Gone

by Cronk, LN

  “It’s almost over anyway.”

  “Go ahead back up there,” I said. “I’ll stick around.”

  “No thanks,” she smiled. “I don’t think I wanna take any chances.”

  After the service we walked outside. It was a beautiful day.

  “It’s spring, right?” I asked.

  “Yep,” Tanner said.

  “Have I already had my birthday?” I asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Did you make me a cake, Laci?” I asked.

  “Of course I did!”

  “Peanut butter, chocolate chip?”

  She nodded and grinned.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to enjoy it,” I told her.

  “Anti-Dave enjoyed it enough for both of you,” she assured me as we reached the car. “Oh . . . wait! Did we get the cotton?”

  “Got it,” Tanner said, patting his jacket pocket.

  “Why do we need cotton?” I asked.

  “You like it,” Tanner grinned. “It’s very soft.”

  “It helps keep you busy during church,” Laci explained.

  “Yes,” Tanner nodded as he unlocked the car. “It’s something very special that we only let you have on Sundays.”

  “Please tell me that you’re kidding.”

  “You’re the one who wanted us to be honest with you,” Tanner shrugged, holding the back door open for Laci. “I’ll be glad to tell you that we all sit around discussing quantum physics if that’ll make you feel better.”

  “Yeah, right,” I muttered, climbing in after Laci. “As if you could discuss quantum physics.”

  Tanner closed the door and then got in up front.

  I shook my head. Cotton.

  “And where can your chauffer take you today?” Tanner asked, looking into the rearview mirror and tipping an imaginary cap at us.

  “Are we still doing whatever makes me happy?” I asked Laci.

  “Sure,” she smiled.

  “I wanna go to Cross Lake!” I said.

  “Uhhh . . .”

  “What?” I asked. “You don’t want to go?

  “No, sure,” she said hesitantly. “I guess that’ll be fine.”

  “So is that what we’re doing?” Tanner asked, uncertainly.

  “Yeah,” she said, still sounding concerned. “We can do that.”

  “What’s the problem?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” she said as Tanner pulled out of the parking lot. “It’s just that . . .”

  “What?”

  “It’s an hour away,” she explained.

  “I know.”

  She looked at me, knowingly.

  “Oh,” I said, finally understanding.

  “But let’s try it,” she said. “If nothing else, it’s a pretty day for a drive.”

  I was still with them an hour later when we arrived at the marina. We order burgers and onion rings and then Tanner untied his boat from the slip and we took off.

  We cruised around the lake for a while, Tanner driving and Laci and I sitting up front, soaking in the sun.

  After about twenty minutes we came to the island with the cabin on it that I had wanted to buy over twenty-five years earlier.

  “It doesn’t look like anyone’s here this weekend,” I said. “Can we pull in and look around for a while?”

  “Sure,” Laci agreed. Tanner pulled over to the dock, but didn’t cut the motor.

  “You guys go check it out,” Tanner said. “I’m gonna go see if I can catch a few fish.”

  Laci and I got out.

  “Call me if you need anything,” Tanner said, acting as if he was talking to both of us, but clearly meaning Laci.

  We nodded and waved and he pushed off and powered away.

  “I guess he thinks I’m too stupid to notice that he doesn’t have any fishing stuff?” I asked her.

  She giggled and we held hands as we walked up the stone path.

  “They used to have a woodbox,” I explained to Laci as we walked around to the back. “That’s how Tanner and I got in to see it that time.”

  “A woodbox?” she asked as we rounded the deck.

  “Look!” I said when we got around to the back. “It’s still here – you can still get in!”

  “Don’t get any bright ideas,” Laci told me as I turned the latch.

  “Come on!” I said. “I wanna look around!”

  “No, David! Absolutely not!”

  “Why not?” I asked, swinging the door open and peering in.

  “Because it’s called ‘breaking and entering’!”

  “That’s what I told Tanner.”

  “And you still went in?”

  “He made me!” I insisted. “Come on – let’s check it out!”

  “No!” she cried. “What if we get caught?”

  “Oh, come on!” I urged. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  “I’ve had plenty of adventures lately, thank you very much.”

  “Look,” I said. “My dementia is well documented. If anyone catches us you can say that I escaped and you’ve just found me and you’re trying to take me home. I’ll play dumb . . . really!”

  She bit her lip and a mischievous look came into her eyes.

  “Okay,” she finally grinned, nodding.

  “Wow!” I said, widening my eyes. “Laci Cline Holland actually breaking the law! You must really wanna make me happy!”

  She smiled at me some more.

  “I bet I could talk you into letting me have my way with you, too!”

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” she said, but she was laughing. We crawled inside.

  “It looks the same,” I noted.

  “It’s beautiful,” Laci said, looking around.

  I slid open the door leading out onto the deck.

  “The hot tub’s still here!”

  She shook her head at me. I walked over to it and opened the cover.

  “It’s ready to go!” I told her. “Let’s get in!”

  “There is no way we’re getting in that hot tub!” she answered.

  “Awww, come on, Laci!”

  “What am I gonna tell the cops when they find us in the hot tub?”

  “You were trying to save me from drowning and you took all your clothes off first so you wouldn’t get them wet!”

  “You really are out of your mind,” she said, but she still had that mischievous look in her eyes and I realized that I actually had a decent shot of talking her into it. I found myself really wishing that I wasn’t wearing an adult undergarment.

  I put the lid back down and walked over to her, wrapping my arms around her waist.

  “Remember how much you wanted to buy this place?” she asked, hugging me back.

  “Yeah,” I nodded. “That was right before we lost Amber.”

  “We got her back,” she reminded me quietly.

  “I know,” I said.

  We stood there, holding each other for a moment. I looked out, through the pine boughs, across the lake.

  “I can’t believe I thought living here would make me happy,” I said, turning my eyes to Laci again. “Back then I really thought that this was what I wanted.”

  “And now what do you want?” Laci asked, looking up at me.

  I looked back at her for a long, long moment before I replied.

  “When we were little kids,” I finally said, “God told you to love me. And for all these years, no matter what, you’ve always loved me. Even when I’m gone and Anti-Dave shows up or something, you’re still always waiting for me to come back and you always love me.”

  “I love Anti-Dave too,” she smiled.

  “So what more could I ever want?”

  ~ ~ ~

  I WOKE UP in our bedroom, the light on the dresser shining dimly. I was all alone in bed.

  “Laci?” I called out.

  “David!” I heard her say. I turned toward her voice. She was to my right, sitting up in a twin bed that was next to our queen.

  “Why are you over th
ere?” I asked her as she left her bed and crawled under the covers with me.

  “Anti-Dave sleeps better alone,” she explained, wrapping her arms around me and pressing her head against my shoulder.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “He sleeps better with the lights on too?”

  She lifted her head and nodded, smiling slightly at me.

  The hall light came on and Tanner appeared in our doorway.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Laci answered. “We’re fine.”

  “Hi, Tanner,” I said.

  He smiled. “Hi, Dave.”

  Then he closed the door behind him before he headed back down the hall.

  ~ ~ ~

  A GAME SHOW was playing on the television.

  “What force must be overcome when a stationary object is put into motion?”

  “Static friction,” I answered. I glanced over and found Tanner, staring at me with his mouth slightly open.

  “Hi, Tanner!”

  “Apparently nerdy, geeky Dave is back?” he asked.

  “Apparently,” I smiled.

  “I’m gonna call Laci and let her know,” he said, reaching for his phone.

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s over at Jessica's,” he explained. “Chris had a hip replacement yesterday.”

  “Oh.”

  “Hey, Laci,” he said. “I’ve got somebody here who wants to talk to you!”

  He handed me the phone.

  “Hi, Laci.”

  “Oh, David! Oh, I’m so sorry I’m not there.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “No problem.”

  “I’m gonna come home right now, okay? I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Take your time,” I said. “No hurry.”

  I closed the phone and handed it to Tanner.

  “She’s gonna be sorry she wasn’t here,” he said, shaking his head.

  “I’ll probably still be here when she gets home, won’t I?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Tanner said dubiously.

  “I was back for like eight hours the other day.”

  He looked at me skeptically.

  “When we went to the lake?” I reminded him.

  He thought about it for a moment and then said, gently, “That was eight months ago.”

  “It was?”

  He nodded.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “I’m sure.”

  “I can’t believe that,” I said quietly. “It feels like it was last week.”

  We sat there for a moment.

  “I haven’t been back much since then, have I?” I finally asked, trying to remember.

  “You’ve been back some,” he assured me.

  “But I don’t stay long?”

  “Not usually,” he admitted, “or you don’t remember it the next time.”

  I sighed.

  “Wanna see something?” Tanner asked.

  “Sure.”

  He opened his phone and showed me a picture.

  “Look,” he said, handing it to me and leaning over the back of my chair. “That’s Dorito.”

  “I know,” I said, defensively. Dorito was standing with a bunch of people I didn’t recognize and holding a giant pair of scissors. “What’s he doing?”

  “See this ribbon?” Tanner asked, pointing.

  “Yeah.”

  “This was the ribbon cutting ceremony for the new wing at the orphanage.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah!”

  “That’s great,” I smiled.

  “Here, look,” he went on, scrolling through the pictures on the phone that was in my hand. He came to a close up of a sign. It said:

  In honor of David and Laci Holland.

  “They dedicated it to us?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Tanner said.

  “They shouldn’t have done that,” I said, shaking my head.

  “That’s exactly what Laci said,” he laughed.

  “Did Laci go?”

  “No,” he said. “They invited both of you to come and everything, but we thought it was going to be too hard on you to go.”

  “Aw, Tanner,” I said, looking back over my shoulder at him. “You should have made her go at least.”

  “I tried,” Tanner insisted, walking back to his chair. “She wouldn’t leave you.”

  “I hate that,” I said as Tanner sat back down. “She should have been there for that.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “It was better that she didn’t go. That was actually the weekend we went to the lake.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Yeah, really,” he said, a big smile crossing his face. “That was the greatest day for Laci. She wouldn’t have missed that for the world!”

  I looked at him for a long moment.

  “You still love her,” I said to him.

  He looked back at me, surprised.

  “You’ve always loved her,” I went on.

  Finally Tanner spoke, carefully choosing his words.

  “I . . . I’ve always wanted what’s best for Laci.”

  “You love her.”

  “I want what’s best for her,” he said again.

  “You’re not denying that you love her,” I told him matter-of-factly.

  He looked at me for another long moment.

  “You’re what’s best for her,” he finally told me. “You’ve always been what’s best for her.”

  ~ ~ ~

  IT WAS A madhouse and clearly Christmas. I looked around, trying to see if all the kids had made it. The living room was full of granddaughters.

  Dorito was walking past me toward the kitchen wearing a red and white Santa hat.

  “Merry Christmas, Dorito,” I said, stepping toward him.

  He stopped to look at me and then a huge smile spread across his face.

  “Merry Christmas, Dad!” he said, hugging me tight. “How’re you doing?”

  “I think I’m pretty good,” I answered. “Can I wear your hat?”

  ~ ~ ~

  I WAS CONFUSED. It took me a while to figure out that I was lying in a hospital bed, all alone.

  “Laci?” I called out, as loudly as I could.

  “David?”

  I hadn’t been alone after all . . . she was sleeping in a chair next to my hospital bed.

  “It’s me,” I told her. “I’m back.”

  “I know,” she smiled.

  “Why am I here?” I asked.

  “You . . . you had to have some surgery,” she said hesitantly.

  “For what?”

  “Cancer,” she said, fighting back the tears.

  “What kind?”

  “Colon cancer.”

  “I had surgery?”

  She nodded.

  I had a sinking feeling that in addition to an adult undergarment I was now also wearing a colostomy bag. I started to ask, but then decided that I didn’t really want to know.

  “Did they get it all?” I asked.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head, “but they’re going to do some chemo and the doctors say–”

  “Chemo? What? No! No chemo!”

  “David . . .”

  “I do not want chemotherapy . . . do you understand?”

  “David, I –”

  “Why did you even let them do surgery?” I cried. “I can’t believe Tanner went along with this!”

  “We talked to Mike about it–”

  “Is this really what you want, Laci?” I interrupted. “You want me to go through chemo? For what? So you can spend the next five years having me back for fifteen minutes every few months?”

  She started sobbing.

  “We just need to let it go.”

  “I can’t.” She cried harder and buried her head against me (which hurt – I guess because I’d just had surgery).

  “Laci,” I whispered, trying to stroke her hair with my hand. An I.V. tube that was sticking out of the back of my h
and caught on the bed rail. I switched hands.

  “Laci,” I said again, gently lifting her head.

  “What?” she managed to ask.

  “I wanna talk to Mike. Can you get Mike on the phone for me?”

  She nodded.

  “Hurry,” I told her.

  She pushed some buttons and held the phone out toward me with a shaking hand.

  “Hi, Mike,” I said. “It’s David.”

  “Hi, Dave. How are you?”

  “It’s really me . . . do you understand?”

  “Yeah. I understand”

  “Okay . . . well, I need you to do me a favor.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t want any more treatments . . . I don’t want anything done to prolong this. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I understand what you’re saying, but you really need to talk to Laci about it. She’s the one that’s gotta decide all this stuff.”

  “I have talked to her, but she’s gonna need some help doing this. That’s all I’m saying. Can you promise me that you’ll help her?”

  “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I promise.”

  “Thanks, Mike. You’re a good friend. You’ve always been a good friend.”

  He didn’t say anything and Laci choked down another sob.

  “Are you there?”

  “Yeah,” he managed. “I’m here.”

  “It’ll be alright. I’ll see you again, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Thanks.”

  I hung up and looked at Laci. Her eyes were still full of tears.

  “You just listen to Mike. You do what Mike says, okay?”

  She nodded and wiped her eyes. I tilted my head at her.

  “Your hair . . .” I said after a moment.

  “What about it?”

  “How long has it been since I was diagnosed?”

  “With cancer?”

  “No . . .”

  “Oh,” she said. She thought about it for a moment. “I guess about five years.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded.

  “It doesn’t seem like that long,” I smiled at her. Then I said, “It probably seems like a lot longer to you, doesn’t it?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head, tears welling up again.