It takes me a second just to be able to say my dad’s name clearly to the nurse.
She’s holding a clipboard, confused by my out of breath words.
“Pedro Herrera. He’s my dad. He was brought here in an ambulance not long ago. I think he had a heart attack.” It comes out as one jumbled mess, but she finally understands me.
She goes behind the front desk and taps away at the computer. Not fast enough. I wipe away sweat from my forehead and lean into the desk, trying to glance at her screen, but it’s impossible from this angle. She stands back up, nodding as she reads the screen.
“He was brought in twenty minutes ago. I’m afraid he’s still with our doctors.” She looks up at me. “I’m sorry. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear that he can have visitors.”
But, I want to say. I have to see him. He’s my dad. I turn around and collapse into a chair in the lobby, my head in between my legs.
He’s the only one I’ve got.
A few minutes in, I realize I left my phone in my car, but I’m not about to go and get it, not in case the nurse calls me saying I can finally go back there and see how my dad is.
It’s almost an hour by the time a doctor steps through the double doors and calls for me.
“Family of Pedro Herrera,” a guy in scrubs says loudly.
I’m totally ready to get to my dad as fast as possible, but he holds up his hand as I try to walk past him, assuming he’ll fall in step with me.
“Are you Mr. Herrera’s son?” he asks. He’s older, like maybe my dad’s age. He must be a doctor.
“Yes, I’m his son. Can I go see him now?” I ask, my hand pointing towards the door.
That’s when he looks down. And then meets my eye.
“I’m sorry, son.”
My world starts to crack straight down the middle then.
His next words are in slow motion. I don’t hear anything else.
“Your father didn’t make it. He was dead on arrival. We tried our best to bring him back, but he’s gone.”
My world shatters.
I feel someone grabbing my shoulders, and I realize I’m on my knees in the lobby, and the doctor is trying to hold me up.
“I’m very sorry,” he says, but I hardly process his words.
Twelve
I finally go to my car and get my phone. I need to tell my mom. It won’t be easy. I’ve hardly talked to her in the last several months, and now I’m calling to let her know that her husband is dead.
I don’t know how I form the words, but she understands, and she’s at the hospital in the next half hour.
The first thing I notice when she walks into the emergency room lobby is that she hasn’t shed a single tear. She comes up to me, but we don’t hug. Even now, she doesn’t realize that what I’ve always needed from her, I’ve never needed more now.
She won’t look me in the face. She’s just clutching her purse and walking to the front desk.
“I need to see Pedro Herrera, please. I’m his wife.” The nurse knows who she’s talking about, that he’s dead.
“Let me page Dr. Andrews.”
A minute later, the doctor is here again, this time apologizing to my mom. I never understood that about doctors in the movies. Why they say they’re sorry in times like these. They didn’t do anything. And they can’t do anything either.
I hear him repeat what he basically said to me to her. That my dad didn’t make it. He’s dead.
“But please, I need to see him,” my mom says. Still no tears.
The doctor nods and walks us through the double doors. We walk down the long way and take several turns.
He finally pushes open a door. Quietly, as if not to wake up who’s inside. My dad.
There’s a bed inside. I’m right behind my mom. My mom stands to one side of him. I can’t see him, but I know he has to be under the sheet. The doctor’s on the other side of the bed.
He carefully pulls back the sheet, down to his forearms. He’s not wearing his uniform anymore. Maybe they had to cut it off when they were trying to revive him.
What I notice the most, though, is how peaceful he looks. Like when he falls asleep on couch in front of the TV. That would annoy my mom so much. She’d tell him to turn off the TV and just go to bed.
My mom is a statue. I don’t know if she’s in shock, if later she’ll shed tears. The doctor takes a step back. “I’ll give you both some privacy. Take as long as you need.”
I hear the door close shut behind me. I try so hard to hold back the tears, but they’re already crushing me. I needed him. And he left me.
The funeral is three days later. All of my dad’s family comes to see him one last time. Except for the family he has in Mexico still, including my grandparents. His parents and my mom’s parents. We talk to them on the phone for several days, though.
I haven’t talked to them since I was six or seven. My mom before that. And my dad only talked to them on his birthday and the holidays.
They’re devastated, like we are.
Or at least I am.
My mom still hasn’t cried over my father’s death.
I start to hate her for it.
It’s like all the anger and resentment I’ve held for my mother is finally bubbling to the surface.
I watch as the last people leave the cemetery grounds. We just buried my father. I stare at the ground he’s in. His headstone. Another headstone in my life.
It’s too much for one person.
I look at my mom. She hasn’t looked at his coffin the entire time. She’s looked everywhere, at the pastor, at our family, at the sky, but not at my dad.
Or me.
She starts to walk away, not bothering to ask if I’m okay or what I’m going to do now that this is over.
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask, still staring at the ground.
I’m in a black suit and tie. She’s in a black dress that should leave more to the imagination for a widow.
I hear her take a breath. But I don’t let her talk.
“How can you not cry for your own husband? He gave you everything! But you never saw that. You only saw what you didn’t have. A bigger house. A newer car. More expensive clothes.” I’m staring at her now, fists by my side.
I choke back a cry that wants to climb up and out, but now’s not the time. I need to say this.
“Carlos, you don’t understand—“ she starts in Spanish.
“Be quiet. You don’t deserve to say something right now. You didn’t deserve someone like dad. I can’t believe you’re my mother.”
She flinches a little at that and takes a small step back. Her mouth is a tight line as she looks away.
“My whole life, you never gave me love. That’s all I wanted. That’s all he wanted.” I point at his headstone. “Instead, you were bitter and cold.”
I take another step closer to my mom, and I can tell her instinct is to take one back herself, but she’s making herself stand her ground.
“You killed him.” I realize I’m breathing hard. “And as far as I know, you killed me too. I don’t want to hear from you ever again.” We lock eyes as I say that. My chest heaves up and down with those words.
I walk away.
The days and weeks pass, but I can’t bring myself to delete my dad’s number from my phone. Because it’ll mean he’s really gone. At night, and at work on my breaks, I stare at pictures of him. Pictures I snapped of our family album, the one my mom brought out when family came over to the house.
When they’d left, I’d gone through the entire thing myself, not remembering the last time I looked at those pictures.
I had taken pictures of a lot of them, mostly of us or me or him. Not the family ones. Not completely anyway.
As far as I was concerned, my mother didn’t exist anymore. Both of my parents were dead. I only mourned one of them. The family pictures I had only included me and my father. Not her.
My father’s death is different than Valerie’s. Somehow, it hit
s so much harder to home. Maybe because we shared the same blood, and he raised me. I knew him all of my life, and he knew me all of mine. He taught me things.
Now he’s gone. And I feel a different kind of guilt. Guilt for not spending more time with him. For disappointing him.
It’s the worst feeling in the world, and if the guilt over Valerie’s death was slowly but surely eating away at me inside, this pain is completely drowning me.
As I’m looking at the pictures, I see my mom’s number pop up on my phone. I had deleted her as a contact, but I know her number by heart, and this is it.
I press ignore and keep looking at the pictures. I finally put my phone on my nightstand a while later. It’s three in the morning. I have to be up at seven. I stare at the ceiling, but the lights are off so all I see is black. I don’t know how much longer I can do this.
A few days later, I’m crawling into bed after a long day at work and a few hours of mindless TV. It’s not until I’m setting my alarm for the next day that I notice the date.
It’s my birthday.
I turned nineteen three minutes ago.
It’s not like I got notifications on Facebook or anything. I deleted it weeks ago. And I don’t really have anyone left to talk to.
I know people at work, but we’re not friends at all.
I think about that. It’s my nineteenth birthday, and I have no one to be with when I wake up. No one to go eat with or get drunk with after work (not that I do that anymore). No one to wish me happy birthday or care that I even exist.
The past two years have been more horrible than I could have ever imagined. A few weeks from now two years ago, I lost Valerie. Last year, I went to jail for making a stupid decision. This year, just a few weeks ago, I lost my dad and cut off my mom forever.
The people I used to talk to in high school, I have no idea where they are and I don’t care. Just like they don’t give a damn about me.
Suddenly, I feel like I’m going to suffocate on the air that’s entering my lungs, that’s in this room, and this apartment.
I need to get out of here. I pull on some slip-on shoes and a t-shirt and head out the door. I go into the stairwell and sit. I still feel short of breath, like the walls are closing in on me. I don’t want to go down and run into somebody. I don’t want to see anybody right now. I don’t want anybody to see me either. I just want to be alone.
So I run up the stairs, until I get to the sixth floor and there’s no where else to go but the roof.
The roof.
I open the door and take a slow step outside. The early summer air hits my skin, and I close my eyes. This is what I needed.
I hear the door slam shut behind me as I keep walking. I want to see the view. I walk until I’m at the edge. It reaches my waist so I lean on it.
After a while, I take off my shoes and kick them to the side. I stare at the night sky, at the stars.
I think about Valerie. And my dad. I wonder where they are, if they’re happy somewhere, maybe laughing and happy or something like that.
Or maybe it’s true what some people say. That there’s nothing after this life. You just live and then you die, and then that’s it. No heaven. No hell. Just nothing.
No more pain.
I decide I like the sound of that. Of feeling nothing.
Of ending it all.
So I look down at the parking lot. The cement stares back at me, begging to do what just entered my mind.
I hoist myself onto the ledge. It’s wide enough for me to stand on without losing my balance. The ledge is concrete too, and it cools my feet. I hold my hands out a little from my side for balance. I don’t want to rush this. I want to take my time. I want to think about Valerie and my dad and everything I’ve lost. About the mother I never had.
When Valerie died, I thought: people like me don’t deserve to live.
Now that my dad is dead too, I think: I don’t want to live.
Not like this.
Not like this.
Not like this, I keep repeating to myself. I don’t want to live anymore.
It must be close to midnight, and here I am. I never thought I’d do something like this. I guess you just never know.
But it’s all become too much. Valerie’s death, jail, my dad gone. The pain fills me like the roar of a tornado as it demolishes an entire town. Sometimes all you can do is give in to that tornado. Because it will consume you. It will take you away, and you’ll never find yourself again. That’s what this is.
I’m starting to feel numb, but it’s not cold outside. My body is getting ready to embrace the nothing.
This sense of peace washes over me then. I get ready to let go.
Thirteen
I’m back there. To that night. The one I’ll never forget.
The night of Valerie’s death.
It’s May, and Valerie can’t help but stare up at the stars as we walk hand in hand up the driveway to the party. I put my car keys in my jacket pocket.
We’re not supposed to be here. She’s supposed to be at home, and I should be in bed, but Valerie had texted me to pick her up and come with her.
“Do you ever wonder what it must be like to see them up close? Like in outer space?” She looks at me then back up at the sky.
I shrug. “Only astronauts get to do that.”
Her hip knocks into mine. “Don’t say things like that.” But she’s smiling. “You can do anything you set your mind to.”
I laugh. “Not if you can’t do math and shit you can’t. Astronauts have to know all that.”
“Thanks a lot, babe. Let’s just go inside.” But she’s Valerie, so she’s still smiling. I come up behind her and give her a big hug as we get to the front door.
We get into a fight that night.
We dance for a while, have a few drinks, and then we sit and talk. I take off my jacket, and Valerie grabs it and puts it on.
“Next year around this time, you and I are going to be graduating,” she says, touching my cheek. “Where do you want to go?”
“Go?” I say. “What do you mean?” I hadn’t given any thought to tomorrow, much less next year.
“Do you want to move or stay here?”
“Uh, stay here, I guess.”
The smile is gone.
“I mean, where would I go? It’s not like I know anybody anywhere else. What’s the problem with just staying here?”
Now she’s pouting, but I don’t give in.
“Babe, this is our future we’re talking about. We’ve been together a year and a half. We talked about this before.”
“Like once,” I argue.
“Yeah, and you agreed that we could live together.”
“Okay,” I say.
“And that we’d go somewhere, just the two of us. Explore.”
Oh, man. Did I really say that? Or was I just nodding while I was trying to watch a movie or something?
“Why are we even talking about this now?” I ask. “We still have a year to figure things out. It’s not a big deal.”
She must be PMSing or something because the waterworks practically start then. Her eyes well up with tears.
“I need to know that you’ll be with me, wherever we end up, no matter what happens.”
“Of course I’ll be with you. Let’s just think about this, okay?”
“Carlos, I need to know you’ll be here for me. You. Because no one else has.”
This is about her parents, then. Not me.
“I mean, if you want to go your own way, just go ahead and say something. So I’ll know.” I glance around because a couple of people nearby are staring right now. I don’t want to do this here.
“Babe, we can talk about this later.”
“No. I need you, Carlos. You don’t realize how much I’ve given you. I’ve given you everything.”
I look at her face, her eyes. She had. But I had given her everything too.
“I know that. But you have to understand that I can’t give you an an
swer like that a year away.” Now it’s my voice getting louder.
She gets up, looks at me for a second, and says, “Maybe we should just end this.”
“Maybe,” I say, staring. And she walks away.
Crap. I debate whether I should go after her. But maybe she needs some space to calm down. I know I do.
Neither of us have had it easy, not when it comes to our parents. Her parents had ignored her since day one. Always favored her older sister, even if her sister didn’t mean it. I get that she wants to get away from all that.
But I can’t make a decision like this now. I just can’t.
After a short while, I finally get up to go find Valerie. We shouldn’t be like this. And being by myself at this party sucks. I walk from room to room, but it's a big house, and it seems like the entire first floor is full of people dancing, making out, or playing drinking games.
I pop into another room, and there's another drinking game going on. A bunch of guys and a few girls, and I think most of them are wasted.
Marco's in here. He's laughing as he watches an underclassman chug down a beer and then start coughing everywhere.
There’s also a pool table with a girl laying on it. There’s a small group of people taking body shots off of her.
Marco comes over and pulls me to the pool table.
“You’ve got to do one, man,” he says over the cheers and screams. He’s raising his arms everywhere as he talks.
“I can’t,” I try, but he’s not listening. Everyone’s already egging me on.
I shake my head and everyone starts booing.
I lean towards Marco. “I’m looking for Valerie, man. Have you seen her?”
Now he leans towards me. I’m kinda buzzed, but I can smell how drunk he is from here. “Maybe I did just see her. But I’m not telling you until you take one body shot off this girl.”
I look down at her. I think she’s a junior. I don’t really know her. I glance around for Valerie one more time.
“Fine. But then you tell me where she is, and I’m gone,” I say loudly.
Letting Go (Changing Hearts Series Book 3) Page 6
