Thirty
Thirty
Jonah is alone in his hospital bed. His eyes are still closed, every imaginable cord and tube attached to him. The machines around him hum and beep, a whole electronic language that they speak to each other to communicate what’s happening inside of him.
After she left Jack in the café, Ellie walked back to Bunny’s room to check on her but saw that both her parents were fast asleep. Frank was still in his chair. Bunny was still in her hospital bed. They weren’t in the place they should have been—not as far as Ellie could see it—but they were together, and to her, their only daughter, that felt like something, at least.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
How, she wonders, have they traveled this far? How did they go from that night in their bedroom with the laundry and that single word she’d said and ultimately found themselves here?
Her head and her back and her entire body aching, she lets herself sit beside him. His hand is like a pincushion to a dozen different needles. She weaves her fingers into his, the feel of his skin comforting and warm.
“I’m so sorry, Jo,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry for everything.”
Knock, knock.
A nurse in the doorway. “Hi,” she says. “I’m sorry, but there aren’t really supposed to be visitors overnight in this wing.”
Ellie pulls in a significant breath. She waits a moment—a long one—before she asks: “He’s not doing well, is he?”
The nurse pauses. “No,” she finally admits. “He’s not.” Machines beep around them, a sad, terrible song. “Are you his ...” The woman trails off, giving Ellie the space to answer.
But what should she say? Love is so hard to explain or define. The titles we give to it, what do they even really mean? If you add a certain one, does it really change the way you feel about a person? If you take it away, do your feelings really go away, too?
Love is not built on titles. Not on legal documents or diamond rings. It is built on the stories you create with a person. All those shared moments that ultimately turn into memories.
Do you remember when ...
Remember that time we ...
“Can I please have a few more minutes with him?” Ellie asks, the desperation in her voice not doing a thing to hide from itself. “And then I promise I’ll leave.”
The nurse takes a deep breath and looks over both her shoulders. An expression of empathy transforms her face. She’s been in love before. Ellie can see it. “Five minutes,” the woman agrees. “Okay?”
Ellie nods and watches her step into the hallway. She thinks back to a few nights ago, down in Florida, and the words her mother said.
You two made a vow to each other, Ellie. Until death do you part.
Now, Ellie wonders if maybe they have, in their own way, stayed true to that vow. The two of them here right until the bitter end.
For so long, Ellie has wondered if in order to find happiness again, she must choose between her family and herself. One or the other. Either or.
What do you want, Ellie? What do you want?
Although impossible, it’s as if she can hear him ask.
“I’d still do it all again, too, Jo,” she whispers, their hands laced together. “Even now. Even knowing how it all ends.”
Outside the room’s single window, faint streaks of yellow daylight off in the far distance begin to mix with ebony. It’s not quite night anymore, and yet it isn’t morning, either. It’s some hard-to-define in-between time. Not yet tomorrow, and not quite yesterday.
“I’ll see you soon, Jo,” Ellie says as a form of goodbye. “I don’t know where or when. But I know I will.”
Ellie stands to leave, taking one more look through the window and not having a clue what this new day might bring. Before she exits his room, she peers back, as if when she turns around she might see something else other than the current scene.
For a moment so brief it’s as though it doesn’t even happen, she closes her eyes. Ellie doesn’t know the specific minute or hour. These last few days, it’s felt as if these concepts do not really exist. But it doesn’t matter. Certain habits, she now understands, are impossible to break.
This time, she knows exactly what she’s wishing for, even though it seems improbable.
She doesn’t care.
Ellie allows herself to wish for it anyway.