by C. M. Albert
It was too cold. So final and matter of fact.
Why couldn’t he reassure me that Ryan would be okay?
“It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair,” I repeated, rocking back and forth against Brighton’s chest as he cradled me in his arms. “Nooooooo!” The blood-curdling wail ripped through me, nearly tearing me in half.
Chapter Forty
Brighton
THE THING ABOUT losing a loved one is that life doesn’t stop just because you do. Even as your entire world crashes down around you, death and its ugly soldiers march onward, demanding even more than they already stole from you. The days immediately following Ryan’s unexpected death were the worst of my life. I thought I was prepared for anything after losing Sam. Surely, if you can survive the death of a child, you can get through anything.
I was wrong.
Every movement became a chore, every decision a crippling roadblock. Olivia was catatonically quiet, and I wasn’t sure what was worse—that, or the way she’d screamed and raged as soon as we returned from the hospital. The kitchen was her victim as we staggered in from the mudroom that night. I poured us each a glass of water because I had no idea what to do with myself and I was in shock, too. Olivia accepted the glass with trembling fingers, clutching the kitchen island with her other hand. Her fingers were turning red, and I was about to suggest going upstairs when she threw the glass across the room. It shattered and splinters of glass flew everywhere.
Stitch was barking from the other room, slamming against the crate to get out.
“Olivia—”
“Don’t.” Her chest heaved as she looked down at the countertop.
“Did you know that I hate these countertops?” she whispered.
“No.”
“When we moved here, the previous owners had perfectly good granite ones. But they didn’t go with my ‘perfect’ little design vision. So, I special ordered new ones, even though they cost us an arm and a leg, and we couldn’t afford them at the time.
“They were delivered the weekend I was away on a girls’ trip. Back when I still had friends,” she said remorsefully. “Ryan only had a vague idea of what they looked like based on a picture I’d shown him before I ordered them.”
She swallowed, her head hanging between her arms as they supported her against the island. “When I got home, and saw that they’d installed the wrong ones, I went ballistic.”
She laughed, and I was starting to worry about her.
“Over fucking countertops.”
She looked up at me, tears streaking her face. She was wearing some bizarre T-shirt I hadn’t even realized until now, and her hair was a wreck, despite being pulled back in a low ponytail. “I lashed out at Ryan, as if the entire thing were his fault just because he was the one who was there when they were installed. He should’ve known they were the wrong ones. Right?” she asked hysterically.
I didn’t think she really wanted an answer.
“The ones I wanted had a delicate gold veining in them, and these—these were so . . . plain,” she said, as if it were a dirty word. “Ryan sat there and took it, offering to replace them even though they were well over seven thousand dollars. He would do fucking anything to make me happy,” she half-moaned, half-sobbed.
“Turned out the mistake was my fault all along. Somehow, I’d given the dealer the wrong order number—and that one difference cost me the countertops of my dreams. Instead, I got these. There’s barely any marbling. And you know the shit of it all? These look way better. It was a happy fucking accident. I never told Ryan that. Or that I was sorry for flying off the handle and blaming him when it was in no way his fault.”
She hiccupped as she inhaled too quickly. “And now, I can never tell him that.”
She went to the nearest cupboard and swiped everything off the shelves, throwing it to the floor with a satisfying shatter. “Aaaaaaah!” she screamed, picking up a large oval serving platter. She threw it flat down in front of her.
“Liv—”
“I said don’t, Brighton! You don’t know how I feel right now, okay?” Smash.
“He gave me everything I ever wanted.” Smash.
“He wanted to live in the country, but I was the one who had my heart set on the city. I grew up longing for an older, historic home, even though they’re expensive and drafty, no matter how much money you pour into them. They squeak and creak and come with all kinds of problems. But I love every single thing about them. So, he got it for me.
“And I couldn’t even give him one freaking child before he died!” She wiped the back of her mouth with her hand, looking around for more ammunition. “What the fuck is wrong with the universe?” she yelled, looking up at the ceiling. “Whyyyyyyyyyy?”
“Liv, stop!” I ordered. “You have to calm down for the baby. The last thing we need is for you to go into labor early.”
She paused cold in her tracks. Her chest heaved as she took a deep breath and inventoried the kitchen. She lifted her head and met my eyes. “He’s never even going to meet his daughter, Brighton. After all this time waiting and giving so much to everyone else.” Her chin trembled, and I knew she was trying hard not to start crying again.
“He was wrong,” she said, ripping the bracelet he gave her from her wrist. “There is no god if he could take Ryan from me, too. And if there is, I’ve certainly failed them both.”
She turned to head upstairs, and I didn’t stop her. I needed to clean the kitchen so Stitch didn’t get hurt on a stray piece of glass. I heard the water through the creaky pipes above and was glad Olivia was getting in the shower. It would help calm her. It always did.
I cleaned the mess, then let Stitch out to go to the bathroom. I spent a few minutes soothing him and hated to put him back in the crate when I knew he was worried about Olivia. But I needed to go check on her. I dragged my heavy legs up Ryan’s stairs. When I got to the landing, I stopped and leaned against the wall. I closed my eyes and pictured his face, thinking of how he smiled up at me this morning in the sunroom. Fuck! I ran my hand over my face. Had it really been this morning?
Pain knifed at my heart, and I finally cracked.
My body heaved silently as I stifled my tears. I slammed my fist back against the wall.
I understood how Olivia felt—about being robbed. We’d finally worked through all the knots in our messy, tangled relationship. And I loved Ryan more than ever. I loved him with a fierceness that scared me. I couldn’t imagine a life without him in it. And if I felt this way after knowing him for such a short amount of time, I couldn’t begin to pretend to understand how Olivia was feeling. I didn’t know how I would get us through this unspeakable pain. But I would try. I had to. We had a baby on the way.
Time doesn’t slow and life doesn’t stop just because death marches in.
Chapter Forty-One
Brighton
UNSPEAKABLE DECISIONS WERE made, and I was the one to make them. Olivia couldn’t face everything just yet, and I wanted to do right by Ryan. Before we left the hospital the night of Ryan’s death, we signed paperwork to authorize an autopsy and release his body to the coroner. I asked Liv for the passcode on Ryan’s phone so I could call his sister and do what I could to get his affairs in order. The university knew what happened, thanks to Kimber, but they sent their condolences and offered to help in any way they could.
We decided to hold off on a funeral or memorial service until later in the spring. The ground was still too hard to dig from the winter, so bodies were stored until the ground could thaw, which usually ended up being in late April or early May, depending on the year.
The baby would hardly be a month old when it was time to bury her father. The weeks ahead scared me. Every day brought a new challenge—something we didn’t want to face, or something that would trigger us and make us miss him all over again so much it hurt. Some days, we spent the entire day in bed crying together. On other days, Olivia frantically cleaned the house to prepare for the baby’s arrival.
What s
urprised me was Olivia continued to see Dr. Paul after Ryan’s death. That brought me more hope than anything else. I’d been terrified she was going to tell me she changed her mind and that she no longer wanted to be with me now that Ryan was gone. Had we only worked because it was the three of us? I couldn’t help but wonder if we would survive this and come out on the other side together.
I’d helped “save” Olivia once. What if I couldn’t do it again?
I called all of Olivia’s clients to let them know what happened and to make sure nothing was slipping through the cracks. I knew other interior designers and passed along names for those who couldn’t wait. Olivia was the executor of Ryan’s will, but she gave me power of attorney so I could handle everything.
I signed the paperwork and sold my house to Becca and Joey. Paige graciously handled every detail, so it was one less thing I needed to worry about. Thanks to my sisters, our refrigerator was constantly stocked, even though Olivia couldn’t keep anything down. I forced her to drink protein shakes because those were at least tolerable, and she needed to take care of herself and the baby.
And our nights . . . they were interesting. Instead of turning away from me like I thought she might, she became the aggressor and was infinitely insatiable. I knew it was a distraction, a way to feel something. I didn’t take it personally because I knew it was helping her stay tethered—just enough to prevent the spins from starting again. But I couldn’t help but wonder who she saw while she was fucking me.
One afternoon, about two weeks before the baby was due, we sat in the sunroom together, trying unsuccessfully to read. Stitch was curled up on the bench swing next to Olivia. When my phone rang, I picked it up immediately. We were expecting an update on Ryan’s autopsy results.
I mouthed to Olivia who was on the phone and asked if she wanted me to put the call on speakerphone. She nodded, though she immediately bit her lower lip.
“We’re both here,” I told the coroner.
“Mrs. Wells, I’m terribly sorry about your husband. We have the preliminary findings but won’t have a full written report for several more weeks. When we do, Mr. Kerrington can come pick it up from our office.”
“What did you find out?” Olivia asked.
Over the last few days, she’d frantically searched through Ryan’s things to find anything we might have missed. We knew Ryan wouldn’t intentionally hide anything, but we also knew he wouldn’t want to upset Olivia if any abnormalities started popping up here or there.
I ended up finding a health app on his phone that tracked his heart rate since Christmas, and a clearer picture began to emerge. I’d spotted a troubling trend of arrhythmias and an accelerated heart rate. Cross-referencing the dates on his calendar, they didn’t always align to high-exertion activities or events. That was the concerning part. What we didn’t know was how aware Ryan was of all this, or if he had reason to believe it was serious.
He’d been concerned enough to make an appointment with his primary care physician. They called when he didn’t show, and Olivia spoke with the doctor, since she was listed on his HIPAA forms. The doctor let Liv know what the receptionist had noted on his chart when she made the appointment. Worried about heart rate. PVCs? General fatigue.
That was all. Not enough for the doctor to bring him in early or recommend a trip to the ER. There was no way to know what was lurking inside that huge heart of his.
“We confirmed the hospital’s assessment of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and cardiac arrest is listed as his cause of death. HCM is a rare condition that causes the heart muscles to become hypertrophied—which means they’re abnormally thick, making it harder to pump blood. It can also cause stiffness, which prevents the heart from pumping enough blood to meet the body’s needs. Most of the time, it goes undiagnosed because the person never experiences any of the common symptoms, or they chalk them up to anomalies rather than a pattern. There’s no cure for what Ryan had, but people with this condition can live a normal life-span.”
“So, what happened to Ryan then?” I asked.
“Well, for a small subset of people with HCM, it can cause shortness of breath, chest pains, or a problem with the heart’s electrical system. In Ryan’s case, the septum between his bottom two chambers was enlarged, causing obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which is exactly what it sounds like. It was obstructing—or blocking—blood flow out of the heart. He also had myofiber disarray, which is what caused his arrhythmias.”
“Why Ryan? If others can live their whole lives without complications, what made it worse for him?” Liv asked.
“I can only answer that from a medical perspective, Mrs. Wells. Ryan was one of the few affected by the chest pain, shortness of breath, and arrhythmias that can come with HCM. He probably started noticing a few of these symptoms in the months leading up to his death, even if it wasn’t enough to say anything. Unfortunately, biology doesn’t discriminate, and HCM can cause sudden death in seemingly fit, young people—sometimes even in those younger than Ryan.”
“So—he died right away?” Olivia asked. “He didn’t really stand a chance, did he?”
“They tried to revive him and did everything they could. It was just too late, Mrs. Wells.”
“You said it can happen in people younger than Ryan,” I said, a troubling thought occurring to me. “Was Ryan’s condition genetic?”
“Yes, it is usually inherited,” the coroner confirmed.
Olivia gasped, covering her mouth.
“If a parent has HCM, their children have about a fifty percent chance of inheriting the genetic mutation that causes the disease,” he explained. “Do you and Ryan have any children, Mrs. Wells?”
“We—I . . . I’m pregnant now. Our daughter’s due in a couple of weeks.”
“Try not to worry. Just be aware that doctors recommend that if a child has a first-degree relative with HCM, they get genetic testing to be screened for this condition. In some cases, testing doesn’t detect the mutation. So, if your little one ends up being an athlete, you’ll want to screen her once a year for the mutation. If not, adults should get screened every five years.”
“His sister,” Olivia mouthed over the phone at me.
I nodded, thinking the same thing. “Thank you for letting us know,” I told the coroner.
“Certainly. As I said, my office will contact you if anything else comes up, but it was a pretty straightforward case.”
A case. Ryan had lived a whole, vibrant life. He had a wife, and a child on the way. He had me. And in one, cruel moment, he became a fucking case.
“I can’t imagine how hard this is for you, Mrs. Wells. But try not to worry about this part of it yet. You have enough to deal with, and it’s not even a given that your daughter will be affected by this. Most likely, she has a perfectly healthy life ahead of her. Ryan’s case was a tragic exception.”
Those words would echo in my heart for years to come.
Chapter Forty-Two
Olivia
“PUSH!” THE DOCTOR said for the tenth time. I sincerely wanted to punch her in the face right now. I knew from experience that childbirth wasn’t a walk in the park, but I’d forgotten it could hurt this much. Brighton was standing next to me, holding my hand.
A strangled, primitive sound emerged from somewhere deep inside my throat as I clenched my eyes and pressed down again. It felt like trying to shit a basketball from my vagina. Sweat covered my brow, and I was exhausted after hours of labor. Somehow, I’d gotten it in my head that this might be my last pregnancy, and if it were, I wanted to have a natural childbirth to have the complete experience.
Here’s what I say: SCREW THAT SHIT.
It’s completely overrated. I would give my left tit to go back and change that decision.
“That’s it,” Dr. Chavez said. I wasn’t sure what her job was at this point, other than to be a cheerleader between my splayed legs. It was a vastly different experience than the last time I was in this position.
Then it felt
like something was tearing my body in half. A burning sensation ripped through me before there was a gushing feeling, and our daughter slid from my body. It felt like I just peed everywhere, but I didn’t have time to care. My vagina stung like it had just been attacked by a thousand bees, and it was all I could feel until I finally heard my baby’s healthy, loud wail for the first time.
Relief escaped my lips in the form of laughter, and Brighton leaned down to kiss my forehead. We were beyond caring at this point. “You did it, baby. I’m so proud of you.”
I started crying. Every time I heard a new howl from our tiny, mighty baby, my heart slowly rearranged, falling back into place. My person was right over there, and I couldn’t wait to hold her. This was a long, agonizing time coming.
The nurse brought our daughter over to me, and my heart softened as I held her against my chest for the first time. I laugh-cried as I looked down at her chubby, beautiful face. I barely registered when I heard the nurse tell Brighton she was eight pounds, two ounces and twenty-one inches long. Her head circumference was thirteen-point-something inches, and I wanted to scream, “Yes, I know! See? Basket. Ball.”
Brighton was running his fingers through my hair, his eyes soft and teary as he looked down at his girls. Even if we hadn’t finally decided to ask Dr. Chavez to confirm the DNA results, there was no mistaking that this was Ryan’s daughter. She had thick, dark hair with the same small cowlick Ryan had. She was the spitting image of her father, and it only made me love her that much more.
“She’s perfect,” Brighton said, running his hand gently along the side of her face. “Just like her mother.”
“Do you want to hold her?” I asked, leaning into Brighton’s arm, and kissing it.
He looked nervous, and I realized he may not have held many babies in his life after Sam. That would soon change, and like everything Brighton did, I knew he would become a pro. Even though my life was in shambles, completely flipped upside down from how it used to be, I was starting to love some of the messy pieces as I navigated our new surroundings.
