by Daniels, J.
“Crapola. We don’t have any pancake mix,” she says, closing the doors she had opened and turning toward me. “My parents really should have stocked up before they decided to take a six month trip to Europe. I’m extremely disappointed in them.”
I chuckle and grab my keys off the counter. “Yes, how dare they not provide you with food for half the year while they go on vacation.” She scowls at me playfully, pulling the orange juice out of the fridge. “I’ll run to the store and get some. Do we need anything else?”
“We’ll need some more milk with Nolan here. Other than that, I think we’re good.” She walks over to the couch and plops down next to him. “Can you not buy apps please? How do you even know my password?” She leans her head into his and monitors his actions on her phone.
I laugh under my breath as I walk toward the door. “Alright. I’ll be back in a little while. Hold down the fort, Sir Nolan.” He shoots his dimples at me before returning to purchasing apps on Tessa’s phone.
**
I’m waiting in the checkout line at the grocery story after having grabbed the pancake mix, some milk, and a dragon coloring book I found near the greeting cards when my phone starts ringing. I pull it out of my pocket and place my basket at my feet, seeing my aunt’s name flashing on the screen.
“Hey, Aunt Mae.”
“Mia, sweetie, you need to come home.” She sniffs loudly and my heart immediately drops to the floor next to my basket.
I’m out the door, running across the parking lot within seconds. “What’s happened? Is it that stupid cold she had? Does she have a fever now or something?” I knew it was more than a cold. Fuck! My tires screech as I pull out of my parking space and drive toward the exit for the highway. My aunt sobs through the phone. “Aunt Mae, tell me what’s going on. Can I talk to her?” I hear a faint beeping sound through the phone in between my aunt’s cries. She’s in the hospital. That’s what that sound is.
“She was fine. I don’t know what happened. I went to wake her up this morning and she wouldn’t respond to me.” Her voice cracks and she starts crying harder. “She won’t wake up, Mia. The doctors are waiting for you to get here. Oh, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”
I’m crying now, sobbing uncontrollably. I have to keep wiping my eyes to be able to see the road in front of me. The hand holding the phone to my ear is shaking so badly, my aunt’s cries are fading in and out. I know what she means. My mom has a DNR. The doctors are waiting for me to get there before they take her off the machines. My mom is dying and I’m not there. I haven’t been there for her. “I’m on my way. Tell her I’m on my way!”
“Honey, she’s unconscious.”
“Tell her I’m coming!” I hang up the phone and drop it somewhere, anywhere. I don’t give a shit about my phone right now.
My attention is on the road and nothing else as I fly down the highway. The speed limit means nothing to me. Nor do the other cars on the road. I swerve in and out of traffic, taking the median occasionally when I can’t get around someone. The only thing I care about is getting to her in less than four hours. Four fucking hours. Why the hell did I leave her? I knew in my gut that I shouldn’t have left for the summer. I was selfish. I was more concerned with having an amazing summer with my best friend than taking care of my own mother. And now she’s dying and I’m not there. I wasn’t there when she got that fucking cold. I wasn’t there last night when she probably started feeling bad, and then the bad turned to worse sometime in the middle of the night. She probably called out for me in her weak voice, too weak to alert my aunt. And now I’m two hundred miles away from her and I can’t get to her fast enough.
The world blurs in front of me.
The image of my mother in a hospital bed fills my thoughts as I speed down the highway. I only stop when I absolutely have to and it’s only to pump gas. I don’t even run inside the gas station to use the restroom. But I do grab my phone that had slid underneath the back seat. I have a few missed calls from Tessa but I ignore them for now. I dial Ben’s number and it goes straight to voicemail.
“Babe, my mom is dying. I’m on my way to Fulton now.” I pause and take in two shaky breaths, wiping underneath my eyes. “I know you can’t be here with me, but can you at least call me? I just, I need to hear your voice right now. I’m not ready to say goodbye to her. I don’t really know how I’m going to get through this.” I blink, sending the tears streaming down my face. “Please call me.” I end the call, keeping my eyes on the pump. As soon as the numbers stop rolling over, I yank it out of my car and get back on the road.
How I manage to get into Fulton in two and a half hours, I’ll never understand. But I do by some miracle. Of course, I did break the speed limit by a long shot the entire way here. I pull my phone out of my pocket as I run up to the entrance. I need to tell Tessa where I am. She’s probably worried sick right now, and I can only imagine how hungry Nolan must be. After four rings, her voicemail picks up and I curse under my breath. Is nobody answering phones today? “Hey, it’s me. I’m so sorry I missed your calls but I’m in Fulton at the hospital. It’s my mom. She’s dying, Tessa.” I bit my lip to stop myself from crying. “I got the call from my aunt when I was at the grocery store and I just drove straight here. Can you tell Ben to call me? Or text me or something? I tried calling him but he didn’t answer.” I remember the groceries I left on the floor by the checkout counter. “Oh and tell Nolan I’m sorry about the pancakes. I’ll make him some the next time I see him.”
I tuck my phone away and run into the hospital, stopping at the information desk. I’m directed toward the ICU and as I run off the elevators, I see my aunt. She’s pacing outside the room, glancing down at her watch repetitively when she turns toward my footsteps. She wraps her arms around me and I cry against her shoulder. “Oh, sweetheart. I’m so sorry this happened. I swear to God she was fine yesterday. I would’ve called you if I thought it was serious.”
I pull away from her and look into the room. “Do the doctors know what happened? She was doing so well. I just, I don’t understand. She was beating it. She was going to beat it.” I watch as the nurse jots something down in my mom’s chart, her eyes shifting from the monitor to her clipboard. Just then, a man walks over to where my aunt and I are standing and holds his hand out to me. He’s wearing a white lab coat and an apologetic expression.
“Miss Corelli? I’m Dr. Stevens, the attending that’s been looking after your mom.” I shake his hand weakly, my eyes straining to look at him because they want to stay glued on my mom. Now that I’m here, she has my full attention. “I’m sure you’re aware of how sick your mom was. The treatments seemed to be working, but these things can happen. The slightest infection that wouldn’t affect a healthy person can really be detrimental to someone with her condition.”
I start crying again. “She told me a few days ago that she had a cold but she said it wasn’t a big deal. But I knew it was. I should’ve been here.” My aunt’s arm wraps around my shoulder as I blink heavily, sending the tears streaming down my face.
Dr. Stevens puts his hand on my shoulder. “Darling, there’s really nothing you could’ve done. The cancer was just too strong and your mom couldn’t fight it anymore. She’s not in any pain now.” He looks into her room briefly before turning back to me. “You take as much time as you need, okay?”
I nod and give him a weak smile before walking into the room. My aunt stays outside, giving me the privacy I need and the nurse steps out as well. I sit down in the chair and grab my mom’s hand. She’s pale but her hand is warm, and she looks peaceful. Content. Like she’s ready to let go. I bend down and press my lips to her knuckles. “Hi, Mom.”
I stay with her for hours, listening to the monitors and the light chatter of the people out in the hallway. I never once let go of her hand, not even when the nurses come in to take her vitals. I talk to her like she’s awake and watching me, listening intently to my voice. I tell her all about Ben and Nolan, and how I’ve fallen in love with the
boy that I’d once hated more than anything. I tell her that I wished she could meet the man he is now because I know she would love him. And I tell her that I want to have babies just like Nolan with him. Dimpled little versions of Ben with maybe a few of my features but mostly his. The tears come back when I realize she’ll never see me on my wedding day or meet any of her grandchildren. But I promise her that my children will know all about their grandmother and how beautiful and kind she was.
My aunt joins me after a while and we talk about the last several days she spent with her and what they did. She fills me in on every tiny detail, making me feel like I was there instead of miles away. I keep checking my phone but never hear from Tessa or Ben, and I can’t hide the sadness that overwhelms me when neither one of them contact me. Especially Ben. I need to hear his voice. I need him with me, but he doesn’t call me or text me and I don’t understand why. And as time drags on, the hurt in my heart grows to the point of being agonizing. Maybe I had imagined what we had together. Maybe he didn’t love me. Maybe this was all just some game to him, tricking his sister’s annoying best friend into loving him. And when Dr. Stevens comes in to ask if we’re ready to say our goodbyes, I lose it. I drop to my knees and cry harder than I ever have before. I cry over losing my mom to this bullshit disease that doesn’t care whose lives it ruins, I cry over my selfishness and the fact that I chose a summer with Ben over my last summer with my mom, and I cry because the man I love doesn’t care enough to comfort me over the phone. I know he can’t be here with me. He has to work. But he could’ve called. And as I stand outside my mom’s room, watching them cover her up with a white sheet, that familiar hate I once reserved just for him comes right back up to the surface.
“You know, I think it’s really amazing that your mom wanted to donate her body to science. She could be the reason they find a cure for that fucking disease.” I can’t help but laugh at my aunt’s use of profanity. She never cusses around me. Her hand tucks a piece of hair behind my ear that has fallen out of my hair tie. “Are you going to stick around here for a while or are you heading back to Alabama?”
I glance down at my phone again. Still nothing. “I don’t have any reason to go back to Alabama.”
“Isn’t being in love a good enough reason?” she asks.
“Not when it’s one-sided.” I look down at my phone and squeeze it tightly, willing it to ring. “He didn’t even care about me enough to text me. You really can’t get more impersonal than a text, and that was still too much for him.” I meet my aunt’s pitiful gaze. “It’s fine. I’m used to hating Ben. It’s not very difficult. I can get my stuff mailed to me that way I don’t ever have to go back there.” The thought of never seeing Nolan again makes my stomach churn. But seeing Nolan meant seeing Ben. The Ben that doesn’t care enough.
She takes a sip of the coffee she’s been nursing for the past hour. “Why don’t you step outside and get some air. It’ll be good to get out of this stuffy atmosphere for a few minutes. Clear your head a little.”
I nod in agreement and take the elevators down to the main level, walking out of the entrance I came sprinting through several hours ago. As soon as I step onto the sidewalk, my phone starts beeping like crazy in my pocket. Startled, I pull it out and watch as the number of missed calls from Tessa’s cell phone rack up. But still nothing from Ben.
How the hell did I miss this many calls?
And then it hits me. There isn’t any cell phone reception in the hospital. I begin listening to the voicemails she left me. The first several are wondering where I am, telling me that Nolan is driving her nuts with his impatience. Then she tells me that Nolan was messing with her phone again and she noticed that he turned the volume down and that’s why she missed my call. She tells me she’ll call Ben and I can’t help the aggravation I feel at that statement. She cries in the next message, asking me to call her so she can find out what’s going on with my mom. As soon as she starts talking about Ben not answering his phone, I delete the message and go on to the next one. If she had any excuses for him, I didn’t want to hear them. He obviously didn’t love me because if you loved someone, you’d take five seconds out of your day to send them a text when their mother is dying. One fucking word could’ve been sent to me. A simple sorry. But no. I needed him and he didn’t care. He doesn’t love me. And that realization stings my entire body with a discomfort I’ve never felt before. But just when I think my world can’t crumble anymore, I reach the last voicemail in my inbox.
“Mia, Ben’s been shot. He’s been fucking shot. I don’t know anything except for that they’re taking him to St. Joseph’s hospital. Please call me. Please.”
I can hear the restrained panic in Tessa’s voice. I fall to the ground, my knees hitting the sidewalk and causing a shooting pain to ride up my thighs. But that’s not the pain that has me struggling to breathe. “Oh no, God. Please no.” I push myself up and begin running toward my jeep when I remember my aunt. “Fuck!” Running faster than I ever have, I take the stairs because I don’t want to wait for the elevator. My aunt is where I left her and she startles when she sees me, meeting me halfway next to the nurse’s station. I’m crying and I can barely take in any air, but I manage to speak. “Ben’s been shot. I have to go. Right now. Do I need to do something? Is there anything I need to do here? Please can I just go?” My chest is heaving from my run and my legs are burning, but I don’t care. And if I have paperwork or anything I have to do, it will have to wait.
She squeezes my hand, shaking her head with concerned eyes. “No, sweetie. Go. I’ll take care of everything. Call me when you get there.”
I run back down the stairs, nearly falling in my hurried state. Once I get outside, I dial Tessa’s number as I sprint to the jeep. It goes straight to voicemail.
“I’m on my way. Oh my God, please call me back and tell me he’s okay. Tell him I love him, Tessa. Tell him I’m going to say that to him every second for the rest of his life. He’ll never go another day without hearing those words from me.” I wipe the tears from my eyes so I can focus on the road in front of me as I whip through the parking lot. “Please don’t take him away from me,” I whimper my plea to God and to Tessa, not knowing if either one of them will hear me. If Tessa is in the hospital, she probably won’t get this message until she walks outside. And if Ben is dying, why would she leave him? I wouldn’t leave his side if I was there. The man I spent the last two hours bitterly hating was the man I loved more than anything in the world. He was my life, my family, and my future. I couldn’t lose him. I wouldn’t lose him. I’ve never believed in fate before, but I did the moment I saw Ben in that bar. He was always the one for me. We were always meant to end up together. And the two hundred miles that are separating us now will be the last thing to ever keep us apart. I’ll make damn sure of that.
Chapter Nineteen
Tessa
“I want pamcakes! I want pamcakes!” Nolan yells, jumping up and down on the sofa. “Pamcakes, pamcakes, pamcakes!”
I love my nephew, but I’m about to stick him in the dryer.
I grunt my annoyance, looking for any sign of the red jeep out the window. “Nolan, relax please. Mia should be back any minute.”
“It’s Pwincess Mia,” he corrects me, causing me to narrow my eyes at him.
I snatch my cell phone from his little grubby fingers and dial her number. It rings four times and then her voicemail greeting comes through the phone. I wait for the beep. “Oh my God. Please tell me you’re on your way back. The little monster is getting unbearable to be around. Oh and if you’re still at the store, can you pick me up some mountain dew?” I hang up and watch as Nolan rips all the pillows off the couch and jumps on them like stones in a creek. “How about some Fruit Loops to hold you over?”
He jerks his head up and connects with my eyes. “Gwoss. I hate fwuit woops. I want pamcakes.” His little menacing body flies into the air with each leap he takes. “Pwincess Mia pwomised me.”
I turn away from him a
nd look out the sliding glass door, praying that Mia’s body will come into view any second. But it doesn’t. And my impatience begins to grow right along with Nolan’s as the time ticks by. I dial her number again.
“Hey. You do remember how to get to my parents’ house, right? Nolan’s about to start eating the furniture.”
And again.
“Which grocery store did you go to? There are some in Alabama. I’m about to start making pancakes out of cornmeal and I’m not sure how those are going to go over so you might want to speed it up a little.”
And again.
“Sweet Jesus! Would you call me and let me know that you’re still alive!”
Nolan’s voice grows louder and louder, more urgent as the minutes drag on. I silence him with my phone when I think my head is going to explode and raid the fridge myself. I don’t need to wait for pancake mix to eat breakfast. I am perfectly happy with Fruit Loops, unlike my hot meal loving nephew.
“Nolan, don’t buy any more apps. I will be looting your piggy bank to pay for the seven that you’ve bought already.”
He doesn’t respond as I clean up my dishes, most likely browsing the hottest games on ITunes. Another hour goes by before I grab my phone and really start to worry. There’s no way in hell it should take Mia this long. Not unless she really did go to another state to grocery shop. I notice the missed call from Mia on my screen.
“Nolan, damn it. You turned my volume down.”
He gasps softly and I look up at his wide-eyed stare. “You said a bad wowrd.”
Shit. I hold my phone up to my ear to listen to her voicemail, turning the TV on as a distraction. Hopefully he’ll find something amusing and will forget all about my potty mouth. I really don’t feel like getting my ass handed to me by Ben for my language usage around his son.