32. Hayes
Chapter thirty-two
Hayes
Lennon has been in this hospital bed for three days. Three days! There hasn’t been any movement. Her eyes haven’t opened. I haven’t seen a smile or the twinkle in her brown eyes for almost four days. The only time I eat is when Shelby comes in here and basically forces a sandwich down my throat. I only sleep a few hours, when my eyes can’t physically stay open anymore. When I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, the reflection looking back surprised me. Sunken cheeks and rings under my eyes.
I exit the bathroom in Lennon’s hospital room to find a doctor doing his rounds. “Good morning, Hayes. All of her tests have come back good, great even. Now, we just wait for her. Sometimes the body does this to protect itself.” All of her tests look good? Then why the hell isn’t she awake yet?
“Doc, the words you are saying sound good. They make sense. Mostly. But I’m concerned. More than concerned. Why hasn’t she moved? Why hasn’t she opened her eyes? Do I need to call in a specialist? No offense, but I’ll do anything.” I’m startled when the door opens and Cash walks in, looking no better than I do. “I understand your concerns, I do. She is scheduled to go down this afternoon for another MRI, just to be extra cautious. I’m not expecting to see anything that shouldn’t be there. She just needs time. Her body went through a lot of trauma, and from what you told me, in a very short amount of time. This is her bodies way to protect itself.”
After speaking for a few more minutes, with Cash asking additional questions, the doctor excuses himself. Cash walks up to the bed and takes Lennon’s hand in his. “When she was ten, she begged me to take her outside and teach her how to skateboard. Our parents were at the farmers’ market, and I knew she should have padding and a helmet, but she looked at me with her big eyes and I couldn’t say no. Especially since she was an inside girl. She was only interested in her books.” Cash lowers his head and after an extended silence, I think he is going to end the story. After clearing his throat, he continues, his head still lowered.
“I thought to myself, I’ll just hold onto her, no way she was going to fall. We were out for maybe half an hour, and she wanted to try one more time. It happened so fast. She ran from me, grabbed the board and soared down the driveway. A car was coming down the road, and she was afraid to stop. But she was headed straight for the road…the car. She was screaming my name, but even as I was running after her, I knew I wouldn’t catch her in time. She moved a certain way at the end of the driveway and fell. The car kept driving…assholes. When I got to her, she was screaming in pain. I was so fucking scared. I scooped her up and ran into the house, not knowing what to do. Cell phones were still stupidly expensive, so our parents didn’t have one yet.”
My dad walks in, taking a seat at the end of the bed, and takes over the story. “God, I remember that day like it was yesterday. I had just got home from working an extra shift and the house phone rang. I wasn’t going to answer it. I wanted my shower, and then my bed. But thank God I picked up. I answered, and Cash, you were…I couldn’t understand you. You were screaming. Lennon was screaming in the background. I yelled for the kids and got them loaded into the truck and floored it to your house.”
How did I forget about this day? When we got to their house, Cash and Lennon in his arms, standing in the middle of the driveway. My first thought in my fourteen-year-old brain was that she was dead. I pick up where my dad left off. “You got into the truck; I had never seen you with so much emotion on your face. I didn’t know at that time what happened, but I was terrified when I looked at your face.”
“The nurse at the ER knew my parents, so she called her husband and had him go around town and try to find my parents. Left arm was broken, right wrist was fractured. She needed stiches in her chin and lip. We got home and I burned that fucking skateboard and have never gone on one since.”
“You boys…well, men. You have always been protectors. That is not something that is taught. You are born with it. I am damn proud to be able to have watched you grow into the men that you are. Both of you have gone through things that you shouldn’t have had to, but you pulled yourselves up and made something out of your life. Fathers. Business owners. Husbands. Damn proud.”
Lennon was just brought back from her MRI and I’m just waiting for the doctor to come back in with the results. My phone starts to ring on the table and seeing my dad’s name on the screen I pick up. I agreed with him that Rosie should be with family, so he picked her up today after he left here. He hasn’t worked since the incident and I’m grateful that he is able to pick up my slack. He has been going into the shop every day to make sure that everything is being taking care of.
“Hey, Pop.”
“Daddy! I miss you! I miss Mommy. Why aren’t you here? I want to see Mommy!” We informed the kids that Lennon and Tess had been in an accident. There was no way we were going to tell them the truth about what really happened. “I know, Ro Ro. But Mommy is still sleeping. I know that she would love to be home with you.”
There was some jostling of the phone, and my sister gets on the line. “Put the phone on speaker and close to Lennon. Maybe if she hears Rosie’s voice…” I know at this point everyone is worried and is grasping at straws. I do what my sister tells me to, which is how it’s going to go for the rest of her life. She took the attention off of Lennon, putting her in the line of fire but it very well saved her life.
“Okay, Rosie. The phone is on speaker, you can talk to Mommy now.” There is a loud scream from the other line, so I pull the phone away from Lennon until the screaming stops. “Mommy! I miss you so much! And Max, he misses you. He told me. I’ve been sad at night, so now that I’m at Pop Pop’s, Max is going to sleep in bed with me.” Rosie talks for another ten minutes before my sister convinces her to get off the phone. I set my phone back down and take Lennon’s hands in mine. I don’t know how long I sit there, when my whole-body freezes when her pinky moves. And then it moves again. Her eyelids flutter, until the moment I have been waiting for happens. Her beautiful brown eyes open, but then slam shut.
“Br…too bright.” I leap out of the chair and turn off the overhead light and shut the curtains and run back to my chair. “Sorry, sunshine. It should be better now. Can you try to open your eyes?” I hold my breath until she opens her eyes again.
“There she is. God, I have been so worried.” I lean over and gently place a kiss on her lips. “Thank you. Thank you for coming back to me, sunshine.”
I feel like I’ve aged ten years in only a couple days. I have never been as terrified as I was when I walked into my house to find my sister unconscious on the floor, and Lennon being stabbed right in front of me. In that moment, my world stopped moving.
“Water, please.” Of course she would be thirsty. I should have offered it right away. I help her take a small sip of water, until she tells me that’s enough. “A boy…and then a girl.” I don’t have a chance to ask her what she is talking about, because the doctor and nurse walk in. They start asking Lennon a ton of questions and checking vitals, so while they are doing that, I send out texts that she is awake.
By the time the doctor is done, Lennon is nodding off back to sleep. I don’t mind it now that she has woken up. That I know that she is still in there. I start to feel like everything is going to be okay.
The clouds parted, and my sunshine came back to me.