Finding Forever

by Gael, Christine

  So much for her seeming better at the picnic, Max thought, shaking her head and hugging herself as she turned around and shuffled back over to the vending machine.

  Sasha and Gabe were murmuring to each other in a nearby row of seats, and she had her head on his shoulder. She’d been in shock the whole way here, trembling in the back seat of the car as they rushed after the ambulance. Now she looked like she had been weeping, and Max couldn’t exactly blame her. If she wasn’t sick with worry, she would probably be crying, too.

  It was like some cruel and unfair law of nature – there was no such thing as lasting happiness for them, it seemed. The notion was sudden, and frustrating enough that it made Max want to throw something, but instead she just continued her nervous walk: left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot…

  She was only pulled from her spiraling thoughts by the feeling of her cell phone vibrating, and she took it out of her pocket with fingers that felt numb. On the screen was a text from Eva, whom Max had texted as soon as Pop had been loaded into the ambulance.

  Just got your message - I’m on my way.

  Eva had the day off, since the rest of the family had planned to be around for the picnic and hadn't been expecting to need her help. Stephanie had extended the invitation to Eva to attend the party but she had gracefully begged off, no doubt wanting to give the others some space in the aftermath of her relationship with Pop being discovered.

  Now, though…

  She should have been there, Max thought, pinching the bridge of her nose and swallowing back the lump in her throat. Maybe she could have helped…

  Don’t think like that, she told herself, gritting her teeth and glancing up at the door leading to the ICU. He was going to be fine.

  Her phone vibrated again in her hand, nearly making her jump out of her skin. She looked down at it, half-expecting another text from Eva, and her eyes widened when she instead saw that it was from Ian.

  Do you want to come over later? I’ll cook - can’t promise it will be as good as last time but I can try :)

  Max tapped out a quick reply.

  I’m sorry, but I can’t. Pop’s in the hospital. We don’t know what’s going on yet but I’ll keep you posted.

  She only had to wait a moment after sending the text before she received a reply, and she could almost feel Ian’s concern coming over the cell phone.

  Oh my god, Max, I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do? Where are you? I can come meet you.

  Max hesitated with her thumb over the respond button, but then sighed, instead putting her phone on silent and pushing it back into her pocket. She hated to ignore him, but she was an emotional basket case right now. It would be so easy to ask him to come, and she knew that he would drop everything to make sure she was okay – he was just that kind of person. The idea of his strong arms around her, of burying her face in his chest and feeling his heartbeat while he stroked her hair and murmured that everything was going to be okay, was intoxicating, and it scared her.

  Why did he make her feel so safe, when they had only known each other for a short time? Not long ago, she had practically wanted him kicked off the face of the earth, and now… She felt like she could tell him anything, and he wouldn’t judge her, instead just listening and looking at her with those wise, dark eyes.

  But now wasn’t the time for any of that. Right now, she needed to focus on her family. Max looked up and made eye contact with Anna, who was sagging against Beckett on the other side of the room, looking like she’d aged twenty years in one afternoon. Teddy sat in his grandfather’s lap, staring around at the waiting room with his wide, inquisitive eyes, and it was as if even the infant could pick up on the severity of the situation.

  The minutes ticked away agonizingly slowly. What was it about hospital waiting rooms that made them immune to the laws of space and time? She found herself glancing at the clock every few minutes, the sounds of orderlies talking in low voices and wheelchairs squeaking becoming unbearably loud in her ears.

  According to the last doctor who had come to check in with them, the EMTs had been able to get a weak pulse in the ambulance, but Pop had still been unresponsive when he was admitted. The doctor – who looked like he couldn’t have been more than a few years older than Max – assured them that they were doing what they could to stabilize him, but he hadn’t sugar-coated the fact that it was bad.

  Max made her way over to the empty seat next to Aunt Anna, and dropped into it stiffly before letting her head dangle between her legs for a moment.

  “Hey,” Anna said, touching her shoulder and making her straighten up. “You all right?”

  “Okay,” Max replied, surprising even herself with how strained her voice sounded. “You?”

  “Hanging in there,” her aunt replied, and Beckett gave her hand a squeeze.

  There was a long moment of silence, and then Cee-cee began to speak, turning to Stephanie. “Do you remember that time we all went to Martha’s Vineyard? The kids must’ve been… what? Eleven, twelve?”

  “Twelve, I think,” Stephanie replied, clearing her throat.

  “Remember how Pop didn’t want to get off the ferry?”

  Anna chuckled at that. “Damn,” she said quietly. “I’d almost forgotten about that. He was more interested in the ocean than the island itself. You guys really butted heads that trip, Steph.”

  “Too much time in close quarters, I think,” Stephanie replied, but there was the ghost of a smile on her face. “Remember how, the night we finally convinced him to leave the resort, he ate two whole lobsters on his own?”

  “I’ve never seen him put it away like that,” Anna said, grinning.

  Max found herself laughing at that, too. “I remember him showing me how to crack them open,” she said. “He ended up just doing mine for me.”

  “Or what about that time he and Mom forgot me at the gas station?” asked Anna.

  Gabe’s eyes widened. “He left you at a gas station?”

  Anna nodded. “Have we never told you this story? We were on a road trip and I wanted to use the bathroom when they stopped for gas.”

  “That’s right,” Cee-cee said, looking up. “We made it all the way onto I-90 before he realized what had happened.”

  “You know, I think nowadays that would be considered reckless endangerment,” remarked Max.

  “Oh, definitely,” Anna agreed. “But it was just… one of those things.”

  “One of those Pop things,” said Stephanie, nodding, and reached up to wipe a tear off her cheek. “Although, he would turn right around and walk out of the room if he saw us all bawling like this.”

  At that moment, the front doors slid open, and a harried-looking Eva rushed into the waiting room, nearly tripping over herself in her rush to get over to them. “I…” she began, but couldn’t finish the sentence.

  The sisters stood up from their seats and pulled her into a hug before filling her in on what they knew, which wasn’t much. “He’s not awake yet…and it doesn’t look great,” Cee-cee said, crossing her arms over her chest. She looked pale.

  Eva stuck her chin out, squaring her shoulders in spite of the tears in her eyes. “He’s a fighter,” she said. “He’s tough as old rawhide. You’ll see. He’s going to be…” But then she trailed off, her eyes widening, and the others turned around to see the ICU door opening and the same young doctor emerging. His expression was grim, and Max felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as he slowly approached the group, tucking his hands into his pockets.

  She knew what was coming even before he opened his mouth and said those three little words.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  It was like a bomb had dropped with no sound. Max could faintly hear Eva give out a strangled cry, but she suddenly sounded far away. It felt like the world was moving in slow motion around them, and she watched as, one by one, her family members’ faces morphed into masks of devastation, tears that had been held in finally overflowing. They began to move toward each oth
er, the sounds of their weeping trickling back into Max’s awareness.

  Cee-cee had burst into tears. Anna was shaking her head frantically, and Steph looked like someone had hit her with a brick. The three women formed a circle around Eva, and their boyfriends and children followed, forming a grief-stricken clump.

  Max, though? Max was numb. She had expected tears, wailing, hair pulling, but instead she just felt distant, like her mind had been removed from her body. This felt both unreal and too real, the significance of the tragedy incomprehensible even as she watched it send shockwaves through her family.

  Pop was dead. Gone. She tried to remember her last interaction with him, but she couldn’t. It had been at the barbecue, she was sure of that, but what had she said, specifically? What had he said? What had his voice sounded like?

  How quickly things changed. The fragility of it all was slowly beginning to dawn on her, and she wasn’t sure she was ready for what that realization brought with it.

  Poor Eva, Max thought, glancing at the caretaker, who had collapsed into a chair and buried her face in her hands. Max hadn’t known much about their relationship, but she’d heard enough. It didn’t seem fair that someone who had found love again in their twilight years should have it snatched away from them so suddenly.

  But that’s the worst part of it, she realized as she watched her family mourn. Sometimes you just don’t see these things coming.

  She wasn’t sure how long they remained like that. It could have been minutes or hours – time felt like it had ceased to exist at all. All Max knew was that by the time they began to get up and trickle out of the hospital, the sky had gone dark.

  “Hey,” Cee-cee said in a ragged voice, touching her on the arm as she got to her feet. “We’re going to give Gabe and Sasha a ride home. Do you want to come stay with me and Mick tonight?”

  “No,” Max said slowly. “No, Mom. I think…” She cleared her throat. “I think I’m just gonna go home and go to bed.”

  “Okay,” Cee-cee said, offering a hollow smile and pulling Max into her arms. “Call me in the morning, okay?”

  “I will,” Max replied.

  She felt like a zombie as she went to her car and began the drive back to her house. Her thoughts turned to Ian as she turned onto her street, moving at a snail’s pace. I have to call him in the morning. Tell him what happened. But she could barely even think the words, never mind say them out loud.

  As she pulled up to her driveway, she blinked.

  Ian’s truck, parked there, and he was dozing in the driver’s seat.

  How long had he been here? The sight of him waiting for her was enough to make her heart melt, and the dread and ache she felt lifted just a little. She parked beside him and forced a weak smile onto her face as she got out and tapped on his window. He jerked awake, his eyes going wide when he saw her, and scrambled out of his truck.

  “Max,” he said, his face lined with concern, “tell me. What happened?”

  And just like that, the numb was gone and the tears finally came. Her sobs were ugly and wet, but she didn’t care. He took her into his arms and rested his chin on the top of her head as she choked out the words.

  “He’s gone.”

  It was all she was able to say, and all she needed to. Max leaned on Ian as they made their way up the sidewalk and in the front door, the whole world blurred by grief. Her bed suddenly felt too far away, and Ian unerringly led her to the den. He settled them both on the couch where they had watched a movie together not long ago. And as he pulled her close, she practically fell into him, the warmth of his body feeling like a lifeline.

  Then, he laid a gentle hand on her back, brushed her hair from her face, and let her cry.

  20

  Stephanie

  Stephanie wasn’t sure if she had ever felt this tired, and she had become well-acquainted with the feeling of real exhaustion over the years.

  She had spent the past eight hours tossing and turning beneath her sweat-soaked sheets, eventually flinging them off altogether and opening a window in a desperate attempt to make her room comfortable enough to sleep in. Normally, she appreciated the feeling of Ethan’s warm body beside her when she was having trouble sleeping, but tonight he felt like a space heater, and not even his long arms holding her close were enough to bring her any sort of comfort. The events of the day were playing on repeat in a vicious cycle in her mind, and every time she closed her eyes, the monster of grief threatened to close in on her and suffocate her.

  Ethan had left early in the morning after being summoned back into the precinct for an emergency call, and although he promised Steph he would be back as soon as he could, she realized as soon as the door closed behind him that she wasn’t at all prepared for spending time in her now empty house. It was so quiet without the sound of Pop’s light snores, his television blaring the morning news, and his complaints about whatever was on the menu for breakfast. The whole place felt too still without him moving around in his living space, the air heavy and silent no matter how many windows she opened. As for Steph, well… she felt hollow, like someone had scooped her insides out with a spoon and left her a broken shell of the person she once was. She recognized this feeling from when her husband had died, but its familiarity did nothing to make it less painful.

  I’m alone, Steph thought, letting her head drop back onto her pillow and examining a spidery crack in the ceiling plaster. I’m really, truly alone.

  A tear slid out of her eye and trailed down her cheek, leaving a stain on her pillowcase, and she gave a long, shuddering breath. Everyone in the family was reeling, the rational part of her recognized it; she had seen the way Anna had broken down, the way Eva had been nearly inconsolable. The poor woman hadn’t even been able to drive herself home, her hands had been shaking so badly; Cee-cee had mercifully given her a ride, and Steph owed her for that. She could barely face the enormity of her grief with Ethan, let alone having to face the last woman her father had ever loved. Time felt like it was stretching out of her reach, every moment seeming to pass more slowly than the next. Part of her wanted to scream, to jump out of bed, leave the house, and run until her legs gave out. The other part just wanted to disappear into her sheets and never wake up.

  It’s not fair, she thought, draping her arm over her eyes as a sob wracked her body, almost startling her with its suddenness. First Paul, and now Pop. Why was the world so hellbent on taking everything from her? It didn’t matter how hard she loved these people, or how desperately she tried to keep her life in order; nothing she did was working, and that might have been the worst part of it all. And in spite of Ethan, of her children and sisters, she just couldn’t escape the feeling of being on her own in the face of all these demons.

  Ethan had tried to get her to eat something last night, and she’d managed to choke down a few bites of a granola bar, but it had felt like eating sawdust, and her stomach had been twisted up in a knot ever since. Even now, as the sun rose behind the closed drapes of her bedroom window, she didn’t want to eat, although she knew she should. It wasn’t like she’d be able to keep anything down, anyway. After Paul had died, she’d lost eleven pounds. This was what grief did to her.

  At least get out of bed, a small voice in her head suggested. Even if you don’t do anything else, at least get out of bed. Go to the bathroom.

  There are pills in there.

  At the very least, maybe they would help her sleep until Ethan came back.

  Slowly, Stephanie hauled herself up out of bed and walked across to her bedroom, flipping on the lights and pausing in front of the sink. She barely even recognized the woman who stared back at her in the mirror: her eyes were puffy and bloodshot from crying, her dishwater blonde hair tangled and sticking out at odd angles. She had slept in the shorts and blouse she’d worn to the picnic, barely even remembering to take her bra off before getting in bed. Her face looked gaunt and old, and her shoulders were stiff and rigid as she opened the cabinet and withdrew her trusty old pill bottle, th
e only thing that had been consistently helpful ever since she’d been attacked. She fumbled with the lid, her hands clumsy and shaky, and in her rush to get the bottle open, she ended up losing her grip on it, and it clattered into the sink.

  Look at you, she thought, stomach roiling. Look at what’s happened to you.

  “Damn it!” She flung the unopened pill bottle across the room where it struck the headboard. The lid popped off, sending a spray of pills flying all over the unmade bed. More tears came, but this time, they were tears of anger, and before she really even knew what she was doing, she was storming out of her room, moving with a speed that surprised even her.

  She stormed into her father’s room, taking in the sight of his empty bed and chest of drawers, some of which were still open. How dare he turn her life upside-down when she had been circling the drain for so long? How dare he leave her now?

  For every unanswerable question that passed through her mind, Steph only became angrier. She caught sight of herself in the dresser mirror and let out an anguished cry as she launched her fist into the glass. It shattered with a satisfying crack and she pulled back, breathing hard.

  She stood there for a long time, a mass of seething emotion, unsure of what to do next. It wasn’t until she caught sight of a framed picture on the wall that the anger drained away, leaving behind nothing but hollow grief.

  The image of Pop and her mother stared back at her, and shame joined heartache.

  “Oh, Pop…”

  Tears filled her eyes as she took a step back and surveyed the damage she had done. A shard of broken glass dug painfully into her bare foot, but she barely even felt it. Still breathing hard, she backed into the far wall and slowly slid to the floor, curling up in a ball and giving in to shuddering sobs. How much could one person take before they shattered for good, like that mirror?

  She found herself wondering about the last conversation she’d had with Pop. It had probably been about something insignificant, but in the moment, it seemed vitally important… and then it hit her all at once, his last words to her echoing in her mind at top volume.