Amber Sky, page 13
Do It
The window on the side of the lean-to is gone. Immediately, I begin questioning whether it was a window that allowed me to see into the shed. Maybe I peered inside through a crack in the doorframe. But when I press my face against the door, aligning my eye with the crack between the door and the frame, I can’t see anything.
“Maybe it was a peephole. Does this shed have a peephole?” I ask Walker, and he shakes his head. “I’m not crazy. I saw the inside of the shed. I saw my phone in there. Give me my phone.” The pity in his eyes makes me violently angry, and I take it out by kicking the door. “Shit!” I yelp, realizing too late that I’m still barefoot.
“Let me look at that,” Walker says, dropping to one knee.
“I’m fine,” I insist, stepping around him and walking to the back of the shed to search for a peephole or a crack I can use to peer inside again.
“That sore on your heel doesn’t look good,” he remarks, following me. “You should let me clean it again.”
I turn to face him, cupping his face, so he doesn’t turn away. “Why are you doing this to me?” I beg, my chest muscles tightening painfully. “You’re hurting me, Marc. You’re making me think I’m crazy. Why are you doing this? Did—” I cut myself off before I can ask him if he’s punishing me for not giving him a child. “What did I do to deserve this?”
He shakes his head as he holds my gaze. “You didn’t do anything, Cass,” he replies softly, his country accent gone now. “I’m not trying to hurt you. I just want you to stay. I don’t want to lose you.”
“That’s why you hid my phone?”
He closes his eyes and lets out a soft sigh. “I didn’t hide your phone. You lost it. Remember? In the crash, you lost your phone.”
I shake my head. “You can’t even do me the courtesy of looking at me when you lie to me?”
He looks up, and the darkness in his eyes takes me by surprise. It’s not menacing. It’s the look of a man who’s been to war, literally or figuratively.
“You are not your father,” I remind him of the secret he shared with me. “You’re a good man, Marc. The man I married in that meadow would open this shed for me. Open the door, Marc. Please, honey. Open the door,” I plea as I stroke his beard. “I like you with facial hair,” I whisper, my eyes filling with tears. “Open the door, Marc. It’s time for me to go.”
He closes his eyes, leaning his face into my touch. “I can’t let you go.”
“Yes, you can,” I say, coiling my arms around his shoulders and pressing my lips to his soft earlobe. “I need to go home. I can’t stay here.”
Whatever this place is, I know it’s not where I want to be. If I’m losing my mind, I need to seek medical attention. The fact that I can form that rationale tells me I’m not going crazy. And that really only leaves two options.
Either I’m dreaming, or I’m dead.
I’ve never had a dream that lasted this long, which leads me to believe I’m dead. And this place, where my husband lives in my grandmother’s house and my father carries my dead children, can only be one thing. I’m in some type of limbo between life and death, a place my brain has constructed to keep itself occupied until it’s time for me to be with my father and my babies.
I unwrap my arms from Marc’s neck and look him in the eye. “You have to let me go,” I say, hoping he doesn’t hear the quiver in my voice. “Open the door, so I can get my phone.”
As he vacillates on the edge of uncertainty, I think back to the moment Mr. Beacham drove off with me in his truck. In my bones, I knew we were traveling in the wrong direction. Maybe I just wasn’t ready to go yet.
“Come on,” I say, taking Marc’s hand and leading him toward the shed door.
He stares at the padlock for a moment before he reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and retrieves a small, silver key. His hands tremble slightly as he slides it into the padlock.
I place my hand on his bare shoulder. “It’s okay.”
He lets out a deep breath, turns the key, then pulls off the padlock. But when he opens the door, the cell phone is gone, just like the window I glimpsed it through.
I shake my head. “That doesn’t make sense,” I whisper. “I’m supposed to be able to leave. I can’t be trapped here. That would be—” My eyes widen as I turn to face Marc. “Am I in hell?”
“Only if you think being with me is hell,” he replies, either trying to lighten the mood or to distract me from the truth.
I look down at my injured foot, and indeed it appears much worse than the day it happened. “In real life, this kind of wound heals quickly.”
“What do you mean, ‘in real life’?” he says, looking at me like I’m talking crazy. “This is real life.”
I shake my head adamantly. “No, it’s not. I’ll prove it to you.” I enter the shed and reach for the nearest shotgun. “Oh, wow. This is heavier than I imagined it’d be.”
“Give me that,” he says, holding both hands palm up. “You’re not holding it right. You’re gonna get one of us shot.”
“That’s kind of the point,” I say, twisting the shotgun around to try and point it at myself, but Marc snatches it out of my hands.
“What the hell are you doing, woman?” he cries, his country accent back again.
“I’m not going to kill myself,” I assure him. “You can’t die if you’re already dead.”
As the words come out of my mouth, they come back and punch me in the heart.
My father killed himself.
And Marc knew he was going to do it.
“I want you out of this shed,” Marc demands, positioning himself between me and the wall of guns. “Now. Go on.”
I shake my head as I realize the gravity of the words I just spoke: You can’t kill yourself if you’re already dead.
My father knew he’d die long before his body would be buried in the ground. By taking his own life, he was sparing us the emotional cost of two funerals.
I look up into those bright blue eyes I fell in love with so many years ago. “You have to do it.”
“Do what?”
I study his face for a long while. He seemed so fuzzy to me when I first arrived here. “I thought it was the crash that stole my memory, but it wasn’t,” I say, reaching up to trace the curve of his bottom lip with my fingertip. “It was grief. I was trying to forget. But that’s not it.” I look directly into his eyes, and he seems to hold his breath as he waits for me to continue. “Some of this,” I say, looking around at the guns and the tools. “Some of this is yours. These aren’t my memories. They’re yours.”
His eyes fall to the shotgun in his hands. “I can’t do what you want me to do,” he says, then he looks up at me again, but when he speaks this time, he sounds like my husband. No accent. No bullshit. Just the man I married in a meadow at sunrise eight years ago. “I was never supposed to fall in love,” he begins. “I was supposed to live and die alone in that old house, surrounded by my paintings. And even when I got out of there and went to college… I left my accent and my memories behind me, but I still didn’t think I deserved to be loved. Until you came along.” He reaches up with one hand and smiles as he tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. “I don’t know how you did it, Cass, but you made me feel like I deserved you… I can’t lose you. Please don’t make me do this.”
I shake my head. “You’re not losing me. I’m coming back to you.” I take his face in my hands and press my lips against his. I kiss him long and hard, then I lay a trail of soft kisses over his cheek to his ear. “Do it,” I whisper. “Please, Marc. Do it for me. Do it for us.”
I pull my head back and hold his gaze as tears spill over his cheeks and disappear into his dark beard.
“I’m so sorry,” he says as he turns the barrel of the gun, so it’s pointing at the underside of my chin, then he mouths, “I love you,” and pulls the trigger.
Shadow
Present-day
Cassidy opened her eyes again this morning. She continues to mumble occasional words or phrases. Last night, she smiled and said, “You’re real.” At least, that’s what it sounded like to me.
Ruth thought it sounded more like, “Too real.” But Ruth doesn’t know that the first time Cassidy and I made love, I placed my hand over her chest, to feel her heart thumping against my fingertips, and whispered, “You are real.” And I’d rather not share that with my mother-in-law. Some memories are too sacred to be spoken.
When Cassidy opened her eyes this morning, I was alone with her. But I’m confident I heard her say, “Dad.” Just the sound of it had made me want to collapse.
I can’t help but think that if I’d been honest with her from the beginning about her father’s decision to end his life, none of this would have happened. Cassidy wouldn’t have spent the last two months lying in a hospital bed. We’d both be home watching our baby girl sleeping in her crib in the nursery I painted for her.
I move to the foot of the bed and lift the covers, examining the dressing on her foot. The small blister she’d complained of the day before the accident — evidence her pregnant feet were getting too swollen for her shoes — had transformed into a terrible bedsore in the weeks after the crash. I couldn’t help but feel responsible for this. Cass always gets swollen feet when she’s pregnant. I should’ve reminded her to wear bigger shoes. I should’ve reminded the nurses to move her more often.
Cass keeps kicking her legs like she’s trying to run away from her coma. All she manages to do is rub off the tape on her dressing. But it seems to be intact right now.
I cover her feet again and pull the visitor’s chair up to her bedside. As I take her hand in mine and press a soft kiss into her warm palm, she mutters something I don’t understand. I stand up and lean over her, hoping she’ll continue, and I’ll hear her better this time.
“What did you say, Cass?” I ask.
She sighs, and she’s silent for a moment before she very clearly says, “Do it.”
I sit back in the chair, her words siphoning the air from my lungs. I know she doesn’t mean them the way I’m interpreting them, but I can’t help but wonder if she does. Is she telling me to pull the plug?
I bring her hand toward me, pressing my cheek to the back of her hand as I close my eyes. I don’t want to lose you. Come back to me.
I repeat the words in my mind until the anguish from hearing her speak has subsided. Then, I say the words aloud.
“Come back to me, Cass,” I whisper, reaching up to brush a stray strand of wavy, brown hair out of her long eyelashes. “Wake up, baby.”
But she doesn’t respond. She continues sleeping, her mind lost in a dream world I may never know. I don’t want to lose her, but I can’t keep pretending as if life has a pause button. I have responsibilities, and I don’t know how much longer Ruth can continue grieving her little girl.
Losing Teddy and Cass within months of each other has taken a toll on her, and she was put on two different heart medications last week. Ruth claims it has nothing to do with the stress of Cassidy’s coma, but I see the truth in her face, which has become as gaunt as mine. I see the gray clouds in Lina’s and Carter’s eyes when they visit. None of us can bear to see Cassidy like this.
I lay a soft kiss on my wife’s forehead and whisper, “I’m so sorry.” Taking a seat in the chair again, I hold my head in my hands. “I’m sorry I failed you, Cass. Please forgive me.”
Please forgive me for what I’m about to do.
I draw in a deep breath and wipe the tears from my hollow cheeks as I stand. I watch her for a while, hoping she’ll give me a sign that I’m wrong. I bargain with myself.
If she opens her eyes or moves her hands, it’s not time to say good-bye. If she moves her eyebrows or mumbles incoherently, I’ll hold on another day.
I’ve been striking these bargains with myself for fifty-six days. Meanwhile, the world outside this hospital room has continued, seconds ticking by coldly, pressing onward as if the fabric of spacetime hasn’t been ripped in half. On one side, the secrets. On the other, the truth.
Cassidy lies still, indifferent to her own suffering. I don’t want to believe she knows what’s going on around her, but it’s this very thought that keeps me up at night. The fear that she’s completely aware of her surroundings, but unable to interact in any way is terrifying.
I imagine this was the fate Teddy feared awaited him. I don’t blame him for not wanting to stick around for that portion of his life. Still, I can’t help but wonder, if I hadn’t kept Teddy’s secret, would Cass now be suffering the same fate he escaped?
Pulling the plug on a coma patient who can breathe on their own isn’t as quick a death as crashing your prized car into a tree. Saying good-bye to Cass in this state means I agree to allow the hospital staff to starve her to death.
Am I merciful for not forcing her to live a life where she’s trapped inside her mind? Or am I a monster for condemning her to a slow, torturous death.
I lean over and plant a long kiss on her soft cheek, hoping we can be frozen in this moment. “I could die here with you,” I whisper, “but I know you wouldn’t want that.”
As I stand up again, her right hand clenches into a fist. I reach for it, sliding my fingers inside her fist, so she doesn’t break the skin of her palm with her fingernails. But as I attempt to relax her fingers, she grips my hand harder.
“Cass, can you hear me?”
She doesn’t respond, but her grip remains firm.
She’s done this before. Still, I interpret this instance as the signal I asked for. But as soon as this thought occurs to me, I wonder how long I can play this bargaining game with myself. How long can I justify her suffering using childish superstitions?
I shake my head as I recall Cassidy renouncing her pregnancy superstitions a few months ago. I smile as I remember the ultrasound where we found out the gender of the baby. It was the day before the accident, and Cassidy said something I’ll never forget.
As we were waiting in the room for the ultrasound tech to arrive, she said, “If there’s something wrong with this one, I want to keep trying. That way, if you die before me, I’ll still have a piece of you.”
“You’ll always have a piece of me,” I whisper to her now. “I’ll never be whole again.”
I try to let go of her hand, but her fingers remain tightly curled around mine. I stand there for a couple minutes, watching the movement of her eyes beneath the thin skin of her eyelids when they suddenly fly open.
She stares at the ceiling for a few seconds. An agonizing moment where she seems to be holding her breath. Then she lets out a harsh gasp, and her heart monitor begins beeping loudly as she flatlines.
I race out into the corridor and immediately turn left. The nearest person who’s sitting at a desk in the nurses’ station jogs toward Cassidy’s room, swiftly followed by a doctor and three others. I race back to Cass, but one of the nurses begins ushering me out of the room.
“My wife is dying!” I shout. “I need to be with her!”
“Marc, you need to stay out here, so you’re not in the way,” she replies firmly. “Just stay out here, so we can do our job.”
“But she’s—” I stop myself before I say the word “dying” again, afraid I may be making a self-fulfilling prophecy. “Okay,” I mutter, feeling defeated but not wanting to keep the nurse occupied any longer. “Please save her.”
The nurse rubs my arm before she enters the room to assist.
My chest tightens painfully, and I realize I’m not breathing fast enough to keep up with my racing heart. Taking a few long breaths, I approach a nurse who comes out of the room next to Cassidy’s.
“Can you tell me what’s going on in there?” I say, pointing at the open door of Cassidy’s room.
The nurse glances inside. “They’re trying to stabilize her,” she replies, tilting her head as she looks at me. “Do you feel faint? You look very pale, sir.”
Without acknowledging her remark, I spin around and head straight for the private restroom around the corner. Mercifully, the indicator above the door handle reads “UNOCCUPIED.” I enter and quickly lock the door behind me.
My hands begin to tingle as I turn toward the sink. I hastily splash cold water on my face a few times, hoping this will wake up my parasympathetic response and get my blood flowing again.
Gripping the rim of the porcelain sink, I take deep breaths until the tingling in my hands subsides. Then I look up and catch my reflection in the mirror. With this new growth of facial hair, the nine pounds I’ve lost, and the dumbfounded look in my eyes, I feel like I’m staring at the eighteen-year-old Walker Ainsley I left behind in East Waterford, Pennsylvania.
I should have never doubted Cassidy’s love for me. I should have known she would never judge me for the sins I committed before we met. I hope she’ll still feel so forgiving if she ever wakes up. I close my eyes, and, for the first time since I left home over a decade ago, I pray.
I don’t know what I believe in anymore. I strongly suspect no one is listening. But I do it anyway. Because I’m not praying for me. I’m praying for her.
Exiting the restroom, I turn the corner onto Cassidy’s corridor and almost slam face-first into a frantic nurse, the same nurse who ushered me out of Cassidy’s room.
Her brown eyes are wide, and her mouth is stretched into a broad smile. “She’s awake. You have to hurry.”
My skull fills with a roaring white noise that blocks out all sound as I fly past the nurse and burst into Cassidy’s hospital room. My knees almost give out when I see her eyes open, following me as I walk around the foot of the bed.
“Baby, you’re awake,” I murmur as I reach for her hand.
She nods ever so slightly, and her eyes widen as her gaze locks on my beard. Opening her mouth, only one word comes out as she reaches for my face: “Shadow.”
