35. Tate
When I woke up this afternoon, my whole body knew something was wrong. Intuition, premonition, superstition, whatever it was, whatever you believe in or want to call it, I knew. As sure as I know the sun rises in the east, somewhere deep inside my body a small voice whispered something was terribly wrong.
But this?
How could things be this wrong?
I’m vaguely aware that I’m not alone. Penelope has my hand gripped tightly in hers. Our hands are held together by her iron-clad grip and sweat. Either one or both of us has slick palms and we’re stuck together.
Apollo holds my other hand, he hasn’t said a word since we picked him up outside the room in which the doctor told me my parents were dead. I don’t know how he got here, or when, or how long I’ve been standing staring at the door to the trauma room Dad’s cold and lifeless body is inside, but I know Apollo is here.
“Do you want me to come in with you?” Penelope’s voice is quiet, shaky, and full of grief.
A shake of my head tells her no. “Thanks, though.”
This is something I need to do by myself, alone.
Fuck.
I am alone.
No amount of swallowing pushes the lump down in my throat. I can’t will my feet to move, my hand to turn the handle, my brain or heart to acknowledge what the doctor just told me.
I am an orphan.
The longer I stand staring at the door, the more I think this is all some kind of sick joke. When I step inside the room in front of me, it’ll be empty, or someone else’s dad will be lying on the bed in front of me, and they’ll have to call some other college kid and tell them the terrible news.
Tomorrow this will all be a distant memory, something we all laugh about. Do you remember that time we thought you were dead? Ha... We’ll find humor in it somewhere. Mom forgot the pecans for Thanksgiving dinner, and they went out together to get them.
They’re at the store, not dead in hospital beds.
They can’t be.
I need to put this whole thing to bed. I need to confirm the man on the other side of this door isn’t my dad so we can go home, eat turkey, and watch football.
The door’s barely cracked open when the glint of my grandpa’s Rolex catches my eye, resting on the bed outside the sheet pulled up to the man’s chin. My stomach sinks. As I get closer, Dad’s smell invades my nose, Old Spice and just a hint of spearmint mixed with the chemicals of the hospital.
By the time I’m standing next to the bed there’s no denying the man lying pale and still on the bed in front of me is a version of my father. A sheet covers the worst of his injuries, but his skin’s already mottled in places, and they’ve stitched up pieces of his face and neck.
The chill in my body is bone-deep, settling deep inside my soul. Will I ever be able to warm myself up again?
The faint coppery tang in the air reminds me he was fatally injured, and for a split second morbid curiosity makes me want to lift the sheet. But I don’t want to see, I don’t want to remember Dad any way other than how I’ve known him. This memory of him lying here on the bed with his possessions folded next to him on the counter is enough trauma for one lifetime.
I reach out to touch his face but stop myself. If he’s warm will I believe he’s really gone? If he’s cold will it break me inside just a bit more?
Should have asked Penelope to come in with me. She’d at least make sure I kept breathing around this thick tightness growing in my chest.
The longer I stand here, the more uncomfortable I get, my skin pricks with sweat, my chest compresses with shock and grief, and my mind races with a million questions like I’m trying to hold on to reality.
I don’t need to wonder if their affairs were in order, Dad made sure that his hefty paychecks went to practical things like paying off their mortgage and cars and at least once a year they showed me where their “death folder” lives. It’s the file they have of all their details, everything I’d need when they passed away, peacefully, in their sleep at ninety years old.
The only comfort I can grasp, as I stand staring at my father’s dead body, is that at least they are going together.
Unless something drastic changes upstairs, Mom will go with him. It’s what they both would have wanted. Dad used to joke that he’d need to marry someone else a week after Mom died because he wouldn’t be able to cope by himself. And Mom used to say she’d die of a broken heart if she ever lost Dad.
This way they can go forward into whatever’s next, whatever afterlife might exist, together. A sob clogs my throat, and I grab the rail of the bed as everything sways.
But what about me?
The shard of burning grief that slices through my chest makes me suck in a ragged breath. The practical stuff is all taken care of, sure a lot of shit will take time to sort out, but... what about me?
The familiar spark of panic ignites, and fissures of anxiety and dread spread through my whole body.
I can’t stay here, I can’t stand staring at Dad waiting for him to wake up. They said I could take my time in here, but someone else probably needs the room, it’s the nature of a busy ER, right? Someone always needs the space. And Dad would be so pissed if he knew he was holding back resources from someone else.
An odd thought, one of many that flits through my mind as I stand staring at the man who made me, the man who raised me and wonder what other life lessons he had in store for me in the coming years.
He wasn’t done being my dad.
I sniff, swiping at the tears now streaming down my face, my grip tightening on the bed as my legs weaken.
Sure, he taught me to pee standing up, how not to piss Mom off by putting the seat down and wiping any stray droplets from tired or drunk aiming. He taught me to shave and drive and cook French toast because it’s Mom’s favorite and every Mother’s Day he risked the fire department being called out to the house to make it for her.
Was.
It was her favorite.
Fuck.
No more French toast. No more Mother’s Day. No more Thanksgiving.
What even goes into her cranberry stuffing?
Another sob.
Why didn’t I take the time to ask? To learn these things? To spend more time getting to know the inner workings of my parents?
Why did I assume we had more time?
Lost in my own hurricane of grief thoughts, Penelope and Apollo are suddenly by my side, helping me up off the floor. Apparently I collapsed onto my knees at some point during my breakdown. Guess my sobs brought them into the room.
They try to sit me onto a chair, but I’m done here, there’s nothing left in this room but pain. I can’t say goodbye to this man, not now, not ever. How do I say goodbye to someone I don’t ever want to lose?
Another bolt of excruciating anguish lodges itself in my heart making it hard to breathe. Will I ever be able to breathe without agony again?
Stepping out of the room, I search for Nurse Dave and nod at him when I see him. “I need to see my mom.” I sound like a little boy, and I feel like one.
Last night I went to bed loved, safe, secure, and sure, I’ve been a dick these past couple weeks but they knew me, they knew I was going through a rough time, right? I was a decent son, right?
Fuck.
The tightness in my chest ratchets up a notch.
So many questions making my temples throb and my stomach swirl.
Autopilot takes my feet forward, following Dave to wherever Mom is. When he leads me into the room the low hum of machines makes me shiver. She looks so tiny on the bed, frail, and ghostly white.
She wouldn’t want this. She’s told me for as long as I’ve been old enough to understand that she doesn’t ever want to be kept alive by machines. Never thought it would be something I needed to enforce, or decide, but it’s not my decision to make.
I need to take it out.
Crossing the room, I grab the breathing tube entering her body. She wouldn’t want this.
Firm hands grip my arms and pull me back as I struggle to free Mom from the plastic tubing and artificial inflation making her chest rise and fall.
“You can’t pull it out, Hermano. The medical staff need to take care of her.”
It’s a subtle change in how Apollo addresses me, a shift in language from friend to brother, but I doubt it’s accidental. He’s letting me know that I’m not alone, I still have family.
It should comfort me, send warmth through the icicles taking up residence in my chest, but all I can see is the machines, my feeble Mom, and flashes of Dad’s dead body in my mind.
“Take it out. She wouldn’t want that. Take it out.” Shaking sobs make it hard to get the words out, but Dave nods.
While my friend and girlfriend settle me onto a chair, there’s a flurry of activity. They tell me it could be minutes or hours before Mom stops breathing by herself, but I know in my soul it won’t be long.
Dad’s gone, she won’t make it a long and drawn out process for me, it’ll happen fast.
I don’t know if that’s better or worse, but I do know that’s what’s going to happen.
Penelope and Apollo offer to sit with me, but once again, I send them out and stare at the woman who gave me life as she’s losing hers. This is something I need to do by myself, something I need to see through to the end, alone.
When everyone leaves, I drag my chair right up close to the bed and pick up Mom’s hand. She’s still warm. The urge to climb up next to her and sob on her chest is hard to fight, but instead, I clutch her hand between both of mine, stare at the screen, and wait.
As expected, it doesn’t take long, though for a minute there I thought she’d defy the odds and be okay.
When the machine indicates a flat line, I press the mute button on the monitor so I can have a little more time with her. But also because I’m not ready to be an orphan, or to have to make every decision for the rest of my life, alone.
If I stay here just a little longer, maybe the decisions can wait, the chaos and the red tape, the bureaucracy of probate my parents went through when Gramps died. I just can’t.
Tugging at the collar of my shirt doesn’t make it any easier to breathe. Sweat beads across my forehead and down the back of my neck, pressure building inside my body.
I need more time.
So I hold Mom’s hand, lay my head down beside her, and weep.