The Mason List

by S. D. Hendrickson

  Shifting my fingers, I pressed even harder against his skin. He wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be dead. I would feel it in my bones. My tears dropped onto his shirt and dissolved into the bloody fabric. “Stay with me. I have to tell you something and it’s not gonna be like this.”

  In the stillness, I felt a small flutter. I sucked in a gulp of air with an involuntary laugh. Leaning over, I was careful not put my weight against his broken body. I kissed the place on his neck, tasting the blood on my lips. I kissed the side of his face that remained unscathed. With every piece of my soul, I willed his heart to keep beating.

  “Listen to me, Jess,” I whispered in his ear. “It’s you and me. Remember that. I’m here. Keep holding on. You will be all right.”

  Pressing my lips to his blue ones, I felt the soft trickle of air from his mouth. I blew hard, pulling from the pit of my stomach. The air returned smooth from his lips. I choked back a sob and tried it again. My limited experience with CPR came from the summer at Rochellas. The few puffs into his lungs wouldn’t make a difference, but the act gave me solace. I pushed out another gulp so deep I choked. I should press on his chest but I was afraid. That stupid horse may have crushed him.

  I ran my fingertips over the mangled fabric just to let his body know I was still here. “I love you so much. Don’t give up. I will not let you go. You can’t go. Please…please… Jess.” The words turned into an incoherent babble. A pair of arms pulled me away from him.

  “Let me go. Stop. No, please. He needs me. Let…me…go.” I fought the person with every piece of strength left in me. He would live if I touched him. My fingers made the raw, biting pain disappear. I screamed as they hauled me back up the side of the ravine. At the top of the landing, people paced and stood in confused horror all around us.

  “Alex. Stop fighting.”

  I collapsed on the meadow grass as my father wrapped himself around my body. “But Daddy. I have…I have to stay with…him. He needs me. I have to stay.”

  “You need to let the paramedics get down there. Look. Can you see it?” He pointed off to a strange looking sled-like thing. “They will put him in the basket and get him out of there.”

  “He’s breathing. I could feel it. He will be ok, right Daddy?”

  His face twisted up as he nodded. I fell against his arms, knowing my father lied. Just like all the times I looked him straight in the eye and said what I knew felt comforting to the broken man. The lack of honesty ripped my heart right out of my skin. He lied because I couldn’t handle the truth no more than he could all those days we struggled.

  Jess would not live. He was crushed from the inside out. People don’t survive this sort of accident. Panic spun around in my mind, cutting off the flow of oxygen to my brain. I couldn’t breathe. My world just got swallowed up into the belly of Sprayberry as madness attacked all rationality. I scratched and kicked my father. He held on with a vice grip as I twisted around, crying in the grass. I broke. Every emotion crashed and splattered in ugly pieces for everyone to see. I didn’t give a damn anymore.

  They say your life flashes before your eyes right before you die. In that moment, my whole world spun around in rapid motion. The thought of Jess being dead tore a deep hole through my heart and my body crumbled into dust. I couldn’t live without him. The air would stop flowing in my lungs; I would cease to exist. He was my other half. He was me. We breathed the same or not at all.

  Slowly the strength left my limbs. I stopped fighting and collapsed in my father’s embrace. We watched the basket lift over the side in slow motion. Jess had a mask covering his blue lips. I grasped to that small hope. For a moment longer, my blue-eyed boy lived

  Chapter 51

  Today, 7:05 a.m.

  The smell of disinfectant mixes with the crisp, sterile air. I scrub my hands in the sink; the soap burns my raw skin. The black stains are gone from my cuticles, like they never existed except for the remaining cuts in my flesh. Sharlene wraps me in a blue, protective gown and points toward the glassed room.

  There’s an eerie silence under the room’s dim lighting. I step across the cold floor amidst the faint hiss of the machines. The frigid temperature activates painful goose bumps on my skin. Approaching the edge, I see a large tube running from his mouth while most of his body is coated in white, much like the time I dressed him as a mummy. I smiled at the memory. We had stolen rolls and rolls of gauze from the hospital. Jess had walked up and down the halls, growling in a zombie’s voice while I followed behind, laughing to the point of tears.

  I look at his broken body as those kids drift away in a distant memory. With the shock of the accident gone, I see him clearly. Bandages cover most of his face and scalp. He seems better, and yet he seems worse than expected. I think anything shy of his usual smile would feel unacceptable.

  For the first time in his life, Jess's head gleams shiny and sleek, absent of his floppy, dark hair. He would hate it more than the scars, I think. My gut lurches, knowing the damage underneath the gauze would change him forever. But I would love him no matter how he looked to the rest of the world. He was, is my Jess.

  I reach forward to touch the bruised skin on his cheek. His body feels warm. I trace over his remaining eye and dip down over his jaw. Leaning close, I whisper next to his ear. “Hey.”

  I wait for his response. Nothing but the sound of the hospital answers back. His silent lips remain still. I touch them with my thumb, thankful they are a dry, light pink instead of the oxygen-deprived blue. “I’m here, Jess. I’m sorry for not being here sooner. I got sick but I’m better now. Ashley washed my hair. She saw me naked too.”

  He should laugh. He should tease something awful about Ashley holding me hostage in restraints like Kathy Bates in the movie Misery. Instead, he answers with the confines of stillness. This is the part that feels like a raw, open wound. The part where I feel alone, absent from my other half. I reach down to take his free hand. The other arm is swaddled in a brick of white, just like both of his legs.

  “I need to tell you something.” I hold tight to the familiar hand with a slew of calluses on the palm. “This was supposed to be a happy time you know. I was going to tell you when I got back yesterday and we would get excited or freaked out or I don’t know. Now I wish I just told you on the phone so you would know. I wish I hadn’t waited.”

  Taking his hand, I place it across my stomach. “We’re having a baby, Jess.”

  A tear slips down and I smile at his unmoving face. Maybe I thought hearing those words would flicker some form of recognition, an emotion or just a sign that says he could hear me babbling in the room. “I wish you could talk to me right now. I’m scared. I’m scared I won’t ever hear your voice again. I’m scared to do this by myself. I’m just scared right now and I need you.”

  Letting out a deep breath, I swallow back the burning in my throat. “You deserve to see him grow up. He deserves to have you with him. I don’t know if it’s a boy. He just feels like one. He’ll look like you with those big, blue eyes and silly smile. Just like you did when we met. I’ll never forget it, you know. Seeing you leaning back against the wall with your hair falling down in your eyes. You were something else back then…my crazy boy. You became the love of my life that day.”

  Leaning over, I touch my lips against his mouth. I hover in place, next to the tube, waiting for them to move. I wait for Jess to respond in that familiar push-pull of our lips and tongues. Giving up, I lean back, feeling a wet tear drop from my eye and splatter on his neck. The tear rolls off his skin and soaks into the hospital mattress. I cling to his fingers again, pulling them up to my lips and kissing each one.

  “I love you, Jessup Mason. You hear me. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. So that means you can’t die. It’s not the way this ends. You pro…promised. You promised me…so don’t go and break it.”

  I choke back an ugly sob. My tongue balls into a thick clump on the roof of my mouth. The pain sears like broken glass through my skin and through my bon
es. He would always be my boy. My happiness. My sunshine. My forever.

  Curling up in the chair next to his bed, I would wait. I would not leave. No one could pry me from this very spot. Fatigue slams into my body; after the night of restless and drug-induced fits, I drift off in a peaceful sleep absent of dreams. I sleep through the faint images of nurses coming and going. I feel the soft folds of a blanket drape over my skin.

  My eyes open to see Dr. Mason, looking down at me. His ever-present boyish looks seem old and fragile. A bearded shadow graces his jaw, showing off a mix of black and gray.

  “How is he?”

  “Holdin’ in there.”

  “He…he’s going to die, isn’t he?” I whispered the haunting words I had avoided since the accident.

  “He could, Alex. He should already be gone. But I don’t know. He might not wake up for a few days or he might not wake up at all. But I’m not givin’ up hope. You shouldn’t either. Jess got hurt real bad, but he’s made it this far.”

  Pulling up a seat beside me, his hands shake as he tries to relax against the plastic. I reach over and take his fingers between mine. “How bad are the injuries?”

  “They’re about as bad as they can get. We got Jess to the hospital in Arlis to wait for the helicopter to bring him here. He was drug by that horse. They both went down the side of that hole. She fell on him. We know that because they had to pull him out from under her. They had him on a ventilator all the way here. His chest and pelvis are crushed, and he wasn’t really breathin’ on his own. I wasn’t sure he’d even make it to Dallas, you know. He should’ve died out there on the meadow.”

  He stifles back a cry. The strong doctor clutches my hand as he continues. “They did surgery and tried to fix him up as much as possible. He’s got a lot of internal injuries and some swellin’ in the brain. I thought he’d die on the table. That’s what usually happens. The body can’t handle that much trauma. But he didn’t. He’s holdin’ on. He’s alive. It’s like a…a…”

  “Miracle,” I mutter, feeling the tears fall down on our clasped hands.

  “Yeah,” a nervous laugh comes from his lips. “I’m a doctor. But I’ve never seen anythin’ like it before in my life. It’s like a damn miracle is holdin’ Jess together.”

  That absurd word echoes like a pulse in my life. My father believed in one side of it and Dr. Mason believed in the other. They both embraced the idea with a full heart and equal trust; a miracle for my mother with the arrival of the Masons and another that beat in the literal heart of Jess.

  My thoughts flood in twisted confusion. “You really believe that?”

  “I have to, Alex. He’s my son. I have to believe it until there’s not a reason to anymore. And right now, he’s here. He’s breathin’. Every time he does, I know he shouldn’t be.”

  “That’s…that’s…” The wave of emotions overtakes my words. “It’s just hard for me to think about.”

  “It’s hard. But you have to hope, Alex. You have to believe in the impossible.”

  I swallowed hard nodding my head. “I…I know.”

  He grips my fingers tighter. “I think he already knows you’re here.”

  “You do?”

  “I do. Everythin’ just seems better now that you’re with him.”

  I glance over the side of the rail. His chest moves up and down under the white sheet. His overall presence seems more relaxed, despite all the tubes and monitors. “You’re right. I think he does.”

  “I’ll see about gettin’ you somethin’ better than this chair.”

  “Ok.”

  Dr. Mason returns with a small cot. It fits snuggly in the corner amidst the equipment and his bed. Lying on my back next to the railing, I watch the tiles on the ceiling. Once again, all the same players scatter across the same, terrible board of life, sitting in a hospital: Dr. Mason, a mother, a father, and a child. We all hang in limbo, waiting for the verdict in a plan much bigger than all of us.

  I reach up and touch his hand through the bars. I need reassurance that his heart still pumps life through that ripped up body. I need reassurance he is still breathing. I need the facts but those just are not possible.

  Sometimes all we have is faith and hope and you just have to trust it.

  I understand that now. Closing my eyes, I clutch his warm fingers and whisper in the darkness, asking for the impossible. I ask for a miracle. I ask for Jess to come back to me.

  Chapter 52

  Eight days later…

  The room is cold and haunting. I drift in and out asleep, never gone for any extended amount of time in case he wakes up. Jess improves a little more each day even though he’s in a coma. The doctors are still hopeful and still perplexed at his ability to stay alive.

  My father tries to convince me to leave and stay in a hotel, but I refuse. I believe with everything inside my heart that Jess will wake up, and I will be here when it happens. So I rinse off in the hospital bathroom each morning. I sit in the chair all day talking to Jess, like he can hear me. I sleep next to his bed each night, listening to the tubes and monitors.

  I hope for him. I pray for him. I wait for him.

  Chapter 53

  Fifteen days later…

  I rest on my back, watching the sun reflecting on the ceiling. They moved Jess out of ICU yesterday and into his own room. I don’t notice the sounds of the machines anymore. They blend into the background noise of the hospital. I still talk to him each day. I tell him what Skeeter says about the ranch. I tell him about the visitors in the lobby. I tell him more about the baby. I have pretend arguments about names. I talk until my throat gets hoarse and scratchy.

  Sometimes I think about his voice. Sometimes I imagine I can hear his pancake syrup words. I can hear Jess laugh. I can hear him tease me. I can hear him say I love you.

  Chapter 54

  Nineteen days later…

  The room is warm as I rest on the cot next to his bed. The doctor wants to remove the breathing tube from his lungs today. They tell me this step is considered progress, but I am afraid. I have so many thoughts and questions. I have spent too many days alone, talking to a person who never answers back. But even in my fears, I believe he will wake up. I still have hope.

  Hearing a faint noise, my eyes flip open. I roll off the cot and walk over to the side of his bed. My heart beats fast and I feel as if I’m dreaming. The single blue eye looks around frantic. Jess is awake!

  “It’s ok. Don’t be scared. I’m here.” Tears fall down my cheeks as he stares back as me. I clasp his fingers on the good arm. My heart breaks in a thousand pieces as I see the fear etched in his face. “You had an accident. We're in the hospital in Dallas.” I swallow hard, biting my lip. “Do…do you understand what I’m saying? Do you, um, do you know who I am?”

  The doctor said he could have brain issues from the swelling. I am scared in a different way now, seeing the confusion, worrying he can’t recognize me.

  “Jess?” I whisper.

  He slowly nods his head.

  “Good.” I smile at him, squeezing his hand. My heart beats fast in my chest, and I want to faint with relief. I pull in a deep breath, feeling calmer. Jess lets go of my fingers and reaches toward by stomach, placing his hand against my shirt. I swallow hard. “You…you heard me talking?”

  He moves his head up and down, very faintly.

  I smile through the tears rolling down my cheeks. Reaching over, I press the call button to signal the nurse. I pull the edge of my shirt up, exposing the beginning of the bump on my stomach. I hold his hand against my body, looking into the sweet face. I swallow the thick lump in my throat. The bandages cover so much of his skin. Jess didn’t know the extent of his scars and injuries. He didn’t know some of the damage is permanent. My heart hurts for him as we stare at each other.

  “I love you,” I whisper. “I love you no matter what. You know that right?”

  He nods his head as a tear falls out of his single blue eye. I lean over, placing my lips against
the corner of his mouth. My own tears drip onto his cheek. I want to wrap my arms around his body and never let go. I can breathe again. My miracle came true. Jess came back to me.

  Epilogue

  On a hill far away, a beautiful house rises up from the ground with a wrap-around porch. It reigns over the land like a beacon in the meadow. A woman stands by an old stump in the yard. The bark crumbles from years of the beating sun. Her crooked fingers trace the names carved in the blackened wood.

  JESS + ALEX

  They remain old and withered in the stump, followed by eleven more added through the years as the children got older and the grandchildren begged to have their names carved in the wood too.

  She turns and walks up the stairs; her steps slow with old age. Taking a seat on the little porch swing, she touches the short, grayish red curls resting on the back of her neck. The sun dips down below the earth. The woman waits patiently for the show to start in the dark sky. One by one, the stars come to life. She smiles, feeling content.

  “Looks like a clear one tonight.”

  She turns, hearing the voice of the man resting on the other side of the old swing. He grins as his single blue eye lights up as bright as the twinkling dots in the sky.

  “Yeah it does,” she answers back. Her heart beats just a little stronger just like it always did at the sight of his sweet face. The one right by her side since she was eight; the one she promised to love until they had no teeth and no hair.

  Reaching over with a shaky hand, her crooked fingers slip into his old, callused palm. They rock back and forth as the sounds of the meadow grow louder in the night. Sometimes if she listens closely in the breeze, a chorus of small voices echoes off the trees and the grass.