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Jase
It’s been a week.
An entire week since Ellie drove her car off the bridge, causing more mayhem than I thought was possible.
It’s also been a week since my wife woke. She’s connected to machines, tubes and monitors. They’re the only things breathing for her right now. Like her mom all those years ago, she looks like she’s barely hanging on. Her brain activity still exists, which means she’s still in there. She’s just stuck. She needs to fight, and she can. I know she can.
So many things happened this week that have seriously tested my sanity. Francis told us what happened all those years ago, that he was hiding, biding his time for proof, so he could get his daughter back. With the Satoray money and entire town of Hollow Ridge on the line, he couldn’t come forward, Ellie would have cleaned them dry. She played the docile broken widow well, even I didn’t realize how deep it went.
It’s why his parents tried getting custody of Gray. Without proof, they failed. It took them years to get a blood test for her, to make sure she was truly Francis’ kid. She is. She just doesn’t know anything about it or him. Nora didn’t really talk about him, not that I blamed her, it was a hard time.
It seems Nate had been helping him for years, and Frankie helped Nate every time he relapsed since Lo couldn’t handle it anymore. That’s why they all stayed. At first, my anger seemed uncontrollable. With Loren in a hospital bed fighting for her life, he should have easily told us before. He could have saved her, us, me. Now we’re in a fucked-up limbo, and it could have been fixed with a simple phone call.
Toby found out a few weeks ago. He meant to tell us both, but so much had happened. So, if I ought to be mad, I ought to be mad at him. We all know where his selfishness got him, he didn’t want Lo and I to work out our shit. The secret itself is proof.
Gray hasn’t met her dad yet. Mom has kept them apart, hoping they will meet under better circumstances. She doesn’t seem too beat up about her mom, which scares me more than anything. I know she’s hurting. She’s a kid, a teen, and that’s an age where emotions run the most rampant. Ace refuses to talk to her, but she has asked for him.
Ellie didn’t make it. She died when I left her to save Lo. And I did, but barely. She survived. I wouldn’t change the course of my decision for anything.
The baby, the one Ellie was so adamant about, didn’t exist. She was never pregnant, and that hurt the most. My wife almost gave up her life for a nonexistent baby.
My boy, he hasn’t talked to anyone, least of all me. He’s spent day and night in this room for his mom. He reads to her, talks to her, and never lets her hand go. Like all those times I wasn’t there for her, he is. But this time, I’m also here, and there’s nothing that will keep me away from fighting. Millie has kept Jazzy away as often as possible. Jaz isn’t taking her mom in the hospital well, she’s crying and upset constantly, and I’m sure it’s from all the secrets and uncertainty surrounding her.
Another four days pass before Lo shows any signs of awareness with her body movements. The first time happened in the middle of the night while I was telling her about our first real date.
“Remember when we went on our first date? You told me to get lost after I told you that the Padres sucked? God, you were so beautiful when you were angry. Come back to me, Lo.”
The next time, I wasn’t around, but Ace said she squeezed his hand when he was telling her about how much better he and Jaz have been since staying at my mom’s.
It hurt, knowing that I’d wounded him so much, that being away was peaceful, but I got past it immediately when I realized it’s unfair of me to put any kind of pressure on him after what I’ve done.
A day later, my wife opens her eyes. She’s frantic, choking noises coming out of her as she jolts upward.
“Nurse!” I yell, repeating it two more times before rubbing Lo’s arm. “Calm down, Peaches. Inhale, exhale. Breathe.”
Awareness settles into her eyes, the glossiness of them the most beautiful sight.
The nurse comes in, helping to remove the breathing tube from her throat and assisting her to be calmer.
Lo tries talking, but only a slight wheeze comes out. Her eyes are troubled, her beautiful face tortured with anxiety.
Bringing over one of Ace’s notebooks and a pen, I hand it to her.
She tries writing something, but it’s more like scribbles than anything else. Her frustrated huff doesn’t stop her. She tries again and again, getting more and more frustrated with each swipe of her hand. Eventually, after moving slower, I see what she has written. It’s so scrawled that it takes me a moment to realize it says baby.
I shake my head vehemently, wanting to tell her as soon as possible, but as soon as I start, Ace and Jaz come in.
“Mom? Mom!” Ace says, astonished, his eyes lighting up for the first time in over a week.
She softens at the sight of them, pulling them into her while wincing in pain. Ace pulls back, dragging Jaz away, then brings the water with the straw to his mom’s mouth.
It’s like last time, but more painful.
This time, for a moment, she was entirely gone.
This time, she didn’t choose it.
This time, the choice was made for her.
She sips at it, making a disgusted face—half pain, half nauseated. Ace sets the cup back down as I watch him kiss her forehead. I should be doing that—consoling her, loving her, giving her everything she needs—but I can’t.
He needs this.
She needs this.
They need this.
Lo looks over to me, her eyes brimming with unshed tears.
“Hey, kids, let’s give your mommy a moment, okay?” the nurse recommends, seeing Lo’s face.
Jazzy still doesn’t quite understand, but her eyes get a little glossy.
Ace lifts her, kissing her nose softly. “C’mon Jazzy bear, let’s see what kind of food this crap hole has, eh?”
She giggles, and I want to give him a stern look for using the word crap, but he’s too charming with her. He’s an amazing big brother and son.
They leave, and Lo peers up at me with a love I don’t deserve. It makes my heart bleed, penetrating me deep in a place I didn’t think could feel anymore.
She grabs for the paper, her hands shaky, but I stop her. My hand caresses hers that are full of wires and tape. Her skin is irritated and red and in need of some major TLC. I rub circles over her wrist, feeling her faint heartbeat, the same one I couldn’t find when I thought I lost her for good.
I lean down so we’re eye level and kiss her palm and each finger. Tears fall freely from my eyes as the momentary shock of her being alive disappears, replaced by absolute gratefulness. I’ve prayed every night since the accident. I’ve cried, begged, and pleaded with God and the world and everything in between to have my wife back.
Now, here she is.
Breathing.
Alive.
Here.
I kiss her arms, trailing up to her elbow, and leave one there, too. I don’t stop my route until her forehead is beneath my lips. Under the hospital disinfectant smell is the peach smell I’ve always craved and loved. Beneath the death is the life I never want gone.
She takes the paper and pen again, ignoring my pleas to stop her. She circles the word she wrote earlier, her eyes shining with tears.
“It never existed,” I say each word slowly so they absorb and make sense. Her eyebrows pinch, her forehead creasing in the middle. “Ellie lied.”
Her eyes widen, her mouth forming an “O.” She doesn’t appear angry, just accepting.
There’s no fight in her, which makes perfect sense. She’s been in a medically induced coma for nearly two weeks.
She starts drifting off as I hold her close to me, bringing the chair as close as I can to her, and when she falls asleep, I fall apart.