by Mary May
Her cousin Allie was her maid of honor; she wore a midnight blue sheath dress. Allie was so pretty; the dark blue color complemented her blue eyes and dark hair very well. Klara stood in the mirror fussing with her bangs that framed her face. “Would you stop it? You are perfect right now! Stop fussing before you make it frizzy!” Allie grabbed Klara’s hands, “Are you happy?” she asked her.
Looking intently into her eyes, Klara stopped and thought before she automatically answered. Was she happy? She thought about David, his smile and sense of humor. He had honor and integrity, along with a strong faith in God that Klara was just starting to find for herself.
Allie laughed. “No need to answer; that smile was answer enough! You’re happy!”
Klara’s father came for her and she clung to his strong arm as he led her up the steps to the church. Before the door opened, her father pulled her into his arms one last time before she joined her life to David’s. Dale Freeman was a man of few words, but he spoke his heart to Klara that day. “Sweetheart, I want you to know that no matter what, you will always be my little girl, and if this doesn’t work out you will always have a home to come back to.”
Klara laughed as she wiped her eyes. “Daddy, this will work out! But I understand what you’re saying. I love you, too, and I will always be your little girl!” She tiptoed and placed a kiss on his cheek. “Now walk me down that aisle!”
Dale chuckled, and held out his arm as the ushers opened the doors to the church.
Klara heard the beginning notes of the wedding march. Taking a deep breath, she reminded herself to walk slowly, but once she saw David standing by the alter waiting for her she wanted to run to him. Never in her life had she been more certain about anything. David was her soul mate. He looked so incredibly handsome in his black suit and dark blue tie.
The ceremony passed in a blur. It happened so fast that she forgot to savor the moment! Well, she supposed that’s what the video was for. The wedding reception was fun and filled with laughter and well wishes from their friends and family, but the honeymoon was what they were both looking forward to the most.
“Ok, enough!” Klara stopped her walk down memory lane with a hard shake of her head. She turned off the TV and walked back into the kitchen looking for another bottle of something…anything! She didn’t care what! She opened every cabinet and drawer. She looked high and low, but she didn’t find anything else to drink to help her through the night. In desperation she slammed the door to the refrigerator closed. “Damn it!” She had to have something!
She grabbed her keys and headed to the nearest drive-thru liquor store to pick up a couple more bottles to get her through the week. Halfway to the store it started to rain again. She flipped on the wipers, peering out through the fogged up windshield. “Oh, come on, enough with the rain already.” She grumbled.
Pulling up to the drive-thru window, she rolled her window down. “Hey, Mrs. Martin, it sure is a wet night, isn’t it? How many bottles do you need tonight?”
Klara stared at the young woman standing in the window. She realized that the clerk was just being friendly and didn’t mean anything by her comment, but it hit her full in the face just how regular this was becoming. They knew her by name, for cripes sake! Klara rolled her window back up and hit the gas, leaving the confused young woman staring after her!
“Oh, God, what is wrong with me? I can’t keep doing this!” She swiped furiously at the tears that fell from her eyes; she was so sick of this. . . Sick of everything. She hurt all the time. Every minute of every day her heart ached and burned. She had never in her life felt so alone. She wanted David and Josh so much she literally shook with need sometimes. Why did they leave her here alone? Why didn’t she go with them to the store that night? If she had been in the car, then they would all be together right now!
Of course, there was nothing stopping her from joining them tonight, now was there? Her mind seized on that thought. She didn’t have to keep living like this; she did have a choice! “I’m coming, guys, I’m coming.” She turned the car around and pointed it out of town. “Ok, God, if You’re real and if You give a crap about me at all, then now would be an excellent time to prove it!”
Chapter 4
Alec glanced at his phone lying on the seat in the car next to him. It was buzzing and his ex-wife’s number was showing up on the screen. “Not again, woman,” he groaned, reaching over hitting the reject button. He knew this would only postpone her screaming at him for a few minutes, but he would take what he could get. The rain had been falling steadily all afternoon and into the evening. It made his mood grow increasingly worse. He hated driving in the rain, but he had to go back to the office to get the papers he had forgotten this afternoon. He approached the Black River Bridge when he noticed the silver car parked along the railing. As he passed it, he didn’t see anyone in it. He drove on, but something about that car nagged at him. He had seen it before…recently. He frowned trying to recall whose car it was. When it dawned on him, his foot hit the brake and he pulled over to turn around.
Klara stared down at the churning black water below her. It got its name Black River for good reason. The wind whipped her long hair into her face; the icy rain pelted hard against her skin as she held onto the cold metal railing. She thought she would feel fear or regret, but all she felt was a great sense of relief that her pain would soon stop. Squeezing her eyes shut, she pictured the faces that she longed with all her heart to see. When she opened them again, she let go and stepped off. She plunged from the bridge and hit the water hard. The impact knocked the air from her lungs and stunned her. She struggled briefly, then the raging current quickly dragged her under…
Alec’s headlights swept across the bridge just in time to see a body fall from the railing. He slammed the car into park and raced to the railing. He threw off his jacket as his eyes searched everywhere for Klara. There! He could barely make out her blonde head bobbing in the water. “Stupid crazy woman!” he shouted just before he jumped in after her. The shock of the icy water drove the air from his lungs but he had expected that. He had done a stint in the Coast Guard during college, so he knew what to expect jumping from that distance. He started swimming in the direction he had last seen her. The moonless night and the high rolling water from all the recent rain made seeing anything nearly impossible.
He finally thought he saw her just a few feet ahead of him. He dove under, pushing hard to reach her before the current carried her out of reach. He stretched out his hand once, twice, then once more. He felt his fingers tangled in her long hair. Not caring if he pulled out every strand, he yanked hard, pulling her to him. He flipped her over on her back and slipped his arm across her neck and between her breasts, using his stronger right arm to propel them both toward shore.
He finally made it to the bank and dragged them both out of the water. He tossed her down on her back and immediately started performing CPR. He didn’t bother with mouth to mouth right now. He knew her lungs were full of water, so he did chest compressions to make her cough up the water.
“Come on, Klara, don’t do this! Where’s that backbone you showed me earlier? Don’t be a coward! Breath, damn it!” She finally started coughing and gagging, spitting up the black water. “Oh, thank You, God.” Alec whispered.
He rolled her over on her side so she could expel the water easier. He patted her back as she threw up what seemed like gallons of water and whatever she had eaten last. “That’s a girl; you’re going to be ok.” After a few minutes her color started to look a little better. At least she wasn’t blue anymore. He looked up the bank trying to figure out how he was going to get her back up to his car when he heard a voice shout down from the bridge above them.
“Hey! I just called 911. An ambulance will be here in a minute! Are they alive?” Relief flooded his body.
“Yes, but barely!” he shouted back.
Klara started to shiver, her body going into shock most likely from the near-death experience. He wrapped his arms
around her to try and keep her warm until help arrived.
The paramedics arrived within nine minutes and were at Klara’s side within fifteen. They checked her heart rate and blood pressure then asked Alec if she had regained consciousness. “No, not at all. She coughed up a lot of water, and she has been breathing on her own, but that’s it.” The paramedic nodded.
“Any idea how long she was without oxygen?” Alec rubbed his head, which was starting to throb. When he pulled his hand away, it was bloody. “Looks like you smacked yourself pretty good. Better let someone look at it.”
He shook his head. “No, I’m fine -- it’s just a small cut. Take care of Klara, and to answer your question, I would say no more than three or four minutes tops. I saw her jump and I was right behind her.” They placed an oxygen mask on Klara then strapped her to the gurney.
“Do you know her?” Alec followed along behind them. “Not really, I just met her this afternoon actually. She works for my law firm.” They made it to the top of the hill and loaded her into the back of the waiting ambulance.
“Well, she was very lucky you came along when you did.”
***
Two days later Klara still had not regained consciousness. Alec had gone back to her car and found her suicide note. It was very brief. It read, “Please tell my parents, Dale and Sarah Freeman in Portland, Maine, that I love them and that I’m sorry for everything. Please forgive me. P.S. Someone please go to my apartment and take care of my cat. His name is Scooter. Please find him a good home. Thank you, Mrs. Klara Martin.”
Her life was summed up in so few words. Tell her parents she loved them and take care of her cat. What had driven her to this point? His life was pretty miserable right now, but the thought of taking his own life never entered his mind. He might be a sorry S.O.B. and probably deserved to be thrown off a bridge, but it’s not something he would do by his own choice. He gathered up her purse then had her car towed back to her apartment. He went in and checked on her cat, or what she had said was a cat. The thing that practically attacked him at the door would pass for a small bear cub. It was massive! As the creature meowed and rubbed frantically against his legs, he could hardly walk for the thing as he made his way into the kitchen to find the cat food. He found some small cans of tuna and dumped one into the cat’s food bowl. It was gone in under a minute, so he dumped in another one that was inhaled in the same manner as the first. Shaking his head at the cat’s big appetite, he dumped in a third can and that finally seemed to satisfy him.
Now that he had the cat tended to, he walked around the small apartment trying to learn more about the woman he pulled out of the river. The walls were bare -- no pictures of family or friends. No pretty decorations that women were fond of hanging up. It appeared as though she had just move in, but he had spoken with the landlord and was advised she had lived here for over a year. He walked into the bedroom the rumpled covers indicated she was a restless sleeper. The walls were bare here as well. No personal effects or mementos. He pushed open the door to her bathroom and he saw the suit she was wearing the day he had stopped her lying on the floor. A prescription medicine bottle was lying open on the counter. He picked it up and read the label. It was a very strong antidepressant. He put the bottle in his pocket; her doctors might need to know what medications she was on.
He turned off the light and went back out to the living room. He went into the kitchen where he saw several empty liquor bottles in the trash. It appeared she liked to drown her sorrows at the bottom of the bottle. He knew from experience that never worked. Whatever you were trying to forget was right there waiting for you when you woke up. All you had for your efforts was a pounding head. He did wonder if mixing the prescription medication and the alcohol was the reason for her serious lack of judgment.
The large cat followed him around, ready for some attention. Alec sat down for a minute to give the cat some company. Scooter immediately jumped into his lap, purring loudly and kneading his leg. He never thought of himself as a cat person. He was a dog lover, but this cat was so big it could be a dog. He hated leaving the big guy here alone, so if Klara didn’t get better in a day or two he would take Scooter to his house until she did.
“Sorry, fella, but I have to go. Hopefully your mama will back real soon. I’ll come back tomorrow and feed you again.” He checked Scooter’s water then he dumped some dry food into another bowl. Satisfied the cat wouldn’t starve until he got back, he locked up the apartment and headed back to the hospital.
Klara barely listened to the doctor tell her how lucky she was to be alive. She wasn’t lucky…she failed! She was supposed to be with David and Joshua right now, not stuck in this bed listening to a total stranger tell her how her life was worth living. She was robbed of her escape. Finally something the doctor said got through to her. “Who? Who did you just say pulled me out?” She asked.
The doctor walked to the door. “I said your boss Alec Adams pulled you out.” Then he closed the door.
Left with that less than thrilling news, Klara rolled over and pulled the covers up to her chin. She wanted to crawl in a hole and pull the earth in on top of her. She felt more alone than ever. Even death was denied to her as a way to stop the never-ending pain in her heart. Hot tears scalded her cheeks as they slid silently from her eyes, soaking her pillow. She didn’t even have the energy to sob; her agony escaped quietly through her tears. “Why, God, why didn’t you let me die? I can’t live like this any longer. It hurts to breathe, its hurts to exist…it just hurts! I just want to be with my family. Please make it stop…please help me…” Her broken prayer, the first she had uttered since the funeral, fell from her lips in a desperate whisper without her even noticing.
Alec quietly shut the door to Klara’s room. He didn’t mean to overhear her prayer, but it explained a lot. He had just gotten off the phone with Klara’s mother, telling her that she was in the hospital and had just woke up from her two-day coma.
He was shocked to learn that Klara had not spoken to her parents in close to two years following the tragic death of her husband and little boy. He could not imagine going through something like that. The breakup of his marriage was bad enough. He admitted he had a huge hand in its destruction, but what Klara was going through? Unimaginable. The loss of a child was something no parent should ever have to suffer alone, but Klara had lost both husband and child in a double blow. He could understand a little better what drove her to jump off that bridge.
Chapter 5
Klara was standing at the window and looked out at the late afternoon sunshine. She felt stuck. She couldn’t go back to her life before, yet she couldn’t move forward either. Sighing, she turned back to the room, looking at the flowers and get-well balloons that covered nearly every surface. She bent down, nuzzling her nose in a vase of yellow roses, inhaling deeply. These were her favorites. There wasn’t a card so she didn’t know who had sent them, but they were beautiful.
A soft knock at the door had her looking up with a cry of surprise and shock when she saw her mother’s head poke through the door. Sarah Freeman rushed over to her daughter but then stopped just short of reaching her, unsure of Klara’s reaction.
“Mama!” Klara cried out then reached for her mother and clung to her sobbing harshly. “Oh, my poor baby, what you have gone through! I’m sorry, sweetheart, so sorry!” Sarah held her daughter silently, praying for God to start healing her broken heart. Dale Freeman stepped through the door and wrapped his arms around both women.
Klara went from her mother’s arms into her father’s. They surrounded her with love and support both emotionally and physically. Dale held Klara tightly. He didn’t know what he should say to her. He had a few choice words that were running through his mind, but he knew that wasn’t what she needed to hear. He just held her, willing his love into her heart.
Finally Dale pulled back so he could see into her eyes and spoke the words that he couldn’t contain any longer. “Klara Dawn, I ought to whip your butt, little girl, for
scaring your mama and me like that! What were you thinking?”
Sarah laid her hand on her husband’s arm. “Dale, don’t be so harsh with her. She is broken right now, broken on the inside where you can’t see it.”
He groaned then gathered Klara back up in his arms. “I know that, Sarah, but I can’t stand the thought that I can’t fix this for her.”
Klara mumbled something against her father’s chest.
“What, Klara?” Dale asked.
“I said I’m standing right here. Please don’t talk about me like I’m not.”
Klara pulled away then went and sat down on the corner of her bed. “Who called you?” She asked softly.
Sarah sat down beside her. “Mr. Adams did. He didn’t tell us a whole lot really; he said that you had jumped off the Black River Bridge and had been in a coma for two days and had just woke up. We came as fast as we could.”
Klara nodded. Mr. Adams had been a busy man the past of couple of days, it would seem. Another knock on the door had all three looking up. Dr. Franklin came in the door holding her charts.
“Mrs. Martin, are you feeling any better today?”
Klara nodded her head. She learned a long time ago to just play the game and give them the answers they wanted if she wanted to go home anytime soon. “Yes, much better, doctor. This is my mother and father, Dale and Sarah Freeman.” The doctor shook their hands then he examined Klara.
