“One foot in front of the other… breathe in, breathe out,” I say quietly.
“What did you say?”
“That’s what I used to tell myself after I left Vance. Remember how I said I had a plan for every day after I left? Those were the first items on my list every day. Sometimes they were the only things on the list. I expect they will make a reappearance on my to-do list again in the very near future.” I say, wadding up my napkin and tossing it on the table in front of me.
“Yeah.” That’s all Justin says in response.
When we return to the room, Miriam is still sitting by Vance’s side, but he’s asleep. She looks much more composed than she did when I left, though it’s obvious she’s been crying. She gives me a sad smile as she stands, motioning for me to join her outside. I’m hesitant since she’s been so hostile toward me, but she obviously has something to say. There’s really no way to avoid it without causing some kind of scene, so I follow her out of the room.
As the door shuts behind us, she turns toward me and smiles again. I’m a little shocked, because I had expected her to drop the pleasant look and give me her animus again. She takes my hand and squeezes it tight.
“I’m afraid I haven’t been very fair to you, Mimi, and I owe you an apology. While you were gone, Vance and I talked and he explained to me in detail why you left him and why you were unwilling to talk to him. I didn’t know what he had done, or about the restraining order you had against him. I thought you were just being stubborn and didn’t care that my son was sick and suffering. I’m very sorry, Mimi. I can’t imagine how hard life must have been for you those months when he was not himself, not understanding why and with no one truly believing you when you tried to tell them what was happening.”
“I understand, Miriam. I know now you were only trying to protect your son. I don’t have any hard feelings toward you or anyone else. Justin told me that nobody else knows what happened.” I explain.
“I’m glad we have this sorted out. I always thought you two were great together. It broke my heart when you split up, so it gives me some peace to know that you won’t be apart when the end comes.
“Vance has convinced me that going home is the best option for him, so I want you to know that I will be on hand to help out. I know that you won’t be able to be there twenty-four hours a day since you have a job--”
I can’t help but interrupt her. “I appreciate your offer, Miriam, but that won’t be necessary. I’m actually going to give notice at my job tomorrow, effective immediately. I’m not going to lose another minute of the time I have left with him. I have enough money saved to see me through for a while. I’ll figure out my future when the time comes.”
She looks down at the floor for a moment, before looking up at me with a pleading look on her face. “I want to help you. I know you need to do the majority of caring for him after all the time you lost with him, but please remember that he’s my baby and I need to love him through this as much as you do.”
I had imagined it would be just Vance and me in our protective bubble until the end, but listening to Miriam’s plea I realize that would be very unfair to the other people in his life who love him, too. They will need their own time to say goodbye, to show him their love in their own ways, so he passes on knowing just how special he is to so many people.
I wrap my arms around her and hug her tightly. “I promise we’ll do this together, Miriam. You’re the only person in the world who could possibly love him as much as I do, so I won’t take him away from you.”
She squeezes me tighter before pulling me back and wiping her eyes. “Thank you, Mimi.”
Not having anything else to say, we go back into Vance’s room and sit with him while he sleeps. Miriam and Justin decide to go out for lunch and invite me to join them, but I decline, not wanting to leave Vance’s side for a minute. They insist on bringing back something for me to eat, and though I’m not even remotely hungry, I politely accept. I can’t afford to let myself get sick. I need to be strong for Vance.
He awakens just before Dr. Haneef returns from his rounds. We once again discuss our options for Vance’s end-of-life care, and inform him of his desire to go home. The doctor supports Vance’s decision, and tells us he will have someone contact the company the hospital recommends for in-home hospice care. A representative will come within a few hours and make all the arrangements to set up services today and Vance will be discharged in the morning. I’m impressed and a little overwhelmed with how fast the process moves, but at least Vance will be more comfortable sooner rather than later.
By four p.m., all the arrangements to move Vance home are in place. Miriam is currently at the house, awaiting receipt of the medical supplies, medications and other paraphernalia he is going to need. The hospice nurse will be waiting when we arrive to help us get him settled. It is surreal to think he won’t have an IV line anymore or a team of doctors or nurses on hand should anything happen. I know he has a DNR at the hospital, but to be truly on our own, with absolutely no one who is capable of intervening during an emergency is a very daunting realization, because the truth is, there are no emergencies. There is only the end.
Vance suffers a terrible headache that night but stubbornly resists the morphine his nurse and I urge him to take. No amount of pleading can sway him from his steadfast determination to tough it out. Just when I think Stranger Vance is going to surface and unleash his wrath on us for trying nag him into submission, he takes my hand in his.
“Mimi, I don’t want to sleep away my time with you, I want to be able to feel you near me. I can’t do that if I’m passed out because I took their pain killers. It may not do anything to relieve the pain in my head, but laying here holding your hand is better than any medicine this hospital can offer me.”
I bow my head for a moment, before looking up into his eyes. I can see the pain there, around the edges, making them crinkle and his brow furrow slightly. I rub my thumb between his eyes, just above the bridge of his nose, trying to ease the crease from between them, hopefully giving him a tiny bit of relief from the ache.
“I can’t force you to take the medication, and since you told me how you feel, I’ll let it go. I hate seeing you suffer any more than necessary, so tell me what I can do to help make it easier. Whatever you think might work, I’ll do it.”
“If you would come up here and let me hold you, I think that would go a long way to helping me feel better.” He smiles weakly at me.
On this last night in the hospital, in the cramped and uncomfortable hospital bed, wires and tubes strategically strung around it, we snuggle together in the peace and comfort of each other’s arms and find relief from the pain that is plaguing us both.
I would love to say that once we get Vance home everything goes smoothly and every day is as good as it can be under the circumstances. As you can imagine, this isn’t the case. During the first week back, he has days that are similar to those two in the hospital after I arrived where he does not feel very bad, and we are able to speak heart-to-heart and enjoy each other’s company like we did during the early days of our marriage. He is witty, charming, and sometimes even playful. Other days, he is crabby, bossy, and outright mean, where his pain levels are off the charts and he needs more medication to manage it. It is clear that it has worsened to the point that he can’t stand it anymore, because even on his good days, he has never refused taking it again.
As for the rest of us, Miriam and I especially since we are always with him, there is always this dark, oppressive cloud overshadowing everything, this heaviness in the air that sometimes threatens to choke us. It is emotional toll of watching him suffer, to watch the end rush toward us to take our dearest, our most beloved, with no way to fight it, stop it, beat it down. It is the feeling of utter helplessness, and the knowledge that you will suffer the greatest loss of your life in mere days, that you are just waiting for the executioner’s cruel axe to fall without the mercy of being able to close your eyes, or hold your brea
th. I’ve resumed an old smoking habit to give me a way to deal with the stress, a way to find some calm in those few minutes I need to take a break when I feel like the walls are closing in on me. I endure the disapproving looks of Miriam as I step outside to get my fix of nicotine a few times a day, but there’s nothing to be done about it. I know it’s a stupid idea, but we all cope in our own ways. She’s been baking cakes and cookies and pretty much eating them all by herself, although she does try to foist them off on the boys when they come to visit. I don’t judge.
Griffin and Bryant come to visit every few days, and always together. They spend their time with Vance reminiscing about their time as boys, mostly about the mischief they got up to. Sometimes it’s about the mischief they got up to as young men as well, but the stories are always entertaining. I stick around for some of them, the ones I haven’t already heard anyway, because they help me feel even closer to Vance. Otherwise, I try to give them their privacy, their own special time with their friend. I have to admit it’s hard though, because I am possessive of his good times. I am greedy and want them all to myself.
Justin comes every day and stays late. He spends an hour or more with Vance, just talking. Sometimes about old times, sometimes about what’s going on in his life or in the outside world, sometimes just sitting quietly. The rest of the time, Justin spends time with Miriam and me, both of us together and individually while Vance is sleeping. He makes it clear he is there to support us all. I have leaned on his shoulder more than once, crying on the days when the pressure has just been too much, usually one of Vance’s bad days.
On one such evening, Justin sits outside with me on the front steps while I take one of my smoke breaks. My seventh for the day.
“Those things will kill you, you know,” he begins.
“I’ve decided it hardly matters. In a few days, maybe a week, it’s going to feel like I want to die, so it really doesn’t make a difference if I move the process along a little faster.” I respond bitterly.
“You know you don’t really mean that,” he says admonishingly, but very seriously.
“I’m not so sure about that, Justin. I’m really not.”
“You know he wouldn’t want that for you. He wants you to continue on, live your life and someday be happy again, Mimi. We’ve talked about it, and I’m sure at some point, he will tell you the same,” he says.
“I don’t know how the fuck he expects me to accomplish that, Justin. Unless he’s got some magic wand he’s planning on leaving me, I don’t see it happening.”
“Time is the great equalizer, Peaches. It will never heal it all, but it makes things easier to bear, that and the love of the people who care about you. You’ll be forever changed, but you’ll be new and improved if you allow yourself to be.”
“Improved? Improved! How can you be improved by the loss of the most important person in your life? Seriously, Justin. I can’t believe you would even say something like that to me. You obviously have no idea what you’re talking about, have no idea what it’s like to lose someone you can’t live without.” I start to get up when he stops me. His voice is low, almost dangerous sounding when he speaks.
“For one, Mimi, you don’t know me well enough to make statements like that, so I suggest you be very careful and think before you open your pretty little mouth.
“Second, what I meant by improved, I didn’t mean by losing them. I meant improved by having been loved by them. Sure, you may have lost that person, but you never lose their love. You get to keep that when they go.” He stands. “Think about that, while you’re killing yourself slowly, and think again about how if you do hasten your end, how you dishonor that love by bringing it to an end along with you.”
He turns and walks into the house, leaving me standing there with my mouth hanging open.
The biggest bright spot, if you can call it that, during the time Vance is home, is that he insists on me sleeping with him every night, no matter his pain level, no matter his mood. He wants me there next to him, at his side, under his arm. It feels right, being back in our bed. We tried to bring in a hospital bed, just to make it easier for him to be elevated during the day when he wanted to sit up, but he insisted on being comfortable in his own bed and having enough room for me to join him when he wanted. So, we are grateful for the invention of wedge pillows and use massive amounts of other big, fluffy pillows to sit him up comfortably. He doesn’t seem to mind them and at night, we get to share the warmth and comfort of each other’s bodies and have the quiet of the dark to enjoy our connection, just the two of us.
The second week we are home, Vance seems to enjoy a surge of energy. He is alert, happy and feeling very good. Miriam and I are delighted at this turn of events and spend as much time with him as possible, enjoying every moment with him that we can. He makes jokes, is always full of innuendo for me and I smile more than I have in a very long time. It deceptively lifts the dark cloud that has been hovering over our heads, making us feel like maybe the end isn’t as close as we thought, until the hospice nurse who has been unobtrusively around in the background all this time, draws Miriam and I aside. She lets us know that this “second wind” is a very common phenomenon as the end draws near, and we need to do our best to prepare ourselves emotionally. The dark cloud returns, pressing down even more heavily, and we return to Vance, our smiles now forced and unnatural. The heaviness in my heart is excruciating, but I do my best to enjoy his good humor and lightness. It’s infectious, so it eases my burden and I stay in his company as much as possible because I just can’t get enough. So what if it’s an artificial recovery of sorts? It’s giving me the best of my beloved, and I will squeeze out every memory I can make from it.
One evening, after a very good day Vance spent teasing me and making me laugh over the silliest of things, he begins to reminisce about when we began to fall in love. I am lying in the bed next to him on my side facing him, my chin propped in my hand while he sits up, his head turned to face me. He is playing with my hair, picking up pieces, then dropping them, occasionally smoothing my bangs back from my forehead.
“Do you remember our trip to Atlantic City, Mimi?” he asks.
“Of course I do. You nearly got arrested after threatening to burn down Caesar’s.”
He laughs. “I did not. I only threatened a few security officers with bodily harm if they wouldn’t tell me where you were. Big difference.”
“Mmhmm. Stalker.”
“Guilty as charged there, but I have no regrets. I got the girl in the end.” He grins at me.
“You certainly did. That night in fact, as I recall.”
His grin widens. “Several times, going into the next day, I believe. But now that I think about it, I don’t think it was ever in the end.”
Sitting up, I gasp in mock outrage. “Oh my god. Sick as you are, you are still a pervert and a dork!”
“You would think less of me if I weren’t.”
Settling back down and tucking a pillow under my head, I pretend to think for a minute. “Yeah, you’re probably right about that.”
“I had a feeling after they detained me, because of my response when I couldn’t get to you that I was in love with you already. But the following night, when we were at that nightclub, watching you dance…you were so happy and free, I was definitely a goner. I knew then that I never wanted to be apart from you. I wanted your spirit all to myself. I thought, if I can have that light turned on me for the rest of my life, I will die the happiest man in all the world.
“I know that I put you through a lot of shit because of this disease, and I am so very sorry. I never, ever, wanted to make you feel the way I did, to hurt you or cause you pain of any kind. Knowing I caused that light to dim for a time is the one regret I will leave this world with.
“I want you to promise me something. Don’t let me dim your light again. Don’t let my death diminish that fire inside you. Let it burn knowing that I loved you with all my heart, every minute of every day, even through those hor
rible, dark times when I was unable to show you.
“I know it sounds like I’m asking the impossible. Of course I know you’re going to grieve. But let yourself heal, Mimi. Once you do, keep that fire burning bright for the rest of your life, and… someday…” his voice breaks and he takes a big shuddering breath. “Someday, share it with someone special. That way, I will always be with you, because you kept that light burning for me. Promise me, Mimi. I can’t leave you without knowing my love is something that has made your life better and that you love me enough to go on and light up the world just for me.”
As strong as I’ve tried to be during these days that I’ve been reunited with Vance, his heartfelt words completely undo me. The tears that began to flow down my face as he was speaking turn into sobs as all my pain and fear and love for him burst forth, spilling all over the sheets, soaking us both in my uncontrollable emotions.
“I don’t know how I will accomplish that Vance, when you were the one that lit that fire to begin with. My life was nice before I met you, but it was like living in a world of muted colors. When I met you, it was as if everything exploded in front of me, into a new world filled with vivid displays of the rainbow, every new sound was like music, and scents became heady and intoxicating. You made me feel high and I don’t know if I will ever feel that way again. Your memory will always burn somewhere deep inside me, but without you, I don’t know if anything will ever be as bright again.” I choke out through my heavy tears.
“I promise you it can, my love. I know it will take time, but surround yourself with the people who love you, the people who also see that light. Despite what you think, it’s always been there, it just needed a little fuel. Nurture it during the times you are feeling down, but as time goes by, look for the opportunities to feed it. Seek out things, people who make you feel good. That’s how you’ll heal, and that’s how you will keep your promise to me.” He says as he wipes my tears away. “Now promise me, Mimi. I need you to.”
Shattered Perfection (The Perfection Series Book 1) Page 25
