Chapter 55
Chapter Fifty-Five
HAPPILY EVER AFTER
Will
I resent every second my eyes close because each second is one I carelessly toss away. I can't afford to do that. She needs them. I need them for her. The hospital room has become our universe recently, its dimensions shrinking and expanding with each beep of the machines that were supposed to keep me alert but have instead become white noise. The steady rhythm of medical equipment has replaced the soft rustle of pages turning late at night when she couldn't sleep.
Her skin is so cold despite my hands being wrapped around her fingers. I've spent hours trying to warm them, as if I could transfer my own heat into her body through sheer force of will. Her knuckles have left an imprint on my cheek from where my head had fallen, and my eyes have stolen the rest that I'm furious at taking.
My body is curved over the side of the bed, and it aches as I straighten. The hospital chair creaks beneath me, its institutional green cushioning flattened from constant vigil. The pain in my bones is nothing compared to the metaphysical shattering and ache that my body is adjusting to like growing pains. It's the opposite of growth. I'm shrinking. The skin is tightening around me. I straighten, and roll my neck from side to side, hearing the soft pops of protest. Closing my eyes for just one more second before I land again on her.
She's sleeping. I know because I've become hyper-aware of the smallest rises and falls of her chest. Better than any of the machines tracking her pulse. It reminds me of when we watched Banks together after she was first born. We were terrified she would stop breathing, hovering over her crib like anxious satellites constantly googling for reassurance. We just sat there waiting for each rise of her tiny chest so we knew she was okay. I get no reassurance now. I'm terrified now.
Then, we were new parents worried about the unknown. Now, I'm her husband watching the known approach with terrible certainty.
"Don't." The voice is so light, barely a whisper, and I know the energy it must have taken for her to scold me for wallowing. The things I want to say crowd my throat but I don't want her to force out any more words. Not when I know how much it costs her to speak.
The words used to tumble from her mouth like water over stones, bright and musical and endless. Not anymore. I wonder if she feels the unformed brilliance trapped in her mind trying to escape, like stars caught behind cloud cover. Arden always had the right words, even when she was wrong, throwing them at some unsuspecting, over-eager, docent. Now each word is precious, rationed like wartime supplies.
She forces a swallow and I reach for a lollipop, the wrapper crinkling too loudly in the quiet room. Sliding into the hospital bed next to her, I'm careful of the tubes and wires that have become extensions. The shape of her is different now, hollowed out like sea glass, but no matter what shape she takes she doesn't lose any of the shape of her. One I could recognize in any form.
I slip the lollipop between her lips, which are dry like pressed flowers. The manifestation of her body sucking every ounce of her to fight itself. And she has fought, as she's done for everything in her life. For me. For our daughter. The cherry scent of the candy mingles with the antiseptic hospital smell, creating a strange sweetness.
She shifts herself so slightly into me, and I wrap myself around her like a shroud. If only I could shield her from all of this, become armor against the enemy that lives in her own cells.
When we first found out, when we sat down with our fourth ‘second opinion’ my only response was ‘I won't let this happen.’ It was such a stupid thing to say, as if I could command any part of her to behave differently. All she said was ‘I know you won't. But we should be prepared anyways.’
And as usual, my wife, in all her brilliance, was right.
I hate her for that.
Of all the times for her to be right. She started preparing immediately. Organizing files, writing letters, making lists. I couldn't even look at the papers without feeling sick.
I hate every second we ever spent not just ferociously loving each other. Every second I blinked was a waste. She would say we didn't waste any of it. That we lived it all, and again, she'd be right. But right now looking at her shallow breathing, I just know we are nearing an end I'm in no way prepared for. One I prayed for any god to delay. A god I didn't know I even believed in. I offered any deal to the devil, but my soul isn't worth hers. So my bargains and begging fell on deaf ears.
I spoke to the doctors a few hours ago in the hallway, their faces grave under the fluorescent lights. There's no more hope in their tones. Just resolution, like that's what they expect from me. As if I could ever be resolved to this. As if I could ever accept that the universe would take her and leave so many lesser people behind.
I notice the movement of her lips, and slowly remove the lollipop that's meant to help some of the thirst, or the sores in her mouth from treatment, meant to do who-knows-what. Maybe just because she always liked them when she was sick. Even when we were dating, I'd bring her bags of Dum Dums whenever she had a cold. She'd line them up by color on her coffee table, saving the cherry ones for last.
I see her beginning to form words, and I'm terrified every time she opens her mouth that they will be her goodbyes. The ones she said long before this moment. Leaving letters in the safe for Banks for all the big days in her future. Having enough conversations with me leading up to these moments so 'when it happens it can just happen' as if it's that simple.
As if anything about this could be simple.
"Can we run away?" She asks, the whisper of her voice is one I've been trying to thread into my mind. Stitching together every thought so I never lose the sound of it.
"Anywhere you want to go... Paris?" I offer, thinking of how she used to talk about walking along the Seine, eating baguettes still warm from the oven, getting lost in narrow streets with names we couldn't pronounce.
She blinks tightly, and despite the I.V. in her arm, I think the tear that forms in the slight of her eye might be the last bit of water her body has to spare. I run the pad of my thumb to wipe it away. To save it. Hoping to absorb any part of her into my skin.
Every cell, every tear, every breath, I hold on to them all.
"How about Narnia..." I offer up instead. Her eyes are up on mine, bright despite everything, and I just wish I could fall into them and drown with her. But we made a deal. I don't get to drown when we have a child who can't swim in this alone. Banks needs at least one parent who's still breathing.
"Mars," she eeks out in the softest rasp, and my heart clenches. Mars was always the most desperate destination in our game. The place to take us as far as we could go, the moon always feeling too attainable. We’d double-moon watch. We’d lounge on the red sand beaches. We’d joke about growing rose bushes on Mars, and she'd say ‘if I can’t keep a basil plant alive on earth, how am I going to grow roses on Mars.’ My response was always the same. ‘Because you can do anything.’
"Let’s run away to Mars..." I'm trying so hard to be strong for this woman who has been so strong her whole life, remains strong even in weakness. But I'm failing miserably as I can feel the tears slip from the corners of my eyes. I don't make an effort to wipe them away. Knowing what she's saying. That my fear has been right all along. Knowing that when she speaks she's doing it with intention and warning. This is her way of telling me it's time.
My physical hold on her tightens in a way that she settles into. Settling into all of this. Her eyes cut to the perfect figure draped under one of our many failed knitting experiments, a blanket that's more holes than yarn, with dropped stitches creating accidental patterns we pretended were intentional. It was Arden's idea, of course. ‘We shouldn't waste our time while we sit around in hospitals,’ she'd announced one day, pulling yarn and needles from her bag like she'd been planning an ambush for weeks. As if waiting rooms and IV drips were just another excuse for one of her projects, as if we could knit ourselves a shield against what was coming. So we all took up knitting, our clicking needles filling the sterile silence of hospital corridors.
As with most things, she was brilliant and I was a mess. Her hat ended up perfect, even stitches, beautiful pattern. Unfortunately for Banks, in this case, she took after me. But Arden wore them all, rotating between them with equal pride. She used to say they were the warmest things she'd ever put on, and then we moved on to blankets.
Banks sleeps the way she always has, one arm flung over her head, curls a mess against the pillow. The fierce flame who is made in every spark of her mother's image, right down to her laugh.
Before she looks back to me wordlessly, her lips are not able to form the words this time. So I try to.
"You just have a bit of a head start this time, okay? I'll have to meet you there, up in the stars, okay, my darling?" I feel her chest move again, the shallowest sinking feeling as I press a kiss to the top of her head as she leans into me.
She moves her hand grasping for the button to release medication, to subside the pain she pretends she's not in, but her grip is gone, so I do it for her. Her fingers, once so strong she would sit at the piano and run scales until she broke into whatever song was in her mind, now can't even manage this small task. And she sinks into me further. I think knowing like I do, this form of her isn't much longer for this world.
"I will never have enough words or enough time to thank you for this life you've given me." I drop the words like kisses into the crown of her head, the words falling like benedictions. Knowing the tears that draw tracks down my cheeks, through the scruff of my facial hair, are landing somewhere I can't see. "Thank you for always being on my team. You were the only teammate I ever needed. I promise… I swear, I'll take care of our rookie, now. You don't have to worry, okay?” I’m raw and ragged like I've been screaming though I've barely spoken above a whisper. “You can run if you need to, I have a teammate. And she's perfect because of you."
I don't know if she's awake. She doesn't respond, though the shallow breaths I can feel against where my forearm wraps around her selfishly comfort me. I press six kisses against her. Six kisses, like always.
We slip into a commingled sleep, my body gently curled around hers. She's been burning for so long, and I fanned the flames any chance I could get. Willing to be burned alive to just be in her presence. She burned so bright but her fire became the shelter for all of us. The burning moat to protect the ones she loves. Even now, that fire can never burn out completely. Not really. It lives in Banks, in me, in every life she touched.
It's an unfamiliar stillness that has me opening my eyes. Her body ever so slightly more slouched into mine, and a different noise coming from the machines that we've all accepted as the background noise to our lives. The steady beeping has changed to something more urgent, more final. Some people enter the room. Logic would tell me it's doctors. But it doesn't matter now. I can see their mouths moving, telling me something my body detected long before any machine of theirs could.
She prepared us for this moment, though nothing could prepare me for this moment, not even her.
I lean down to offer her one more I love you, though of all the things I don't know in my life, I know this. And so did she. The words feel different now. Like they're trying to bridge the growing distance between the world with her in it and the one without.
I press six kisses to her temple, each one burning with all the moments we'll never have and all the ones we did. "Goodbye, my love." My voice shatters on the words.
These six mourning kisses, each one a desperate attempt. My body doesn't quite believe it yet, my muscle memory already aching for tomorrow’s morning that will never come.
In a few minutes, I'll have to start making calls to let people know.
In a few days, I’ll have to put on a suit and bury my wife.
But for now, l have to figure out how to keep breathing in a world without her, for her.
She ran ahead without me, that was the deal, but she left a map in Banks' smile in the memories we built together. Someday, I'll follow that map back to her.