Sliding Down the Sky

by Amanda Dick

No, he didn’t, but he didn’t have to. I hated them. I hated them for making me feel this way, especially in front of him. I hated them for making me show this side of myself to him, the side I was so ashamed of, the side I wanted to hide from him.

  “I know what they’re like,” I said in a strangled voice that didn’t even sound like me. “You don’t. I’ve been there before. They won’t ever stop, and I won’t ever be able to move past what happened because they won’t let me.”

  He held my gaze, as though doing so would change everything. It wouldn’t. Nothing would.

  “It’s not them holding you back, Sass,” he said gently, loosening his grip on my arms. “It’s you. You’re holding yourself back.”

  What did he just say?

  “Your music isn’t gone, you’re just not hearing it. You’re letting the guilt and all the shit that happened that night block it out. It’s still there, inside you. I know, because I’ve heard it.”

  He was too close. Too close, and talking like a crazy man. I shrugged out of his grasp, backing away from him. I needed space. I tried to remember to breathe, because somewhere in the back of my mind, there was screaming, and it was so loud that I couldn’t hear anything else.

  “What are you talking about?” I murmured, willing the screaming to stop.

  His eyes never left mine.

  “I’ve heard you sing,” he said. “That night I stayed over, you got up in the middle of the night and you came out into the living room. You sat down at the piano, in the dark, and you sang. It was incredible, so beautiful. Leo was there, too. He said you’ve been doing that since the accident, getting up in the middle of the night and singing, in your sleep. He’s been too scared to tell you in case you stop, but I think you need to know. You need to know that your music isn’t gone. It’s still there, and it’s searching for a way out. You need to trust yourself enough to let it out, because maybe, with that trust comes the kind of healing you’ve been waiting for.”

  The screaming stopped, suddenly, without warning, and then it was just the two of us, staring at each other.

  The silence was worse. It grabbed at my throat, squeezing it tight. It tumbled over my skin like flames, setting every inch of me alight. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think, I was way beyond speaking. My world came tumbling down, bricks crashing to the ground around me.

  I turned towards the door, stumbling over a box, but catching myself just in time. I needed to get away. There wasn’t enough air in that small room for both of us. There wasn’t even enough for me. The store room had gone from my sanctuary to my coffin.

  “Sass, wait!”

  I needed to put as much distance as possible between me and everyone else. I pushed open the back door and fell out into the fresh night air, gulping down oxygen.

  And then I started running.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  “Strangely, some songs you really don’t want to write.”

  – David Bowie

  Callum

  During the short drive home, Leo’s voice rang in my head.

  “Get out, before I throw you out.”

  Jesus.

  I ran a hand down my face. I was so sure that telling her had been the right thing to do. So why the hell did it feel like I’d just done the exact opposite? I couldn’t get Sass’s face to disappear. It danced in front of my eyes as I pulled into my driveway, like some kind of ghostly apparition. That’s how she’d looked – like a ghost. She’d lost all trace of colour in her face. Her skin turned a sickening ashen grey, just like the night she’d had the panic attack. This was different, though. This wasn’t just a physical reaction – that would’ve been bad enough. No, it was the mental torment that was so much worse. I could see it, the moment I broke her. It had been as clear as day, like a neon sign above her head.

  I walked up the path like a man condemned. I needed whisky, something to dull my senses, anything to shift this bone-deep ache in my chest. I heard the phone ringing as I was unlocking the front door. I hurried through the hall and snatched at it.

  “Sass?”

  There was a pause, and I held my breath, my heart rocketing up into my mouth.

  Don’t hang up. Please?

  “Callum?”

  It wasn’t Sass. My heart fell with a speed that sucked the breath right out of me, lodging somewhere near my knees. I leaned back against the wall in the hallway, closing my eyes.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s Coop.”

  Through those two little words, I heard the clear ring of anxiety. My eyes shot open. Coop never called me. Something was wrong.

  “What is it?”

  His sigh seemed to reach down the phone and grab me by the throat.

  “It’s your Mom. I’m at the hospital. I think you should come.”

  I packed while I was on the phone to him, frantically scrabbling for details, along with clean clothes and underwear. When the words ‘cerebral aneurysm’ and ‘coma’ are mentioned in the same sentence, you stop thinking clearly. Your brain shuts down and you run on auto-pilot. Your priorities are whittled down in a heartbeat.

  Clothes.

  Bag.

  Car.

  Now.

  She’d collapsed at work earlier that day. After tests and scans, a cerebral aneurysm was diagnosed. The bleed wasn’t slowing down and blood was gathering inside her skull. It would need to be drained. Surgery was mentioned. He hadn’t called me until they knew for sure what was going on. He didn’t want to scare me, but he had no guarantees for me, either.

  I threw my bag into the car and took off like the devil himself was on my tail. I needed coffee and a miracle, not necessarily in that order. I stopped for coffee and gas on the outskirts of town. It was practically deserted and, with my heightened sense of awareness, adrenaline pumping through my veins, I’m pretty sure the attendant thought I was as high as a kite, not that I cared. I barely spoke to him, shoving the money over the counter and making a beeline for the door.

  It wasn’t until I was out on the road and heading out of town that I realised I hadn’t told anyone where I was going. I forced myself to plan ahead. I’d call Jack and Ally when I got there, I’d call Bill in the morning. Hopefully by then I’d know more about what was going on. I debated whether to call Sass, but I decided not to. She had enough on her plate right now. Besides, I wasn’t even sure she’d want to talk to me after what happened tonight. It didn’t stop me wishing she was with me, though. Suddenly, the gravity of the situation hit me again, right in the gut. I tried to swallow down the fear. Everything would be fine. It had to be.

  The roads were more or less empty, which was just as well. I was driving well above the speed limit and, despite the coffee, I felt like the adrenaline was waning with each passing mile. The road signs disappeared in a haze. Half of my conscious brain was concentrating on the journey, the other half was searching for a scenario – one that would have Mom sitting up in her hospital bed, smiling at me by the time I arrived. She’d be sorry she scared me. She’d insist she was fine. She would.

  Why the hell hadn’t I called her back earlier?

  It’s incredible, how quickly things can change. My head was still spinning. My hand still ached from the punch I’d landed on Dawson. My heart still ached from the disbelief and pain I’d seen in Sass’s eyes. And now, to add to all that, there was a tightness in my chest that just wouldn’t shift.

  Coop sounded scared, and Coop didn’t get scared.

  He and my Mom had been together for about ten years, give or take. There was no talk of marriage, but I think that was Mom’s idea, not his. I got the feeling he’d marry her in a heartbeat, but after what happened with my Dad, she was gun-shy. I didn’t blame her. I liked Coop, he treated her the way she deserved to be treated, the way Dad never did. Why should she live the rest of her life alone, just because of something that happened a long time ago?

  Despite his own personal tragedy, Coop was one of those guys you couldn’t help but like. He reminded me of Tom
in a lot of ways. He was straight-forward, practical and old-school. He’d made Mom smile again, which was something I never thought would happen. His first wife had died suddenly, a few years before he met my Mom, and he’d been left to raise his daughter, Stephanie, alone. I liked Steph, she was a great kid, although not such a kid anymore, I suppose. She’d had her sixteenth birthday a few months ago. I’d been invited to the party but I didn’t go. I sent her some money in a birthday card instead. I figured it’d be easier. I had no idea what teenage girls wanted these days. She was quiet and serious, her nose always stuck in a book. She was doing well in school and was heading to college. In a nutshell, she was the opposite of me.

  I didn’t visit often. I felt like Mom was trying hard to put the past behind her and I was just a dirty reminder, although to be fair, that was my assumption. I just thought it’d be easier that way. We called each other every month, I tried to get there for her birthday or Christmas, and sometimes Thanksgiving. She never came back here. I guess the memories were too much for her. Deep down, I always wondered if she was disappointed in me for not leaving with her all those years ago, when I had the chance.

  Long, night-time drives are the perfect breeding ground for reflection.

  Thinking about Steph led to thinking about Robbie. Until he came up in conversation with Sass, I can’t remember the last time I’d even said his name out loud.

  God, I missed him. I’d known him for four years of my life – it was a drop in the ocean, compared to the thirty years I’d spent without him. It’s hard to believe that four years can make such an impact. I remember how comforting it was to look over in the middle of the night and see him in the bed next to mine. I remember how independent he was, and yet he never hesitated to ask me for help if he needed it. I remember how he used to climb into my bed during a storm. He’d never say anything, but he’d huddle up beside me, under the blankets, shuddering with every thunderclap. He was the only person who understood what it meant to live in the war zone that was our childhood home.

  The flashback came out of nowhere, knocking the proverbial feet out from under me.

  A bike with a flag on the back, exactly the same as mine only red, not blue. I was chasing him on it, around our house. He was laughing like crazy, and the more he laughed, the slower he got, until I could almost reach out and touch him.

  I gripped the steering wheel tighter. There was no sense going over old ground. It didn’t change anything. I didn’t want to think about why this particular moment would come back to me in living colour, at this particular time. I wished he were here. I’d be able to share this night with him, share the load of anxiety that was clawing at my stomach.

  But the past belonged in the past. Nothing to be done now but leave it there.

  It’d been almost two hours since Coop had called and my head was beginning to throb. I drained the last of the cold coffee, the bitter taste lingering on my tongue, and tried to concentrate on the road.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  “I have always felt a little homeless. It’s a strange thing.”

  – Annie Lennox

  Callum

  Despite the late hour, the hospital parking lot was almost full. Injury, illness, disease – none of that waited for civilised hours. The tarmac glistened in the lamplight, the tell-tale remnants of prior rainfall. It seemed fitting.

  I huddled against the cold as I strode towards the entrance, lit up like a beacon. Brushing past an exiting couple, I focussed solely on the reception desk as I squinted against the bright white light. My body felt stiff and sore from the three hour drive, my legs working the kinks out as I walked.

  “Lydia Ferguson,” I said, my heart racing as I stumbled over the words. “My, uh, step-father phoned to say she was admitted earlier today.”

  The middle-aged woman, dark hair piled high on her head in a modified beehive, gave me a small smile before turning her attention to her computer screen.

  “Yes, she’s in the ICU. Third floor, take the elevator there.” She pointed down the hall behind her.

  ICU. It was like Ally’s accident all over again.

  I nodded a quick thanks and headed down the hall. I don’t remember the ride up. What I do remember is the doors opening and stepping out onto the open floor, and into a different world. I went up to the nurses station to make enquiries when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around to see Coop, his face etched with the kind of worry that made him look ten years older. My heart sank. This wasn’t the face of someone who had good news for me.

  “Is she… ”

  “She’s just the same,” he said quietly, squeezing my shoulder as if he could tell what was going through my mind.

  I nodded sharply, momentarily speechless as his piercing blue eyes held mine.

  “It’s good to see you,” he said, his voice a perfect match for the tired, sombre expression.

  “You too.”

  “We’re down there, at the end,” he said, nodding his head in that direction. “Come down and have a cup of coffee and I’ll fill you in.”

  “Can I see her?”

  “Absolutely, but I think we should talk first.”

  Although talking was the last thing I wanted to do right now, I followed him. He could do that, take the lead. I didn’t mind. I was grateful that someone was because I felt like I was drowning. He led me past the plate-glass windows and the beds beyond them, towards a doorway at the other side of the room. I couldn’t help but draw comparisons.

  After Ally’s accident we’d been in a very similar room, in another ICU in a different hospital, and Ally had been lying in one of those beds beyond the glass.

  The realisation turned my blood to ice. I’d never felt so useless, then and now. Maybe it was ICUs, in general. Full of seriously ill people and the medical staff who stood between them and death. What was our role? To watch? To hope? To pray? I’d never been one to pray but now, as then, I felt the sudden urge to get familiar with the almighty. Whatever helped.

  As we entered the waiting room I saw Steph, curled up in an armchair opposite the coffee machine. She’d grown since I’d last seen her, all legs and arms. She barely fit on the chair, her long dark hair falling down over her shoulders, her closed eyes almost all that was visible of her face.

  “She’s exhausted,” Coop said quietly, turning his back on me and pouring us both a coffee. “It’s been one hell of a long day.”

  He handed me a steaming mug and glanced over at her.

  “I tried to make her go home earlier, but she won’t leave. I didn’t have the heart to push it. We came in to get a coffee and keep a lookout for you, I turned around and she was asleep.”

  I nodded, struck dumb with the realisation that I wasn’t the only family Mom had. Even though she and Coop weren’t married, the family unit they’d created was a strong one. I don’t know why, but I had failed to see that until now and I felt selfish. Stupid, even. I didn’t need Robbie to share this load with me. I had them, and they loved Mom as much as I did.

  “What’s the latest?” I asked, taking a sip of the piping hot coffee. “How’s she doing?”

  He ran his hand down his face with a sigh, and I could see the weight of helplessness bearing down on him.

  “They’ve been trying to get her to respond to these cocktails of drugs that they’re giving her. If she doesn’t show any improvement, they’ll operate tomorrow. They need to drain the blood from out of her skull –“

  He caught his breath, shaking his head. This was like a nightmare – not real. I could tell what he was thinking. I could also see the inner struggle, the reluctance to believe the worst. In case thinking it would somehow conjure it into being.

  “She’ll be okay,” I said, not entirely believing it but not ready to accept any other possible outcome yet myself.

  He nodded, forcing a smile I could tell he didn’t feel.

  “Yeah. Of course she will.”

  He glanced over at Steph, then back to me.

  “Th
ere’s something else you need to know. Your Mom tried calling you a few days ago. I know she wanted to tell her yourself because it’s gonna be really tough to hear. I guess it’s down to me, now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. He directed me over towards the chairs around the outside of the small room. I didn’t want to sit down. I wanted to know what he was talking about.

  “Sit down, son,” he said gently.

  I did, reluctantly. He glanced down at his hands flexing on his knees, then back up at me. I felt a slow chill crawl up my spine. It was as if time had stopped. Everything outside of that room ceased to exist. Coop wasn’t into amateur dramatics.

  “Your Dad’s here.”

  I just stared at him, sure I’d misheard him. He didn’t just say that. Why would he say that? Why would Dad be here?

  “I know it’s a shock,” he continued, lowering his voice. “I’ve asked him to give us some time, I wanted to prepare you.”

  I glanced around, expecting to see Dad pop out of the woodwork. He didn’t, and my gaze swung back to Coop.

  “What?”

  He put his hand on my knee, squeezing. My whole body felt like it’d gone into lock-down mode. My heart pumped, my lungs expanded and contracted, forcing oxygen through my body, but my brain was frozen. I couldn’t think. Nothing made sense.

  “It’s a long story, but we don’t have that much time, so I’m gonna give you the short version for now – your Dad can fill in the gaps later. I don’t want to speculate, so I’ll tell you what I know, what I’ve seen. Your Dad contacted your Mom about six months ago. They’ve been talking on the phone, and he’s visited her a few times. I’ve met him, he’s been to the house. He’s clean and sober, Callum. He’s been that way for a few years now. He doesn’t want anything from either of you, other than a chance to talk to you both.”

  I’d heard enough. I stood up, walking across to the other side of the room in an effort to distance myself from the madness that was coming out of his mouth.