Calling California

by J. P. Grider

  "I'm still sleepy," Cali mumbles.

  I push down her bed covers and settle her beneath them. "Let's sleep then," I tell her, as I slip under the blankets next to her. This time, she rests her head on top of my chest while I close my eyes and gently stroke her cheek.

  "I love you, Calista," I softly speak above her head.

  But I am met with a deep breath and a tiny snore.

  "Sweet dreams, my baby," I breathe into the air, even though I know she can't hear me.

  47

  Cali

  I wake up before I open my eyes. My pillow smells different. Musky. When I move my hand to slide beneath my head, it's not my pillow I grab. I open my eyes. It's Griffin's shirt. And it's still on his chest. Holy shit, I forgot I fell asleep on Griffin. Closing my eyes, I let the moment linger. There is no way I'm rushing this. I don't even move to check the time, because I. Don't. Care. Griffin's arms are wrapped around me, my head is on his chest, and there is no way that I am going to worry about being late for class. Even if it is Monday morning. Especially because it is Monday morning.

  "You up, beautiful?" I hear his deep morning voice whisper above my head.

  I don't want to answer. If he thinks I'm sleeping, then maybe he won't move. Maybe he'll go back to sleep, and we can stay here in my bed a bit longer.

  It must have worked, because I feel him relax beneath me, and those butterfly wings he calls fingers start fluttering across my skin. He brushes them up and down the arm I have draped across his chest. My body turns to liquid on top of him, and I don't know if I can pass off the pretend sleep much longer, because my heart rate is picking up. And I'm pretty sure he can hear my breathing speeding up as well.

  Just as his heart rate picks up to match mine, I hear my mother's shriek in the next room. Both of us spring up and bound out of the room.

  Mom is lying across my father's chest.

  "Mom?" I barely get the word off my tongue.

  She turns her head toward me, her ear pressed against my father, and stares at me. Her eyes pained and wet.

  I shake my head.

  It's all I can do.

  I stand there.

  Unable to move.

  Just shaking my head.

  "Calista." I hear softly in my ear.

  I feel my lower jaw quiver.

  I shake my head.

  Denial.

  "No," I whisper.

  A tear finds its way out of the corner of my eye.

  Then another.

  And another.

  Until reality trumps my denial.

  "No," I say louder.

  "No. Daddy. No."

  Now not only is my lip shaking, but my body quivers.

  Uncontrollable shaking.

  "Daddy," I scream at the top of my lungs. "Daddy, no." My wails get louder, more desperate. "Oh, Daddy."

  I force my feet off the floor and throw myself across his legs. Right behind my mother. "Don't leave me, Daddy. Don't leave me, Daddy. No. Oh my God."

  My heart trembles beneath my chest. My body tremors. Daddy's legs move with me. For a moment, I think it's him moving. Lifting my head, I look at my mother, her face covered in tears. When I look back at my father, his legs are still.

  I drop to my knees and lay my head on the edge of the bed.

  I am not ready to say good-bye to my father. He cannot be gone. My God, he can't be gone. I never said good-bye.

  All those days he laid there in his bed while I walked past him. Ignoring him. Only attending to him when I was obligated.

  All those days blocking out my pain at the expense of his.

  All those days I could have spent with him.

  Saying good-bye.

  Telling him about my future.

  Giving him something to hope for.

  Something to take with him...

  Instead, I say good-bye to someone who can't hear me.

  Who can't hope.

  Who can't smile.

  Because I've left him nothing to remember.

  Instead, I say good-bye to the greatest man I've ever known.

  A man who worked so hard just to make ends meet.

  A man who worked so hard so he could feed me. So he could make a living.

  A man whose living actually took his life.

  And a man I've let down during his final days.

  Right now I am drowning in my own tears. They are stuck in my throat. Pooling in the mattress where I lay. I am drowning in my guilt. In my pain. It's sad enough when someone dies. Especially your father. But when you realize there were so many words left unsaid... the pain is unbearable.

  I let out an involuntary scream. Clutching the sheets of my father's bed. Calling him back to me. For one more moment. I just can't take it anymore. I have the urge to jump. To fall. To scream. To run. To do anything but lie here crying.

  "Nooooo. Nooooo." I keep screaming and screaming. Standing and pacing and falling back on the bed by my father. Standing and crying.

  And all the while my mother lies crying across his chest. Hanging on to whatever life is left of my father.

  And I don't know what's more sad - my insanity, or her desperation.

  My body stills long enough to take this in. I'm not the only one losing this man.

  "Mommy," I say quietly, kneeling next to her on the floor. Slowly I lay my hand to her back. "I love you," I tell her. "I love you," I say again, and then rest my head on her softly heaving back. "I love you."

  48

  Griffin

  I stand motionless - the only body part moving? My heart. As it falls to the floor in pieces. Each shard carved with Calista's name. Watching her breakdown paralyzes me. My hand wants to reach out. Touch her. Comfort her. But my brain is stuck. It won't send the signal to do it. My brain hasn't been able to communicate with the rest of my body since I uttered her name when we first saw her mother lying over her father.

  When she screams, I want to grab her. When she falls to her knees next to her mother, I want to hold her. But my legs are rooted to the floor. I close my eyes, clutch my stomach, and will one foot to lift. Then the other. With my eyes still closed, I reach her and drop to my knees next to her. While she holds her mother, I hold her.

  For I'm not sure how long, we remain like that. Until her mother sits upright on her heels and wipes her eyes with her sweater's sleeve and turns to hug her daughter. Calista grabs her with all her might. I drop my hand from her back and sit back on my heels, wiping my own tears with my fingers. I look at her father dead on the bed, and I clutch at my stomach again. A man whose life was so much harder than a life I've ever known is now gone. Hopefully Heaven will be easier on him. Maybe he'll find peace, and rest, and an existence free from worry and hardship.

  And that's when I make my vow.

  My promise to Calista.

  She will not have to wait for death to find her peace. Not if I can help it.

  When Cali's mother finally breaks their embrace, she gets up and leaves the room. From the sound of the quiet murmuring in the kitchen, she's on the phone.

  Still on her knees, Cali is staring at her father. Still on my knees, I lay my hand on her shoulder farthest from me and pull her into my arms. Her head rests beneath my chin, and her crying starts all over again. With one hand, I clutch a clump of her hair in my fist. With the other hand, my arm wrapped as far around her as I can, my fingertips unintentionally graze the side of her breast. Because now is not the time to appear insensitive, I immediately lower my hand.

  Though restrained some, she laughs and looks up at me. "You didn't have to move your hand," she says quietly.

  I smile down on her wet face. "You okay?"

  She nods, but "No," comes out of her mouth.

  "I'm sorry, Calista." I don't know what else I can say.

  "I let him down," she whispers so softly that I'm not even sure that's what she says.

  I kiss her on the forehead. "No, don't say that."

  "I never looked him in the eye," she says. "Once he got
really sick. I never looked at him." Her eyes start raining all over again, and I have no words to stop the storm.

  With her clump of hair still in my palm, I spread my fingers out to fondle the rest of her hair, and her cheek is again resting beneath my chin.

  When her tears slow to a drizzle, she looks up at me again, bites the corner of her upper lip, and sighs.

  "Cali?" Her mom walks over to the couch and sits. I let go of Cali, but we both remain on our knees, our hands on our own laps. "Millicent's on her way over," Ellie continues. "She's gonna call the right people. I have no idea..." Her mother stops. Her elbows pressed into her legs, she drops her head into her hands. "I don't even know what I'm supposed to do," she cries. For the second time since I've met her, Ellie seems so young yet so old at the same time.

  "Mrs. Parker," I say cautiously, in a tone that lets Ellie know I'm on her side. I'm not the same man who intimidated her yesterday to spill her secret. "Millicent is a hospice nurse. She's trained to know what to do." I stand and move toward her, resting my hand on the back of her shoulder. "There's nothing you need to do right now. Just wait for Millicent to come."

  Ellie lifts her head from her hands and looks me in the eye. Probably probing them for my intentions.

  I lift the corners of my mouth into a small smile. "Can I get you coffee? Tea? Something?"

  Her mouth forms a smile also. "Thank you, Griffin. Coffee?"

  I nod and leave the room.

  While I'm in the kitchen making coffee, I hear Ellie call Cali over to the couch. Their voices are too mumbled to hear what they are saying, but after several minutes, and just enough time for a pot of coffee to be brewed, I hear a shuffle in the doorway.

  "You should go to class, Griff," Cali says from the kitchen doorway.

  Pouring coffee into the last of the three mugs, I say, "You're crazy, Cal. I'm not going anywhere." I set the pot back on its metal plate and look at her. "I'm not going anywhere," I repeat.

  She moves around me, opens the refrigerator, and pulls out the milk. "Thank you."

  Taking the milk from her, I pour it into our two mugs. "Your mom?" I ask, holding the carton over her mug.

  "Yeah."

  I pour it.

  "I'm sorry you had to be here," she says apologetically, bringing her coffee to her lips.

  I pick up the other two mugs and kiss Cali on the temple. "Please don't apologize."

  "Thank you," Ellie says as I hand her the coffee.

  Cali sits next to her.

  "I'll be in your room if you need me," I say, wanting to give them their space.

  "No," Ellie says. "Stay, Griffin. It'll be good for Cali."

  Sitting on the arm of the couch, I tuck my left leg beneath my right knee and pull Cali toward me so that she's leaning against me.

  "I'm glad you're here, Griffin, because I think it's time..."

  Thank God the doorbell rings, because I swear, I think Ellie was just about to tell Calista her secret. And I'm thinking, Jesus Christ, now is not the right time. But Ellie answers the door, and Millicent walks in, preventing that bomb from firing.

  "Oh, Ellie. I'm so sorry I wasn't here." She pulls Ellie into a big bear hug, and considering that Millicent is a big woman and Ellie is so frail, Millicent's arms swallow Ellie whole.

  Cali stands to greet Millicent, and Millicent treats her with the same warm, enveloping hug. Then she spots me, and even though she doesn't know me, she gives me the same comforting consideration.

  When she and Ellie walk over to Cali's dad, Cali takes my hand and pulls me into her bedroom. "This sucks," she says, sitting down at the top of her bed.

  I sit down next to her and lean against her wall. "Yeah." I lay my hand on her leg, but I don't rub or anything. I just keep it still, unsure of what to do in this kind of situation.

  Cali grabs a pillow and sets it on her lap. She's staring at it while she worries her bottom lip. Then her mouth parts, and she sighs. "I avoided him, Griffin. Every day. I walked past him and wouldn't look at him."

  Her head is still down, so I run my hand over her curls. "No you didn't, Cali. You fed him and sat with him. You told me that."

  When she turns to look at me, her eyes are holding all the tears she isn't letting fall. She shakes her head. "No. I only did that when I was forced to." She sucks in her lips and tries to force the tears to stay put. "Every time I could, I ignored him. Pretended I thought he was sleeping when he wasn't." She shakes her head, and finally, she lets out this guttural groan that releases those tears. Her head drops into her hands. "Oh my God, Griffin. What did I do? He...he... all he probably wanted was to spend time with me, and all I did was ignore him. Oh my God, how could I do that to him?" She's sobbing now and wiping at her eyes and hyperventilating.

  "Oh, Cali," I cry with her, pulling her into my side. She drops her head against my chest and sobs some more. I try really hard to keep my tears in check, but I've never felt pain for someone else like I am feeling for her right now. I kiss the back of her head while I hold her. "Cali? Anything you did... or didn't do, I'm sure it wasn't intentional. You were faced with your dad being terminally ill. Who's to say what the right way to act or not is? You're still a kid, kind of. Is there a book written somewhere that says you're not supposed to ignore the dying?" I tangle her hair around my fingers. "And how do you know that your dad didn't pretend he was sleeping so that he didn't have to face the fact that you were seeing him like that?"

  She sucks in her breath and pulls away to look at me questioningly.

  "Well," I say, looking her in the eyes and fingering her hair, "from what you've told me, he was a proud, strong man. Do you think he was comfortable with you seeing him so weak and vulnerable? You had to feed him, for Chrissake. I'm sure that had to kill him, Calista." I run my thumb along the trail of her tears. "Maybe you did him a favor by avoiding him." I say, grasping at straws. I don't know if what I'm saying makes sense or not, but I could be right, no? Who knows?

  "Thank you," she whispers, licking the tears off her lips. "I appreciate that." She sniffs and wipes her nose with the back of her hand and laughs. "I need a tissue."

  "Stay right here." I pat her leg, run out of the room, and come back with a roll of toilet paper.

  Shaking her head, she chuckles and takes the roll. "I have a box of tissues right there on my dresser."

  Enclosing her within my arms, I squeeze her as hard as I can without hurting her. I love her so much that I can't hold it in right now. I need her to feel my love, not just hear me say it. I need Calista to know that I love her more than my words can relay. Shifting her in my arms, I lift her onto my lap and pull her legs around me. I move in as close as two bodies can, and I crush her against me. I don't kiss her. That's not what this is about. This is about her feeling the love through the beats of my heart. With my hand on her back, I press her chest against mine - her heart lined up with mine. I close my eyes, keep my posture straight, my hand pressed hard on her back, and I will the love to move from me to her. She needs to feel it. She needs to feel it now.

  And just as I release a slow breath into the air, her body relaxes.

  And hopefully she's picked up just how much I love her.

  49

  Cali

  "Come on, Cal. It'll be good for you to be out tonight. Even your mother went to work tonight."

  "Tabitha. Get off my dresser, and I'm not in the mood to go out. My father just died. Like this morning. And my mother had no choice. Tonight's the diner job. She doesn't get paid bereavement from the diner."

  Tabitha plops down on the bottom of my bed. "Look, what good is it going to do you sitting in your room alone tonight?"

  "I won't be alone. Griffin's coming back. He just went home to shower and change his clothes." I lean my head against the wall and look up at the ceiling.

  "We'll all go out. Donny's. It's Wings Night."

  "I'm not in the mood for wings, Tab."

  "Fine," she says, frowning. "Stay here with your dead plant and sad songs." />
  I know she's just saying that to manipulate me into going out with her, but it still hurts that she doesn't get it. "Tabitha. My father just died. Don't you get it? I am not in the mood to go out. At all. Anywhere. With anyone." I sit up and cross my legs Indian-style. "If I want to sit and look at my dead plant," which I am not doing, by the way, "and listen to sad Night Ranger songs, then so what?"

  "Who is Night Ranger anyway?" she asks, totally not getting it.

  "They were my father's favorite band. They're from the 80s." I say, picking at the thread of my old chenille bedspread.

  "Oh." She looks me in the eyes. Really looks at me this time. "I'm sorry, Cal. I'm uncomfortable with sadness. That's why I drink. Remember?" She laughs, but I know there's truth behind her joke. She's not comfortable with feelings - hers or anyone else's.

  "It's fine. But I'm still not going out tonight."

  "Yeah, yeah." Tabitha starts going through some of the records spread out on my bed. "Why don't you listen to anything new, Cal?" She's shaking her head and tossing each album, one by one, as she goes through them.

  "Will you stop throwing my records? They're old. They're my parents', and I do listen to current stuff. On my laptop."

  "Yeah, like Ed Sheeran? Sad. Daughtry? Old."

  "He's like thirty-four."

  "Right. Old."

  "You're terrible." I toss a pillow at her, then reach for my ringing phone. "Shh. It's Griffin. Hey, Griff."

  "Hey, Babe. You doing okay?"

  "Yeah. Tabitha's here, but she's leaving in a few." I look at her and stick out my tongue.

  She sticks hers back at me.

  "Okay. Listen, I'm putting an order in for wings at Donny's. You want anything?"

  "Um...I don't think so. I'm good."

  "Right. And you probably haven't eaten a thing today."