The Time Until

by Casey Ford

  Sam gives me a gentle squeeze to let me know that we’re the last ones, it’s only family left. Sam never let’s go of my hand as we make our way to the coffin and I catch my first glimpse of my brother since finding out about his death.

  He looks surprisingly alive. He has some color in his cheeks and the dress blues he’s being buried in look pressed and new. Walking up to him, it almost looks like he’s breathing. In fact, I think he is breathing, I can see the slight movement of his chest.

  “He’s not dead,” I say aloud. Sam looks surprised and my family seems confused. I walk faster up to him and grab his wrist to check for a pulse, my mother gasps slightly. At first, I can’t feel anything, but after rearranging my fingers a little, so my thumb is on his veins, I feel a steady and rapid beat. I smile brightly at the thought and start trying to wake him up.

  “Wake up, bro, come on. Wake up.” Sam steps up next to me and looks down on James with sympathy and regret. I can’t stand her looking like that; she thinks he’s still dead.

  “Sam, he’s still alive,” I tell her and she looks at me with tears in her eyes, “can’t you see? He’s breathing.” Can’t she see his chest moving? I look again and notice that it’s not moving now. Now I’m confused, I know I saw it moving a second ago. Reaching for his wrist again, I can’t find the steady pulse I did before. Why? I know what I felt.

  “Why? I saw it. His chest… moving. I’m sure…” Sam places her hand on my back as my legs stop holding me. Tears break through my defenses and trail down my face. I can’t get it out of my head, I know what I saw, what I felt.

  Or did I?

  He looks so alive, did I just imagine him doing all that? Sam wraps her arm around me and I lean into her trying to make sense of everything. A soothing sound from her lips makes me realize that I’m sobbing softly into her shoulder.

  “I’m sure I… breathing…” I continue to mumble and I hear quiet weeping from my mother in the distance. Comprehension slowly injects itself into my psyche. My brother is dead. Nothing is going to bring him back. I stubbornly rejected that idea and forcibly shutdown my own emotions. I was trying hard not to feel anything for my brother’s death. I callously threw myself into my new relationship with Sam and, though I wouldn’t change a thing about us as a couple, I destroyed an innocent and sweet girl in the process.

  In trying to deny my feelings, I completely ignored hers.

  Kate has barely even looked at me this whole week and the school split down the middle over which side they’re supporting. She talks to her friends and goes to class, but there’s less bounce in her step and her smile never reaches her eyes anymore. She often comes back from lunch with red eyes and I feel terrible every time I see it. Nothing I do now will change what I’ve already done, so I ignored what I saw from her.

  I focused everything on Sam.

  While focused on her, I’m able to forget the pain and sadness from James’ death. While focused on her, I can ignore the feelings of regret and guilt over what I did to Kate. I can swallow my anger and misplaced blame. I can shoulder what I need to survive and shrug off the unwanted and unneeded.

  Sam has become my own version of a worry doll.

  My crutch.

  I grasp a handful of her shirt trying to stop my overflowing emotions from tearing me apart. I wail loudly into her chest and shake violently from my sobs. She continues to rub my back and speak soothing words into my ear. The emotions won’t stop.

  I let everything go, all the emotion and pain, all the guilt and sadness.

  Everything falls away with the tears falling across my cheeks.

  Present Day

  I take a few calming breathes as Mary and Nate come rushing through the lobby.

  “What happened?” Nate asks as soon as he’s close enough. I take a deep breath. I’m pretty sure this is going to be easy to tell them, but I’m also pretty sure it might be too much for Mary to handle. I debate whether to answer him. In the end, I figure it’s best just to get it over with.

  “She opened her eyes,” I tell them. Nate’s head shoots up to look down the hall. Mary looks happy and a sob escapes her throat. Nate turns back to me and concern spreads across his face.

  “What’s going on?” he asks. I can’t look him in the eye. Sam’s dead stare permanently burned itself into my mind. It’s haunting and makes me more than a little scared to think about it — and what it might represent. Mary picks up on my avoidance and calls me gently.

  “Alan,” she offers a tight small smile when I look at her. “Tell us, please.” I take one last deep breath.

  “Her eyes are empty.” Mary’s face falls and Nate is unreadable. I stand up and beckon them to follow me and we enter her room moments later. Kate is still in the room, but now she’s sitting in the chair next to Sam and is stroking the back of her hand as she softly talks to her. Sam’s eyes are still open but their emotion has remained unchanged. My breathing is difficult; the air in the room has gotten very thick.

  Mary walks up to Sam and Kate to look into her daughter’s eyes. Whatever she sees in them makes her break down and cry. She almost collapses to the floor holding her hand to her mouth in a vain attempt to hold in the sobs. I knew seeing Sam like this would be tough for her, Sam has been like a real daughter to her since she married into the family.

  I’m sure Emily would have approved.

  “Believe it or not, I count this as a good thing,” Nate says next to me. I look at him curiously. What does that mean? Nate interprets the look on my face and answers my unspoken question.

  “Her eyes being open was one of the signs that things were looking up that the doctor told us about.” I guess that’s a good reason to think that then. Nate goes over to his wife and helps her up before helping her to a chair to sit and calm down.

  After a few minutes, I make my way to stand behind Kate. She takes my hand when I place it on her shoulder. I stare at Sam’s face, silently trying to convince her to move with my eyes. She just stares out to space and I can’t stop the thoughts that race through my head. Dead eyes, empty eyes, zombie eyes, whatever you want to call them, they aren’t the eyes of a living breathing human.

  I’ve had enough. Looking at her is hurting me more than living without her would. At least then, I could move on. With her bouncing between life and death — one minute dead, then other not — I can’t seem to get my bearings. I can’t leave it as long as she’s alive, not that it was impossible, just physically hard to do. A part of me would never let me leave without confirming that she’s never going to come back.

  It would hurt like hell if she dies, but it’s better than not knowing.

  “Kate,” I swallow a lump, “can you give me a ride home.” My voice is soft and scratchy. I know that tears are not far off, but I fight them as Kate nods her head and grabs her purse. Saying my goodbyes to Nate and Mary I follow Kate out the door.

  I lose my battle by the time we reach the parking lot and Kate comforts me with an arm around my shoulder.

  Chapter Thirty

  Present Day

  It feels weird being in my room again. A lot has happened since I was last here — bar fight, knife wound, Sam’s eyes. Sam’s eyes still haunt me. I can’t get them out of my head. She used to be so full of life and now nothing.

  There’s a knock on the door and Jenny walks in after I answer.

  “So I hear that Sam’s eyes are open,” she fishes. She wants to know how I’m doing and this is her roundabout way of asking.

  “Yeah, they are,” is all I tell her. She comes and sits down next to me. There’s no comforting arm or a pat on the leg in support, she just sits there, staring into the same space I am. Right now, that’s the best form of sympathy she could have given me.

  “You want to talk about it?” she asks. She’s always the one who wants to fix things. I shake my head ‘no’. She lets out a defeated sigh and just sits there again in silence.

  Having her next to me and not talking starts to get on my nerves. I find myself
wanting to talk to her about everything I’m feeling just to get her to go away. I want to keep them inside, not sure why it’s so important to do so — it’s just one of those inexplicable feelings you get some times. Jenny has this way of breaking me down without saying a word.

  It’s annoying.

  “Fine,” I roll my eyes at her, “I’ll talk.” She beams at me and I sigh.

  “She’s dead. That’s the best way I can describe what I saw in her eyes,” I explain and her jaw drops.

  “I’m sorry, Al. I had no idea.” She’s much more mature than she needs to be. I nod my head then drop it in shame.

  “The thing is Jenny, I almost want her to die.” She sucks in a breath.

  “I hate seeing her like this,” I continue, “she’s suffering and if she does wake up, there’s no guarantee that she’ll be the same. In fact, I know she won’t be; she has no legs. Life will only get harder for her the longer she lives.”

  “I can’t wish that on her,” I say as I blink some tears away and push forward.

  “But I also can’t imagine a future without her in it. She’s the best part of me and having that taken away is simply too much to even think about. It would be hard, but having her die and ending her suffering is almost better. I just don’t know if I could bear it.” Soppy tears move slowly down my face and I marvel at myself that I actually got through that speech without choking on my heart.

  Jenny looks at me with a weird combination of sympathy and sadness.

  “Well, it’s times like these that you need to ask yourself: what would Sam do?” she says.

  I let out a short laugh. Seriously?

  “What would Sam do?” I ask raising my eyebrow in amusement. Jenny smiles and nods her head.

  “Yep, my friends and I thought it up. Sam is always doing what she wants to do and whatever she thinks is right. So, what would Sam do? Pretty catchy don’t ya think?” I shake my head at the crazy sense she’s making. Sam is always doing crazy things, but they never violate her weird sense of justice or morality — as long as you don’t count that one night in the park, which I don’t. So I think about it. What would Sam do?

  “I guess Sam would make the best of the bad situation. She’s always been the one who could turn lemons into fruit punch. She’d go with the flow and try her best no matter what happens.” Jenny is smiling like a sun at me.

  “How can I ask any different of myself?” I ask more to myself than Jenny.

  “You’ll be just fine, big bro. Sam is going to pull through and you’re going to help her through whatever it is that will happen next. Because you are that way, you care for Sam more than I think you care for me.” She stops my protest with her hand.

  “No, no. I’m not jealous. In fact, I like knowing that you care for her like that. It makes me proud to be your sister.” I smile softly. She’s a handful and a brat, but I love her all the same.

  “Well, thanks for the pep talk,” I tell her, “you’re pretty smart sometimes.” She fake recoils in horror.

  “Eww, Alan. Incest is NOT the best. I know I’m attractive, but having my older brother call me pretty is something on par with having ants crawl down my spine.” She shivers and I laugh at her obvious misinterpretation of what I said. She did it on purpose of course, but it still loosened the mood up a bit. She laughs as she dodges my half-hearted attempt at hitting her.

  “Sam will wake up, Al, and all your fears and frustrations will disappear with one look into her very alive and sparkling eyes again,” Jenny says to me just before she ducks out of the room.

  Sam’s eyes used to sparkle and I try to remember what they looked like in the past. Her empty and defective eyes are all that appear in front of me. I instead try to think of time that made her eyes sparkle.

  Maybe I’ll have better luck that way.

  4 Years Ago (Age 16): May

  “Your room is actually clean, I’m impressed,” Sam says. She has been here a number of times with the room clean. For some reason, she just loves to give me a hard time about it. Not that I complain, I’m just happy having her with me again.

  For the most part, Sam and I have gotten back into our old routine. Except for the occasional roll in the hay and the multitudes of kisses, we’re pretty much back in friend mode. It’s comfortable. I like the way it feels when we’re together.

  “What do you mean ‘you’re impressed’? You’ve been here plenty of times when the room is clean.” I stalk over to her sitting on the bed. She sees the gleam in my eye and she giggles. Her eyes light up as I get closer.

  “And I’m impressed every single time,” she teases.

  “Why you,” I shout. Sam lets out a yelp as I leap onto her and pin her to the bed. I immediately proceed to tickle her and before long, we’re both gasping for breath. She can retaliate with the best of them and she knows where all my ticklish spots are. We call a truce and lay there in each other’s arms.

  Silence never felt so comfortable.

  “I saw Kate today,” Sam mentions breaking the silence. Katelyn kind of disappeared from school in the recent months. Many rumors about where she went and what she’s doing have been flying around school for weeks, but nothing really sounds plausible. Some are really creative and put the rumors of Sam and me in the past to shame.

  Not that I’m envious or anything.

  “Really? Where was she?” I ask innocently and my pseudo-disinterest in the subject doesn’t get past Sam. She knows me too well.

  “It’s okay to be interested in her, Al. She was important to you at one time.”

  “She has been in my head lately. I’ve been wondering where she went and why.”

  “I see how it is!” Sam shouts, which makes me suddenly jump.

  “How dare you think of another girl while in bed with me. That’s just rude!” I laugh a little at her joke — at least, I hope it’s a joke. She starts hitting me in the chest with light taps. She has the cutest look on her face — all scrunched up and wrinkled with concentration — as she tries to look like she’s using all her strength. I let her go for a few minutes as I stare at her adorable effort.

  “What are you doing?” I finally ask. She doesn’t stop hitting me, but her concentration face slips slightly with a smile.

  “I’m beating you to death. It’s the beating of your life.”

  “Is that right? We’ll just have to see about that.” Thus starts tickle-fest round two.

  “Seriously though, I have been worried about her,” I say after I finally manage to catch my breath. “What happened to her?” Sam raises an eyebrow at me.

  “I mean other than the obvious,” I add quickly.

  “Well, I found out that part,” she says pausing for effect, “she’s been at home.” That’s kind of anticlimactic if you ask me.

  “She has the necessary credits and all the required classes to graduate,” she continues. I think I know where this going, but I’m not sure.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s graduating early, the end of this year. You know, like in a few weeks.” Wow, I didn’t see that coming. Kate was smart and I know she’s destined for great things, but graduating early is still a big surprise.

  “We should go and see her,” Sam says, “I think we should congratulate her.” I’m not sure Kate wants to see us. Kate made things pretty clear that day when she walked out of my house that she was not happy with me — and Sam. Every day since then has been a constant reminder about it.

  “I’m not sure, Sam, I don’t think she wants to see us still.” Sam seems forlorn about it. Has Sam always liked Kate this much?

  “I just feel so guilty for what we did to her,” she answers my unspoken question, “I thought this could be a good way to clear the air between us.” I shake my head.

  “You did nothing, I did it. But if you want to see her, then I‘ll go with you.”

  “Thank you,” she says. Then she smiles and I know that smile. That smile makes me think things I shouldn’t think. Her smile makes he
r eyes sparkle like crystal reflecting the sun. She grabs my shirt and pulls me into a kiss, which quickly progresses to more.

  How bad could it be just to congratulate her?

  Chapter Thirty-One

  4 Years Ago (Age 16): June

  “What are you doing here?” Kate practically yells at us. The anger in her voice hurts almost as much as the sadness and hurt in her eyes. She shifts her diploma from one hand to the other as a sign of how uncomfortable she is. I hate seeing her like this, especially when I know she’s uncomfortable because I’m here.

  “We just wanted to congratulate you,” Sam explains. The look that passes over Kate’s face makes me know immediately that this is a very bad idea. Our relationship is not to this stage yet.

  “What, you run out of salt?” Kate spits. Sam recoils slightly.

  “Katelyn, we’re so—” Sam starts, but is cut off by a death stare by Katelyn.

  “I have nothing to say to you,” she declares with extra venom, “either of you.” Kate turns to leave. I can’t take this anymore, I know what I did was wrong, but I wasn’t trying to hurt her. That was an unintentional consequence of my and Sam’s merry-go-round. She has to know that we didn’t mean to cause her pain like this.

  I suddenly leave Sam’s side and run after Kate, grabbing her by the wrist in order to catch her attention.

  “Let me go, Alan,” she shrieks, more startled then hurt.

  “No, Kate, I won’t. Look I understand that what happened between us was painful, but is that any reason to be like this?” Kate looks at me like I just told her the sky was purple this afternoon. She slowly starts shaking her head with her mouth hanging open.