CHAPTER 38
Shadows of the past never disappear entirely. They linger, haunt our present and future if we don’t shine enough light on them.
Had I known the last time I visited during my last leave would be the last time we’d speak, or the last time he would assess me with his knowing gaze, I would have stayed longer.
I’d have found a way to stretch time, make the most of our moments, maybe even talked about more deep and meaningful things.
As I grip his pale, frail, and weightless hand in mine, I can’t stop thinking about all the things I don’t know about my own father, and how now, I’ll never know.
My inability to face the severity of his illness has caught up with me. The lies I’d told myself. We’d work out our shit another time. That he’d recover. He’d bounce back. He always did.
But this is different.
This is the end.
The lies I’d told myself had been born out of necessity. At the time, they’d helped me compartmentalize.
His denials about being sick, his disappearances at odd times—the fact that he looked me in the eye for years and lied straight to my face.
The memory of finding him sprawled on our kitchen floor, lips blue, chest barely moving, and me not knowing what the fuck to do—this all drove a solid wedge a mile wide between us.
When the truth unraveled later in the emergency room, my despair over the possibility of losing the only family member I gave a fuck about, sent me into a tailspin and I’d been scrambling for something else to hold onto.
I knew I had to find something to anchor me to this world; otherwise, I might just choose one day to follow right after him. Watching him die day by day would break me into a thousand pieces. And I just couldn’t fucking do it.
My enlistment in the Army, was my out. My excuse. I didn’t want a front-row seat to him withering away, and I told myself strangers could better provide the care he needed.
And with the belief in the lie, I could pretend his duplicity didn’t shatter our relationship.
I could pretend to be the perfect son while hiding a wealth of dark thoughts living inside my mind.
The Army granted me distance from it all, which in turn gave me the ability to keep the wrath that existed under my skin from showing itself.
I’d been young and in denial. It wasn’t the only path I could have taken. How ironic that as my time in the service winds down, his time here ends, giving me no time to make it right and recover what we’ve lost.
He’s not waking, and there’s not a goddamn thing I can do to change it.
Carefully, I shift his wrinkled hand and place it to rest over his chest. Every joint in my body rebels as I stand. Sitting here for hours on end after doing the same on the flight home has me stiff all over. My body isn’t used to being stationary.
I place my palm gently over his for a moment and listen to him take his stuttering breaths.
Spittle coats his mouth under the breathing mask, and though I’ve wiped it away a few times, it quickly returns.
Each breath is labored and accompanied by a sucking gurgle, and out with a whoosh through his lips.
His failing lungs don’t have the capacity to hold the oxygen he needs to live.
The doctor estimates they’re at thirty percent now.
Air is flowing into the mask covering his nose, but he can’t hold it in his lungs long enough to do much good.
There’s not enough oxygen getting to his head, heart, and other organs, so everything is shutting down.
He’s slipped into a coma, and he’s not going to wake up. I found that out from his doctor upon arrival.
It had nearly knocked me to my knees. Beating back the tsunami of emotion took everything I had.
I just thank fuck I waited until the doctor left my dad’s room before I lost my shit.
Because it hit me then. The lies, along with an inferno of anger at my father, at myself, and it all became un-fucking-bearable.
It took every bit of my self-control to keep myself from tearing the place apart.
When I managed to get myself under control, grief struck like a vicious bitch. I cried like a goddamn kid and not like a twenty-nine-year-old Army Ranger.
Fortunately, my dad, in his comatose state, saw none of it.
I take solace in the fact that he’s being given morphine to dull his pain. I don’t know if he’s aware of my presence. I want to believe he is, but who the fuck knows.
I fill my own lungs with his teakwood and clove scent as I finger-comb some of his wiry gray hair away from his weathered brow. I close my eyes for a moment to commit that smell to memory. It’s hard to see him this way. He’s so thin. His cheeks sunken in.
I place a kiss on top of his head. “Love you, Pop. I’ll be back.
Going to head to the house, check on things, maybe take a shower, because damn.
” I give myself a quick sniff and yep, I’m ripe.
“I’ll be back.” The words tumble out in a hoarse whisper, emotion clogging my throat.
“Hang in there, alright.” Before I can get overwhelmed, I turn to leave.
Mr. Nava is wheeling himself down the hallway towards me. The faded navy tats covering his hands blur as he propels himself forward. He’s heavier, a broad chest and torso with a slimmer lower half. When he stops in front of me, I squeeze his shoulder, not sure what to say.
“Shit, son. This just came out of nowhere.” He shakes his head.
“Started wheezing and later that night he was complaining that he couldn’t breathe.
I thought he’d be right as rain like always after a rest or at least hold on until you got here, but he just couldn’t hold off any longer, I guess. Still no change?”
“Nah, and the doctor doesn’t think he has long. A few days at most.”
“I’m sorry, Finn. He’d fight to stay with you if he could.”
I squeeze his shoulder again and nod. “I know.” Then I change the subject to him and how he’s doing, so I can keep my shit together.
He fills me in on what his kids have been up to since the last time I was stateside, but he keeps it brief, probably because I look like shit, and he knows my mind is on my dad.
“I’m glad he’s had you here with him, this last year.” I’m earnest about it too. The last few times I did reach out, it was “Ben this” and “Ben that.” Had they been any younger and healthier, I have no doubt I would have been bailing their asses out of jail.
The thought makes me almost smile.
When I finally make my way to the exit, I note the changes I missed upon arrival: a new TV in the dining area, some unfamiliar faces, and new furniture.
Pauline, as always, has the TV cranked all the way up as she watches the evening news and crochets while sitting in a rocking chair.
A couple of the doors I pass in the hallway are decorated with red, white, and blue; some with flags, giving voice to the holiday I missed while on the flight here.
The last door I pass before the nurse’s station has a hand-drawn picture of stick figures underneath a cloud filled with fireworks. It’s a kid’s drawing and cute as shit.
When I reach the front desk, I lean on the elevated granite surface as I wait for Anita, my favorite nurse here, to pause in her form-filling and acknowledge me.
She’s been my saving grace these last few years, always keeping me up to date on Dad’s treatments and moods, going above and beyond to help me find ways to save money or apply for assistance where I can.
Things I never would have known about without her help.
Still filling out forms, she tilts her head and spares me a quick glance.
“Just wanted to let you know, I’m going to swing home for a bit, shower, maybe get a few hours of shuteye.”
“About time. Can’t be any use to anyone as tired as you are.”
There’s no denying it, so I don’t.
“How long was the flight?” she asks.
I rub my face, feeling every one of the hours I’ve spent awake and especially the hours I had to travel to get here, while riddled with worry that I wouldn’t make it in time. “Fourteen or so hours in total with layovers.”
“You driving?”
Hitching my thumb over my shoulder, I mutter, “Got the bike. My friend had it stored in his garage for me, and he and his wife met me with it at the airport so I could have some wheels as soon as I touched down.”
She stops doing paperwork and raises her head.
Her dark-brown eyes throw daggers as she pierces me with a fierce expression.
Stabbing her pen in my direction for emphasis, she says, “Go get some rest and a good dinner. But so help me, Sergeant McCown, if you crash on that damn bike, I will hunt you down, you hear me!”
I knock on the counter. The corner of my mouth lifts in a half-grin. “I’ll be careful.”
She mutters, “You better. Don’t you dare make this old woman live with that kind of guilt.”
“I’ve got my pager. Page me if there’s any change.”
“I promise. I’ll keep an eye on him.”
Turning, I head towards the automatic double doors, but shout over my shoulder, “You’re an angel, Anita.”
She laughs and points towards the ceiling, “From your mouth to God’s ears.”
I chuckle as I leave the facility. When the fresh air hits me, I draw the recent scent of rain mixed with desert musk into my lungs. The scent is grounding and brings back many memories. There’s nothing like it. The desert in Iraq is nothing like it is here in New Mexico.
A few minutes later, I’m accelerating through a turn on autopilot, my thoughts circling. I’ve been thinking about the past, back to when it all started, when the doctor first explained Dad’s disease.
At the time, I couldn’t for the life of me wrap my head around it. Any of it. My dad dying. The fact his disease, COPD, wasn’t curable. The fact that even with a lung transplant, the mortality rate was still astronomically high.