The wooden bat Kevin had in his hand fell to the floor. He was in shock, unsure of what to do or what to say. “Mason?” he stuttered fearfully.
Masons eyes were still and direct. “Sit down,” he instructed him.
Kevin slowly slid onto the sofa directly across from him, separated by a glass coffee table. “How did you –” he began to ask.
Mason threw the key on the glass table.
“But…the alarm,” he continued.
Mason tilted his head in disgust. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, Philippians 4:13,” he slowly noted. “You read that to me every night. What kind of sick and twisted man would do that?” he asked.
“Son, I…”
“DON’T!” he aggressively stopped him. “Don’t …ever …call me son.”
Startled, Kevin stood up from the sofa. “Look, I don’t know what you want or why you are here, but you are in my house and I think you should leave.”
“First of all, this is my father’s house that he worked hard for and rightfully earned, not yours.” Mason paused. “Now, I think it’s in your best interest to sit…back…down.”
Mason’s tone was eerily calm and frightening, enough to make Kevin find himself slowly inching back into the sofa.
“I just want to know why,” he said. “Why would you…why did you think it was okay to take advantage of me, to hurt me the way you did? You are my stepfather, my mother’s husband, a preacher, for God’s sake,” he paused. “You were supposed to protect me, and instead you took from me… my life.”
Kevin searched excuses and reasons, trying to predict every possible outcome with every word, but he couldn’t craft his way out of it, not this time. “I don’t know why okay!?” He paused nervously. “You…you could have said stop,” his guilt insisted.
“As if my tears weren’t enough!” Mason yelled. “I was twelve. And every night I cried, hoping that one night you would hear me and ...stop. But you didn’t, and I couldn’t cry anymore, I couldn’t feel anymore. You had taken the fight and the life right out of me.”
“Son…I gave you everything!”
“YOU GAVE ME HATE!” Mason paused. “I hated myself” standing up from the chair, he began walking towards him, “and I hated life. I lived every day afraid of letting anyone close, thinking all they would do was hurt me and take from me what wasn’t theirs to take just like you did. I blamed myself. I blamed my mother, even God. Everyone except you.”
He took another step towards Kevin.
“I used to dream of the day I would finally face you, put a gun to you heard, blow your brains out and send you straight to Hell.”
Kevin’s face turned lifeless and pale.
“Is that what you came here to do…put a gun to my head and kill me?” He looked at Mason with an uneasy arrogance “‘Touch not mine anointed do my prophet no harm. Psalm 105:15’ Have you forgotten that, Mason? Those are God’s words. Have you forgotten that, Mason? You could have said no, but you didn’t. And what…now you’re here to condemn me to Hell? Well, I don’t see a gun in your hand, and I DON’T answer to you,” he yelled. “Now get out of my house!”
Mason chuckled.
“You’re right,” he walked to the entrance of the family room, the light casting a shadow of his frame fearfully over his stepfather. “You don’t answer to me. And I don’t need a gun to make you see that.”
For the first time, Mason saw Kevin’s arrogance and sense of being untouchable crumble. Fear gripped him from the very breaths that grew shorter and shorter as if the walls were closing in on him. He looked down at Kevin, no longer out of anger, but pity.
“For years I’ve heard and watched you bend scripture to make your wrongs right in your eyes and to justify everything you knew was pure evil,” he paused. “Now, I have one for you. Matthew 18:6. But who so shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”
He placed his hand on Kevin’s shoulder, frightening him like an electric shock. “I feel sorry for you,” he added. “You have to live with what you’ve done, not me. Not anymore.”
Mason slowly made his way back through the dining room, the kitchen, and to the front door. He heard Kevin’s voice trail behind him, trembling with fear and paranoia.
“Why did you come here?” he asked.
Mason lifted his head with his back still turned to Kevin. His hand gripped the doorknob as if his last bout of anger was consumed by it, but he didn’t turn it to open the door yet. His voice was calm and still.
“To forgive you,” he answered.
Mason turned around and looked up to the top of the stairs.
“You too, mom.”
The breeze blew beneath him, light as if he carried no weight at all walking down the hill of the driveway. Carrying with it the scent of a coming rain, he watched the clouds overhead fill the darkened sky to wash away today from tomorrow. His heart raced anxiously, beating through his chest with each step he took towards Sydney, who was standing outside of the car waiting for him. He stood face to face with her just as the rain began to fall from the sky blending with the tears that fell down the sides of his face.
“Everything is going to be okay now,” she assured him, wiping the tears from his face with her thumb. “Let’s go home.” She turned to get back into the car.
Mason couldn’t move. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he couldn’t. He tried to move his legs to walk and couldn’t feel them. As they gave out and his knees slammed into the ground beneath him, he tried to reach out for the door handle, for Sydney, but he was unable to. He called out to her, his voice barely able to reach above the sound of the rain beating against the car. By the time he saw her turn to him, it was too late.
Chapter 39
“Nothing about this is normal. Quite frankly, it shouldn’t have happened,” Dr. Larson nervously exclaimed, meeting Sydney as she rushed through the front doors of the hospital.
Dr. Larson was the physician assigned to Mason’s case two months after he fell into the coma. He was a bit friendlier than Dr. Melson, but he stammered a lot, especially when he was nervous.
The rain was coming down ferociously and, having run in without an umbrella, Sydney looked as if she had been standing outside for hours. Her wet hair dripped continuously as it draped against her glistening shoulders, and her dress stuck to her skin as if it had been tailored to her frame. None of that mattered. She brushed past the nurses in the hall and headed straight for the elevators, Dr. Larson following skittishly behind. He hadn’t stopped talking since she’d gotten there. She had grown used to his pessimism, but in that moment she didn’t want to hear it.
“Dr. Larson, please!” she yelled.
Until then he hadn’t noticed his onset of babbling.
She turned back towards the elevator door with him behind her, wiping the rain from her face. “You’ve given me a million reasons why it shouldn’t have happened.” She paused, turning to face him, “but it did; it did happen.”
The elevator door opened at the nurses’ station on the third floor. From the way it looked, it had recently been vacated; a cup of coffee sat beside the computer monitor with steam still coming from it. She had never gotten used to that blue paint on the walls and when she looked at it, she still felt sick to her stomach. Sydney walked down the long corridor, passing the other rooms; some were empty, some occupied, some filled with families smiling and laughing, and still others with sad expressions. She reached the very last room all the way at the end of the long hallway. She slowed down as she neared. The door was open and the lights were dim. She felt a light breeze brush past her, carrying with it the smell of the rain from outside.
“You opened the window,” she noted, clenching her purse, clearly afraid to walk into the room.
Dr. Larson placed his hand on hers. “It’s okay,” he said, comforting her. “Go ahead.”
&nbs
p; It was the first time he had ever made a genuine caring gesture towards her, and, given everything that was happening, a caring gesture was exactly what she needed.
Sydney took one step into the room, slow and isolated, not knowing what to expect; not knowing if she was ready to see, to feel…to know. What’s going to happen now? Her thoughts consumed the very emotions that danced along the rim of her eyelids. She should turn back around and pretend it wasn’t happening, but she couldn’t. She wouldn’t.
She took another step then, one more, closer than before. The breeze from the open window blew against her face, causing her to blink a tear that she quickly wiped away with her hands trembling, shaking almost uncontrollably.
She took another step, unable to turn back. The smell of stale white sheets that she had grown used to was drowned out by the scent of solace, drops of rain she could hear tapping against the leaves on a tree outside the window. Her eyes moved from the bland painted walls as they passed by the window to the linoleum floor that reflected the glow of the light above Mason’s bed and, with it, the shadow of him. The shadow of her Mason. No one there, not even the nurses that hovered around him could understand what Sydney felt at that moment. A moment she had waited for so long as she recalled those few words that changed her life over twelve years ago.
We’re not saying he’ll never wake up, we’re just saying you have to be patient.
She took a deep breath and against everything that felt like lead holding her back she took the next few steps, swallowing her fears, her uncertainty, her doubts…swallowing the what ifs that once plagued her. In a moment that she thought would never come, she couldn’t hold back the tears that had been held in for the last twelve years he’d laid in that very same bed in a coma, asleep, absent from the world around him. Absent from the days and nights she had laid beside him holding his hands praying for him to flinch, to blink, to whisper just one word to do something to let her know he was still there. In a moment she thought would only come in her dreams, her heart skipped the beat that she had so longed for, the very breath of her snatched by a gasp of surprise as Mason’s eyes, now open, moved from left to right trying to focus on something, someone her and the whisper of his voice called her by name. She stood only a few feet in front of him, unsure if she was dreaming or awake, but under the sound of his soft, raspy voice, she knew; she knew it was far from a dream. It was every bit of that day, that hope that she’d held onto. She ran to him and fell into his chest, feeling his heartbeat against the side of her face, knowing for the first time in twelve years when she looked up at him that he would be looking right back.
“I’ve missed you…so much,” she cried, her words lingering on uncontrolled emotions.
There was very little he could say, not knowing why, not understanding why. His eyes filled with tears and confusion as they focused on a Sydney he didn’t fully recognize. The Sydney he remembered was younger, slightly more petite, and always smiling. She had aged, her eyes swollen with tears and her hair longer than he remembered. She was still remarkably beautiful, but he could tell she wasn’t the same. The day wasn’t the same; he wasn’t the same.
Remarkably, even after having not used his voice for so long, Mason was able to speak. His words were soft and scratchy, but Sydney heard him.
“Sydney, what’s going on?” his voice quivered.
She tried her hardest to make sense of it for him, but she was too emotional to speak in complete sentences and he was too confused and too afraid of a day he’d never seen before. Something isn’t right, he thought. He had just seen her, they had just been together. He looked out of the open window and saw that it was raining, and then he remembered. Yes, it was raining and we were outside. No, wait, I was outside. I saw her and I…I. Mason remembered the feeling of what he thought had happened the feeling of him dying and there he was in a hospital room, again, and Sydney was with him but she was not the same as before.
“Sydney,” he cried, “please tell me what’s going on. Where are we? Why am I am the hospital?”
She looked up at him, wiping her eyes again and again. It took her a few minutes to stop crying long enough to talk to him, but when she did a part of Mason felt like he hadn’t heard her voice in a long time.
“Baby, just calm down, the doctors here are really good, they’ll explain everything.”
“Sydney,” he tried to reach for her hand but couldn’t. He strained just to move his hand, but yielded no more than a single isolated twitch of his fingers. “Please tell me why I am here again. What’s happened? What’s going on?”
Sydney backed away as the doctors tried to calm Mason down.
“What is he talking about? ‘Again’?” Sydney turned to the doctor in fear. “What does he mean ‘again’?”
Dr. Larson looked at Mason, whose eyes widened in fear, and then Sydney’s, whose resembled the same if not more. “They dream,” he said.
“What do you mean ‘they dream’?” Sydney asked.
“They dream,” he uttered again. “At some point Mason must have thought he’d woken up. Somewhere in his mind his life started again. It’s uncommon. Rare even, but not –”
“Oh my God!” Sydney exclaimed. “He’s not prepared for all of this. It’s been twelve years, he’s not –” Sydney rushed to Mason’s side and tried to calm him down, “Mason, it’s going to be okay,” she cried.
“I don’t –” he began.
“You’ve been here, in a coma, since your motorcycle accident. I promise, everything is going to be okay.” Sydney’s voice rushed to calm the anxiety that welled his eyes.
Fear, shock, and confusion set in. This has to be a practical joke. That’s not possible. He was just with her, outside, in the rain, in front of his childhood home. What do you mean I’ve been here since the accident? I woke up! The thought forced even more tears from his eyes. I woke up.
“Mason, my name is Dr. Larson. I need you to try and calm down: you’ve been in a coma for some time. I know all of this is a lot right now, but I need you to calm down. We are here to help you.”
Mason’s eyes moved frantically from one nurse to the other, one doctor to the other, until they fell upon the TV screen mounted to the wall in the corner of the room. He didn’t recognize the news caster but it wasn’t the new faces that nearly caused him to pass out. It was the writing that scrolled the bottom of the screen. Sunday, January 20, 2013 4:27a.m.
Oh my God …what was …it wasn’t real. None of it was real. He started to hyperventilate. He was going into shock and everyone tried to calm him down as best as they could. One of the nurses laid him fully back onto the bed and placed an oxygen mask on his face. He moved his head slowly from left to right trying to fight them, but a voice, a familiar yet strange voice calmed him to the point of stillness.
“Mom! Where’s my mom? I’m looking for my mother,” a young boy brushed past the nurses that crowded the doorway. “Mom, what’s going …on–” He couldn’t finish, as he stood in awe of Mason.
Mason turned his head, moving his face from beneath the oxygen mask. His eyes were red and swollen, but he saw him – a young boy, not yet in high-school, a few inches shorter than himself, the same complexion. Those are my eyes…those are my ears… that’s my nose.
The young boy looked at him with a shocked expression as if he had been waiting, to see him, to meet him for the very first time. Sydney placed her hand on his back and walked him to the side of the bed as Mason’s eyes followed the boy, nervously moving closer and closer.
“James…this is your dad. Mason Everett. Mason,” she cried, “this is your son James.”
My son? He remembered James. He didn’t remember how or why. He didn’t remember when. James. He remembered Erika. But how? Sydney. He lay still, unable to move by will and by his condition. His eyes filled with so many questions, but no more in fear. He just stared at the two of them, listening without saying a word to interrupt or ask a single question…he just lay there, awake for the first time in twelve ye
ars.
Epilogue
“We pick up where we left off,” Mason answered, pulling James’ attention from the window. We pick up where we left off.
Mason smiled, feeling a sudden rush of unexpected emotion form wells of tears in his eyes as they pulled up to the church. There were so many faces walking past the limousine trying to peek inside beyond the tinted windows, but none of them could see. Even as Mason smiled as if they could, there wasn’t one face he recognized until he saw one woman, frail and old, walking slowly as she hung on the arm of one of the ushers. She was barely able to lift her legs onto the steps in front of the church. Her hair was pure white, reflecting the sun like she had been crowned with a halo. Mason gasped, trying to catch his breath. Mom, he whispered to himself. The last time he’d actually seen her was at Jackson’s wedding, and his words to her had been far from pleasant. Sydney told him she’d visited a lot while he was in the hospital, but in the last year during his rehabilitation he hadn’t seen or spoken to her once. He watched her walk in, realizing that in all these years all she ever really wanted to do was say, ‘I’m sorry,’ ‘I love you’, and ‘it wasn’t your fault’. He leaned back into the seat, turning away from the window, and covered his mouth with his hands to keep the tears at bay. Even though now he realized that everything he imagined while he was in a coma never happened, he still felt like it was real. Because of that, Mason wasn’t angry anymore. He didn’t hate anymore; he didn’t hurt anymore. He looked at his mom and felt nothing but love - something he hadn’t felt in a long time.
“I think we should go in before Mom loses it,” James insisted.
They were a few minutes late, but Mason was still holding onto every minute as if he feared falling asleep and waking up to find out it had all been a dream again.
“She hasn’t lost it yet. I’m sure she’ll be fine if I wait here for a few more minutes,” he uttered.
Where We Left Off Page 21