Chapter 20
chapter twenty
Only two more days before New Year’s Day. There weren’t more than tiny finishing touches left on the rocking chairs, and I’d be able to hand them over to Pops so I could see his face light up in awe. I could hardly fucking wait.
Tobi had agreed to stay at Driftwood for a little longer, and we still met every day.
Most days so far, I’d bring him dinner to the bar, and we’d just talk.
We’d talk about anything and everything and nothing all at the same time.
I’d gotten to see him smile a few times, though he felt a bit more distant than before he’d come to my house.
I still didn’t know why he’d run away that night, but he told me he’d tell me when the time felt right.
He was giving me so much trust, I decided to trust him, too.
He’d tell me things when he was ready, and I wouldn’t push him to tell me anything when he wasn’t.
It seemed like he’d had a lot on his mind. Some nights, I’d show up, and he’d be sober. Some nights, he’d have a bottle of something he got from someone sitting on the floor beside the cot.
He was trying. That was all I could ask for. I did wonder what I’d find when I saw him tonight, though.
I had to miss our normal noon meeting to check on Papa.
His phone was messing up again, and he never knew how to make it work, so I’d come over and fix it for him whenever that happened.
It scared me the first time because it just kept going to voicemail.
Turned out his phone was just old and needed to be restarted every so often, but no matter how many times I showed him how to do that, he’d forget.
It’d gotten to a point where I’d just assumed he wanted an excuse for me to come over and bother him. How could I say no to that?
The snow had lightened up quite a bit, but a decent amount of the ground was still covered. My shoes sank into it as I made my way to Papa’s front door, trying to get me to stick around for as long as possible. My brain liked to equate the snow to an unknown force just trying to devour me whole.
It was one of those late-night, barely thinking ideas that’d run rampant in the back of my mind. I often ignored it for the most part, but it became an idea that made me smile. Just another obvious way for me to remember how illogical anxiety could be.
I knocked on the door and waited. Pops had shitty hearing, so I expected to need to pound on it a couple of times. He couldn’t hear the doorbell anymore, since it was at a higher octave. Just another thing I needed to replace for him. I knocked again when there wasn’t an answer, this time harder.
Pressing my ear against the door, I tried to listen to any sounds of him moving around.
His cane had a distinct noise when it hit the floor.
A familiar thunk that’d always remind me of him if I heard something similar elsewhere.
I squinted at nothing as I tried to single out any and all noises, only to come up with nothing.
Nothing except… There was an odd shuffling sound on the other side of the door. “Pops?” I yelled through it. All I got in response was more shuffling sounds.
Now I was worried. Had he fallen? “Pops! You in there?” I twisted the doorknob, but it was locked. It wouldn’t move. I needed it to open. I needed it to open right fucking now.
I pulled on it, twisting and turning for far too long before remembering he had a hidden key.
“Fuck! Papa, I’m coming!” I ran to the other side of the porch, right where a very fake potted plant sat.
I picked it up and turned it over, finding the small hinge.
I dug my fingernail into it, trying to pry it open, but it was so small and stuck. Why was it stuck?
My stomach hurt. My head and heart were pounding.
Papa needed me. I didn’t have all this fucking time to waste.
I dug my fingernail in further, twisting the pot in my arms while I tried to pry it open.
A piece of my thumbnail broke off at the top, crumbling away as I pulled and pressed and pulled and pressed until finally, finally, the small compartment opened.
Taking the key out as fast as I could, I ran back to the door and unlocked it. I didn’t even close the door behind me, running straight into the living room with my head on a swivel. “Papa? Papa! Where are you?”
I heard gasping. Coughing. I ran in front of the couch and peered into the kitchen.
There he was. Lying on the floor. Clutching his left shoulder.
His cane had fallen with him, lying next to him.
I ran to him, falling to the floor hard enough to make a loud thunk sound.
I didn’t pay any mind to my knees. Papa was hurt.
Papa was hurt.
Papa was hurt.
“Papa, what’s wrong?” I hovered my hands over him, too afraid that I’d hurt him if I so much as touched him.
His face was scrunched and pale. His breaths were coming out in shallow, uneven pants. When he spoke, it was quiet and raw. Pained. Hurt. “Cally, please. Call 911. Heart. My heart.”
Everything went blurry as my eyes unfocused.
My hands went numb. I could taste copper at the back of my tongue and acid coming up my throat.
The floor beneath me no longer felt hard and cold, but like nothing.
Nothing was holding me up. I hardly even registered the fact that I’d done exactly as he said, and now a 911 operator was speaking to me. Was I speaking back?
“Sir, did you hear me? Grab an aspirin. Now. Make him chew it. If we don’t know how long he’s been like this, it may be early enough.”
I did what she said, too. But I couldn’t feel it. I didn’t even know it. Not even as I placed the aspirin between Papa’s teeth. Not even as I watched him swallow. Was the ambulance coming? Please come. Please help us. Please help Papa. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Ple-
“Cally,” Papa whispered, his voice even shakier and much quieter. “Cally, come closer.”
My phone was on speaker, lying right beside us. The operator was reassuring me the ambulance was on its way. I tuned her out. I leaned down, tilting my head so I could hear Papa better. “What is it?”
“I love you.”
“Don’t, Papa. Don’t.”
“I love you, Cally.”
I shook my head, rising enough to look at him. “No! You’re gonna make it.”
He winced and wheezed and grasped the left side of his chest. “Hug me, Cally.”
My throat got tighter. My vision got blurrier.
The corner of my tear ducts burned so fucking bad.
I wrapped my arms around him as much as I could and laid my head on his shoulder.
He’d make it. He had to make it. There was nothing I could do until the ambulance got here, but it was close, so he’d make it.
He wasn’t dying.
We were just pretending again. Pretending like everything was okay. Pretending that life was infinite, and so were our memories, and Papa’s heart couldn’t stop working because he was infinite.
“Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop.”
I gasped, just as he wheezed a quiet breath. “No.”
“When the wind blows, the cradle will rock.”
“Papa, stop.” I wrapped my arms around him tighter.
His voice got weaker with each word. He was losing the melody. “When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall.”
“Stop it! Stop it!” If I squeezed him hard enough, would it make it stop? It had to, right? He was saying goodbye. There were no goodbyes. We didn’t say goodbye because they didn’t exist.
“But Papa catches baby, cradle and all.”
I heaved into his shoulder, taking in his scent for what I refused to be the last time. “I love you. Don’t leave me.”
“My mockingbird.” His chest shook as he coughed and gasped beneath me. “I love you.”
A long wheeze of an exhale. “No. No, no, no!” Silence. “Papa!” His eyes were still open. We had a chance if they were still open, right? “Help me! Help! He stopped talking.”
Someone had their hand on my shoulder. They were urging me away.
Some more people were there, too. My phone wasn’t on a call anymore.
The people had a lot of medical equipment.
Were these the ambulance people? Someone was talking to me.
Everything was muffled. A man was yelling at a woman as he started…
started pressing on Papa’s chest. Hard. Fast.
I felt like a little kid. I wanted to curl up on the floor and hide. Papa would find me, right? If I hid. He’d find me, and he’d sing to me, and he’d tuck me into bed. He’d tell me he loved me, and I’d believe him.
“Come on, honey. Follow me, okay?” A woman was right in front of me now, blocking my view. I couldn’t see him anymore. Papa, or the man pressing on his chest.
I followed the woman outside. She sat down with me on the steps. My eyes were still blurry and unfocused, and I still couldn’t feel much of anything. It was supposed to be cold outside, but I wouldn’t know. My hands were numb. My heart was numb. Everything was numb.
I looked up at the sky. “The sun is shining.”
“Yeah, it is.” The woman said.
It was burning my eyes. I didn’t even blink. “Why is it shining? I thought it’d be dark. Maybe rainy.”
“Sometimes, bad things happen in broad daylight. I know it might seem unfair.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do bad things happen when the world is happy?” Silence again. But the wind was howling. And the man working on Papa was still shouting. The door behind us was open, and I could hear it. Hear him. Hear that Papa wasn’t waking up.
“I don’t know, sweetie. We’re doing everything we can, okay?”
“I know.” I closed my eyes, watching the colors float behind my eyelids from staring at the sun for too long.
He’d be okay. He had to be. It’d just be another long hospital stay, and then he’d come home, and everything would be fine. We’d keep pretending, just like Papa had pretended with Grammy. It was all a game. Just a sick, horrible game with a really good ending.
The woman and I sat on the porch in complete silence. I wasn’t totally sure the tongue in my mouth even belonged to me, honestly. Or the hands attached to my arms. Or my feet. The world in front of me looked too fake. Like a dream.
Was this a nightmare?
“Time of death, one thirty-two P.M.”
My eyes unfocused, and it was suddenly so much harder to breathe than before. This was just a nightmare, and I'd wake up any minute now. Papa would wake me up, and he'd hold me and tell me that everything was okay.
The woman looked over her shoulder behind us and nodded. When she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and tugged me into her side, I knew what she was going to say before she'd even said it. “Callum, sweetie. I'm so sorry. They weren't able to bring him back.”
I pulled away, my eyes starting to burn again just as my heart picked up pace. “No. No, you're wrong. He's okay. He has to be okay.” We were just pretending. That was all this was. I needed him still. I still needed him. He was all I had left.
“No, honey.” She frowned, shaking her head. “He isn't okay. I'm so, so sorry.”
My blurry vision suddenly focused. The woman was pretty. She looked older. She had her black hair up in a bun, slicked back with perfection. She looked kind. She looked serious. She didn’t look like she was lying.
My hands hurt. So did my heart. So did my shoulders from hugging Papa so tight. So did my ears because they’d heard his last words. His last breath. My fingertips were tingling because they still had his scent.
This was my body.
This was the real world.
There was no pretending. Papa wasn’t hurt anymore. He was dead.
The tears were cold as they ran down my cheeks. It was like the air hit them and tried to turn them to ice. It didn’t work. Instead, it froze my heart, and then a strong gust pushed it over, making it fall. Right onto the concrete.
It shattered, and I watched it. I watched it happen as I finally let out another cry. The kind woman wrapped her arms around me, hugging me to her, and I could do nothing but sob.
I never even got to show him our rocking chairs.