Chapter 24
Caleb
Instead of going home after leaving Roxie’s place, I head over to the hospital to visit Jack.
Usually, Roxie would be my go-to when I want to talk things out, but since she’s the reason behind my state of unrest, the only other person I can confide in is my brother.
Like always, I pull out the chair stashed away in the corner and put it by his bedside, the scent of fresh flowers in the room announcing that our mother must have visited him today, too.
“Hey,” I greet, grabbing his hand, grateful for no longer having a tube shoved down his throat to help him breathe.
The doctors have assured us that Jack is now able to breathe on his own and that his lungs are no longer an issue of concern. That would have been all good and well if I hadn’t witnessed firsthand him having a seizure a few days back. No matter how many times the doctors explain that seizures, such as the one Jack had, are common occurrences with coma patients who suffered a traumatic brain injury, it will still be one of the scariest things I have ever seen.
Thankfully, there seems to be a bit more color to his cheeks tonight—enough to fool myself into believing that he’s just resting his eyes while he’s listening to me vent.
“I’d ask you how’s it going but… well… I already know that nothing has changed much since the last time I was here. You know… if I were Erin, I’d start to suspect that the only reason you don’t snap out of your coma is to have unlimited sponge baths from the hot nurses. Hate to break it to you, big brother, but I’ve seen your nurse, and he’s not your type,” I snicker.
I don’t take it personally when he doesn’t reply or chuckle.
It’s not one of my best jokes.
Then again, this place doesn’t exactly encourage comedy.
“Guess you want me to give you the rundown of how things have been going without you.” I drag my hand over my face. “Erin and the girls are good, or at least they’re trying to be. By the way, you should see Erin, Jack. Your wife is fucking huge right now, and you’re missing it. I know how much you like it when she’s about to hit her third trimester whenever she’s pregnant, you big freak.” I chuckle, remembering how Jack was even more affectionate with Erin whenever she got so big that she started to wobble around the house. Barefoot and pregnant was always his kink, the big weirdo.
If there was a way to get Erin even more pregnant, I’m sure Jack would have succeeded in that mission.
Not that I ever heard her complaining.
Not wanting to think about my brother’s weird fetishes, I continue on with my report.
“Mom is good, I think. We haven’t talked in a while, so I can’t be too sure.” I shrug, not wanting to go into that too much. “The team is doing better than good. They’re just one game away from winning the Eastern Conference. Looks like we’re going to make the Stanley Cup playoffs after all. You can thank Nate and Bellamy for that one,” I mumble, saddened about not being a part of that accomplishment, thanks to my own fucking temper.
“Hmm, what else?” I add, scanning his face for some reaction, my shoulders slumping when there is none. “Well, I guess I should tell you the real reason why I needed to see you tonight.” I smile weakly. “I kind of met a girl. Actually, fuck that. She’s not a girl—she’s the most amazing woman I’ve ever known. Now I know what you’re thinking. I meet loads of women. But this one is… Roxie… is different. She’s special. Like really fucking special, Jack. To put it in terms you can understand, she’s Erin-special. Get it now?” I let out an exhale, my chest tightening at the confession I just made. “And before you say it, no, I’m not drunk. And no, I didn’t hit my head anywhere.” I chuckle. “I mean it. Roxie is… fuck. There are no words for her, Jack. All I know is that I feel good when I’m around her. She makes me feel seen. Heard. Fucking understood. I feel like a grown-up when I’m around her.” I chuckle again. “Yeah, it took me by surprise, too. I never met anyone who I’d want to grow up for. I didn’t even think it was possible. But she does. She makes me want to do better. Be better,” I explain, picturing her face in my mind.
“I wish you could meet her, Jack. She’s fucking gorgeous. With big amber eyes and the prettiest lips you have ever seen on a woman. Whenever she talks, I just stare at her eyes. They’re fucking hypnotic. But she’s more than just a pretty face and a rocking body, and believe me, her body is so off the charts, it’s fucking ridiculous. It’s her mind that’s such a fucking turn-on. Yeah, you heard me—I fell hard for a brainiac. Go fucking figure?” I laugh, my heart pounding in my chest as I describe my Roxie to my brother. “I shit you not, Jack, she’s that fucking smart. She loves using big words on the daily, which I have to mentally jot down most of the time just so I can look them up later to find out their meaning. But she’s never made me feel stupid or less than when I’m with her. In fact, she makes me feel smarter than I really am. Like she believes I can keep up with any conversation that she springs up on me. That I have it in me.” I smile warmly.
“If you haven’t guessed it already, I’m so gone for this woman. Like I’m madly, deeply in love with her,” I confess, feeling my heart break a little bit that he might not even be listening to me. “I don’t know, Jack. I’m not sure I should feel this way with you lying here. A part of me feels it’s wrong to fall in love right now. That I shouldn’t be happy because of you being here. I guess I’m still the same selfish prick as I always was, huh?” I mumble, discontent with the realization of bragging about my love life when his life is all but fleeting.
“Fuck. This is so unfair. This shit… it’s fucking killing me. I need you, Jack. Erin and the girls fucking need you. Just wake up, okay? Just do what you have to do and wake the fuck up,” I repeat a bit too aggressively.
“I know it’s fucking selfish, and I know I’m the worst of the worst asking you for this, but I need you to come back to the land of the living so you can meet the woman I’m falling in love with. You hear me, Jack?” I beg as tears start to blur my vision when my brother doesn’t so much as stir in his bed.
I’m talking to a ghost.
And I hate it.
I fucking hate it.
Sorrow gives way to anger as rage starts bubbling in my veins with every second he doesn’t open his eyes.
I stand up and lean into him.
“Enough of this shit. Wake up, Jack!” I say, holding onto his shoulders. “I said wake the fuck up!”
But again, all I’m met with is the beeping sounds of the various machines surrounding him.
“Jack, get up! Now!” I shout in his face. “I’m fucking serious. I need you. I fucking need you. GET UP!” I yell before swinging the chair across the room.
Two nurses rush into the room in the middle of my little rampage, trying to expel me from my brother’s bedside.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” I growl at the male nurse, slapping his hands away before he tries to forcefully pull me out of the room. “I’m leaving. I’m leaving.”
Tears stream down my cheeks as I take one more glance over at my brother’s motionless body.
He doesn’t move.
He doesn’t speak.
He probably doesn’t even know that I’m here.
It’s all one long, empty dream to him.
Not wanting to stare at the lifeless body that once carried my brother’s soul, I turn around and leave.
It’s only when I get to my car that my tears fall without restraint.
I thought I was getting better, but apparently, I’m not.
Not when it comes to Jack.
I sit there in silence, just waiting for my anger to simmer down.
Half of me wants to go back to Roxie’s so she can make the pain go away. But the other half—the one that tells me I don’t deserve one ounce of happiness—orders me to start the car and go back to Jack’s to see what my selfish actions have done.
To see the gaunt look on Erin’s face…
To witness the look of confusion in his daughters’ eyes when they can’t find their daddy anywhere.
It’s because of me that Erin and the girls no longer have Jack in their lives. And maybe, most probably, never will again.
The next day, when I wake up, I feel like death itself paid me a visit.
Everything hurts.
I groan as the morning light filters through the blinds, stabbing at my pounding head while ruthless thirst claws away at my parched throat. My body feels heavy and sluggish, as if every muscle were protesting the abuse from whatever party I attended the night before. I haven’t touched a drink in a while, and apparently, I’ve lost practice ‘cause this hangover is killing me.
When I finally manage to pry open my heavy eyelids, my forehead creases at a constellation of fluorescent stars plastered up on the ceiling.
Oh, shit.
I’m in the girls’ room.
Suddenly, it all comes back to me—after I visited Jack at the hospital, I came back to his place, already finding Erin and my nieces fast asleep in their rooms. So, instead of going home, I scoured through his liquor cabinet and drank myself into what I hoped would be an alcohol-induced coma. Somewhere between getting shitfaced and now, I must have found my way into the girls’ bedroom and decided that a good place to sleep would be on the floor between Cara’s bed and Fiona’s crib.
Fuck my life.
Yep.
No way will I be winning any awards for best uncle anytime soon.
Erin is going to fucking kill me.
It’s a wonder I’m still breathing at all after she found me lying here.
With my head still banging away, I walk over to the guest room, where I keep some of my clothes whenever I sleep over, and go to the adjoining ensuite to grab a quick shower, hoping to cleanse the stench of alcohol from my pores.
My guilt doesn’t wash off as easily, though.
I don’t even dare to look at myself in the mirror as I brush my teeth and fix my hair. My reflection will only make me feel worse for being the shitty uncle that I am.
As I leave the room, the enticing smell of blueberry pancakes leads me towards the kitchen, where Erin is likely preparing breakfast for the girls.
But just as I’m a few feet away, I freeze in place when I hear Cara ask, “Is Daddy still sleeping, Mommy?”
“He is,” Erin replies sweetly.
“He’s been sleeping a long time, Mommy. Can’t you wake him up?”
“I wish I could, baby. But Daddy needs to rest. We just need to be patient.”
“Okay, but when will he come home?” Cara asks on a whine.
“Soon, baby, soon. Daddy will be home soon.”
“He’s taking so long. I miss him.”
“I do, too, sweetheart. But before you know it, he’ll be walking through that door.”
“Promise?”
“Promise,” Erin replies ever so sweetly.
The fuck?
What the fuck is she telling her?
When I strut into the kitchen, Erin doesn’t even look one bit guilty for filling little Cara’s with nonsense.
“Morning, sleepyhead. I made you this. I figured you’d need it,” she smiles, handing me a glass of Jack’s hangover-cure smoothie, which consists of two raw eggs, one banana, a handful of berries, a drizzle of honey, and coconut water.
“Actually, do you mind if we talked in the hallway for a second?” I ask, placing the smoothie on the counter.
“Can’t it wait? I’m feeding Fiona her breakfast right now.”
“Mommy! Mommy!” Cara shoots out of her chair. “Can I feed Fiona? Please, Mommy? I’m a big girl now.”
“Sure, princess.” Erin smiles, not having the heart to say no to Cara, especially when she’s this excited.
We step out of the kitchen into the hall while ensuring we have eyes on the girls at all times.
“Caleb, if you pulled me out of the kitchen just to apologize about yesterday, don’t even bother. I’ve had my fair share of bad nights. You’re allowed to have them too. But next time, I’d rather you sleep in the guest room. The girls got worried when they couldn’t wake you up this morning.”
A pang of guilt hits my chest, but I push it down, unable to focus on the fucked-up example I’m giving my nieces.
“That won’t happen again,” I promise.
“Good,” she says, stepping towards the kitchen again, but I stop her steps by gently stepping in her way.
“But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Oh?” she asks, sounding honestly confused about what else could it be, aside from me apologizing for being the world’s worst fucking uncle.
“What was that shit you just told the girls, Erin?”
“What?” she says, looking even more baffled.
“You just told little Cara that her daddy will be coming home soon. Don’t you think that just fucks with her little head?”
“I don’t say anything that I don’t believe in myself,” she replies with a stern tone.
“Are you serious right now, E?” I ask, completely mystified by her naivete.
“Yes, I am. Jack will come home to us. Of that, I have no doubt.”
“Jack has been in a coma for months, Erin. Fucking months.”
“Keep your voice down,” she orders with an assertive tone, glancing over at Cara as she makes faces at her baby sister to make her laugh.
“Erin,” I drag my hand over my face. “You can’t say shit like that to the girls. It will only fuck with their little heads.”
“This from a man who decided it was a good idea to get wasted last night and sleep on his nieces’ bedroom floor.”
“I already apologized for that.”
“Well, I’m not apologizing for what I say or don’t say to my kids. Jack will come back to us. I know he will.”
“Erin—”
“Jack is coming home, Caleb,” she interjects, rubbing her pregnant belly. “I know my husband. He’s a fighter. He wouldn’t leave me or his babies without a good fight. We’re his life, and he’s ours.”
I stand there silent, witnessing for the first time how my sister-in-law never left the denial phase.
She honestly believes that Jack will make it out of this alive.
And as much as I would love that to be true, logic and reason tell me otherwise.
“Erin, we all want that. I want that more than anything. But it’s not going to happen. Instead of filling the girls’ heads with empty promises, you should be preparing them for the inevitable. You should start preparing yourself, too, E. Because sooner or later, we both know we’ll get that call we’ve been dreading. The call from the hospital where they tell us that Jack is dea—”
“Don’t you dare say it, Caleb Donovan!” she shouts in my face, stunning me silent. “Not in my house. Not here. And not in front of me or where my girls can hear you. My husband will come back to me. My girls and this baby I’m carrying will have their father in their lives. So before you open your mouth to say such things, remember who Jack is. Honor him by believing in him. If you can’t do that… then I don’t want you here. I don’t want you near me or my girls.”
“You don’t mean that, E.”
“Oh, I mean every word. If you’ve lost faith, that’s on you. I haven’t. I will never lose faith in Jack.” Her words crack with such misery that my throat clogs with the same emotion.
“Erin… I…”
“I think you should leave now. The girls and I have a busy day today, and we need to get ready.”
“Erin…”
“Just go, Caleb.” She shakes her head, wiping the fallen tears she couldn’t prevent escaping. “Just go.”
As I walk towards the door, I watch Erin put herself back together before returning to the kitchen, a broad smile lighting up her face when she finally reaches her girls.