by Jewel E. Ann
“Franz, show me your favorite jammies,” Ling said with Franz’s level of enthusiasm.
Before he could scramble to his feet to follow Ling, Anya cried from her bedroom.
I flinched, my gaze darting to Ronin. My mom had taken Anya to her room to rock her to sleep.
“She’s teething. I should give her something.” I yawned.
Before Ronin could return a full nod, his gaze redirected toward the hallway, eyes widening as he pushed himself off the sofa. My gaze followed him … as if in slow motion. At least, that was how I always remembered that moment.
Anya, stumbled down the hallway with her already unsteady toddler gait, a trail of blood from her head to her jaw. My mom … nowhere in sight.
“Anya!” I rushed to her right behind Ronin.
He picked her up as if nothing in his body felt pain at that moment—the power of adrenaline. Then he inspected the cut on her head as she reached for me. I didn’t think it was possible to stretch anymore, but I felt the painful pull once again from the people that I loved.
“Take her. Call 9-1-1.” Ronin handed Anya to me. I knew the call wasn’t for our daughter.
As soon as I turned to go find my phone, my dad rushed past me.
He knew too.
“I’m calling.” Victor pulled his phone from his pocket.
Ling hurried toward me with a wad of tissues, pressing them to Anya’s cut while I used my shirt to wipe the blood from her cheek.
Stretch.
Tug.
Pull.
I felt the cracks as Franz hugged my leg.
“Mommy! Anya bleeding!”
I couldn’t let go of my little girl, but something happened to my mom, and I had no idea what it was. With my babies clinging to me, I couldn’t go back to the room to find out.
Ling gestured to the wad of tissues on Anya’s head. “Hold this here. I’ll go see.”
Fear strangled me, even a simple “okay” couldn’t make it out of my mouth. I nodded, holding the tissue to Anya’s head as I tried really hard to not let out the tears pooling in my eyes. Dread snatched my ability to think coherently. Heart palpations stole my breath, making it hard to find enough oxygen. But I had to find that next breath. I knew at some point I would no longer have to be strong for anyone else, and I would crumble into a cloud of despair. Until then … I moved like a wave, miles off the shore, waiting for my turn to crash … break … and disappear.
My grandma told me God never gave us more than we could handle. Either she was wrong, or I was right—God didn’t exist.
Closing my eyes, I let everything slow down until all I could feel were my children’s arms—Franz around my leg, Anya around my neck. What if they were the only ones I could keep with me? Could I lose my mom, my best friend, and my husband and still be okay? Could I be the wave that changed courses in the storm, carrying them with me to avoid crashing … breaking … disappearing?
Yes.
I knew it the moment I held Franz in my arms. My love would always be strong enough to last my whole life. If my heart had a beat, I would be there for Franz and Anya. I never wanted it to beat alone. I’d always imagined it beating with Ronin’s heart, a union as beautiful as the one that brought our children into the world.
“I love you.” I found my voice as I kissed the skin beside Anya’s head. She hiccupped with a few more sobs.
“I love you both so much.” I squatted down, dropping to my backside and bringing Franz into my embrace too. “And we will be okay.”
My internal reconciliation had nothing to do with me giving up on my mom, on Lila, on Ronin … It was me building a shelter in my heart for my children—one that would weather every storm.
“She had a seizure.” Ling rested her hand on my shoulder.
My body gently swayed side to side with my world wrapped in my arms.
A seizure.
Knowing we would be okay no matter what, I was able to file that information into the right place in my mind.
My mom had cancer.
My mom was dying.
My mom was going to experience seizures, dizziness, vomiting, headaches, numbness, and possibly paralysis in parts of her body.
A seizure.
She would be fine … for the time being.
One moment. One breath.
I couldn’t undo the past. Nor could I change the future.
My babies are okay. We are okay.
Victor moved from watching out the window to opening the door for the paramedics.
Two of them ushered past me down the hallway following Ling. A third one, a fair skinned woman with a soft smile, squatted next to me while slipping on her blue gloves.
“I’m Janette. Can I take a look?” she asked.
I eased the wad of tissue away from Anya’s head.
She covered it with a gauze square. “We’ll make this all better, sweetie.”
“Grandma!” Franz jumped out of my lap and tried to run after the two medics taking my mom out to the ambulance.
“Anya …” My mom’s weak voice echoed.
“Your grandma will be fine, Franz. They just need to have a doctor check on her. You can see her later.” Victor picked up Franz just before he made it out the door.
“Evie, let’s go, baby.” Ronin took Anya from me. “I’ll take Anya in the ambulance with your mom. You take your dad and follow us in the Jeep.” He held out his other hand to me.
I didn’t take it. I didn’t need his help to stand up. He was the one who needed help.
“Ronin, you can’t—”
“I’m fine.” He kissed the side of Anya’s head.
He wasn’t fine. Ronin’s usually warm beige skin was whiter than mine. He had dark circles under his eyes, and his cheeks were sunken beneath his cheek bones more than usual because he hadn’t eaten much in days.
“We’ll stay with Franz. Call if you need anything.” Ling handed me my coat, phone, and purse as I stood.
Ronin wrapped a blanket from the sofa around himself and Anya before heading out to the ambulance.
“Grandma and Grandpa are going to put you to bed, Franz.” I hugged him. “We’re going to let the doctors fix Grandma and Anya. I love you so much. We’ll be back soon.”
I saw the unease in his eyes. Ronin’s parents visited several times a year, but Franz wasn’t as comfortable with them as he was with my parents whom he saw almost every week. But man, oh man … did I ever love how my little boy put on his best brave face for me when I absolutely needed it more than anything else.
“Okay, Mommy. Goodnight.”
Sheesh …
That brought tears to my eyes more than had he tried to argue with me or beg me to stay.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Ronin
They admitted Madeline for the night, put three stitches in Anya’s head, and gave me an IV because I had low blood pressure and appeared to be dehydrated. I refused to be admitted for the night too, much to Evelyn’s sour-faced displeasure.
“I’m going to check in with my parents,” I whispered, leaving Evelyn, her dad, and Anya in Madeline’s room as she started to drift off to sleep.
Instead of calling my parents, I wheeled my portable IV to Lila’s room. Graham had to go back to Denver earlier that day, leaving Lila’s personal assistant to stay with her. I couldn’t imagine leaving my wife just a few days after a major accident, but I wasn’t the governor of Colorado. However, she was being transferred to a Denver hospital the following day. They wouldn’t attempt the transfer until they felt she was stable.
Fiona glanced up from her computer when I opened the glass door to Lila’s room. On a smile, she pushed her red-framed glasses up her nose before curling her dark blond hair behind her ears. “Hi,” she whispered, which made Lila turn her head and open her eyes.
“Can we have a few minutes?” I asked Fiona.
“Sure. I might go grab a bite to eat if you’ll be here for a bit.”
“Sure.” I wheeled my IV into the roo
m and eased into the seat Fiona had occupied.
“You look like shit.” Lila attempted to grin with half of her face bandaged. “I thought you were the one who rescued me. Who rescued you? And I thought you went home this morning.”
I grunted, trying to at least match her half-ass smile. “Madeline had a seizure after dinner.”
“Oh my god! Is she okay?”
I flinched as Lila tried to sit up. She flinched too because it hurt to move.
“Relax. It’s fine. An expected complication of her condition. Unfortunately, she was rocking Anya to sleep when it happened. Anya fell from her lap and cut her head. But everyone is fine.”
“Oh baby Anya …” She closed her eyes for a brief moment. “You, Ronin … earlier Evelyn told me your heart stopped. Please tell me it wasn’t from the stress of trying to save me.”
“No.”
Truth.
It wasn’t the trying part. It was because I succeeded, and more specifically, because she went into cardiac arrest a second time at the hospital. And fuck my life because at the exact moment her heart stopped, so did mine. It was complicated, and yet a rather simple explanation that I’d come to expect—and accept.
As a child, I envied the superheroes in all the books I stashed under my bed. Even when I decided to go through the long and rigorous training to become a paramedic, the young boy in me couldn’t wait to be the person—the superhero—who saved lives.
“I hope you’re feeling better than me,” she murmured. “I’m so scared of getting addicted to pain medications. I’ve been making them give me the bare minimum and only toward the end of the day … just to sleep.”
While I appreciated her concern, which was a real one, I needed her to take a few more pain meds because they wouldn’t prescribe them to me for a heart condition that shouldn’t have caused me that much pain.
Yes. I needed her to take pain meds for me.
“Everything hurts …” She closed her eyes.
Her head.
“My head.”
Her right arm.
“My right arm.”
But her leg … it’s the worst.
“However … my leg is driving me crazy. I think amputating it would have been a better option. I can’t imagine ever using it to walk again.”
Was it selfish of me to want Lila to do whatever it took to take away the pain? Strong people pushed through and worked hard. They didn’t pop pills and wither away in the corner. The problem was … this wasn’t my battle. No matter how hard I worked or fought, it wouldn’t make a difference. It was like running marathons in my dreams. Eventually, I would wake to the grim reality that I didn’t move an inch. Dreams could be vivid and memorable, but that didn’t make them real. Not moving an inch made it hard to be strong. It made it incredibly easy to want to crawl in that corner and pop pills.
Still … I could do this. I would do this. Lila would recover, and I would recover.
“There are many ways to manage pain that don’t involve medication. Acupuncture. Acupressure. Herbs. Hypnosis.” I had tried all of them; they weren’t as effective for me because I didn’t own the source of the pain—the negative and blocked energy. But for Lila, they were worth trying.
“Okay.” She sighed.
Okay was good. Okay gave me hope.
“Graham won’t like the alternatives. He’ll encourage me to take the medications.”
Graham … I would handle Graham through his biggest weakness—Evelyn. I liked Graham. We were friends. And part of my fondness for him was in fact his loyalty to my wife and the wellness of her family. Beneath all the money and political power, I honestly felt Graham had his feet planted on a solid base of good morals and an instinct to do the right thing. However, he looked at Evelyn in a way that kept me aware. It was hard to explain. Evelyn said they tried and failed at being more than friends, but Graham had never said those actual words. That was what kept me aware.
He worshipped my wife, and I had a feeling he did so as much if not more than his own wife. It didn’t make me happy, but I needed to use the leverage that Evelyn unknowingly had over him to make the upcoming weeks—maybe months—more manageable. Lila might not stand up to Graham, but Evelyn had no issue with putting him in his place, no matter how much money he had in the bank or what title came before his name.
My wife was pretty fucking awesome like that.
“Your pain meds for the night are kicking in; I’ll let you get some sleep.” I eased out of the chair, using my IV pole for support.
“How do you know that? Did I yawn?”
“No. It’s just a feeling.”
“Well … you’re very empathetic. I am feeling drowsy and a little numb in all the right places.”
Me too.
It was time to go. “Sleep well, Lila.”
Anya was asleep by the time I returned to Madeline’s room.
“Ready to go home?” I whispered to not disturb either Madeline or Anya.
Evelyn nodded, rubbing Anya’s back. “Dad’s staying here.”
I grinned, glancing over at Corey wedged into the hospital bed with his wife. “I figured.” That would have been my dad too had it been my mom in the hospital. It was what made me sad for Lila. Governor of Colorado or not … Graham should have been there with her. Nothing would have taken me away from my wife in that same scenario. Nothing.
“Where’s your IV?” Evelyn asked.
“I removed it.”
“I’m not sure patients are supposed to remove their own IVs.”
“Probably not.” I shrugged.
“Can you carry Anya?”
I could barely carry my head on my shoulders. The adrenaline had worn off. The pain subsided, but I felt so groggy. “Of course.” Lifting my pint-sized pixie from Evelyn’s arms, I hugged her to me. She felt like a two-hundred-pound bag of dead weight. Evelyn kissed her mom and dad goodnight and followed me to the elevators. By the time we made it to the Jeep, I was drenched in sweat despite the thirty-degree temperature outside.
After easing Anya into her car seat, I closed my eyes and took a few slow breaths before my hands found the energy to fasten the straps.
“Roe …” Evelyn stopped me after I shut the back door, resting her hand on my chest. “You’re sweating like you just ran a race.”
I did … in my dreams or more like my nightmares.
Swallowing, I wiped my brow. She didn’t need this, not with everything else crowded onto her shrinking plate. “I’m fine.”
Evelyn shook her head slowly, eyes narrowed into a palpable concern as she held up the keys and opened the passenger door. “Get in. You’re not fine.”
I didn’t argue. In fact, I didn’t say a single word because as soon as I climbed into the Jeep and fastened my seatbelt, I fell asleep. When we got home, Evelyn nudged my arm. The inside of my eyelids felt like sandpaper rubbing over my eyeballs as I forced them open. She climbed out and carried Anya inside. It took that superhuman strength I so desperately wanted just to drag my own ass inside the house. My parents were asleep on the Murphy bed, so we kept the lights off and made our way to the bedroom, depositing Anya in her bed on our way.
My wife looked the way I felt. We moved through an abbreviated bedtime routine in slow motion.
No showers.
Ten seconds of running toothbrushes over our teeth.
I managed to peel off my shirt and jeans. Evelyn pulled off her leggings and climbed into bed in her panties and a long-sleeved tee. There wasn’t much strength left in my body. It took what little strength I had left to step up after Madeline’s seizure. Still … this woman—who gave me two beautiful children, who was the ultimate game changer in my life, who personified the truest meaning of life—needed my arms. She didn’t have to say it. I felt it.
Amid my superhuman curse, the incurable pain of another human’s physical suffering, and the anguish of explaining it to my wife, I could still feel her, like somewhere along the way she’d woven a piece of her heart—a fragment
of her soul—into me. I knew from those two perfect children on the other side of the wall that Evelyn and I were destined to come together in this life and make something beautiful that would let our love live on forever.
As weak and pain-ridden as I felt, nothing could have kept me from reaching for my lifeline and pulling her into my arms. Her body shook as I buried my face in her hair, kissing her neck.
“I…” her voice cracked “…had to…” more silent sobs “…tell myself we’d be okay without you.”
That cut so fucking deep I feared my heart would stop just from the pain of reality. I was supposed to be the rock, the one person she could count on no matter what. I promised to carry her.
Her breathing slowed as the sobs subsided. “Roe … I don’t want to be okay without you.”
“Then don’t. Be okay with me.”
She turned in my arms to face me. After gazing up at me for several silent seconds, she sat up and shrugged off her shirt. I didn’t know how to tell her that I honestly wasn’t sure if I could make love to her. Everything hurt and my level of exhaustion was not like anything I had ever felt. Before I could say anything, she wrapped her body around mine, wearing nothing but a pair of white panties—her bare chest pressed to mine.
“My heart wants to beat with yours,” she whispered in a sleepy voice.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ronin – Age 27
After six hospitalizations in five years, zero diagnoses, and weekly visits to a psychiatrist—that bore no fruit—my father sat idle with his tongue planted in his teeth while my mom showed me a website.
“Don’t judge the content by the design.” She smiled at me before pinning Dad with a scowl.
I grimaced. “That’s hard not to do. What content? It’s … a black page with a tiny light, like a pinpoint in the middle of the screen, and an email in the upper right corner. No navigation bar. A light? Have I mentioned at least a million times that I didn’t see a light?”
“Athelinda is in California … Berkeley. I think you should go talk to her.” Mom rested her hand on my back.
“Athelinda, huh? Well, I’m in France … Chamonix. I don’t think I need to fly to California just to visit another psychiatrist.” I plopped down into the desk chair.