“Can we get you anything?” Kathy whispered.
Noticing the confusion on her sister’s face, she added, “You’ve been moved to a regular room. You’re sleeping quite a bit, on and off due to the meds, and you may not remember being moved or where you are right now.”
“I can’t hear you,” Gloria snapped at Kathy. “Speak up!”
“Sorry. Do you need anything?” Kathy asked again, thinking her sister scolding her was a good sign. “Hannah’s here as well.”
“I can see her,” Gloria replied.
Hannah’s heart was racing, knowing something was wrong as the monitor alarms alerted the nurse’s station that her mom needed assistance. Gloria was pale, and her eyes were dark and sunken.
“Mom, I’m right here.”
“I love you,” Gloria whispered.
“I love you too,” Hannah responded, but as soon as the words rolled off her tongue, tears dripped down her nose and onto the sheets.
“Hannah.”
“Yes? I’m here.” She wiped away her tears quickly, hoping not to concern or scare her mom as the nurses tended to her.
“Hannah. Don’t hate me.”
“I could never hate you! Don’t even say that!”
“He’s alive.” Gloria tried to grip Hannah’s hand, but her grasp was weak. “Alive.”
“What?” Hannah whispered. “Who’s alive?”
Agitated, Gloria tried to shake her hand in Hannah’s. “Alive. He’s alive.” Her eyes were glassy, crying, but her tears struggled to fall. “Forgive me, Hannah, and please don’t hate me.”
Hannah stroked her mom’s hair, held her hand, and sat unresponsive in shock. Her mom was delirious and at times it was scary. But Gloria, becoming even more agitated, kept insisting, and alarms attached to her started to go off.
“Hank is alive!”
Scared and not knowing how to calm her mom down, Hannah tried to console her by leading her to believe she understood the urgency of her message. “Oh, wow! Okay, the Captain’s back, Hank is alive.” She continued to listen to her mom’s incoherent dialog, nodding and squeezing her hand, hoping Gloria would drift off to sleep and get some rest.
“Please, close your eyes and try to get some sleep. You need to rest; your body needs rest.”
Gloria’s eyes were distant when they were open, her breathing was shallow, and her skin looked grey. It wasn’t the time to quiz her about anything, including her bizarre claims. Hannah was sick of hearing about Hank. She didn’t care about him right then; she wanted her mom to quit worrying about it as well, and stay with her, present, and in that moment. Any questions that she might have had didn’t have the same urgency that they had days ago, as Hannah watched her mom’s health decline. Her eyes flashed toward another monitor that had started beeping at her mom’s side. Within seconds a nurse appeared, readjusted a sensor on her mom and reset the machine.
“No signs of settling down yet?” the nurse asked, and Hannah shook her head.
“Your doctor said you could have a sedative to help you rest. I’m going to get that for you; it should help you sleep.”
Gloria, too weak to fight, didn’t object. Her blood pressure erratic, a sedative was administered to help her relax and sleep. As they prepared to leave the room, Gloria called out to her sister, but her words were barely audible. One of the nurses closest to her said that she had asked that Kathy watch over her daughter.
“What did she say?” Kathy asked.
“Watch over her daughter, that’s what she said.” The nurse smiled. “Her exact words were, ‘Watch over Hannah,’ but I think she’s drifting off now.” After delivering the message, the nurse went about her day as if it were business as usual; and for her, it was.
Kathy couldn’t hide her own grief, knowing her sister was making arrangements for her daughter. She stood motionless, grasping for the right words to say; there weren’t any. Lindsey, stuck in between invading their privacy, trying to help, and not knowing how to gracefully exit without being noticed, stood in shock. Kathy walked toward the door, and Lindsey, with Hannah trailing behind, grateful to leave the room, followed her. Lindsey had never been so grateful in her life to see her best friend’s boyfriend, Cash, as she was when he turned the corner. Hannah felt the same way, and a minute alone with him was exactly what she needed! As soon as he reached Gloria’s door, Hannah looped her arm in his, spun him around, and asked if they could step outside for a moment. Glancing over his shoulder, he pointed to Gloria.
“Your mom is calling your name.”
Hannah nodded. “I know, she’s delirious right now, but I can’t breathe in here.” Peeking over his shoulders, she added, “She’s sedated, she should be drifting off to sleep any second. She’s exhausted!”
Gloria faintly called out to Hannah again; her voice barely a whisper, as if speaking under her breath, weak, shaky, and barely audible. Hannah, at that moment, made a split-second decision which would haunt her the rest of her life!! Grabbing Cash’s hand, pretending that she hadn’t heard her mom’s whispers at all, she pulled Cash toward the elevator. Her mom’s earlier anguish, crazy delusions, confessions, and her decline in stability were just too much for the teen. The air in the hospital was stale and Hannah couldn’t take it anymore! Head spinning, needing to be alone to talk to Cash, she pressed the elevator button at least five times before the wide doors finally opened. Even the stark white walls of the hallway felt like they were suffocating her. Disgusted that her mom thought she could actually hate her, Hannah wondered, as a daughter, what she could have possibly done that made her mother think her love for her could so easily be tossed aside!
The crisp air hit her in the face like a splash of ice water, completely opposite from the stuffy, oppressive air inside the hospital ward. Deep breaths. Hannah forced herself to fill her lungs and exhale slowly multiple times before asking Cash if he would hold her for just a minute longer. Nodding, he strengthened his grip and softly kissed the side of her face. Knowing it wasn’t a good time to stay away for long, Hannah tugged at Cash’s shirt, indicating she had pulled herself together.
“Can we take the stairs?” she asked. “Just give us a few extra minutes before we get there.”
Nodding, he grabbed her hand and led the way. One by one Hannah counted each stair that she climbed, a momentary breather, before she sat and waited in the ominous patient lounge. Stepping out of the stairwell onto her mom’s floor, it never once occurred to her that something else could go wrong, until she turned the corner that led to the corridor of her mom’s room. The normal smells of the hospital, disinfectant, food, bedpans, people, made her nauseous on a good day, but for some reason it hit her hard as soon as she approached the nurse’s station. Noticing a lot of unusual activity happening on the same floor, people rushing around, equipment being rolled down the hallway, Hannah started walking faster, so fast that Cash had troubling keeping up. She had an overwhelming sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that something was wrong with her mom! She was right. Kathy and Lindsey stood outside her mom’s room, both inconsolable. Rushing past them, Lindsey reached out and grabbed Hannah’s arm.
“Wait.”
Hannah couldn’t speak. Frozen in place, a nurse physically moved her to one side. The nurses who were working inside the room were solemnly going through the motions of what was expected of them, conducting their duties, turning off alarms and disconnecting equipment. Hannah’s throat felt as if there was something suddenly lodged in it; gasping for air, she realized what had just happened! Rushing past the attending nurse to her mom’s side, she screamed and begged Gloria to wake up. Gloria’s lifeless body never moved, and the disturbing masked expression on her face would be forever ingrained in Hannah’s mind.
Pericarditis and cardiac tamponade, resulting in a massive heart attack, linked to complications due to her original diagnoses, was the official cause of death. Hannah hadn’t been there; she hadn’t made it back in time, and even worse, she’d left her mom’s side in the first
place! A tiny part of her was grateful that she hadn’t witnessed her mother die, and another part of her was overwhelmed with guilt that her mom was without her, alone, her daughter and sister removed from the room. The doctors assured them that they had done all they could do, worked for as long as they possibly could before calling it. The date and time had been recorded.
“She didn’t slip away!” Hannah screamed. “She wasn’t peaceful, and it wasn’t her time! It shouldn’t have been her time.”
One of the doctors was trying to explain what had happened, how fast it happened, and how Gloria would have felt minimal pain, but they found no comfort in his words.
“No. No. I should’ve stayed. I should’ve been here. I should’ve been here!” Hannah sobbed inconsolably. “I’m so sorry, Mom. So, so sorry!”
Dropping to her knees, head in hands, Hannah’s heart shattered. Physical pain, pain she’d yet to ever experience in her entire life, pierced her heart and consumed her whole body. The tables had quickly turned, as within minutes the only words that could be heard in between wails were Hannah’s.
“Please forgive me, Mom. Oh my God, please, please forgive me, Mom!”
Weeping without taking a breath, gasping at times for air, her sobs echoed off the hospital walls and sent chills down Cash’s spine. Tears of his own dripped down his face. Wanting to hold her, but not daring to approach her, he waited until she glanced up and looked for him. Through tear-filled eyes, no words exchanged, he reached out and pulled her onto his lap right there on the hospital floor. Lindsey and Kathy, embracing each other, sobbed together, until a doctor asked Kathy’s permission to give Hannah a sedative to help her calm down. Once the sedative had been administered, Kathy and Hannah went back into Gloria’s room. Cash and Lindsey waited outside. One arm over Lindsey’s shoulder, Cash braced himself for what Hannah might need from him. Lindsey cried quietly behind Cash’s back, as they watched Kathy lovingly stroke Gloria’s hair and Hannah lay over her mom’s body, crying and crying, until two people arrived and Kathy knew they had come to tend to Gloria.
“Sweetheart; its time. They have to take her now and we have to let her go.”
“I can’t! I just can’t.” Hannah, still stretched across her mom, never once looked up. “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean to be gone that long,” she sobbed. “I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t have left her! Kathy, I heard her call my name.”
Had she only known that time was not on her side that day, she never would have left her mom’s side. Kathy knew that, and she was certain that Gloria would have as well. Hannah would’ve sat and listened to her mom ask for forgiveness she didn’t need a hundred more times if it brought her mom peace of mind and if Hannah could have had a few more minutes with her!
“Hannah, she wasn’t herself; it was all the medication. I bet she didn’t even know you weren’t by her side. She probably felt your presence with her even though you’d stepped out for a second.”
“But why today, and why now?”
Cash slipped into the room, put his hand gently on Hannah’s shoulder, leaned over and kissed Gloria’s cheek. He never spoke. The loss Hannah was feeling was too great; his words would have seemed empty. Gutted, even the sedative didn’t help; Hannah could contain her grief no longer. Her whole body trembled as her heart broke right there in front of everyone. Tears flowed nonstop, as if the floodgates had been opened. Grief, shock, and guilt, all at the same time, and to make matters even worse, the what if’s were plaguing her mind. What if she’d just let her mom ramble? What if she hadn’t felt so frustrated? And the biggest one of all, What if her mom didn’t know how much she really loved her? Had she told her mom that she loved her before she’d died? Panic swept over Hannah as her mind rushed with battered memories of that day. Trying to retrace the things that she had said, she couldn’t remember if she’d told her mom she loved her before she died! A vile feeling of regret, guilt, and loss consumed her, knowing that it was quite possible that the last words she may have spoken to her mom were in pure frustration! Nausea swept over her and vomit rushed up her throat. Grabbing Cash’s arm, she motioned toward the door, but the vomit had already pooled in her mouth. As soon as he realized what was going on, he tried to pull her toward a nearby sink. It was too late; vomit projected all over Cash, Hannah, and the floor. Disgusted with herself, Hannah hung her head in shame.
“It’s okay, babe, it’s okay,” Cash whispered, as he took paper towels and blotted her face, shirt, and cleaned up the floor.
“It’s not okay, I’m not okay, nothing’s okay!”
A piercing wail, signifying the internal pain Hannah was feeling, forced Cash to drop to his knees and gather Hannah up in his arms and rock her like a rag doll. His tears flowed, as did Kathy’s and Lindsey’s, as they watched the pain Hannah felt.
“I let her down,” Hannah whispered. “In every possible way a daughter could!”
Words would bring her no comfort, no matter what any of them would say. They sat on the floor, Kathy stroking Hannah’s hair, and whispering in her ear, “Sweetheart, we have to go. We have to let them take her away; it’s time for all of us to let her go.”
Cash wrapped his arms tightly around a shaking Hannah.
Lindsey, still in shock herself, assisted Kathy with Gloria’s things.
Kathy squatted down and put her arm around Hannah. “I want Lindsey to take you home, and Cash and I will meet you there, at the apartment.”
Cash kissed Hannah on the cheek, gave Lindsey a hug, and asked her if she was okay to drive. She assured him that she was. He stood by Kathy’s side and watched the girls walk down the hallway.
“She gonna be okay?” he asked. “I’m worried about her.”
Kathy hesitated. “It’s not going to be easy.”
Gloria didn’t have that much to pack up at the hospital, but Kathy didn’t want Hannah to have to deal with it. Cash packed her things away, and Kathy filled out all the necessary paperwork.
“What about, you know, the arrangements?” Unsure of where to start, let alone worrying about burying her sister, Kathy wasn’t sure what to do.
“You don’t have to worry about any of that stuff right now. I think you probably need to rest for a day or even two first, as well.” He hesitated, not knowing if it were even his place to mention anything. “They do have people, here I mean, who can help with that or at least point you in the right direction.”
Kathy’s tear-stained face stared at him, her eyes looked straight through him. “Thank you, that’s not a bad idea! It’s not like we had our own church or anything.”
“Are you ready to go?”
Kathy nodded, reaching for her car keys.
“I’ll drive you.” Cash repeated. “We’ll pick up your car later. I can even come back with my dad, if you don’t want to leave it up here, but for now I’ll take you home to Hannah.”
Shooting a quick text to Lindsey, Cash confirmed that Hannah was in the car and holding up as well as could be expected. She wasn’t talking, and Lindsey wasn’t pushing her.
Cash: The apartment?
Lindsey: Headed there now, but haven’t made it yet.
Cash: Let me know when you do.
Lindsey: K
Cash: Right behind you.
Within minutes of the car door shutting, Hannah had buried her face in her hands and sobbed without taking a breath. It didn’t take long before she couldn’t breathe at all and a full-fledged panic attack set in. Lindsey opened the windows, allowing the cool air to blow across the back of Hannah’s neck. Then Lindsey pulled the car over and gently rubbed her friend’s back.
“Breathe. Calm down and breathe. In and out, slow, deep breaths.”
“I can’t, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.”
Hannah’s chest felt as if it were caving in. Her heart racing, she gasped for air. Lindsey rubbed her back and continued to speak softly to her, talking her down. Finally, Hannah’s breathing returned to normal. Her tears had wiped away any trace of make
up she had applied earlier, and Hannah suddenly looked younger than her teen years. Lindsey struggled to hold back tears of her own as she grasped Hannah’s hands in hers and held them as tightly as she could. There were no words of comfort offered, none needed, they’d already been said, but Hannah knew Lindsey was grieving as well. Shallow breaths assured Lindsey that Hannah’s breathing had returned to normal. Still holding Hannah’s hand, Lindsey pulled away from the side of the road. They drove in silence for a while until cautiously Lindsey brought up the first time she’d met Gloria. To her relief, Hannah smiled.
“Hey, remember when you first brought me to your house?” Lindsey asked, not expecting an answer. “She thought we were going to get in so much trouble. ‘Thick as thieves,’ she’d call us.”
“’Cause we are!” Hannah managed the slightest smile. “I’m really glad she moved us back here.”
Hannah remembered the day they had moved her back to San Francisco.
“I’d love for you to spend time with your aunt Kathy, you know, get to know her the way I do. That way, you’ll have more than just me for a family.”
“Nothing wrong with just you!” Hannah had replied, a big grin spread across her face.
“Thanks! But you know what I mean, right?”
“No.” Hannah smirked. “But I don’t care; that’s fine by me if you want to go back to San Francisco. I remember kinda liking it there anyway as a little kid.”
The car rolled to a stop at a red light. A cool breeze blew through the opened windows and Hannah caught wind of a terrible smell—her shirt. The air shifted and whipped back through the car and the stench of the hospital sticking to her like glue made Hannah gag. Hospital smells, so specific, sick people, bedpans, disinfectant, hospital food, and body odors all together in one terrible combination. Hannah could barely walk into the hospital as of late without feeling violently ill herself; now the hospital stench was wrapped around her.
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