt him touch my head and stroke my hair. My body shivered. I heard his voice.
“My love,” he said back to me.
I gasped. “Oh, my God.”
“When I was on the floor in the bathroom,” he said, “why did you push so hard on my chest, my love?”
“I didn’t want to lose you.”
“You would try so hard for me?”
“I can’t live without you,” I said.
“Don’t you know I’ll always be with you?”
“I was afraid you wouldn’t.”
“No matter what, I’m always with you. I promise you.”
I cried harder now, a mixture of sadness and happiness and fear and joy all together.
“Don’t cry,” Brandon said.
“I can’t help it.”
I felt his fingers on my cheek, wiping away the tears. “I don’t want to see you sad.”
“I miss you.”
“I miss you, too.”
I felt his body against mine now. The bed moved beneath me as he shifted his weight to get closer toward me. Then I felt him on top of me.
“My love, you’re so beautiful,” he said to me.
“I love you so much,” I told him.
In an instant I felt him everywhere, around me, inside me, like a tidal wave of sensations and emotions washing over me. I was drowning in him, and I loved it. After being so long apart from each other, we were finally together, finally one again.
He would never leave me. Even death could not take away what we had between us.
I heard his voice over and over, “My love, you’re so beautiful…”
CHAPTER 24
I started start going to church again. I didn’t want to blame God for taking Brandon. I knew there must have been a reason, even though I still did not understand what that reason was. But my religion had helped me through many things in my life, and I needed to go back to that part of me to look for strength.
Every Sunday, Father Walsh’s words from that altar guided me. Sometimes he seemed to be speaking directly to me. After mass, he stood at the doors of the church, greeting everyone as they left. The way he asked me how I was doing, I knew he cared. He wasn’t just saying the words the way many people do. He cared. Knowing he cared gave me strength.
As did knowing that my friends Paula and Pat cared. Every day Paula would either call me or send me an email, checking in to see how I was. Repeatedly she offered to come over or told me to come over to her place. I always said no. I always wanted to be alone. But no matter how many times I declined, the next day she would reach out to me again. I just didn’t want to be around people, to have to smile and pretend to be happy, to have to talk about things that didn’t matter. I did enough of that at work and it was exhausting. It wasn’t Paula, it was everyone.
Pat knew me well enough to ignore my wanting to be alone. She came over anyway, made sure I slept and ate. Sometimes she stayed with me all night so I wouldn’t be by myself. She’d leave in the morning, go to work, live her life, and then come back again that night. She cared. Paula cared. Father Walsh cared.
The only one who didn’t care was me.
I came to realize that my family cared about me, even though we were on different continents. Angela called me all the time and hearing from her meant everything to m
e. For the few minutes when we were on the phone together, I wasn’t alone in the world. Her words soothed me and at the same time energized me. But after I hung up, I was alone again in that huge, empty house. Just me, my memories, my tears.
The dark winter days were smothering me.
Snow dumped more problems onto my life. Without Brandon, I not only had to run the business by myself, but I also had to shovel the snow. I had a plow clear the driveway, but everything else—the sidewalk, the front entrance, the area near the garage so I could get my car out—all fell on me. When Brandon was there, he’d do all that. If I came outside to help him, he’d send me back inside.
“It’s too cold,” he would say. “I don’t want you doing this kind of work. I’ll take care of it, my love.”
But now I had no one to send me back inside.
Storm after storm in the weeks after Brandon died I went out and shoveled. In March one new storm covered New England. I woke up to a foot of snow blocking my garage doors, with more snow still falling. But I had to get to work. I trudged outside to dig a path for my car to get out of the garage. It was a wet snow. Each shovelful I heaved out of the way seemed to weigh fifty pounds. My fingers quickly became numb from the cold. My body ached. More snow kept falling. And I kept digging. But the snow was endless. The winter was endless. Bleak, dark, difficult days that never ended. And I had to face it all alone, no hope for things to get better, just me against a world that had turned against me.
As I stuck the shovel into the snow and heaved another mound off to the side, I couldn’t take it any longer. I threw the shovel as far as I could and screamed into the falling snow, no words, just howls of anger and frustration and sadness. When I had spent all my strength screaming, I sank down into the mound of snow and wept.
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