by Lori Bell
Mrs. Ryman felt herself gasp. Her hand, that she lifted to cover her mouth, instantly began to shake. Tears formed in her eyes. And then she lashed out. “How dare you! I will not let you use my husband’s memory like this! Why would he come to you? Why not me? I won’t listen to this nonsense!” Mrs. Ryman choked on a sob as Edie persisted.
“I swear to you, it’s true. He was real. He looked like himself, his old self. Healthy and handsome.” Edie was not sure if she should have so boldly described him as handsome, but she believed he was. He and Tate shared some beautiful features. Mrs. Ryman shook her head, and then bowed it, and held it in her hands. She didn’t feel well. This was all too much for her to hear. She didn’t believe it. Why would she? Why would her husband come to Edie of all people? Why had he not come to her? If he was going to cross over from the other side, he would come to her. She was his wife of forty-eight years.
“I realize this is all too much, but your husband led me on a journey of warning. I know how ridiculous this will sound to you, but my car accident was not something that just happened because of the fog or my inability to keep my car on the road. I was purposely run off of the road. My sister tried to have me killed.” There, she had said it. With very little warning, Edie had spoken some awfully shocking words. Words that Mrs. Ryman literally could not handle hearing. Because she now knew it was true. Rex had come back to warn Edie about her sister. What would Rex think of his wife now? Mary Lou was ashamed and frightened. What in God’s name had grief done to her?
The room started spinning. She reached for her empty coffee cup and knocked it over on the tabletop. She was suddenly on the verge of passing out. Edie saw her eyes roll back into her head. Edie quickly stood up, called her name, and caught her by the shoulders when she slumped sideways and nearly fell off the chair. When Edie screamed for Tate, he was just then turning the knob on the door to come back inside.
“Call an ambulance!” Edie shouted, as Tate let the door swing open and it hit the stopper on the wall hard and ricochet back toward him.
“What the hell happened?” he yelled, in full panic mode, as he rushed toward his mother who was limp, and slumped forward.
“She passed out!” Edie was in complete panic mode. She would have to admit to him later that she confessed her secret. And it obviously had been too much for her. If something happened to Tate’s mother now, it would be on Edie’s hands, and he would never forgive her. Tate was right when he told her that his mother was too fragile in her state of grief. She was easily broken, and Edie had pushed her to the breaking point.
When the paramedics rushed through the door, Edie stood back. Her heart was racing. This was not her intention. She honestly had believed that by telling Mrs. Ryman the truth, she would be able help to her cope in her state of grief. Little did Edie know that this was not Mrs. Ryman’s plan either. She had invited Edie into her home for coffee. Coffee that she had spiked with Edie’s own prescription pain medicine. Tate and Edie had left the house yesterday at lunchtime. That’s when she entered through the unlocked mudroom door and went into the kitchen, where she stole the bottle of pills off of their countertop. The plan was simple, or so it seemed. They didn’t need a hitman to take care of Edie. With her own pills in her system, it would be understood. She was a troubled woman who had not dealt with her painful past, they would say, and so she took her own life.
Only, sometimes, things do not quite pan out as premeditated. Edie never drank more than a sip of the coffee that Mrs. Ryman had set in front of her. It was Mrs. Ryman who had finished every last drop of her own that had mistakenly contained all of the pre-crushed pills. That mix-up was what led Mary Lou Ryman to being the one the paramedics were frantically trying to resuscitate on her own kitchen floor.
Chapter 15
Tate was back in the waiting room at Bayhealth Medical Center, only this time he wasn’t alone. Edie was beside him. He was quiet when they first sat down. He already said all that came to mind as they drove well over the speed limit behind the ambulance transporting his mother. Tate had wanted to ride in that ambulance, but he was concerned about Edie driving. In his truck, on the way there, Tate kept asking Edie what happened to his mother. She repeated much of the same story to him. They were sitting at the table, talking, and drinking coffee. Edie was not ready to tell Tate that the woman in the kitchen was emotionally unstable. She had been unkind to Edie with her remarks, and she had obviously sunken into a depression from her grief. Depression was another word the paramedics had mentioned in the kitchen. Neither Tate nor Edie knew what respiratory depression meant or why the paramedics had asked if Mrs. Ryman had taken any kind of medication.
“What happened after Ma passed out?” Tate asked Edie quietly in the waiting room which was about half full of people.
“I heard the paramedics say her breathing was shallow,” Edie answered him. “I don’t understand all of that medical lingo and I really think they use it in front of us on purpose, because if we knew what they were really saying, we would panic even more.”
“I am panicked regardless,” Tate told her. “I just lost my Pops. I can’t go through this again.” Edie touched Tate’s leg and told him not to think like that. Just wait and see what the doctor says. Hopefully we will know something soon.
*
An hour later, Tate and Edie were called into a private office. A nurse escorted them into the room to meet with a doctor who wanted to discuss Mrs. Ryman’s condition. For Tate, this felt dire. He recalled the last time, when it was Edie lying in a hospital bed, how he was brought directly to her room to see her. It had not been good news that she was in a coma, but she had been expected to recover – and she did. Tate was grateful to have Edie by his side now. He was tired of facing health emergencies. His father’s illness for more than a year before his death had left him emotionally spent. He just wanted to resume some sort of normalcy in his life again. He was looking to do just that before Edie was in the car accident. He had wanted to make her his wife.
After the doctor told them both to have a seat in the two chairs, side by side, in front of his desk, he also sat down on the opposite end of the desk. This doctor could have passed for a resident, he was very young, but Tate chose to trust what he had to say about his mother. Tate was not a man to judge.
Tate wanted to blurt out how is she? Will my mother be okay? But, he politely waited for the doctor to speak first.
“Your mother,” the doctor looked at both Tate and Edie, and then back at Tate. “wasn’t breathing regularly when the paramedics reached the scene. A short time later, in the ambulance, her heart stopped.” Tate swallowed hard and Edie sat beside him, holding her breath, waiting for this to turn around to positive news. “She slipped into a coma afterward.”
“But she’s expected to recover, right?” Tate asked. “I mean, what exactly happened to her today? She’s always been very healthy. She’s never even been on prescription medicine in her entire life.”
“That’s where we are puzzled,” the doctor interjected. “All of the signs, and very alarming symptoms immediately alerted us to an overdose. We found excessive amounts of opioid in her system.”
“What’s that?” Tate asked.
“It’s a painkiller,” the doctor replied.
Edie’s mind raced. Mrs. Ryman was ready to give up today. And she obviously had. She tried to kill herself with Edie present. It made absolutely no sense. Why had she even wanted Edie there? She was the one who summoned her, and had not been the most welcoming to her in that kitchen today.
“I am so confused,” Tate spoke, as he looked at Edie beside him. “She has to wake up soon so she can clear up all of this craziness for us.”
“What we do know is that your mother overdosed. Her stomach was pumped to save her life, but she did suffer some serious complications to her health. Heart damage for sure. We will be running further tests once she emerges from the coma.”
Tate still had more questions, but the doctor was not the one he wanted
to ask. It was Edie.
When they were alone again, waiting to be told they could see his mother, Tate paced the floor in a private waiting room as Edie sat down and watched him.
“Word for word. I want to know everything you and Ma talked about today. We both knew how strange it was when she asked you to come over. The two of you have never had a conversation beyond the weather and who knows what the hell else! Only one of us knows what my mother wanted today.” Tate stopped walking around the room and he stood facing Edie, and she looked up at him.
“She was very hostile to me at times…” Edie carefully began. “I’ve never been the woman she wanted for you. She told me so. And, then, all the while she was talking, I could see signs. She was sad, maybe even depressed. Grief can be like a quicksand and I think your mother was sinking deeper and not able to pull herself out.”
“They were together for fifty years,” Tate defended his mother. “Of course she’s sad and feeling hopeless.”
“That’s what I thought too,” Edie agreed with him, “but then she asked me to help her die.”
“What?” Tate’s face fell. There was no way to prepare for the shock that rippled through his body.
“I know, I couldn’t believe it either. I tried talking to her about how grief will make you think and feel things to the extreme, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She chose me to help her end her life because she knows I’m familiar with grief and she also implied that it would be easy for me because I’ve never liked her.”
“This is insane!” Tate was angry, and he was lashing out at Edie.
“Tell me about it. I was so close to running outside to get you, for help, but she stopped me. I know I shouldn’t have Tate, but I thought it would have a reverse effect on her. I thought if she knew your father was okay, she would find a reason to go on…”
“Oh my God! You fucking told her about your dream!” Tate was livid.
“It wasn’t a dream,” Edie calmly defended herself, and then wished she hadn’t. The look on Tate’s face told her all she needed to know. He thought she was crazy. He had warned her to keep that story to herself. He didn’t want to upset his mother as she grieved for his father. And, now, much worse happened. Tate would blame Edie for this for sure.
“What happened when you told her?” Tate asked. His jaw was clenched and his eyes could have pierced her.
“She didn’t believe me at first because she said if her husband were to come back it would be to see her, not me. But, then, I told her he was sent to warn me about Sydney. It seemed like something clicked and she got it. She was not at all shocked that I said my sister tried to have me killed. And then she held her head and I could see she was not feeling well before she passed out.”
“And you thought she passed out because of the shock you put her through?” Tate asked Edie.
“Yes, I did,” Edie responded. “I had no idea she was taking drugs.”
“My mother does not take drugs,” Tate spoke adamantly.
“But, Tate, she said she wanted to die…” Edie attempted to convince him.
“Right, but how? And why did she need you there if she had already popped too damn many pills? And how did she even get her hands prescription medication?” Tate was so confused, but as he said those words, his eyes widened.
“Did you have your painkillers with you? Did you give my mother your meds?” His accusation was downright cruel, and not to mention outrageous.
“God, no!” Edie responded. “Who the hell do you think I am?”
“I don’t know!” Tate screamed back. “This is all just too crazy and I’m trying to piece together something that makes sense.”
“And it makes sense to believe that I would have aided your mother in overdosing?” Edie was the one angry now.
“No, of course not. I don’t know what to think. I just know my mother, and what happened today does not add up.” Tate turned away from Edie and walked over to the window. He stood in front of it, with his back to her, just as he had in the living room of their home when she told him what she experienced when she was comatose. When he couldn’t face her, he didn’t believe her. If he could not trust her, how could they ever have a life together?
*
“I need some air,” Edie said, after they shared entirely too much silence. There was tension in the room and Tate never turned around from facing the window.
She walked outside in the cold wind and stood there, feeling sheer disbelief. What had brought her to this point? She had been so triumphant for so long at not letting pain get in the way. At fourteen, life’s tragic circumstances had made her cold and even heartless. She learned to power through. She focused
on success and money and her physical appearance. Those things fulfilled her. She was happy being who she was. Who she had taught herself and forced herself to be following a terrible tragedy that altered the course of her life. Edie didn’t want to love anyone but herself. It was easier and painless that way. It somehow even worked when she met Tate. At first it had anyway. Now, things were changing.
With her hands in the pockets of her long winter white coat, she withstood the wind in her face for only a few more seconds before she reached in her handbag for her cell phone. She called for a taxi. There was a service in Dover, just ten minutes away. She wanted to go back to Mrs. Ryman’s kitchen before the police labeled it a crime scene. Because if Tate blamed her, so would everyone else. It was time for Edie to look out for herself. No one else was going to.
Chapter 16
Tate was alone in that private waiting room. Any minute, he was hoping to be told that he could see his mother. He regretted chasing Edie away, but his confusion about what happened had led to anger. Still, he never should have accused the woman he loved of drugging his mother. That made about as much sense as his mother wanting to end her life. Nothing was adding up, and Tate sat there and allowed the stress of the last few weeks to consume him. He was bent forward on the chair with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. He wasn’t near tears, but he felt terribly sad and alone.
When the nurse interrupted his thoughts, he stood up instantly. “Come with me,” she told him. “Your mother is now in her own room, and you can see her.”
Never in his entire life had Tate ever sat at the bedside of someone who was comatose. And now this was the second time in weeks. The two women he loved most in this world had dragged him through emotional hell as he sat beside their beds, wondering and waiting. First Edie, and now his mother.
She looked as if she was only sleeping. Unlike Edie, there were no wounds, no bandages to cover up any injury that had to heal. In a way, it was scarier this way for Tate. What if there was damage he couldn’t see? To his mother’s heart? What if her brain had been deprived of oxygen for too long? What if he lost his mother so soon after his father’s death?
Tate had called his sister and she was going to book the first flight out from Florida. He didn’t waste any time calling her. This was dire. Their mother was seventy-five years old and in a fragile state. She may have already given up. If what Edie said was true, she had wanted to die.
“Mom, really?” Tate spoke aloud because he knew she could hear him. Edie had confirmed that was possible. “This isn’t you. You have to fight. What they are telling me does not add up. You’ve always had a zest for life that I’ve never seen in anyone else before. Come back to that. Come back to me…”
*
Mary Lou Ryman was walking on a path that led deep into the woods. There used to be a trail just like it behind her childhood home in Dover, where she would walk for what felt like miles. She recognized that same peaceful feeling again now, which she had not soaked up anywhere else in her life for many years. She was most definitely back there, relishing it, not having a care in the world. One foot in front of the other. Her inner peace increased with every step.
In the distance, far behind her, she thought she heard her son’s voice, calling her Ma, summoning her back to him maybe? But, she o
nly wanted to keep walking. She felt as if she never wanted to turn back. Her children were adults now and they no longer needed her. Her only two granddaughters, both on the verge of becoming teenagers, lived too far away. Twice a year visits were all she had to cherish. Rex, the love of her life, was gone. He was waiting for her, and she felt strongly about going to him now. Maybe that was where this path led?
Far down that path, as far as her eyes could take her, Mary Lou could see a man’s stature. There were probably twenty or thirty trees between her and him, but she could see her husband leaning up against one. One leg bent behind him at the knee in his jeans and brown-tie shoes. His blue plaid shirt made that same color of blue in his eyes pop. She thought she had been so far away, but now she was right there, in front of
him. She had not walked faster, nor had she run to him. She just saw him, wanted to be close to him, and then she instantly was.
“Lord have mercy…it’s really you.” Mary Lou reached out her hand and Rex did the same. His touch brought her back to life. She felt happy and whole again. Tears welled up in her eyes as he put his hand on the side of her face, cupping her cheek in the palm of his hand.
“My Lou,” he said. “You need me.”
“Yes, oh yes, I always have. I just cannot do this, not without you.” Mary Lou hoped with all of her being that she was here to stay. Wherever this was, wherever he was, she wanted to be. For eternity.
Rex shook his head. “You need me to show you the way back,” he began again. “You’ve lost your way, but you can’t leave things how they are. You have to fix everything. That’s our boy. He’s in trouble. You never were a selfish woman, Lou. Don’t allow your grief for me to change who you are.”
“No…it already has. I can’t face what I’ve done. Our son, he will be so disappointed in me. I could not bear that.” Mary Lou was adamant. She was ashamed of her thoughts and her actions. Her actions that had backfired and almost took her life. She did feel relieved that she had not hurt Edie. She didn’t think she had to explain any of this to Rex. And, yes, he already knew. The two of them stood together, embracing in a forest full of color, the breathtaking colors of autumn leaves filled every tree, near and far.