by R. K. Ryals
Eli
Sweat dripped off of me, the yells from the crowd urging me forward. It was intoxicating, blanketing me in sensations—in noise, adrenaline, and anticipation.
We danced.
Duncan was a better boxer than I wanted to admit, his feet fast, his hands up.
Punch after punch, we played the game, barely listening to the yells from the side of the ring. We knew who was leading.
Right now, it was me, but he was gaining on me.
The screams surrounding us started to lessen, but we barely noticed, too caught up in the match.
“Eli!” my brother yelled.
I froze, hands dropping, leaving myself open. I knew that yell, and it wasn’t one of encouragement. It was fear.
Unprepared for my sudden submission, Duncan threw a punch that knocked me into the side of the ring.
My head flew to the side, turning the crowd into a blur of color.
The ref called the fight, yelling words I couldn’t make out.
“Eli!”
My brother was next to the ring, climbing up to me, his eyes red, his face full of horror. Two uniformed officers stood behind him, holding back the crowd.
Tansy? Where’s Tansy?
“Eli,” Jonathan repeated, reaching for me. “It’s Mom! We’ve got to go! She’s been taken to the hospital.”
Ray blurred into the picture, draping a towel around my shoulders, ushering me out of the ring.
My gaze flew everywhere. “What happened?” I shouted.
People surrounded me, the bodies pressing too close, nauseating me. The locker room loomed before us, and I stumbled into it.
Ray pulled the headgear off, and then moved frantically to the gloves.
I spit the mouthpiece out.
Jonathan was panicked, his hands wringing.
The officers stood back, waiting.
“They’re going to take you to the hospital,” Ray explained.
“What’s going on?” I repeated, anger and confusion building inside of me.
“Mom …” Jonathan sobbed, scrubbing his hands over his face. “She tried committing suicide.”
My world came crashing down around me, becoming a box of white noise.
“Tried?” I whispered.
“Pops had them send for us. The officers,” Jonathan’s gaze flicked to the two men, “they didn’t say whether she was alive or not.”
That was a good sign.
“Where’s Tansy?” I asked, desperation crashing over me. Guilt mixed with anger and fear. Had I pushed Mom to this?
“Eli,” Tansy said gently, and I glanced up to find her standing to the side of the room, popping the band on her wrist, her gaze full of grief and love.
Once the gloves were off, Jonathan pulled me away, forcing me toward the door. “We need to go!” he shouted.
I was too numb to fight him.
Again, the crowd swallowed me, a blur of strangers’ voices and faces. Lights blinded me, hot night air stabbing my skin as we staggered from the building, blue lights from a patrol car streaking our faces.
One of the officers opened the back door.
“Tansy,” I breathed.
“Come on, Eli!” Jonathan urged, ducking into the patrol car.
I climbed in after him, my gaze searching the night, my heart pounding.
“Eli!” Tansy yelled.
My head shot up, my gaze finding her in the gathering crowd outside.
‘I’ll follow,’ she mouthed.
“God, if she dies, it’s our fault!” Jonathan howled. “The things we said …”
The roar in my head drowned out his words, my brows furrowed, the sweat from the fight drying on my skin.
“Breathe, son,” one of the officers told me gently.
We sped through the night, sirens wailing. The small, local hospital loomed into view, and the car careened to a stop outside of it.
Pops waited on us, his face a mass of grief, disbelief, and terror.
“They’re medivaccing her to Atlanta,” Pops said as soon we met him in front of the building, the medical center sign throwing a red hue over his skin, turning his wrinkles into rivers of blood.
Quietly and urgently, we were ushered to Pops’ car. “They would only let one person get on the helicopter with her, and I couldn’t leave until I knew you …” A sob escaped him, the sound more disturbing than anything I’d ever heard. My grandfather didn’t cry.
“I’ll drive,” Jonathan said, calming himself.
Pops got into the passenger seat. I took the back.
Safety lights flashing, we flew toward Atlanta.
“Has anyone called Heather?” Jonathan asked.
“I talked to her at the hospital,” Pops answered. “She’s catching a flight from California.” He choked. “I thought she was taking the pills. I didn’t know she was hiding them, saving them up.”
My head shot up. “She overdosed?”
“Among other things,” he told us.
“Pops.” Jonathan glanced at him, and then shut his mouth, his gaze going to the road.
My stomach hurt, the bruises nothing compared to the crushing pain filling me.
Tansy.
Oh God, Tansy.
“I need your phone, Jon. Please,” I said. My phone was in my gym bag along with the sweet pea seeds she’d given me, and the gym bag was at the gym.
Digging in his pocket, one hand on the steering wheel, Jonathan yanked the phone out and threw it at me.
I caught it, and then froze. Two weeks calling her every night, and I didn’t know her number. I’d had it saved in my contacts list under roof girl.
“Do you know Tansy’s cell?” I asked.
Jonathan glanced in the rearview mirror, turned off an exit, and sped up. “I never got it.”
Dropping his phone, I let my head fall back against the seat, the darkness swallowing me, Pops’ sobs tearing my heart out.
All of those times I’d wished my mother was dead … I cringed.
Don’t you dare die, Mom! Don’t you dare fucking die!
FIFTY-NINE
Tansy
Deena and I rushed into the hospital holding hands, because suddenly she was really young again, and I was way too old. The night’s events felt like three years ago only it wasn’t us. It was someone else, people we cared about.
“The Lockston family?” I asked frantically when we reached the information desk. “Is there an Ivy Lockston here?”
The woman behind the computer glanced up, staring at me, confused.
“Lockston!” I yelled. “Is there an Ivy Lockston here?”
Pulling an earbud out of her ear, the woman typed furiously at the keyboard. “Calm down,” she soothed. “Let me just see …” She scanned the screen, and I fumed, my gaze on the earbud, anger building.
“This is a hospital,” I said suddenly, heart pounding, “and you’re listening to music?”
“Tansy.” Deena tugged on my hand. “Tansy, it’s fine. Look at me.”
I ignored her. “People die here! Don’t you know that? People need help here! People—”
“Tansy, it’s not her fault,” Deena said firmly.
I sagged against the counter, years of grief and anger overwhelming me. This wasn’t about me or my hang-ups. This was about Eli and his family.
“The Lockstons?” I whispered.
The woman looked at me, horror and pity on her face. “She’s not here,” she breathed. “She’s been transferred to a different hospital.”
Deena’s hand tightened in mine.
“Which hospital?” I asked.
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Are you family?”
“She’s the son’s fiancée,” Deena inserted smoothly.
Her gaze passed between us. “She’s been taken to Atlanta.” Writing the hospital’s name on a piece of paper, she slid it across the desk.
My body grew numb.
Deena glanced over my shoulder. “The same one Dad was at,” she gasped.
Deena scoffed. “Why?”
Pulling my phone free of my pocket, I handed it to her. “Call her.”
Releasing my hand, Deena searched my contacts.
Walking outside, I leaned against the building, letting my back slide down the stone, my butt meeting concrete, my fingers absently popping the band on my wrist.
“She’s on her way,” Deena said, joining me.
She slid down the wall next to me, her head falling onto my shoulder.
It felt like hours rather than minutes before Nana pulled into the hospital parking lot.
She found us against the wall, her eyes sad. “Come on, girls. Let’s go to Atlanta.”
Leaving my Buick parked in the lot, we climbed into the van, the silence loud. In a single summer, the Lockston family had become a part of our family, and Eli had stolen my heart.
His pain was my pain, and I wasn’t with him to help him bear this. I knew, better than anyone, what it felt like to have a parent who’d given up on life.
I knew better than anyone what it felt like to feel guilty about it.
“Thank you,” Deena whispered, glancing at Nana.
Nana’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Suicide …” She exhaled loudly, and then tried again. “Pain, mentally and physically, isn’t always easy to deal with. People make choices sometimes, and we don’t always understand them. The impact goes so much further than many realize—”
“We know,” Deena said, cutting her off. “It’s okay, Nana. We know.”
She nodded. “I love you, girls.”
It was the first time we’d heard those words spoken by an authoritative family member in three years.
Deena clammed up, hugging herself.
My eyes found the back of my grandmother’s head. “I love you, too.”
Deena stiffened, her gaze flicking from me to the driver’s seat. “Yeah, me too,” she said finally, sinking against the seat.
Reaching out, I took Deena’s hand in mine. She didn’t pull away from me.
Instead, she squeezed my fingers.
SIXTY
Eli
Fluorescent lights were the devil’s invention, the bright bulbs stripping the world of color, interrogating anyone who sat under them, spotlighting things no one wanted to see.
The waiting room was cold, the hard chairs begging us to get out of them.
Jonathan paced the room, a TV blaring above his head. Two other families shared the space. A baby cried. Two young women argued.
Pops sat, shoulders squared, his back stiff, staring.
My head rested in my hands, my body bent forward.
The waiting room had carpet, the design squares inside of squares. Gray on blue on brown on green. All sickly shades. Stone gray on hypothermic blue on shit brown on puke green.
“Stop it!” a woman warned, her fingers wagging at a toddler.
The boy, his big blue eyes framed by blond hair, pulled his hand away from a table of precariously stacked magazines.
A remote to the TV sat next to it, and the woman picked it up, flipping channels, until a cartoon popped on, grabbing the boy’s attention.
The baby—a tiny thing being rocked by his dad on the opposite side of the room—kept crying.
The argument between the two women escalated. Something that sounded mysteriously like a he-said-she-said-they-said situation.
My head lifted, my eyes finding the cartoon.
A man in blue scrubs walked into the room, and everyone froze. “Carson Lockston?” he asked.
Pops stood, and I stood with him.
The man motioned us into the hallway. “I’m Dr. Bryant,” he greeted, offering Pops his hand. “Ivy Lockston is your daughter?”
Pops nodded.
“And your mother?” he asked, glancing at us.
“Yes,” Jonathan answered.
Dr. Bryant’s gaze returned to Pops. “Your daughter is a very lucky woman. Considering. I’ll be honest, it was touch and go. They pumped her stomach and intubated her at the other hospital, but it was the fall they sent her to us for. She had minor internal bleeding along with a concussion, but the most extensive damage is to her spine. We’ve done what we can for now. Paralysis is a strong possibility.”
My gaze shot to Pops’ face. “Fall?”
He ducked his head. “She jumped from a second floor window.”
“Shit,” I cursed, running my fingers through my hair.
Jonathan stared at the doctor. “That’s not so bad, right? People have survived falls from farther with less damage.”
“It’s happened,” Dr. Bryant answered, “but your mother was under the influence when she jumped. Had she landed on her feet maybe, but she landed on her back.”
“My God,” Jonathan murmured, stumbling backward, his hand splayed against the corridor wall.
“She’s in ICU until we know more. There’s a separate waiting room for that if you want to wait there. Visiting hours are posted on the wall.”
“Thank you,” Pops murmured.
The doctor left.
“She jumped?” I asked, staring at my grandfather.
“Why?” Jonathan hissed, his red eyes glaring. “Is it what we said to her? Does she love us that little?”
“Jon—”
He held his hand up, stopping me. “Don’t, Eli. I want to go home. To DC.”
“I’ve already called your dad,” Pops informed him, shoulders slumped.
I looked at them, my grandfather and my brother, and I said, “You should stay, Jon.”
Jonathan laughed coldly. “Why? So she can tell me she didn’t mean it? So she can tell us what a burden we were? So she can cry and tell us she didn’t want us, but she still loves us?”
“Not because Mom needs you. Stay because we need you.”
He froze, silent sobs suddenly shaking his shoulders. “She could be paralyzed,” he whispered, tears sliding down his cheeks.
Pops wept with him.
Why, Mom?
It was crazy how Mom managed to tear us apart and draw us together at the same time.
SIXTY-ONE
Tansy
Returning to the hospital where Dad died was like walking into a nightmare.
“Seems so long ago, right?” Deena asked.
Nana moved ahead of us.
Stopping at the information desk, she flashed a smile at the woman behind it.
“And yet it wasn’t,” I answered. “Time is strange sometimes.
“His death didn’t hurt like Mom’s did,” Deena admitted.
My heart lurched. “You, too? I thought maybe I was cold to feel that way. I cared about Dad, but it’s like he lived his entire life to push us away—even when Mom was alive—so that when his time came, it wouldn’t be what you think losing a dad should be.”
We fell silent, lost in thought and painful memories.
“She’s in ICU,” Nana reported, returning.
Deena shuddered. We’d spent a lot of time in that unit, going home sporadically to eat and shower, and then staying continually those last two days when Dad’s condition became “any minute now”.
We headed for the elevator bank, the hospital familiar to us.
The doors opened and closed like metal jaws chewing us up before spitting us into the hallway leading to the ICU unit.
“I hope she makes it,” Deena muttered. “As angry as I was at Dad, I didn’t want him to die the way he did.”
Our shoes were loud against the hard floors, heartbeats created by our feet.
The waiting room was a short walk away from the locked ICU, and we stopped in the entrance.
Jonathan stood against the wall, his hand pressing the surface, anger and frustration warring with fear and confusion on his face. Pops sat, his hands clenching the metal armrests. Eli waited next to him, lost in thought, his elbows on his knees. No other families surrounded them.
Entering first,
Deena cleared her throat.
The men looked up.
Eli’s gaze caught mine, relief sweeping his features.
The room filled with hugs—silent embraces full of loud, unspoken words and offered comfort.
Jonathan’s arms shook when he folded them around me. Pops felt like he was falling.
Eli came last. He stood, his gaze taking me in before he suddenly hauled me into his arms, his head resting on top of mine, his grip so tight I could barely breathe. He didn’t let go, and I didn’t make him.
When he returned to his seat, he kept me with him, drawing me onto his lap.
Nana and Pops spoke to each other in low tones.
Deena stood beside Jonathan, appearing small next to him, and yet she looked bigger. Stronger. Confident.
Peering up at him, she pinched her lips together, determination written on her brow. Her hand shot out, reaching for his, her cheeks flushing. “It’s okay,” she told him.
Jonathan’s gaze remained averted, but he did let her take his hand. The girl with the scratchy façade supporting the guy who seemed to always have it together.
“You didn’t have to come out all this way,” Pops told us.
Nana smiled. “We’re going to stay a while. If that’s okay with you.”
Pops glanced at his grandsons, at the way Eli embraced me, at the friendship Deena was offering Jonathan, and he nodded. “That’d be good.”
SIXTY-TWO
Eli
Holding Tansy helped clear my head, calming me.
We spent the night together. All of us, discomfort finally forcing us to pull out the three hard couches in the room, transforming them into equally hard beds.
Finding a nurse, we had two more rolled in.
Tansy and I shared a chair, draping a thin hospital blanket over our legs, my arms keeping her from falling off of the narrow furniture.
“They don’t want you to be comfortable, do they?” Hetty groused good-naturedly.
“Used to be I could sleep on the ground and it be enough,” Pops agreed. “Damn getting old.”
Silence. Each of us staring at each other, cold air blowing from a vent in the ceiling. Like the previous waiting room, a TV hung above us, but we left it off.