Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
Emmett
“And the birthday boy gets a strike!” Dad shouts, holding his hand up for me to high-five him. My palm smacks against his with a loud clap and he pulls his hand away to grab me another slice of pepperoni pizza. “Are you cheating?”
“Uh-uh,” I say with a hard shake of my head as I stuff the end of the pizza into my mouth, “I swear!”
“I think he’s lyin’,” Uncle Davis says as he drops back into his seat, resting his leg out in front of him. “Hang him upside down and tickle him ‘til he pukes.”
“No!” I laugh. “I’m not lying!” From behind my dad, I can see the last of my friends leaving, and it’s starting to get dark outside, but I don’t want my party to be over.
I put down my pizza on top of the table next to my dad and I grab onto his hands, bouncing up and down.
“Can we stay for one more game? Pleeeeease?”
“One more,” he says, “and that’s it. We’ve got to figure out where you’re putting all of your presents and you have some serious teeth brushing to do.”
“Cool!”
“Don’t take much, does it?” Uncle Davis laughs while I run to pick up my ball.
We play two more rounds, just us guys, and Dad lets me have an extra slice of cake and another root beer while we play; the kind in the dark bottles that look like real grown-up beer.
It matches Uncle Davis’s, and he clinks his bottle against mine before we each take a drink.
I’ve never felt so cool in my whole life.
My dad rented out the whole bowling alley for my party and he got me two different cakes.
I couldn’t pick between my two favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, so he told me I could get both.
He didn’t even make them this time, he had a real baker make them just for me.
Uncle Davis got me a laser tag set that he promised we’ll play with, and a Playstation Portable so I can sneak playing games when I’m supposed to go to bed.
I think my Uncle Davis is probably my best friend.
Dad cleans up the table while we finish our drinks, then he lets me hop up onto his shoulders while we leave. One of the clowns waves at us to say goodbye and Uncle Davis lifts his fist at him, shaking his head as we walk away.
“Who came up with that shit, man?”
“Davis!”
“You’re afraid of clowns!” I laugh, cracking up while I point a finger at him. “Scaredy cat!”
I feel Dad’s shoulders move while he laughs under my legs, holding onto my ankles while he carries me out to the parking lot where my uncle’s car is waiting for us.
Uncle Davis gives Dad his car keys, and while we’re all getting buckled into our seats, he pulls open a big zipper pouch of CDs and flips through the pages inside. “Here you go, Hoss,” he says, pulling out one of the CDs and sliding it into the player.
The first notes of my favorite song start playing, and I use my pointer fingers to drum in the air until the words start.
“Back in black!” I squeeze my eyes shut so I can yell it like the singer does. “Forget the shack! I bit the dog, I had to be packed!”
Uncle Davis laughs really hard in the front seat, holding his stomach and stomping his feet against the bottom of the car while I sing. Dad doesn’t like the same kind of music we do, but he turns the volume up anyway so I can sing louder, and he gives me a wink in the rearview mirror.
When Uncle Davis stops laughing so hard, he unbuckles his seatbelt, turning around in his seat so he’s facing me, and we both play our air guitars, bobbing our heads to the music while we sing along.
Even Dad taps his fingers on the steering wheel and shouts the words with us when the chorus comes on.
“Dad,” I shout, “this is my best day ever!”
“It’s my best day ever, too, bud,” he smiles at me in the mirror. His hand comes back toward my seat and I slap mine against it, letting him give me a tight squeeze after. “I love you.”
·
Present Day
My hand is warm.
So warm.
I can hear the muffled sound of someone talking, but I can’t make out who they are or what they’re saying.
Something is resting on my face; I can feel it tickling my nose. I shift my lips, trying to move the thing away from me, but it doesn’t go anywhere. When I swallow, my throat burns. The cough that follows doesn’t help any.
“Ow,” I groan, trying to force my eyes open against glaring overheard light.
“Emmett.” Pressure surrounds my hand as I feel it being tugged away from me, and my dad comes into focus, squeezing my hand between his so tightly that his knuckles have gone white.
My eyes scan over him, finally settling on his face.
He looks exhausted. In a breath, he releases my hand, instead leaning forward to wrap his arms around me with the same crushing force, and it makes every part of my body hurt.
“Ow,” I rasp again.
Dad’s hands cup my face – they’re so warm – and his eyes search mine. “What hurts?”
“Everything,” I groan, bringing a hand to rub at my neck while I swallow again.
He steps away, not far, and he returns to his chair with a pitcher of water and a small plastic cup.
My eyes scan the room that I’m in while he fills the cup with water.
The walls are lined with ugly brown cabinets, a sink sandwiched between them on one side, and another chair like the one that Dad is using sits tucked by a big glass sliding door that separates this room from a larger area.
Dad offers me the water, and I work to push myself further up the bed, making my body sit more upright as I take a sip of it.
The cool water scratches at the angry burn that runs down my throat.
“How did I get here?”
“We don’t need to talk about that,” he tells me. “You’re safe and that’s what matters.”
“Dad.” I take another sip of water, wincing against the cold. “Be real with me.”
‘Be real with me.’ We used to say that to each other when I was younger and one of us was trying to downplay something serious that we needed to talk about. It was an invitation: just say it straight, don’t sugar coat it, rip the bandaid off. Let it hurt for a minute, if it has to.
He looks at something behind me, then over his shoulder before turning to me, taking a steadying breath.
“You tried to drink an entire bar by yourself and, apparently, you thought that it would be a good idea to add painkillers to the mix.” He looks like he’s about to throw up. “You died for three minutes.”
I don’t know why, but all I can say to him is, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s your turn to be real with me now. I need you to tell me if this was on purpose.”
“I don’t know.”
His right hand clamps down on my forearm with a vise grip, and his left scrubs down his face. “Okay,” he breathes. “I’m going to let someone know that you’re awake and see if we can’t get you unplugged from a couple of these things.”
I lied to him. I had known for two weeks that I was going to kill myself.
I went to work and did my job well, I saw my friends, I went to game night and laughed with my family.
I joined in with all of their smiling faces and played their games with them, but throughout the entire night, I was trying to decide how I was going to do it.
I figured that I could probably steal Davis’s gun or Ro’s meds; they would never expect me to.
It would have been easy enough. I could drive straight through the hairpin turn that leads away from Dad’s house, foot on the gas.
I ran through a whole menu of options while I played fucking Pictionary with them.
I told them all goodbye. I stole some of Rowan’s pills.
I took them before I left the house. I didn’t plan to walk out of that bar.
I’d been so worried about choosing wrong, but a convenient option that took away the pressure from the need to decide how dropped itself into my lap, and my family wasn’t going to have to find me or clean up after me.
I knew, without a doubt, that I was going to die this weekend.
I just can’t look my dad in the eye and tell him that.
“Welcome back to the land of the living, Mr. Fowler,” a woman in a beige pantsuit greets me with a radiant smile as she slides the door open and steps into the room. “How are you feeling this evening?”
“He’s Mr. Fowler,” I say, pointing at Dad. “I’m Emmett.”
Pulling another chair up next to me, she settles into it with a smile. “Emmett, I was hoping that we could talk a little bit about what led to your visit with us.”
My eyes scan the badge attached to her lapel, strategically placed low enough that it doesn’t draw attention, but visible enough that she’s not technically hiding it.
Dr. Heidi Weber, MD, psychiatric resident.
Great, I wake up and they send in a shrink.
Dad seems absolutely thrilled that she’s here, suddenly finding the need to run home for a few things and leaving me here alone to talk with Dr. Weber.
I can think of about a million different things that are less invasive than the conversation that I have with the woman; for an hour and a half, we go over not only what happened that night – the majority of which, I don’t remember – but also my entire goddamn history, from birth up until today.
Every feeling that I’ve ever had is dissected and questioned while she writes things down on a clipboard that rests on her lap, offering me nods and the occasional ‘uh-huh’ and ‘I see.’
The weirdest part of all of it is that I actually tell her things. I tell her about my childhood, which for all accounts, was fantastic if not for the missing mother. I tell her about Nash – though I leave out his name. I tell her about the water.
I tell her that I tried to kill myself; and I tell her that I still want to.
By the time she leaves the room, all that I can think about is taking a shower and scrubbing the conversation off of me.
Instead, I get a group of nurses who come into the room and take away what has to be ninety percent of the items in here.
I thought Dad’s version of crisis watch was a lot, but this seems like overkill.
Another twenty minutes pass, complete with awkward silence as a nurse perches in a chair staring at me, before Dad walks back into the room, carrying an insulated bag with him.
“Rowan sent dinner,” he announces. “She says that ‘a home-cooked meal is more healing than cafeteria food.’ There’s a thermos of soup in here, too, in case you’re hungry later or solids are too much right now. ”
“I’m sorry, sir, we can’t allow outside food in this room.”
“Hello,” Dad says, extending a hand to the nurse.
“Colt Fowler, it’s nice to meet you. I’ll be taking over here.
Your supervisor is aware of the change.” Her eyes go wide at the mention of his name and she moves to say something, but he silences her with a smile and a tilt of his head toward the door. “That will be all, thank you.”
“You ‘Colt Fowlered’ her,” I comment as she leaves the room.
“I’m better qualified for the job,” he tells me.
“And how much is that gonna cost you?”
Ignoring my question because he knows the answer will piss me off, he sets the bag onto a rolling table and wheels it over, opening the bag and pulling out trays of food. Lemon chicken that I can’t eat yet, roasted potatoes, homemade rolls; all of the best foods, set up like Thanksgiving plates.
“Ro’s gotta hate me for this. And Davis, Christ, he’s probably—”
“Terrified,” he tells me. “We all are; and sometimes, like for Rowan, that looks a lot like anger. For Davis, it’s avoidance.”
“For you?”
I’m almost afraid of the answer, but his hand drops onto my shoulder with a firm, assuring squeeze.
“You’re a grown man,” he says. “You don’t need your dad to fuss over you or worry as much as I do, but when big things happen in your life, I don’t see an adult.
When you got your license, when you went on your first date, when you graduated…
” His hand moves from my shoulder to the side of my neck as his mouth forms a tight smile that doesn’t meet his eyes, and his voice breaks as he speaks.
“I’m looking at my five-year-old son right now.
Thinking about that little boy being in so much pain that he—”
He picks up the insulated bag with a shake of his head and he clears his throat to send away the emotion that’s choking him. As he settles back into the chair that has to be uncomfortable, he grabs his food and changes the subject. “Tell me how it went with Dr. Weber.”
“You’ll never believe this,” I tell him, “but I’m depressed.”
A startled laugh escapes him before his hand clamps over his mouth. “Emmett Reid, that is not funny.”
“It’s a little funny, Dad. She probably got paid two grand to come tell me what you’ve been saying for months.”
His face falls more than I knew it could. “I’m sorry, bud,” he tells me. “I didn’t realize how bad it was. I should have.”
“I didn’t want you to,” I admit. “I still don’t. This is…”
Embarrassing. Disappointing. Suffocating.
Tearing off a piece of the warm roll in front of me, I scan the room again. My eyes land on the white identifying bracelet around my wrist and the vibrant red ALLERGY bracelet that overlaps it. For a second, I wonder if Anna is allergic to anything, because Dad isn’t.
For a second, I think she should know that I’m here.
For longer than I care to admit, I wonder if she would come if she did know. I wonder if something in her heart would open up and she would find herself in that other chair, perched at my side like Dad is.
If I hadn’t woken up, would she have cared at all?
Would Nash?
My gaze trails to the IV line tucked into the bend of my elbow and I follow it toward the bag hanging behind me and the machines beeping steadily behind it.
I imagine what it sounded like to my dad when, instead of its steady beeping, the machine played one long, continuous tone.
A wave of guilt knocks into me so hard that it makes me want to hurl.
“Dad, I—” I hesitate, looking at my dad’s eyes. He’s been crying; for a while, by the looks of it. I can’t tell him the truth and add to that. “I’ll talk to someone.”
For the first time since he saw me drinking in my living room, he looks like he can breathe.