by M. Leighton
But he was so still. So very, very still.
My mind churns, mixing and remixing my emotions into a thick paste that rational thought can’t penetrate. But one feeling lurks behind all the rest, like a still, black backdrop. It’s the horrific, bone-deep, gut-wrenching certainty that something is so wrong that my life will never be the same again.
Never.
********
At the hospital, the dreaded hospital again, I follow the signs that say EMERGENCY all the way up to two wide, wooden doors that read AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Still confused by what the morning has held for me, I stare blankly at the sign until constructive thought can get a foothold.
With a muted click, the doors swing open and two nurses emerge. They smile at me as though my father isn’t in a room back there, possibly slipping away from this world, taking with him the only anchor I have left.
As they continue past me, I slip through the doors, unnoticed. I make my way slowly through the labyrinth of identical halls with identical smells and identical workers, my eyes constantly searching for the familiar face of my father.
Unremarkable door after unremarkable door goes by and still no sign of my father. I reach the end of the hall and turn the corner. Up ahead, I see the nurse’s station to my right. As I walk toward it, I pass a room with a flurry of activity inside. Nurses are shuffling quickly in and out, carrying different things. A harsh male voice is barking orders, demanding different things. I realize as I watch that I don’t need to ask anyone to help me find my father anymore.
I’ve found him.
The excruciating ache in my chest tells me so.
I stop just outside the room, staring through the window, watching the scene like I might watch a train wreck. A train wreck where my whole world is lying on the tracks.
I hear the word “clear” followed by an odd tapping sound. I know what it is. I’ve never heard it before, but I can guess. It’s the machine that shocks a dying heart back to life.
I stand, mute and motionless, listening, watching, crumbling inside as the commotion dies down and I hear the same male voice, not so harsh anymore, pronounce time of death.
Like a silent movie, somber faces file out of the room, one by one. Some look at me in question as they pass; others don’t meet my eye. It seems they know who I am. Maybe they can feel the agony coming off me in waves.
Finally, the doctor emerges. I open my mouth to speak, to tell him who I am. I hear someone say my name. But surely that’s not my voice, that broken sound. Surely not.
But it must be. The sad look of sympathy on the doctor’s face tells me so. It says that he’s the bearer of bad news. And he knows he’s delivering it to me.
His words come to me from a long distance, like he’s speaking from the other side of a large, empty room. I see him reach out compassionately and lay a hand on my arm. I feel his touch like I’m wearing layer upon layer of thick wool.
He takes me by the shoulders and turns me around, leading me to a tiny private room tucked away in a quiet corner of one hall. The soft blue furniture and soothing taupe walls are clearly meant to calm, but I feel only desperation.
Devastation.
Heartbreak.
I watch his lips move as he explains to me what happened. A few words echo through my mind in a disjointed way, things like basilar skull fracture, fatal and instant.
I think he asks me about other relatives to notify and someone I can stay with, but I can’t be sure. Like a radio with bad reception, I’m fading in and out of the world around me.
I hear that voice again, the girl’s voice, the broken one. It asks to see “him.” It spills my thoughts into the air, but it’s nearly unrecognizable to me.
I watch the doctor nod solemnly. Then he’s touching me again, leading me back through the halls into a now-empty room. Well, not completely empty. It’s only empty of the living.
Gentle hands position me at my father’s side then push me down into a chair. And then I’m alone. With my father. One last time. To say things he’ll never hear and to beg for things he can never give.
His hand seems small and pale when I slide my fingers over the cold palm. He’s always seemed larger than life, even his hands. But that’s no longer the case. They’re tiny in the face of death. Everything is.
I lean forward in my seat and brush my fingertips down his cheek. It’s firm and cool. Still. Lifeless. Never again will I see the smile that graced his face so often. Never again will I see the love that shined from his eyes. Never again will I hear the voice that soothed my worried soul.
Never.
That’s a word I’ll have to get used to.
All the things I took for granted, all the things I thought there was plenty of time for, all the things that carried a tag that read someday, now reads never. All the some days and one days, all the maybes and ifs are now nevers. Never is the new constant. The only thing that will always be true now is that he’s gone. He’ll always be gone.
I let my head fall onto his shoulder one last time. The spreading wetness beneath my cheek makes no impression on me. Nothing does.
I don’t know how long I’ve been like this when a nurse comes to help me to my feet. She explains something about having to get him ready for the funeral home and then tells me I need to get some rest.
Something in me says that’s funny—rest. Rest? Who could rest at a time like this? And what kind of person would even suggest it?
My radio fades in and out again, taking the nurse and her silly words with it. Absently, I wonder if I’ll be able to experience true rest ever again. Right now, I’m not even sure I’ll be able to experience true feeling ever again, much less rest. Or peace. Or happiness. Only numbness. Blessed numbness.
She leads me to the door and I look back, back at my father one more time. And then, with the one step that takes me from the room, I’m as gone from him as he is from me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO- Rusty
I’m surprised when I see Mom come back through the door. It’s Saturday, so she stayed home most of the day, stopping in after lunch to see me before she went downstairs to catch up on some paperwork and then go back home. Only she didn’t. She’s here instead.
“I thought you were going home?” She doesn’t answer me right away, which gives me time to notice her expression. She’s got bad news. I can see it in the way her mouth pinches in at the corners. “Please don’t tell me they’ve decided to keep me another week.”
“Son, I’ve got some bad news.”
“Well? What is it?”
There’s a long pause and a sigh before she answers. “I was going over some reports with the unit manager down in the ER when they brought in Cris Theopolis.”
Using my good arm, I push myself up in bed. “What? What happened?”
“Evidently he was in an accident at the orchard. He passed away, honey.”
I throw back the covers and climb quickly out of bed. I don’t hesitate. Not for one second, not for one heartbeat.
“Jeff, listen to me. I’ll do whatever you need me to do, but you need to stay put until they let you go.”
“To hell with that! I’m going.”
I walk to the closet to get the clothes Mom brought me a few days ago.
“Jeffrey, this could set you back. It could—”
Angrily, I whirl toward her. “I don’t give a shit, Mom. It’s Jenna.” When she does nothing but stare at me, I repeat. “It’s Jenna.”
I pull on the jeans I was going to wear when they let me go. Turns out I’m going to wear them today.
When I go find Jenna.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE- Jenna
I hear the honking again. I wonder vaguely why people keep honking at me. I’m driving straight. I’m within the lines.
Another car goes flying past as though I’m standing still. It’s then I realize that I am. Again. For the fourth time, I’ve stopped in the middle of the road and not even realized it until a car honks its horn angrily and then speeds b
y like a bat out of hell.
The nurse in the ER asked if there was family she could call for me. I stared blankly at her as I went through a mental list and came up with no one. My mother is dead. My father is dead. My brother is…well, he’s somewhere. But not here. My answer to her was no, I have no family for her to call.
I could’ve had her call Cami, but she feels far from me today. Her life is happy and perfect, not a place for all my troubles and woes, let alone a place for death and loss.
Without her, I really am alone. All alone. The only other person who means anything to me in this town couldn’t care less that my world just exploded. He made his feelings about me very clear.
As I pull off the road onto the long drive that leads to my house, I remember how, just a few weeks ago, I was enjoying the feelings of comfort this part of the drive was bringing me. Now, it feels empty. Hollow. Painful.
Once I park in my usual spot at the house, I get out of the car and, on stiff legs, make my way up the steps to the porch. The door is slightly ajar; I didn’t even bother to close it before I left to follow the ambulance.
I push it open and stop just inside the foyer to listen, to smell, to experience home the way I always have. But I can’t. This isn’t the home that I’ve returned to every year for so many. This is just the place that my dad no longer inhabits. It’s just a series of rooms alive with only the ghost of his memory. Nothing more.
I hear a slow, steady clicking and look up to see Einstein standing in the kitchen doorway. His eyes are sober as he watches me. He drops to the floor and lays his head on his paws, a soft whine screeching at the back of his throat. He knows something is wrong. So, so wrong.
I walk past him to the kitchen. I see my father reheating fried chicken for me and scrubbing me on top of the head in that loving way he used to do. I turn away, back toward the den. There, I see my father laughing and eating popcorn, and giving me philosophical advice. I turn back toward the stairs and know that, at the top, is his bedroom—now and forever empty and cold.
There is no longer any happiness here, any comfort. There is pain and loss and a future without my father. The floorboards don’t ooze peach syrup anymore; they ooze the most hideous kind of heartbreak. The walls don’t shake with laughter anymore; they shake with grief. The air doesn’t smell of home anymore; it smells of my own personal hell.
So I run.
I run back through the house, back out the door, back out into the driveway. And I stand there. Looking at the house. Knowing I can’t go back inside. Not now. Maybe not ever.
Little by little, this town has taken every bit of happiness I’ve ever had. It has swallowed it up and left me standing, broken and alone, staring at an empty house with an empty life.
I feel the first drop like a cool tear to my cheek. I look up at the sky, at the dull gray clouds that mirror the bleakness in my chest, and I see the rain begin. Slow at first, like the sky itself is suddenly feeling my pain. And then, like the break in my heart, it opens up and weeps for me, pouring rain over my upturned face.
Impervious to the downpour, I stand in the driveway, in the rain, looking at the house. I wish with all my heart the drops would just wash it away. Along with the pain.
I glance up at the windows, gaping black holes staring back at me, mocking me with what is no longer behind them, with who is no longer behind them. And never will be again.
One second the tenuous hold I have on my emotions is intact, the next it’s gone. And the damn breaks.
With a scream that echoes through my head like a coyote’s cry echoes through a canyon, it is torn from my lungs, from my chest, from my lips in one long, agonizing wail. The rain steals the sound and carries it to the ground, where it’s as dead as my father. And I’m once again all alone in the deafening silence.
Turning from the house, I take off at a run for the gate, for the orchard that took my father’s life. If I had a knife, I would cut the bark of every tree I pass until they bleed their life in thick, sticky rivulets. Penance for the life they stole.
I can’t see past the tears, past the rain. Past the pain. My foot finds a hole and my balance is lost. I see the ground coming toward my face with alarming speed. My knees hit first, the impact jarring my teeth. I close my eyes and throw out my arms to brace myself. But before I make contact with the ground, strong fingers are winding around my upper arms, stopping my descent.
One heartbeat brings confusion. The next, recognition. I don’t have to look back to know who’s got me. Who caught me. Who saved me.
Rusty turns me toward him. I stare up into his eyes. They’re deeply pained at the moment, as though they’re a reflection of my own.
“Jenna,” he whispers softly.
“What are you doing here?”
His eyes search mine. “I came for you.”
“But why?” I ask, unwilling to give in to the hope that has left me so devastated so many times before.
“In case you need me,” he responds simply.
Bitterness rises to the surface to mix with the pain. It blurs the lines of my feelings. “You shouldn’t have,” I spit. “I don’t need you.”
I see hurt flash through his eyes. “What if I need you?”
“But you don’t. You made that all too clear.”
“I was an idiot, Jenna. I was a proud, arrogant idiot. But I’m here now. Doesn’t that count for something?”
“No, it doesn’t. It can’t. It can’t,” I hiss, my voice getting louder and louder as my emotions churn. “I can’t wait for you anymore, Rusty. I can’t lose anyone else. My heart can’t take it. You had your chance and you blew it. Now let me go and get the hell off my land.”
I twist my body, trying to wrench free of his iron grip, all to no avail. Despite the fact that one arm is in a cast, Rusty is still stronger than me.
“I can’t,” he growls down into my face.
“What are you even doing here?” I scream, channeling my rage at the world, my rage at life into fury at Rusty. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the hospital, forgetting about me?”
“I was, but I left.”
“Then go back. I don’t want you here.”
“I can’t,” he says again.
“Why not?”
“Because I came here for you, Jenna.”
“Why? I didn’t ask you to come here. I never asked you for one thing. But now I am. I’m asking you to leave. Just leave. Leave me alone!”
“I can’t!” he repeats angrily, his face the twisted mask of a tortured soul.
“Why?” I rail back.
“Because I can’t let you go. I love you too much!”
My heart stops for just an instant, torn between elation and devastation. But I can’t afford to hang on to the elation. The devastation to follow might well be the end of me.
“You can’t tell me that today. You don’t get to do this to me today. I’ve lost everything. Everything. You can’t come back into my life and then leave me again, you bastard,” I cry, thumping my fists against his chest. “You don’t get to do this to me today. You don’t get to…do…this…” My words are choked out by the sobs I can no longer contain. Suddenly devoid of the ability to stay upright, I crumble into the mud, held vertical only by the grip of Rusty’s hands on my upper arms.
“Jenna, please,” he whispers, trying once more to pull me to his chest with his good arm. This time I let him, the will to fight having drained right out of me with the first few sobs. “Let me help you. Just give me this one day and I’ll go. Just this one. Please, Jenna.” In his pause, I feel a sigh expand his lungs. “Please.”
Finally, exhausted, I melt into Rusty. On our knees, in the rain, in the mud, I bury my face in his neck and I cry. From my soul, I cry. Every sob feels as though it’s torn from me, ripped viciously from a place that should never be touched so cruelly. And I’m left, alive but only physically, with nothing but gaping wounds and gushing blood that no one else can see.
When I’m so hoarse my sobs are no
thing more than croaks and I’m so spent my tears give way to the rain, somehow, with only one fully-functional arm, Rusty gently cradles me against him, stands to his feet and carries me away from the orchard.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR- Rusty
I carry Jenna toward the front door of her house, thinking only of getting her out of the rain. I barely hear it when she speaks softly into my ear. “Anywhere but there. I can’t go back in there.”
“Okay,” I tell her, detouring toward my mother’s car. I manage to get her into the passenger seat and start the engine, but then I draw a blank. Where can I take her?
Only one place comes to mind. The one place she’d feel best, I think.
Cami’s.
I drive cautiously. It’s a little unnerving for my first time back behind the wheel of a car to be in the rain, in an unfamiliar car, with a grieving Jenna in the seat beside me. Oh, and with my right arm in a cast. Hell, I don’t think conditions could be much worse.
We finally make it to Cami’s. I park and walk around to the passenger side door. I open it and lean down to scoop up Jenna, not giving her any choice other than to let me carry her again. I feel like I need to carry her. Maybe more than she needs for me to.
Once she’s in my arms, I realize she wouldn’t have argued anyway. She’s asleep. I’m not sure that’s a good thing.
I hurry to the door and ring the bell. Trick answers within a few seconds. “What the—” He frowns in confusion as he looks from me to Jenna, to her legs folded over my casted arm and then back again.
“Can I borrow your bedroom downstairs?” I ask quietly.
“Sure,” he says without hesitation, opening the door wider so we can pass.
He doesn’t ask questions, which I appreciate. It’s a guy thing.
I’m making my way through the kitchen when Cami appears in the doorway.
“Ohmigod, what happened?” she asks, rushing toward me, her eyes on Jenna.
“Shhh,” I caution. “She’s okay. Just let me take her downstairs and I’ll come back up so I can explain.”