23. Markus
CHAPTER 23
MARKUS
My dad is dying. Not in that casual “he’s in hospice, and only has a few days left” type of dying. He’s actively dying right now.
There I was, out in the hallway, stealing a moment alone to call Adam, when chaos erupted in the form of my mother, standing outside Dad’s door hollering for help.
Now, a couple nurses enter Dad’s room. Mom’s voice peaks in volume, the sound hurried and worried and in great contrast to the staff’s calm, clinical demeanor.
Hesitating just a moment, I step into Dad’s room and freeze at the foot of his bed, watching the staff work as my mother begins to pray through her tears. I don’t have tears to shed or prayers to add, unless you count my hope for a peaceful and painless passing.
With do-not-resuscitate orders in place, no one tries to restart my father’s heart or force air in and out of his lungs. We all just stand there and let him die.
Once he’s passed, a new ritual begins. The post-death procedures start with turning off the equipment surrounding the bed, silencing the mechanical tones and beeps until it is deathly quiet in here. Wordlessly, the staff files out of the room so we, the family, can have a private moment alone with our dearly departed.
But I don’t need a moment alone with my father. My last words to him were of peace and forgiveness, and I’m glad for that. Coming here, sitting with him as he slept today, allowed me some closure on a relationship that was never what I needed, but at least at the end I wasn’t left with an empty hole and no farewells. Do I have unanswered questions? Yes, of course, but they feel less important to me now.
My mom, on the other hand, seems to need this moment. She cries, her tears dripping and dribbling down her cheeks as she holds her husband’s limp hand.
Suddenly, I feel a wave of sorrow for her. I spent today mourning my father as he lay dying, but he’s gone, and now is when the pain truly begins for those left behind. Mom is a widow now, and she’s completely alone. Wanting to comfort her, I set my hand on her shoulder. She jerks with shock, and glances up at me as if she didn’t realize I was still here.
“I’m sorry,” I say to her, and the words have layers of meaning: sorry for startling you; sorry for your loss; sorry we are the way we are to each other.
Her reaction is to turn her attention to her appearance, dabbing a tissue on her cheeks to dry her eyes and the tracks of her tears, like she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t be doing. As if revealing emotion is a terrible sin. When she stands and turns to face me, the emotional creature I caught crying is gone, and in her place is a planner, making plans.
This is the mother I’ve known all my life. Emotion was never her style. She starts talking, and there’s no sign of tears or sorrow in the tone of her voice as she rattles off the particulars of her plans for Dad’s final arrangements.
In overly specific detail, she tells me that the hospital will send Dad’s body to the funeral home, and in four days, there will be a service at their church, then the burial in a double plot they purchased a couple years ago at the big cemetery on the edge of town.
“Mark…” Mom starts.
I know with frustrated certainty, that no matter how many times I tell her I go by Markus now, she will only ever call me Mark.
“You’ll need to call your father’s former law partners to give them the news.” Mom is reading from a list now, something I suspect she’s been making for the last couple days.
“Mother,” I interrupt her before she gets too far into her assignments for me. “I’m not staying for the funeral.”
“What?” She frowns, pales, looks truly aghast. Then her horror turns to anger, and she scowls at me. “That’s it? You’re just leaving ?”
“Why would you want me to stay?”
“To honor your father, to show respect for your family. How will it look if our only son misses his own father’s funeral?”
“I’m not concerned with how it will look. I said goodbye to Dad in the way I needed to. Thank you for calling so I had that opportunity. The funeral is for you and your community. I’m not part of that.” I move toward the door, ready to leave.
“You’ve always been so selfish, such a disappointment.” Mom’s words hiss, like she’s a snake trying to bite.
I don’t let her get to me. Mom’s contemptuous distain has bitten into me for decades, and it’s always hurt. She’s taken parts of my peace, happiness, and identity, but today I won’t let her hurt me anymore.
“Goodbye, Mother,” I say, and then I go.
The chill in the pre-dawn air ushered in by last night’s cold front is cool and crisp and smells like chimney smoke. It’s one of my favorite scents, and fall is my favorite time of year, so I drive with the windows down. I’m not dressed for the cold, but it feels invigorating as it whips and swirls through the car.
Each mile I drive away from my hometown feels good too. I have no idea how much it will cost me to return this car in a different city from the place where I rented it, but I don’t care. I just want to leave, as quickly as possible, rental car costs be damned.
The drive home to Krause feels like an exorcism, a cleansing of so much negative energy, surfacing deep, dark emotions that have festered inside me for far too long. When the sun crests the horizon, harkening the start of a new day, it burns away some of my old pain. My vision blurs and I try to blink away the tears, but eventually I need to pull over as emotion overtakes me. I let it, sobbing fiercely, like a howling animal.
Apparently, my exhaustion caught up with me, because I wake on the side of that road when a semitruck blasts past me, shaking the ground and the shoulder of the road and my rental car parked atop it. The truck’s wake blasts an icy wind through my windows, twisting and tangling my hair as it slaps and prickles my chilled skin.
I’m awake! Yep.
Rubbing dry bits of tears and sleep from my eyes, I stretch my aching muscles. When I’m truly awake again, I restart the car and continue. Soon, I’m back in Krause, and my spiritual journey home is at an end.
Checking the time, I see it’s just after noon. Adam’s on duty at the fire station now. I wanted to talk to him before he started his shift because I hate how I left things between us last night, declaring my “like” for him and then hanging up. But I will have to wait for my opportunity to sort that out.
In the meantime, I have shit to do.
First stop, Krause County Sheriff’s Department. The county’s law enforcement unit is housed in a small brick building a couple blocks from my clinic, large enough to fit a two-cell jail and the workplace of Sheriff Sneed and four deputies. Considering it’s the middle of the day, I expect to walk into a bustling office, but it’s deserted, all the desks empty.
I stand around, feeling like an idiot who doesn’t know the protocol here. Is there a bell or something to ring for service? Looking all over, I find nothing like that, so I finally resort to hollering, “Hello?”
“Hello?” I hear back, almost like an echo, except the response comes in a feminine voice.
Despite this call and response, no one appears in the front office to greet me, so after a few moments, I try again, putting a little more singsong into my tone. “Hello?”
“Hello?” she replies, putting more singsong into her tone too.
What the actual fuck?
“I’ve come to check on my car. I was involved in an accident a few days ago, and I was wondering where it was towed?—”
“Oh, hey, Markus!” The voice says again, but this time it’s accompanied with the face to go with it as a woman comes out of a doorway along the back wall. She’s tiny and looks a little overwhelmed by the heavy belt and it’s law-enforcement accoutrements weighing on her trim hips. Her red hair is pulled back into a tight chignon, which makes her big green eyes seem even larger as she smiles up at me.
Wait, how does she know my name ? —?
“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten me already,” she says and winks at me, like she can read my mind.
Truth is, I have, but I try to play it cool. I fail, just muttering, “Uh,” stupidly.
“I’ll give you a hint,” She leans on a chair and with a dramatic slur to her speech says, “Dance with me, you big cock.”
Oh. My. God . It’s Adam’s sister. And instantly I remember he’d mentioned she was a cop. Wow. I should have recognized her by the red hair and green eyes, but she looks very different in a uniform. “Ava! Of course, how could I forget you?”
“That’s Deputy Newman to you, when I’m on duty,” she says with a cheeky grin and lifts two fingers to her forehead in a salute. Then she cracks up laughing at herself. My god, she’s so strange and adorable, and her smile reminds me of Adam. I smile too.
“Okay, so, car accident, car accident,” she mutters as she spins on her heels and walks away from me. Her lithe steps make it look like the heavy utility belt weighs nothing at all. She goes to one of the cabinets against the wall and riffles through it, then shouts, “Aha!” as she pulls out a file and crosses to a copy machine.
Once she’s returned the original file to its cabinet, she brings the copies to me and starts shuffling through the pages as she speaks. “Now, what you’re gonna do is take this sheet to the garage, your car is at Howard Teddy’s place over on Pecan Street. Tell Howie you want to see your vehicle and take pictures for your insurance claim. He’s gonna try to talk you into a front end repair, but between you and me, that car was totaled, chassis bent all to hell. It’s salvage, so just clear out your belongings, file your claim, and get yourself a shiny new car.”
“New town, new car, new me?” I say, trying to match her chipper tone with my own.
“Exactly! I knew you were a smart one!” She pokes me in the belly like I’m the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Jesus, she’s intense.
“Okay, well, thank you for the info.” I angle toward the door, ready to leave before she overloads me with more information or pinches my cheek or something. But, before I go, I ask, “How’s Mildred?”
“She’s so hardheaded, hardly felt a thing. That girl is already back to work at the library. Doctors are looking into what might have caused her to lose control and veer into your lane, though. Think she might of blacked out, but why she blacked out is the question now.”
Adam was right about the gossip in this town. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.
With an awkward little wave, I open the door to leave. “Well, I’m glad to hear she’s okay. Ready to get back to work at the clinic too. It was good seeing you.”
“Good seeing you too. And I better not catch you getting up to any trouble,” she says in her deputy sheriff tone.
Outside, I get back in my rental car. Next stop: Adam and Ava’s mom’s place to pick up Rufus. Then we can grab some groceries and settle in for a cozy evening, a hearty meal, and a good night’s sleep before reopening the clinic tomorrow.
Sounds like heaven to me.