Envisioning Hope

by Tracy Lee

  I placed my hands on my chest and felt the rise and fall with every breath. I fell into the rhythm until I felt my eyelids become heavy. My breathing became controlled and slow. I noticed my pattern had changed. My chest wasn't rising as high and it would become less and less each time. Finally, I closed my eyes and was immediately transported back to the kitchen where I was with Charlie and Sawyer.

  This time, something was different. I sat where I was once before and I could smell the apple and cinnamon plug-in scents that I had placed throughout the house. I looked to Sawyer's highchair, but he wasn't eating like the last time I was here. I got up and walked around. I called out Charlie's name and there was no response. This wasn't happening, they were here somewhere. Then, it hit me.

  "Sawyer's room."

  A sigh of relief washed over me as I remembered when Charlie would come home, whisk Sawyer up in his arms, and fly him all around the world. They had to be up there playing. I ran for the stairs, taking two at a time until I hit the second floor. I wanted to watch them interact together, so I quietly peeked around the corner and found that I was looking into an empty room.

  I ran to our room and jerked the door open. I couldn't believe it. It was as if I hadn't left it a day. It had been close to two years since the accident and my mind could still visualize every detail as if I walked out and right back in.

  I designed this room. I wanted it to be feminine, yet make it known that a man sleeps in here. My brandy and hunter green paisley comforter still covered my king sized bed. The gold candle holding sconces hung on either side of the large water colored abstract orchid painting. The colors were remarkable, reds and crèmes mixed with light blues and a touch of yellow, it was even more spectacular. The piece caught my eye as soon as I had seen it and I knew that I had to have it. I moved my eyes slowly, landing on my vanity that sat beside the large window. I always felt that you should have natural lighting present when putting your makeup on so that when you went outside your face wasn't too dark or too light. I strolled over and picked up an item from the table, it was my favorite shade of lipstick. Sitting down, I noticed my reflection in the mirror. I was me again. My hair was straight and a bright shade of blonde. I grinned when I looked at it, I paid a hell of a lot of money for those highlights and loved that they glimmered in the sunlight. I pulled the cap off of the lipstick and slowly rolled it until the stick of Bronzed Buff was pushed up the tube about halfway. Gradually, I brought the stick up to my lips. "Do it, Hope," I said to myself, terrified that if I went too fast the dream would end. I felt and saw the color glide smoothly across my lips. I ran it over again just to make sure I could feel it…no, that I could see it. I brought the tube down and looked at myself in the mirror.

  It was me.

  I could visually see me. I looked back in the mirror and saw beauty radiating back to me. I was sexy and it was erotic thinking about how uninhibited I was when it came to being intimate with Charlie.

  "I had everything I could've ever wanted," I said to my reflection. And it was the truth, I wanted for nothing. I let me head fall into my hands as I thought about how nothing mattered to me anymore when something caught my eye. There, beside me on my vanity, sat a picture of the three of us.

  Me, Charlie, and Sawyer.

  My family

  It was the day Sawyer was born.

  I never thought I could feel anything more than what I felt that day.

  "We're a family, babe," Charlie whispered in my ear as he wrapped one arm around me and Sawyer and snapped the picture with the other hand. I leaned back and placed a kiss on his cheek, silently thanking him for giving me the most precious gift anyone could have ever given me. I heard the click of the camera and finally looked up at him to respond. "Yeah Charlie, we're a family."

  I squeezed my eyes shut at the memory.

  "Wait a minute, something's not right," I said to myself as I looked around the room again. "I didn't keep this picture here." And, I was right, I know I was. That picture was kept on the mantle downstairs because it was so beautiful. I got up to move back downstairs when I heard and felt a rumble so loud, I thought the house was falling in.

  "Charlie?" I called as I went to leave the bedroom. Then, the house began to fade away.

  Suddenly, there was the loud explosion again.

  Boom!

  I quickly turned around and I was now sitting in a car.

  "Had a good time tonight, Hope."

  I turned my head and saw Charlie driving.

  Oh. My. God.

  He was driving the car I bought him for our anniversary.

  The car.

  I looked back behind me and there was Sawyer sleeping in his car seat.

  "No, no, no, no, no, no!" That was all that would come out of my mouth. I had been through this once, I couldn't deal with it again. I knew the outcome and there was nothing I could do to change it. "My god, Hope, what's the matter? Are you alright?"

  Or, was there?

  "Charlie, when the light turns green, sit here…don't go." My voice was frantic. I was sitting up, turned toward him. Panic had overcome me. I grabbed his face with both my hands.

  "Do you hear me, Charlie? Don't go!"

  Charlie put the car in park and turned toward me, my face moving back and forth between the back seat and the front seat. I reached back to grab Sawyer's hand and just as I went to turn, the light turned green. I stopped moving.

  "Honey, it's okay, it was just a nightmare. I saw his hand reach down in slow motion to put the car in drive. I felt as he pushed his foot down on the gas and my eyes were looking both ways out to the intersection. I didn't see any lights, so maybe we would be early. The car built up speed and my head went to the back to look at Sawyer when I heard it.

  The explosion.

  I sat straight up in my bed, soaked in sweat. I was back to a lonely reality.

  I flew out of the bed with my hands out in front of me. I was barely awake so I swung my arm back and forth quickly as to not run into anything. I was overcome with emotions, I couldn't even point one of them out directly. I was pissed that I was the only one left to have to deal with the loss, I was fucking livid that I had to relive that night over again. I was beyond miserable because I have to live without them and because I had to live that night over again. "I can't even look at your pictures!" I screamed as I came upon the small table in the corner that housed a small AM/FM radio. I kept that one on continuously because it was close to my bed. I heaved it across the room, listening as it hit the wall and shattered into a million pieces. I began walking across the room to where another radio sat and repeated the process.

  "Why?!" I shrieked at the top of my lungs.

  "Why couldn't you just stop and look?" I said to no one, but waited for anyone to answer as I continued on my destructive rampage. Hitting a small table, I picked up the CD player that played one CD over and over. Not anymore it didn't. I was so busy destroying items, I didn't hear the door open. Out of nowhere, I was picked up, thrown down on my bed, and pricked in the arm.

  "Why couldn't he have just loo–"

  That was all I got out before I couldn't hear my scratchy voice anymore.

  * * *

  "Listen to me, doc, she knows I'm coming," I reiterated in a slightly louder tone. I had been fighting with Doc Underwood for almost twenty minutes now with a handful of clothes and two pairs of slip-on shoes that I had to carry in my arms since they didn't allow any types of bags in here.

  "And, I'm telling you, Ollie, she's not even awake to respond to you. She had an…" I could tell he was scared to say something he would regret. He wanted her out of here, but if anything that dealt with the word "breakdown" or "suicide watch" came up, especially in one of my reports, there was no way in hell she would ever make it out.

  And he would have to deal with her forever…and ever…

  His slight cough brought me back to the conversation. "…Incident the other night. She had to be sedated and she's resting. Give her ‘till tomorrow, Ollie.
I'll make sure she's ready." I looked at my watch. I had already made two trips to this hospital and still hadn't begun my initial assessment.

  Well, I had, but I couldn't turn that in because they'd lock her up and throw away the key. Thinking back to the when the doctor put seven stitches in the back of my head, I fought against whether or not I should include that in my notes.

  I decided against it.

  "I'm comin' back tomorrow morning, doc, and she better be ready to go. Here…I'm leaving these. Saves me from having to lug them all back in here a second time."

  Doc Underwood looked at me and tipped the right side of his mouth up as he nodded once. He wasn't gonna give me a full smile, but he knew that I was smart enough not to run around in public with white bras and panties that just might catch the wind a certain way and blow off the pile of women's jeans.

  That's all I needed.

  I walked back out to my car and opened the door. I slid inside and scrubbed my face with my hands. I was so frustrated with this whole situation. The lady didn't want any help, especially from me, so why wouldn't they just let her do what she wanted? What harm was she doing? She was either going to die from heat exhaustion from all of those damn lamps, or end up going deaf from the fucking radios.

  I really didn't see her being a nuisance. She was like a bumble bee; as long as you left her alone, she wouldn't sting you. I rubbed my hand over the back of my head where I could feel the physical evidence of her sting.

  "Just like every other one of your clients, she deserves to live again, Ollie," I said to myself, answering my own question.

  Hope Saxton was empty inside. Just a hallowed shell, a vegetable, autonomically responding to the environment around her. That was no way to live. I opened up her file that was lying on the passenger seat and looked at the picture that was stapled to the top of the manila folder one more time. I couldn't read her eyes because they were shut, but her face told me all I needed to know.

  I couldn't give up on her.

  Mrs. Saxton had given up on herself…someone needed to show her that while, yes, she had been through a horrible life changing ordeal, there was no way in hell her husband would want her living like this: locked away, sitting in a corner, dirty and unhygienic, and throwing coffee mugs at everyone that walked in to speak with her. She was still young and needed to fight for something. That something was a word she heard every time someone called her name.

  Hope.

  I set my eyes to the rearview mirror and took in the reflection.

  "You're coming back tomorrow."

  I made sure I understood that there was no way I was backing out of this. Morally, I knew that it wasn't in me not to help her, but physically…I ran my hand over the back of my head once more. I really had taken more than enough. I put the key in the ignition and backed out of the parking space.

  * * *

  "How we doin', Ollie? Need a refill?"

  Jackie's rough voice came at me as she put her purse behind the bar. She didn't smoke, but you couldn't tell by the scratch in her tone. It must've been all the years behind a bar she had under her belt. I dropped my eyes to my bottle of beer and held it up as I smiled a half grin. She read my expression and dropped to the mini fridge to grab me another. I watched as she made her way down the bar to me, placing the small square napkin down before setting the beer bottle on top of it.

  "Doin'…how are you tonight?" I asked in response. They knew me here. At this bar, we were family, at least the kind of family I needed. They didn't get in my business unless I wanted them there and they didn't ask to borrow money from me. We were all here for one thing and one thing only, to tie one on and then go home by ourselves and jerk off before closing our eyes to start this shit all over again.

  "The same as I was yesterday, and the day before that… lonely and broke."

  That was always her response. She began wiping unseen water marks off the bar, giving her reason to not stand and chat. Jackie was actually neither since her old man had just taken a seat at the end of the bar. I had a feeling the reason she said that same phrase was to make us that actually were lonely and broke feel as though we weren't alone.

  I nodded once as I put the longneck beer up to my lips and let the cool liquid roll down the back of my throat. This bar was not a happening place. Having been here since I'm sure the early seventies, it was just a hole in the wall neighborhood bar that was in walking distance of where most of us lived. There was no live band, no dancing, and sure as shit no females other than the normal patrons.

  "How's work going, Ollie?" Glenn slurred from the other end of the bar. I hadn't been in here since I had my incident with Hope Saxton. For all these people knew, I was busy with my other clients and life was going just great.

  "Oh, you know, got my nose to the grindstone," I joked. Glenn raised his hand toward Jackie and pointed down to his glass of bourbon that was just about empty while never taking his eyes off of me. "Ain't that the truth? I remember those days. Don't no one want to hire someone my age, ‘prolly afraid I'll keel over and die on ‘em," he finished, laughing at his reality as though it were a joke.

  He talked before about his issues with finding a job and he was right, times were tough here. Recession hit and companies weren't hiring, especially people Glenn's age. He took it hard, seeking sympathy in the bottle.

  Suddenly, the jukebox kicked on and played an old Hank Williams song which I took to be a sign. I picked up my beer and commenced to getting my drink on. The night continued and the conversation became casual and entertaining. Laughter masked the signs of gloom and dejection while sounds of whooping and clinking glasses made everyone vow that, by morning, all things would be different. Deep down, I knew that I would be going home to a lonely, silent one bedroom apartment and nothing would be different for me.

  I turned my attention to my watch and noticed that it was almost midnight. I threw back what was left of my beer and got up, throwing some money up on the bar for Jackie. Her eyes caught mine and I lifted my head in thanks for the service she had given me as I headed to the entrance.

  Glenn's voice caught my ear as I heard him slur his declaration.

  "New challenges await you tomorrow, Ollie. If you're not careful, they're gonna hit you smack dab in the face!"

  I just rolled my eyes and held my hand up in acknowledgement at the absurdness of his statement. I knew what tomorrow held for me and I was not going in blind, I was going to be ready for whatever Hope Saxton was going to throw my way.

  Literally.

  Chapter 9

  Arriving back at the hospital that morning, I noticed the same young nurse who manned the main desk every morning in her usual spot wearing that usual smile that took up most of her face. Her demeanor had changed from the first day I met her, laughing up a storm when she saw who I would be visiting. As I approached, she waved me through, earning her with a smile and a wink. She was saving me from having to dig in my bag for identification and paperwork. My eyes dashed between the entrance of the hallway and the clipboard that seemed to be screaming for me to approach and record my name.

  I decided to take a chance and continued to walk through. When I heard no response, I kept going. The morning nurse, who I had never seen before, stopped me and asked me for my pass. I showed her my identification and followed her as she walked me down the hallway.

  I was tired. I didn't sleep due to stressing over how today was going to go. I wasn't sure how Mrs. Saxton was going to take me, or if she would even react to me at all. I don't think I was nervous, I think it was more of the fact that the entirety of this woman's future livelihood depended on me. Today was going to be the beginning of her future and I still had no idea what to expect.

  Okay, maybe you could call it apprehension.

  The sound of the key turning in the door brought me back to the reality that I had to walk through that entry and quickly deal with what I was about to find. Of course, I knew that all the lamps would be on, along with the television and radios. I
saw Mrs. Saxton lying in bed on her side with her back toward me. I didn't want to frighten her, so I decided to call out her name even though I was pretty sure she knew I was there.

  "Mrs. Saxton, its Oliver Sheldon. Are you awake?"

  I didn't move until I heard a response, a response that never came. I took a couple steps closer to the bed, keeping my guard fully in place. If she heard my voice, she could determine right where I was when it came to chucking something at me.

  I stood there another moment before I said, "Mrs. Saxton…"

  "Go away," she mumbled from the pillow. I closed my eyes knowing that it was more than likely going to get ugly in here, but leaving without going over this evaluation was not an option. She had had a year of people turning their backs to her just so they didn't have to deal with her, but her time of pushing people away was over.

  "Mrs. Saxton, that's not happening. So, why don't you make it easier on the both of us? I've brought you some clothes, let's get you dressed and we will sit down and discuss what our relationship will entail.

  "I said, go away."

  I had a feeling that most of the people that came in here dealt with her in a loving, gentle way. I also had a feeling that that kind of therapy was going to get another mug thrown at my head. I decided that I would experiment with this.

  "Mrs. Saxton…" I said in a gentle, positive tone. The one they teach you in college that will allow positive energy to flow, thus allowing the patient the proper tools to make the correct decision.

  Truthfully, if you ask me, it's a crock of shit.

  I decided to ignore her negative remarks and began to fill the air with "positive energy". "I think it would be in your best interest to get out of bed and put some clothes on. Then we can discuss, together, the best option for your rehab."

  There. I got it out. That was the biggest line of bullshit I had ever heard in my life…and it came out of my own mouth! No wonder I barely passed that part of the class. I stood there waiting for the response I knew would be coming at any moment now.