The Perfect Life

by Anderson, Callie

  I balled my hands into fists and looked up at the dropped ceiling. “How the hell am I supposed to make this decision? My husband and I never spoke about life support or any of this other bullshit.” I cried as the fluorescent light shone down on me. “The only thing I can focus on is breathing and not losing my mind because my son needs at least one parent.”

  “I am so very sorry you’re going through this—”

  “I didn’t wake up this morning and imagine that today would be the day I’d have to pull the plug on my husband. I didn’t envision that today I’d have to explain to my little boy, who loves his father more than anything, that his father will never again tuck him in at night.” I shook my head, realizing that I now understood the true meaning of not knowing what you had till it was gone. Bruce was gone.

  “You can take as much time as you need.” She opened her binder and handed me her business card. “If you have any questions, my office number is on there as well as my office hours.” She stood and walked away.

  When she was no longer in sight, I leaned back in my chair and covered my face with my hands. What the hell would Bruce want me to do?

  This was all my fault.

  19

  Past

  There is a scent that lingers in a church. It’s warm and stale. Both life and death, jubilance and sadness.

  When a child was born, you brought them before the congregation and announced their faith to the world. That was when you smelled the jubilant life. There were fresh flowers, and everyone was happy to see the new life that had been brought into the world. Everyone was dressed in light or bright colors, and the flowers bloomed to match their glee.

  When there was death, it was stale, and there were only tears, hushed whispers, as everyone looked to the ground, afraid to make eye contact with the grieving widow.

  The widow.

  The poor inconsolable wife, who would never hold or see her husband again. She was a part of the stale air filled with uncontrollable tears. The hushed whispers and stares followed her.

  They followed me.

  I sat in the church pew staring at the arrangement the funeral director had me choose for the church. Everyone was looking at me, but I stared at each flower individually and remembered his minty breath explaining them all.

  “The white lily is the flower most commonly associated with funeral services. It symbolizes the innocence that has been restored to the soul of the departed. It expresses majesty and purity, whereas white stargazer lilies specifically symbolize sympathy. The red carnation evokes admiration while a pink carnation stands for remembrance. White carnations stand for pure love and innocence. White roses evoke reverence, humility, innocence, and youthfulness. Red roses convey respect, love, and courage. Pink roses signify love, grace, appreciation and gentility. Dark crimson roses denote grief and sorrow. Yellow roses are given by friends of the deceased to symbolize their strong ties. And when you include a single rose in a bouquet, it expresses enduring love for the deceased.”

  I sat in the pew knowing that the days had blended into each other and sleep would never come. Eating was impossible, and I kept telling myself that this wasn’t real, that this couldn’t be my life. This wasn’t how it was supposed to turn out.

  This wasn’t real. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t my life.

  That was my mantra.

  It was funny the things you remembered when planning your husband’s funeral. I wanted to go back to the time when I was six months pregnant and I woke Bruce because I craved black olives. But I wouldn’t settle for any olive—I wanted the ones that were pitted and sliced. Bruce had to drive to numerous stores to find them and he did it happily.

  My parents flew in from Arizona, along with Bruce’s sister. They all took turns giving me a hand with AJ while I spent countless hours in my room. Bruce’s scent suffocated me, and I welcomed it. Tears poured down my face and stained my cheeks in the process. I had screamed in hysteria, but I wasn’t letting out all the pain. The diazepam and Xanax the doctors prescribed when I left the hospital made it impossible to cry it all out. There was a burning ache in my chest, and no matter how hard the sobs were, the pain never subsided. I couldn’t properly mourn the death of Bruce, knowing the last words I said to him.

  He had a whole life ahead of him. We had a whole life together. And now I was a twenty-eight-year-old widow with a toddler, who would never remember his father.

  Ever.

  It should have been me in that car.

  The funeral service was beautiful. The arrangements were elegant, each flower perfectly placed to capture the proper meaning. Bruce’s sister, Rosie, eulogized her brother with mindful words and stories of when they were children. Everyone wore black, and there wasn’t a dry eye at the cemetery. Even AJ, who had no idea what was happening, cried his little heart out when the casket was lowered into the ground. His daddy was gone. There would be no more Gerald the Giraffe at bedtime. No more teddy bear pancakes.

  I had stripped everything away from him.

  Motioning for Rosie, who held an inconsolable child, I opened my arms to AJ. “I know, sweet pea.” I swayed side to side. “You want your daddy,” I whispered in his ear, and my heart, which I didn’t think could break any more, shattered into a million pieces.

  I had failed.

  One by one, everyone said his or her farewells to Bruce before walking toward AJ and me. “My condolences,” was what everyone said to me as they passed. Some placed a hand on my shoulder. Others gave me a kind smile. But I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t utter a single sound because, at that moment, as Bruce’s coffin found its final resting place, I needed to be strong for AJ. Digging deep inside my soul, I found the last shreds of strength I had left.

  “You okay?” Leslie asked me when she approached. She was one of my closest friends and had flown out from Arizona to be here.

  I glanced around and noticed that most everyone had left. “Trying to be,” I said with a shaky voice.

  “No one is expecting you to hold it together.” She rubbed AJ’s back as his sleepy head fell on my shoulder.

  “I know.” I looked into her big brown eyes. “But if I let myself fall apart now, I’m afraid I’ll self-destruct.”

  “I won’t let you.” She moved her hand to my back. “Looks like AJ fell asleep. Why don’t I take him back to the car? Take a few minutes, say your good-byes, and when you’re ready, we’ll be waiting.”

  I nodded as I handed AJ to her.

  When she had carried AJ back to the car and Rosie had guided her mom away from the grave, I sat down and stared at the hole that held my husband.

  I married Bruce when I was twenty-three years old. I’d met him when I was still in college and interning at his office. We fell hopelessly in love and flew to Vegas to elope. For the first few years of our marriage, I lived in Arizona and he traveled around the country for work. I saw him only every few weeks but our love always felt stronger than the previous time we saw each other. It wasn’t until we decided to have a family that we chose a place to call home. I loved Savannah, and together we made our little family here. At that time, I didn’t know where life would take me, and I sure as hell couldn’t envision that Savannah would also be where I’d bury my husband.

  I would forever be tied to this place.

  Running my fingers under my eyes, I leaned back on the chair. “This is all my fault,” I said to the hole in the ground. “It’s ironic, really. The arguments we had, my constant need of your affection . . . At the time it seemed the world depended on it, and yet I would give anything to have you back right now. I would do anything for you to say that this is hormonal.” My voice cracked, and I swallowed the golf ball in my throat.

  “I’m so sorry,” I cried. “I am so very sorry. I don’t know how I’m going to continue to live without you. I don’t know how I’m supposed to move on without you by my side.” I covered my face with my hands and sobbed. “Bruce, I should be the one who is in the ground, not you.” I lowered my
head and let the weight of the world fall on my shoulders.

  “I will never forgive myself. Not a day will go by that I won’t feel this was all my doing. I’m so sorry, Bruce.” I looked up at the sky. The sun was hidden behind fluffy white clouds and I closed my eyes, imagining that there was a heaven. “Please forgive me,” I whispered.

  * * *

  A sea of people moved around my living room, and all I could hear was the beating of my heart in my ears. Everyone had come back to my house after the burial for coffee and tea. AJ was safely tucked away in his crib as some of Bruce’s friends and family members made small talk, but I was in no mood to hold a conversation. I watched their lips move, and heard the mumbled sounds that escaped their mouths, but as far as understanding what they were saying, I had no clue.

  “Drink this,” Leslie said as she sat on the couch next to me. She handed me a mug with dark liquid inside.

  “I’m already unable to sleep.” My hand hugged the mug. “Coffee will only make that worse.”

  “It’s not coffee,” she whispered. “It’s a lot of rum with a splash of Coke.” She placed her hand on my knee. “You need a little something to help you through this.”

  “Thank you,” I said with a sigh of relief. The alcohol would soothe the pain and kick the effects of my pills a step higher.

  One cup.

  Two cups.

  Three cups.

  By the third one, my mind was a fog and none of what had happened mattered. “One more,” I whispered to Leslie, who had not left my side.

  “Wait a bit,” she quipped. “There are still people here and your eyes are getting glassy.”

  “Come on, Les.” I pouted and lay my head on the pillow. “I’m a widow, for crying out loud. No one here really expects me to be normal.” I glanced around the room. Their eyes were on me as they waited for my next move. “What?” I said to an old man sitting in the corner of the room. I believed he was Bruce’s boss. Well, Bruce’s former boss. “Have you never seen anyone drunk before?” I tried to stand, but my body felt heavy and my vision split in two. “I just lost my goddamn husband! I’ve earned the right to be intoxicated.”

  “Stephanie . . .” Sue walked over to me with a glass of water. “Drink, this sweetie,” she said in her caring southern voice.

  I squinted at her. “I need more rum, not water.”

  “Okay,” she said in a calming voice and turned back to the kitchen. I assumed she rushed to the kitchen filled with embarrassment and not to get me my drink.

  When she was no longer in sight, I looked over at Leslie. Her lips were pursed together, and her eyebrows furrowed. I knew she felt she was to blame for my actions, but that wasn’t true. I never told anyone about the pills I was on. She had no idea what the alcohol was doing to me. I simply didn’t want to feel anymore.

  “I don’t know why Sue is so nice to me,” I felt dizzy and glanced up at the ceiling.

  “Because you just lost your husband,” Leslie answered.

  “Yeah, but she lost her son.” I inhaled, trying to make the room stop spinning.

  “Everyone grieves differently.”

  “I wonder how differently she would be grieving if she knew I killed Bruce,” I said before opening my eyes.

  The crashing of dishes silenced the room once and for all. “What did you say?” Rosie looked at me. She had walked into the living room with more plates for the buffet table.

  “What?” I slurred.

  “You said you killed Bruce.” Her eyes filled with tears.

  “I did.” I stood from the couch and spun around, taking in everyone’s pity. “We had a fight right before it happened. Right here, actually.” I patted the couch. “It was my fault he stormed out of here. It was my fault that his attention wasn’t on the road. Because I was a needy wife who told him I wish we’d never gotten married. That I wished he would disappear.” I threw my head back, fell on the couch and crossed my arms like the genie in that TV show. “Wish granted.”

  Sue gasped as she walked into the living room.

  “Stephanie, that’s enough,” my mother said to me from the other side of the room.

  “What?” I swatted the air toward my mother. “It’s true. You’re all sitting here saying Poor Stephanie, she lost her husband, when in reality, I wished him away.” I stood rapidly, and all my blood rushed to my head. I stumbled from side to side. “It’s all my fault. You’re all thinking it. I was the one who made him a vegetable and then turned off the machine.”

  “Come with me.” Leslie shot up from the couch and wrapped her delicate fingers around my arm. Loud whispers and cries followed behind me as Leslie led me to my bedroom. Closing the door behind her, she sat me on my bed. My lips pursed together as my head began to pound.

  “What was that all about?” Her eyebrows furrowed, and she placed her hands on her hips.

  “How mad do you think everyone is?” I sat on my bed and my head lolled to the side. “Do you think it’s enough to make them all leave my fucking house?” I fell forward and let the comforter cool my skin.

  “That doesn’t matter, babe.” She shut the blinds. “Today you’re allowed to go crazy, but I only gave you three small mugs of rum. How did it hit you so quickly?” She walked over to me and pulled off my heels.

  “Anti-depressants.” I flopped back on the bed. “You know, so I don’t kill myself because of the guilt.” I covered my face, embarrassed that everyone knew what a terrible human being I was. “What kind of a person says that to their husband?”

  “No one is perfect.” She sat on the bed next to me. “I’m sure you had your reasons.”

  “Bruce was perfect.” I crawled up his side of the bed and wrapped myself around his pillow. “Fucking perfect. Perfect. Oh, so perfect.”

  “I’m sure he had his flaws.” She brushed my hair away from my face.

  “He never wished I’d die,” I cried. “Bruce’s only flaws were that he didn’t know how to divide his love between me and AJ, and because I was selfish, he died.”

  Leslie stood and pulled the cover over my body. “Why don’t you close your eyes for a bit? I’ll come check on you a little later.”

  I nodded before inhaling Bruce’s scent. Sleep was calling for me, and for the first time since the accident, I didn’t fight it. I let it take me under.

  * * *

  A week had passed since the funeral. I spent every day curled up on the couch with AJ in my arms. I didn’t answer the phone. I didn’t open the door. I didn’t care to read the police report. With a fridge filled with food from family and friends, we simply sat and avoided the world. I was empty inside, and the more I sat in the house, the more depressed I got. A part of me kept waiting for Bruce to walk in through the door. I wanted him to be Ricky Ricardo bellowing through the house, “Stephanie, I’m home!”

  The nights were the worst. I permanently moved AJ out of his crib and into bed with me. Every whimper, movement or turn he made, I sat up, petrified that God was taking him from me, too.

  By the second week, I couldn’t breathe in my own house. I felt as if the walls were closing in on me. After the incident at the funeral, I chose to stop all the medications the doctors had prescribed me. The pills made it impossible to care for AJ, but without them, I felt as if my world was caving in. The pressure on my chest was unbearable, and insomnia kept me up at random hours of the night.

  One night, about three weeks after Bruce passed, I held AJ in my arms as he fell into a deep slumber and admired his eyelashes. They were long and full, and at that moment, when all was calm, I had this small shred of hope that there was a good plan out there for us. That maybe there was some sort of light at the end of it all because AJ was my light, and as long as I had him, I’d be okay. We’d be okay.

  I couldn’t stay here any longer. This was a home that Bruce and I built together. This was where we had planned to raise our family, and I couldn’t live in a home that was made with such love but was now filled with guilt. So, I did the only sane th
ing a person in my shoes would do. I packed up everything that was valuable or important, and placed a sleeping AJ in his car seat.

  I didn’t know where life was about to take us, but we couldn’t be here anymore.

  20

  Present

  “What?” I said confused. “How?”

  “On March tenth, four years ago, I was a surgical resident at St Michael’s Hospital—”

  “I don’t understand?” I cut him off. “You’re a pediatrician.”

  “I am now,” he said, placing a hand on my knee. He shifted to face me, and his eyes met mine for the first time. “But when I first finished med school, I wanted to be a pediatric surgeon. Lucy suffers from cardiomyopathy, and when I was younger, most of my teenage years were spent in hospital rooms with her. She was the reason I went to med school. I swore I would cure her.” He paused and swallowed. Slowly, he took his hand off my knee, and his eyes pulled away from my gaze. “But the day your husband died, I walked away from being a surgeon altogether.”

  Unable to utter a sound, I ran my hands through my hair and massaged my scalp with my fingertips. “I don’t understand.” I shook my head, replaying that day in my head. “I spoke to many doctors that day, but I don’t remember you.”

  “I’d worked a forty-eight-hour shift plus an emergency surgery. I was exhausted when I was done. I know now that I should’ve stayed and slept it off, but I chose to drive home,” Luke said, and I shook my head as my body trembled. “I fell asleep at the wheel. It was for a split second, but when I woke up I was driving toward oncoming traffic. My car had hopped the small median, and when I slammed on my brakes, a car swerved to avoid colliding with me. It went down a ditch and wrapped itself around a tree.”