by Amy Waeschle
“Maybe I’ll step out for a bit,” Quinn said softly.
He squeezed her shoulder and slipped from the room. She looked around the space, taking it all in again, then slipped off her shoes and climbed into the bed next to Pete. She wrapped her arm over his chest, careful of the lines and IV tubes, and tucked her head into the space between his shoulder and jaw. The room was cool, but Pete felt warm next to her. His chest rose and fell with the mechanical pace of the ventilator while she tried to feel some kind of change in Pete, proof that he sensed her presence. People can often hear things, she remembered reading somewhere, even when everything else is shut down.
So she started talking to him. She told him stories about their first date on St. Helens, how annoyed she was that he had been late. Did he remember the wasp nest? She told him about the waterfall, how she hadn’t been sure she could find it, and how she had always imagined the loggers who had discovered it frolicking in the buff like beer-bellied cherubs on their lunch hour. She reminded him about their win in the trivia game at the Blue Star and how good of a team they had made. She cried for moment when the image of them walking into the Blue Star in the future, ready to dominate the competition again, flashed into her thoughts. She thanked Pete for his grace in handling Reeve’s unexpected visit and for his easy acceptance of her stepfamily. She talked until she couldn’t anymore because her head throbbed, and the tears made it too hard.
Quinn entered the room and pulled up a chair, his eyes red and face puffy, and she realized that he had been awake for over six hours. Quinn sniffed loudly and wiped a fresh track of tears from his cheeks. “Pete’s parents are on their way up,” he said. “And the nurses say the pressure in his brain . . . ” He couldn’t meet her eyes and Cassidy clenched hers shut. “They are going to give him some more medication, to make sure he’s not feeling any pain.” His voice cracked at the end and he broke down.
Cassidy wrapped her arms around Pete even tighter, her body bucking with silent sobs.
“Maybe it’s best if we say goodbye now,” Quinn said, shifting in his chair. He grabbed a nearby box of tissues and wiped his nose. “I don’t think you don’t want to be here when he—” A gasp of anguish escaped his lips.
Cassidy closed her eyes and sobbed.
“ . . . when he goes,” Quinn finished, his voice high.
“No,” she whispered. “I can’t leave him,” she said, her voice hard.
Quinn rubbed her back, his face tight with pain. “I know.”
Cassidy couldn’t hold in her hurt any longer and a series of wails escaped her lips. She wanted to stop—she didn’t want Pete to see that she wasn’t being strong, but she couldn’t fight it. She didn’t feel strong, she felt flattened, and so heavy that she imagined a crane having to lift her out of the bed.
Cassidy held Pete, hoping for something, some kind of sign that told her he knew she was here, that her presence mattered.
“Come on,” Quinn coaxed when her crying ebbed. “We need to give his parents their time, too.”
Cassidy sighed and another shuddering sob came with it. With great effort, she shifted so that she could stroke his cheek one last time. She kissed the place just in front of his ear, right where his hairline ended and the soft skin of his cheekbone began.
Samantha came back into the room as Quinn helped Cassidy stand. She carried a new bag of saline and a syringe. Samantha completed her tasks, deposited the waste in the small, metal trashcan in the corner of the room, and left again.
Cassidy knew she should say goodbye, but it wouldn’t come. “I love you,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper. She held his hand one last time, focusing only on him—trying to see him without the wires and tubes and sounds, and the smell of the starched sheets and the medicine. She pictured his grey-blue eyes, his bright smile, and the way he sometimes tilted his head at her—appraisal when she had said something brilliant, or skepticism when he’d caught her in one of her half-truths and was just letting her know he was onto her.
Cassidy gave his hand one last squeeze and then let it go. Quinn pulled her close and they cried together.
Finally, she let Quinn lead her from the room.
Nineteen
San Francisco
October 5, 2016, 10:45 a.m.
Cassidy rode in silence, unable to focus her thoughts. The wind blowing through the open car window pulled her hair from her face and whisked her tears across her cold cheeks.
“Why did they call you and not me?” she finally asked, her voice hollow.
Quinn’s face paled—the same way as when they were kids and she caught him stealing gum from her room. “I must have been at the top of his call log or something,” he said.
Cassidy wiped her eyes. During times when she and Pete were apart, they talked in the evening, but last night she had attended an evening lecture on campus and then gone out for beers with some of the other students. She had actually been proud of herself for joining in. So far she had not taken the time to make any new friends in Eugene. Strangely, her thoughts went back to the pub where she had shouted over the din with the mixed group of academics and graduate students. The idea that she had traded small talk with strangers for talking to Pete one last time made her feel wretched. She closed her eyes and let the tears fall.
“Plus, the motorcycle was mine,” he added.
Cassidy knew this—Pete had borrowed it on a previous trip and enjoyed it so much he was shopping for one in Eugene. “They probably pulled the registration, and . . . ”
Cassidy pictured Pete on the motorcycle she’d ridden many times with Quinn, dressed in jeans and boots and a heavy jacket, the black helmet hiding his face. “Why weren’t you guys together?” she asked. A surge of anger quickly followed, so fast she didn’t have time to suppress it. “Why didn’t you drive your bike to work? Don’t you normally drive it?” she said, her high voice quavering.
Quinn cruised to the shoulder of the busy thoroughfare lined with trees and small houses. He parked the car on a side street and turned to face her, his expression grim. “I had to work,” he said patiently. “I took the N so Pete could have the bike in case he wanted to go out.”
Cassidy felt herself shutting down as the image of Pete speeding along the highway on Quinn’s bike came into focus in her mind. She collapsed against the seat, a cold lump of pain filling her chest.
“I’m sorry, Cass,” Quinn said. He picked at a stray piece of vinyl on the steering wheel. He sighed.
Cassidy just sat and cried. Outside the window, bits of trash dotted the gutters; a dog barked behind a chain-link fence. Down the street, she could hear the thump of a basketball bouncing against the pavement. How could people be playing basketball? Her world had stopped. Nothing made sense anymore.
Pete had probably gone for a drive to celebrate after the meeting with his publisher, high on the praise they’d given him. That would be like him. Or he could have been out sleuthing a new story idea. She tried to remember his latest lead, but the more she tried to focus, the more it slipped away.
A terrible thought snuck into her mind: she realized that she would have to tell his publisher and editor about what had happened. She would have to tell lots of people about it. A rush of nausea flooded her insides and she knew she was going to be sick.
Quinn’s phone bleeped, and he picked it up off the console. “I think it’s the hospital,” he said.
“Oh, God,” Cassidy said.
Quinn answered the call, his face tight. After answering it, he listened for a moment, and then replied with a series of one-word answers: “Okay . . . okay. . . I understand,” and “thank you.” When he hung up, his tortured look ripped her open. “He’s . . . ” Quinn bit his lips, his eyes filing with tears. “He’s passed.”
Cassidy stumbled out of the car just as her stomach turned inside out.
Quinn unlocked his front door and stepped into the spacious apartment. Cassidy’s legs felt so heavy that climbing the stairs drained the last of her strength, and she
arrived feeling drained, her head pounding. Inside, Pete’s presence bombarded her at every turn. His running shoes sat by the door, a pair of thin ankle socks tucked under each tongue.
The sparse living room looked neat, nothing out of place. The guest room door stood ajar but she couldn’t make her legs move toward it. Pete’s things would be in there. She started to cry again.
As if in a trance, she followed Quinn into the kitchen. Her gaze swept over the countertop tiled in tiny blue squares and lit by decorative lights hanging from the ceiling in a tidy row of three. Pete’s laptop rested beneath the farthest light, plugged into the wall, an empty rocks glass set beside it.
Quinn finished preparing his stovetop espresso maker and came to her side. “You don’t have to go in there,” he said, catching Cassidy staring at Quinn’s bedroom. “I can go pack up his things if you want.”
“No,” she said, her brain jammed on the phrase: pack up his things. “Can we just leave them for now?” Her words sounded like they were coming from someone else.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be here yet,” he said softly. “Maybe we should . . . I don’t know, walk or something.”
Cassidy buried her head in Quinn’s chest. Would she feel better if she didn’t have to see all of Pete’s things?
Quinn hugged her tight. “Maybe the beach?”
“Maybe,” she said after a moment.
“Do you want coffee?” he asked. “Or something else? Water?”
Cassidy shook her head. She didn’t want to throw up again. Quinn left her side, and she heard the espresso maker’s hiss, the tap of a cup on the countertop.
Like a moth to a flame, she walked toward the guest room, her dread mounting with every step. At the door, she paused to inhale a shaky breath. Then she nudged the door open. Pete’s backpack sat on the floor, leaking out its contents: his white fisherman’s wool sweater, a pair of jeans. Her mind flicked from the certainty of him stepping into the room at any minute to the image of him in the hospital bed. She shook her head vigorously, but her disorientation remained.
In the adjoining closet she spotted his dress shoes on the floor and his pressed khaki trousers, dress shirt, and V-neck sweater hanging above. With tenderness, she remembered his pride at purchasing the new clothes for his meeting. He had so badly wanted to impress the marketing team and show them he wasn’t just some farm kid from the sticks. Cassidy had helped pick out the colors—the blue of the sweater set off his eyes, made them blaze like gems. She imagined him smiling his wide smile during that meeting and saying yes to everything they asked for.
What would happen to his book now? A thought from far away drifted into her mind: It will be published, of course, she realized, though she couldn’t imagine taking the steps to do so. She licked her lips, tasting the salt of her tears, and exhaled a shuddering breath.
She stepped further into the room, Pete’s presence assaulting her from all sides. She touched the made futon bed, the covers cool to her fingertips. Stepping to the closet, she stroked the dress shirt, her eyes filling with tears again. Her fingers gripped the sleeves, and the shirt came loose. Hugging it to her chest, his scent enveloped her. Her brain hammered out why why why why why why why why why. Her knees wobbled and she crumpled to the bed.
Time seemed to pass in a haze. One minute she was crying and the next she was trying to figure out what she would do now that Pete was gone.
When she opened her eyes, the bedside clock numbers blared 1:32 p.m. For just a split second, she experienced a delay in her reality. In that split second, Pete was still alive. Then, the events came rushing back.
“Quinn?” she called out as a wave of pain crashed over her.
He came to the doorway and quickly moved to her side. She dove into his arms as the sobs shook her body. After a long time, she was able to sit back and wipe her eyes.
“Do you remember when Dad died, and we all had to go to that therapist?” Quinn said.
“Sort of,” Cassidy said. “Mostly I remember hating it.”
“I remember you being really quiet,” Quinn replied. “Like you were holding it in.”
“It all seemed so pointless,” she replied, her stuffy nose making her voice dense and flat. “Dad had died and we were supposed to all bond together as a family? How was that going to make it better?”
“It wasn’t Pamela’s fault Dad died,” Quinn said.
Cassidy sighed. “No, but if we’d never moved there . . . ” She caught Quinn’s look from the corner of her eye. “I know. It’s stupid now.”
“Are you going to blame me for what happened to Pete?” Quinn asked quietly.
Cassidy gave him a sharp look. “No, why would I?”
Quinn picked at a hangnail. “It was my bike.”
Cassidy’s mind traveled down this path of blame, and a new set of tears bloomed. She inhaled a shaky breath.
“There was nothing wrong with it, I’m sure of that,” Quinn continued. “You know how I babied that thing,” he added. “And I told him to come into the bar, but I don’t know, he seemed like he was looking forward to being alone. When I left, his eyeballs were glued to his screen and he was typing away.”
“This isn’t your fault,” she said. “Or the bike’s.”
“Okay,” he said, relaxing. “Because if you need to be mad at me, I’ll understand. But only if it’s temporary. I don’t like it when you’re mad at me.” She could sense the smile on his lips but couldn’t bring herself to return it.
She curled up in his arms instead. “Thank you,” she said as fresh tears burned her eyes.
An idea bubbled up from somewhere deep inside her. “Remember how they wouldn’t let us into Dad’s study?” Cassidy said, wiping her cheeks. “Because they thought we shouldn’t see it?”
“Yeah. They were right, though,” Quinn said with a shiver. “I didn’t want to go in there.”
“Well, I did.” Cassidy remembered how, when they finally did let them enter, everything looked normal. It had always bothered her—had they tidied up? Or had he died without a struggle? “Will you take me to the place where Pete . . . ?” she asked, unable to finish.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Quinn said.
“It feels important,” Cassidy said. “I’m not sure why, but If I don’t do it now, I’m afraid I never will.”
Quinn smoothed down the legs of his jeans slowly. “Okay,” he said finally. “I’ll see if I can get the location.”
Cassidy heard Quinn return from his morning run the next day and blinked at the ceiling. The previous afternoon was a blur. She could recall nothing except the colorful images of the movie Quinn had played as a distraction. There was food, but Cassidy didn’t remember eating it. When at 1:33 a.m. sleep still eluded her, and the spreading ache felt like an anchor, a sense of desperation overcame her. She discovered some Benadryl in Quinn’s medicine cabinet and swallowed two.
After Quinn showered and made coffee, they drove south along the ocean from Quinn’s apartment in the Sunset district. Surfers in black wetsuits bobbed in clusters outside the breaker zone. The waves looked big and frothy, with a steady onshore wind brushing the ocean’s surface into a white scruff. Clusters of cars and pickup trucks lined the parking strip along the beach side of the road, and Cassidy imagined the thermoses of coffee, bags of donuts, and stacks of towels inside them awaiting the surfers’ return.
Another wave of sadness pulled her under, and her sore eyes sprouted more tears. She remembered their trip to Tofino and how broken she had felt then. If only she had jumped back into life the way he had after the avalanche, enjoyed every moment instead of pulling away. The thought of surfing without Pete—skiing without Pete—brought on another surge of pain and she sobbed into the wind, her heart splitting into a thousand pieces. Quinn gripped the steering wheel, his jaw flexing.
They passed shopping centers, golf courses, more views of the ocean. Cassidy watched them all pass as if detached. People were going about their business, driving in their cars,
riding bikes, going shopping. It seemed surreal that the world could keep spinning.
The road curved up and into forest, then narrowed to two lanes.
“It should be just ahead,” Quinn said as they passed a mile marker.
Cassidy clung to her seat as they rounded a bend. Suddenly she didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to be here. But then a stripe of black on the pavement cut across traffic and disappeared down the embankment. Quinn drove past it, and Cassidy shut her eyes as the image of Pete going over the edge burst into her mind.
“What do you want me to do?” Quinn asked, his voice tight. “Should we turn around and I can try and pull off the road?”
Cassidy didn’t answer. She was too lost in the thought of Pete accelerating on this road—this very road—and how it all went wrong.
“This is stupid,” Quinn said, his voice frustrated. “I don’t think this is going to help you,” he added. The road descended into a beach town. Quinn exited off the highway and drove several blocks to the entrance of a beachfront parking lot.
He turned off the ignition and grabbed two coats from behind his seat. “Come on,” he said, stepping out of the car. “We’re getting out of here.”
“I don’t want to!” she cried.
Quinn came around the car and yanked her door open. “I don’t care,” he said, his voice stern but somehow still kind. He extended his hand. Reluctantly, she took it.
He helped her into a puffy coat. A blast of wind blew her long hair into her mouth and eyes. Pete pulled a wool hat over her head and tucked in the stray hairs. Then he took hold of her shoulders, and their eyes met.
“Better?” he said. “A little fresh air?”
Cassidy’s eyes teared up again.
Quinn pulled her into a hug. “C’mon, let’s go for a walk.”
Twenty
Eugene, Oregon
November 3, 2016
