42. Forty-two
Forty-two
I don’t sleep.
I stare at the ceiling—all night—thinking about Veda.
Bo.
Veda and Bo.
When the clock next to me says 4:12 a.m. , I get out of bed and start researching holistic ways to make these next months more comfortable for her. There has to be something other than copious amounts of marijuana and painkillers.
I print out twenty pages on self-massaging techniques, stretches, and some kind of mega green smoothie recipe that all claim to help. Organized, stapled, and in a folder on my passenger seat, my body buzzes with anticipation over how Bo is going to react as I drive to Veda’s.
I’m ready for the sadness, but I don’t know how mad he will be at me for not telling him right away. The sour taste of guilt yo-yos from the tip of my tongue to the pit of my stomach .
I’m at the door, it’s still locked, and I pull the key out of my purse—as I have been more and more. I push it open, giving my usual, “Knock! Knock!” as I walk in, kick off my shoes, and hang my jacket on the hook. It’s just after nine, but the house is dark. She’s still sleeping, no doubt worn out from her later than usual birthday dinner.
I walk down the hall, reaching in my bag for the papers I’d printed, seeing I forgot the file on the passenger seat of my van. I pause, debate turning around, but decide to get them after breakfast.
“Morning, Veda!” I call, walking again toward her bedroom.
I knock gently, pushing open her door. “Hey, sleepyhead. Not that you care, but I printed out so—”
I freeze, unsaid words disappearing in my mouth, stepping fully into her bedroom.
She’s in bed, sleeping.
Still.
Too still.
My heart slams against my chest. My throat.
“No!” I yell, dropping my purse and hurrying to the bed, putting the back of my hand on her forehead. Then cheek. Her skin is cold. Ice.
My hands on her shoulders, I shake her gently.
“Veda,” I say, struggling to get her name out of my mouth. “Veda!” I repeat louder—a shout—to be sure I’ve actually said it.
I shake harder—nothing.
I fumble my trembling hands across her neck to find a pulse—none .
Hand over her mouth, she’s not breathing.
Adrenaline and desperation propel me onto the bed, kneeling over her, interlacing my fingers and finding the point in the middle of her chest I’ve been trained to with the heel of my hand. Elbows locked, I start compressions. Driving into her chest, fast and hard.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
“Veda!” I cry, winded as I push into her chest quickly, changing nothing, repeating the motions anyway. When droplets of water land on the backs of my hands, I realize I’m crying. “Dammit, Veda. No!” I choke out.
Nineteen.
Twenty.
Twenty-one.
Twenty-two.
I keep compressing, changing nothing. Crying more with every pump of my fists into her chest.
Her normally tidy hair is splayed across the pillow wildly as I work in frantic desperation to bring her back.
“Veda!” Her name is garbled now. Barely understandable even to my own ears.
Minutes pass.
I stop. Breathless from compressions and sobs.
She’s gone.
My gaze catches on the nightstand. There’s a bottle of medication, empty, and two envelopes. My name scribbled across the one on top.
A brand-new realization hits as the next sob escapes my mouth: she did this.
I know without ever opening the envelope. The bottle, her farewell speech disguised as a birthday toast, the letters. What I couldn’t see last night was something I never imagined: Veda was saying goodbye because Veda was going to end it.
She knew, and the sheer weight of that combined with the fact that she’s gone crushes my chest like a semitruck driving straight into me in the middle of a highway.
“Goddamn you, Veda!” I sob, clutching her cold, twisted hand in mine and falling over so I’m lying next to her on the bed.
I need to call for help, but I know nobody can help. I just want more time. So I take it. Selfishly, I lay with her for a few minutes before I do anything. Letting my sobs pour out until they subside, holding her cold hand in mine.
Finally, I fumble for my phone. The 9-1-1 operator answers, and my voice is a detached sound. “My friend is gone,” I hear myself say, before giving the address and hanging up on the lady who’s in the middle of telling me to please stay on the line.
I have to call Bo, and that takes me to the floor next to the bed.
By the time he answers, I’ve gone from calm and detached to hysterical. Crying words that make no sense into his ear until I finally choke out, “It’s Gran, Bo. Come now.” I hang up on him the same as I did the operator.
Alone with my tears and Veda’s lifeless body as I sit on her bedroom floor and look at the nightstand.
The bottle.
The envelopes.
I sniff, wipe my nose with the sleeve of my sweater, and take a deep breath through a series of shallow ones. The envelopes—I pick them up. Panic, fear, and something worse than sadness burns my hands as I hold them. My name scribbled on one, Bo’s on the other.
Veda took the pills to end it, that’s crystal clear. But the envelopes, whatever they are, are too much to process now. Would the police take them? Would Bo read his before I can explain?
No.
He’s going to be devastated when he gets here. I can’t let him find out this way.
I don’t know if it’s adrenaline, sadness, guilt, or all three, but I take the letters, crawl across the floor to the doorway, and shove them in my purse. I want to read them—with Bo—not here. Not when I’m swinging between feeling everything and nothing with every minute that passes.
The quiet that follows is deep. A sad serenity. I crawl up and sit on the edge of Veda’s bed again, face soaked with tears and throat swollen with sorrow. I take her hand again in mine, handling it as though it is something delicate—like a too thin piece of pottery that might not survive a firing in the kiln. The only sound is the slow beat of my own heart in my ears.
I stare at her, sleeping but not, on her own terms. “You were a good friend, Veda,” I whisper, broken. “And I’ll never stop loving Bo.”
As if Veda timed it all, as soon as the words are out, paramedics are pounding at the door and rushing into the room, shuffling me out, gurney in tow.
“Ma’am, can you tell us what happened?” one of them asks.
It’s a blur of flashing lights, uniformed men, and me repeating the longest minutes of my life.
Now Bo is here. Grabbing me. Terrified look on his face.
I say something jumbled. Wet. Useless.
He fights to get by a paramedic and sees Veda—Gran—and drops to his knees next to the bed, her hand in his, and he leans his cheek against it.
Bo’s cries for the woman who was both Gran and Mom hurt my knees and bring me down to them.
As they clear the room and prepare her body, we end up on the couch, leaning into each other as she’s taken away. A voice says, “Bo, looks like she made a mistake with her pain meds.”
I look up. It’s John. The police are here? I missed that happen.
“Pain meds?” Bo asks, red eyed. “For the arthritis?”
John shifts his weight, eyes moving to me, no doubt trying to piece together what he knows. What he doesn’t.
“Bo…” He pauses, swallows, and clears his throat. “The paramedics found medication in the bathroom…paperwork in the kitchen—Veda had cancer.” Another pause, another glance my way, then, “Everywhere.”
I squeeze my eyes shut as Bo sags back into the couch beside me. When I open them, he’s rubbing a hand down the side of his face that’s now carved with deep lines of sadness.
“I didn’t know,” he says to John with a weak nod. “Thanks, man.” John gives a tight smile before walking out of the room with another officer.
Bo looks at me. “You okay?”
I almost laugh at the absurdity of the question. “Peachy,” I say morosely, forcing a small smile.
“Gran had cancer,” he says, more to himself than me. “She had it before, I don’t know if she told you.” He looks at me. “The treatment was hardly anything, but she told me she wouldn’t do it again if it ever came back. Here we are.” He laughs softly, unamused, and presses his palms in his eyes. He sighs, tone hardening. “Dammit, Birdie, I could have helped her if she would have told me. Anything!”
He shakes his head, hands clenched in fists.
His eyes are somehow both overflowing with devastation and completely empty.
I lean into him, wrapping my arms around him.
“You don’t know that, Bo,” I whisper against his shoulder. “Knowing her, she had her reasons.”