Chapter 32 #2
She looks at him for a long moment. Then at me, then back at him, in that way mothers have of reading an entire story of two people standing in the same room.
"Together?" she asks.
I feel my throat tighten. "Yeah," I say. "We’re together."
Her eyes close briefly, as if she is relieved about it. When they open again they're bright, too bright, and she squeezes my hand with those thin fingers.
"Come here," she says to Hayden.
He leans in slightly.
She reaches out with her other hand, slowly, and she puts it over his where it rests on the bed rail. He lets her. He doesn't move.
"Promise me," she says. Quietly for just the three of us. "Promise me you will keep her happy."
Hayden looks at her for a moment, then he turns his hand over under hers, gently, so he's holding it instead.
"There's nothing I won't do to make her smile," he says. Low and even and completely without hesitation. "No need to worry, Mrs. B."
She exhales.
It's such a small sound. But it carries everything in it, relief and something that looks a lot like peace, like a thing she's been holding for a long time has finally happened.
She looks between us.
The happiness on her face right now, is making me so happy.
"I knew," she says softly, looking at me. "I always knew, Livvy. Even when—" She stops. Swallows. "Even when we moved, I knew you’d be together.."
I can't speak. I take in a deep breath while mom smiles at Hayden, and then out of nowhere the machine changes pitch without warning.
One second it's the steady rhythm I've been listening to since we walked in, in the background, constant and reassuring. The next it's something else. Something urgent and climbing and wrong.
My mom's hand goes tight around mine.
Then loose.
"Mom—"
The door opens. Two nurses, then a third, and they're moving fast and talking medical words I don’t understand, but they do.
Someone is asking us to step back and someone else is bringing equipment and the room is suddenly full of people and noise.
I'm standing completely still in the middle of it trying to understand what is happening.
"Miss, I need you to wait outside—"
"No." The word comes out of me before I've decided to say it. "No, I'm not—"
"Miss—"
"That's my mother." My voice is someone else's right now. High and strange and not quite working properly. "That's my mother, I'm not going outside—"
I feel hands on my arms. They’re firm and not unkind, turning me toward the door.
"We need the space, we're going to take care of her, I just need you to wait outside, please."
The door closes between us, and I feel Hayden’s arm around me.
“Come on, let them work.” Hayden's voice is low, and all I can do is nod.
I can hear them. Not their words, just the sound of urgency. The sound of people working fast.
Hayden is beside me. At some point he's taken my hand and I'm holding it so hard I can feel my own pulse in my fingers. He just stands there, telling me they are working on my mom, they’ll tell us soon as they know something. Well, that’s what I think he’s saying, because at the moment I can’t hear anything.
Fifteen minutes.
The doctor comes out and I know before he opens his mouth.
I know from the way he's carrying himself. The weight of it. The way his eyes find mine first, before anything else, like he's been preparing what he's about to say for the entire length of that corridor.
"Miss Banks."
My hand tightens around Hayden's.
"I'm so sorry."
The words land somewhere beneath language.
Somewhere I don't have access to yet, somewhere my body receives them before my mind can, because my mind is still standing in that room watching my mother look between us with that happiness on her face.
I can still hear her say I knew, Livvy, I always knew.
"We did everything we could. Her heart—"
I stop listening.
Not because the words stop. They don't. He keeps talking, careful and kind, and I know he means every word. I just can’t hear a single one of them.
There is a sound.
It takes me a moment to understand that it's coming from me.
I’m not crying. Not yet. It’s something before crying. It comes up out of the center of me and escapes before I can do anything about it and I feel my knees do something they shouldn't, feel the floor tilt sideways, and my knees hit the floor as I scream out a cry.
Hayden wraps his arms around me. I press my face into his chest, and I cry for my mom.
I cry until I can't anymore and then I cry a little longer after that, and Hayden holds me through all of it. His arms don't loosen.
I sit in Hayden’s arms in the middle of the waiting room, and I grieve for my mother, and he never once lets me go.
I remember mom taking Hayden's hand and saying, “Promise me,” and she believed him completely. She looked at the two of us and felt peace about it. She knows Hayden will look after me, and he’ll never let me fall.
I also have to remember my mother spent her last fully conscious moments being happy. That is going to get me through a lot of dark nights.
The room is quieter than the corridor.
There's only one machine in dad’s room. It’s steady, marking time in the way that has become the background sound of my life at the moment.
I’ve been sitting by the side of his bed for so long, and I don’t know how to tell him.
The bruising has faded to yellow at the edges of his face. Someone has shaved him recently. I notice small things like that. I notice them because they're the only things I can process.
I reach out and take his hand. It's warm.
"Mom's gone, Dad," I whisper, the words are still too hard to say out loud. The machine keeps its rhythm. "She woke up." My voice is very quiet, like the room requires it. "She was awake, and she knew me, and she… she was happy, Dad. At the end she was really happy. I need you to know that."
His hand doesn't move undermine.
"She made Hayden promise to look after me.
" A sound escapes me that isn't quite a laugh and isn't quite a cry.
"You know what she was like. I need you to wake up," I say softly.
"I know I can't make you. I know it doesn't work like that, but I need you to.
" My throat tightens. "Because I can't do this without both of you, Dad. I can't."
The machine breathes for him.
I lift his hand and press my lips to his knuckles, hold them there, and close my eyes.
I don’t know how long I stay like that for. Time has no meaning right now.
Then I set his hand back down, carefully. "I'll be back tomorrow," I tell him. "I'll tell you everything."
The corridor outside is long and bright, and it takes me longer than it should to walk it. I don’t know if I can walk away right now. I turn the corner toward the waiting room and I stop.
I stop completely, one hand still on the wall, because what I’m looking at doesn't make immediate sense to the part of my brain that’s been running on grief for the past hour.
They're all here.
Not just Hayden, all of them. Mason is by the window, Miles is beside him, upright, hands in his pockets. Lileah’s in one of the plastic chairs, her knees pulled up, eyes on the door.
And Hayden's parents. His mum is already standing. Already moving, the moment she sees my face, crossing the waiting room.
She doesn't say anything. She just opens her arms.
Something inside my chest cracks clean in half.
I close the distance between us and I walk into them. She holds me the way my mother used to, both arms, her hand at the back of my head, and I press my face into her shoulder, and the tears come again, differently this time, not the sharp violent wave from before, but something deeper.
"I've got you," she says quietly, into my hair. "I've got you, sweetheart. You're not alone. Do you hear me?"
I can't speak.
"You’re not alone."
My hands grip the back of her cardigan and I hold on, and she lets me. She doesn't move, she doesn't rush me, and she doesn't say anything else because she doesn't need to.
I don't know how long we stand like that.
At some point I become aware of a familiar hand on my back. Hayden.
Standing just behind me, not pulling me away, but letting me know he’s just there. Present.
When I finally lift my head and turn around, I wrap my arms around Hayden's waist.
“I’ve got you, Cupcake,” he says into my hair.
I’m not alone. I haven't been for a while now. I never thought they would forgive me for putting Hayden behind bars, but they are all here for me now. I’m never going to be able to apologize for what I did to him, to them, but I’m so grateful they forgive me.