Vital Sign

by J. L. Mac

  Zander’s eyes are tender and pleading, which rips and claws at my already shredded heart. He lifts a hand, placing it against my cheek. He’s trembling and it kills me. I reflexively lean into his touch. It’s magnetic. It pulls at me every time I’m near and there never has been much resisting it.

  “What is it that you were born to do, Zander?” I ask, knowing that what he has to say is going to hurt, but it may give me the strength to go through with what I know I have to do. It may give me the strength that it’s going to take for me to close Jake’s door so that I can walk through Zander’s open one.

  “To mend you when the world breaks you. To keep you safe. To tell you when you’re wrong but scream to the world that you’re right. To stand beside you no matter what comes our way. To wager my next breath, against all odds if I have to, just to see you happy. To love you.” He explains it simply, but the intensity burning in those sapphire eyes speaks to me the loudest of all.

  I see so much in those eyes. I have since they met with mine on the beach. Zander, more often than not, doesn’t require words where I’m concerned. He looks my direction and even with my back to him, I feel the weight of his gaze. My body has always turned to him involuntarily and responded to the summons that his dark blue eyes issue.

  “Zander…” I’m too weak to speak. I’m too weak to even stand here in front of him. I want so badly to be courageous and tell him that I want the exact same thing as him and that I wish I could be the same for him. I wish for so much that may never come to fruition. I’ll keep wishing, nonetheless.

  “Shush, baby. Come here.” He holds out his hand, inviting me to my favorite and most dreaded place on the planet.

  I put my hand in his and step into him, resting my ear against his chest. Listening. Absorbing. Feeling that familiar thump coming from within Zander’s muscle-planed chest. I absorb what I can so that the coming days, weeks, months, however long it takes, without him maybe be a little more bearable.

  “You have to let me do what I have to do. I can’t let you in here,” I say, stepping back from him and holding my hand to my chest, “…until I let Jake out.”

  Zander’s face contorts with the understanding of what I’m asking him to do.

  “Wait for me. Please just wait for me.”

  “I’ve been waiting for twenty-nine years, Sadie. What’s a little longer, right?” His sad smile nearly breaks me. “See ya, Slim,” Zander whispers, his voice tight with emotion. He plants a tender kiss on my forehead and then turns to walk away.

  I watch as the Lincoln drives away. If Zander looked back, I wouldn’t even know it, because I can’t see through the windows. He’s done what I asked him to do. He’s left me to do what I have to. So why the fuck does it hurt so much?

  ***

  May 1, 2013…

  I glance over to Mom, knowing that she’s ready to push and squeeze and corner me. I know that she loves me. I know that she wants the best for me. I know that she wants me to stop fighting against the current of my grief, but I can’t. I just don’t know how.

  “Sadie, it’s time to stop this.” She motions to my room, which has become a shrine to the love that was ripped from me. I don’t have to look around to see what she’s talking about. I know what she means. His laundry, his knick knacks, his shoes. It’s all here right where he left it.

  “Mom, please don’t start. Not now.” I shake my head, my hands held up.

  “If not now, then when, Sadie?” she snaps as she stomps further into my room, cornering me. “You sent that man away so that you can finally let go and yet here you are, still fighting! Still hanging on to the past!” she crows in a high-pitched voice. “When. Are. You. Going. To. Let. Go?” she whispers, her words a staccato.

  Pushed. Squeezed. Cornered.

  “When you’re seventy years old and your life has passed right by you? When your chance at love and children and any semblance of happiness has gone by?”

  “You just can’t give me an inch, can you?” I hiss.

  “An inch? Sadie, I’ve sat back for over two years watching you hate your life and everyone in it! Enough!” she snaps, her voice shaky and rife with desperation.

  “I’m not a child. Don’t talk to me like that. It’s hard, okay? I can’t help that I feel the way I feel.” I stand squared off against Mom, hating what’s coming but knowing that I need this. I need her to do what she does best. Push. Squeeze. Corner. It’s like ripping a bandage off, or downing a shot of tequila. No one enjoys those things. People don’t slowly peel up the adhesive edges of their bandage. No one slowly sips on a shot of cheap tequila so that they can revel in the burn. They take a deep breath and get it over with. I need to find courage and bravery to get it over with.

  “No, but you can certainly choose to let it all go, to stop pushing everyone away,” she pleads. “You can choose to let Jake go!”

  “I’m handling my grief how I want, Mom. I’ll figure it out,” I mumble, knowing that it’s a lie. I’m putting myself up on the gallows for Mom to crucify the demons that live within me. These demons that grief, bitterness, and isolation have spawned and nursed for 763 days.

  “Your brand of handling it isn’t handling it at all! He’s gone, Sadie. He’s not coming back. It’s time to stop this and let him go. Please!” she begs as her voice becomes shaky and full of emotion. She inches closer to me with her arms out, inviting me into the first safe place I’ve ever known. It’s the place that almost everyone feels safest. With your head on your mother’s shoulder, the world could be crumbling into nothingness, but you’d never know, because you’re in the safety of your mother’s arms.

  I shake my head and hold my finger up, signaling her to stop right there. I can’t do this. I won’t retreat to that safe place, or argue with her about Jake’s death or how I’m handling it. I can’t take it. I just need her to push my buttons like she’s good at so I can rip the bandage off. I’ve lost Jake and Zander and my heart can’t take anymore hurt. “Don’t. Not now.”

  “Yes. It’s time to go there, Sadie,” she insists stepping closer to me.

  “Don’t, Mom.”

  “You’ve got to trust me, Sadie,”

  “Stop!” I cry out, really meaning keep going. I think she knows. My mother knows me better than I know myself.

  “I won’t stop!” she reminds me, her voice rising. “Not until you let go. You’ve got to go there. You’ve gotta go to that place you’re most scared of. You have got to admit that he’s gone.”

  “Fine! Is this what you want?” I march into the closet and wrap my arms around as many of Jake’s clothes as I can, still on hangers, and rip them from the rack. Hangers fly in every direction. I storm out of the closet and hurl the clothes onto the bed. It should take every bit of strength I have to throw the heavy mass of garments, but the anger I feel makes the clothes feel feather light. “Come on, Mom! Tell me! Is this what you want from me? To get rid of all of his stuff? Make it look like he was never even here? Is this what I get for catching that man that night? Is this my punishment?” I stomp back into the closet and grab more clothes, pulling them from the rack like I’ve lost my mind. In truth, I may have.

  Mom stands at the foot of the bed, watching me carefully, her expression blank. I catch sight of the tears gathering in her eyes like heavy rain drops, ready to spill onto her cheeks. It’s the only evidence that proves this isn’t something she’s enjoying. The rational part of me knows that. The screwed up part of me can’t fathom that anyone could ever hurt this much but I do. I hurt so much that I can’t breathe.

  I hurry over to Jake’s nightstand and yank the top drawer completely from its rails. His trinkets, pieces of paper, business cards, a bottle of cologne and other miscellaneous things go flying into the air like confetti. “Is this what it takes?!” I scream at the top of my lungs. I stoop down to the floor in front of his nightstand. The second drawer is next to withstand my wrath. I pull it out and begin throwing the contents onto the carpeted floor. My eyes scan the room for
more evidence of Jake’s life. I get to my feet and round the bed to my side. My arm flies out, grabbing the framed picture of me and Jake from the top of my nightstand. It hits the wall and shatters. Sharp bits of glass scatter on the carpet.

  I’m hyperventilating now. My heart feels like it’s breaking all over again. I stumble across the room and back into the closet. I bend and scoop up the laundry basket with Jake’s last outfit sitting in the bottom. With the basket in front of me, I carry it out into the bedroom. Tears run like rivers down my face. I glance to Mom, looking, praying, pleading for her to stop me, to tell me I’ve done enough. To tell me I don’t have to do anymore of this. Not today. My silent plea goes unanswered. Mom eyes me and my basket without saying a word.

  “I can’t,” I whimper, my chest heaving in and out, giving in to my building sadness.

  “Yes, you can.” She nods her head, reassuring me like she used to when I was a little girl.

  “Mom,” I beg, clutching the basket like a life raft and I’m adrift in stormy seas. I cling to this stupid basket like the world may crumble away beneath my feet if I’m not careful.

  “You have to let him go, Sadie.”

  “I-I-I’m scared to lose him.” I confess. “What if I forget everything?”

  “You’re not scared of losin’ him,” she points out softly. “You’ve already lost him and we both know that. You’re scared of findin’ you. You don’t know who you really are without Jake. I get it, okay? But you can’t stop living out of fear of what you may end up seeing.”

  Mom holds her hands out to me like a peace offering or a saving grace. Maybe both. It’s enough to coax me away from where I stand. I sink to my knees with the basket resting in my lap, reaching in to pick up the softball jersey. I bury my soaked face into the fabric. I inhale deeply, seeking Jake’s scent, but it isn’t there anymore. Not there. Goddamn it, it’s not there! Not there. Never again. I’ll go the rest of my life wandering through this world trying desperately to just smell him. His fresh, manly sort of scent has become as good as a myth in my mind. The search for it doesn’t wane. It only taunts the whimpering shell that remains of my terrorized soul. My endless hunt for remnants, flickers, fleeting glimmers of Jake is a lost cause and yet I can’t stop. I plead with myself somewhere deep inside to stop. I scream at me to stop, but I can’t. It’s the most dismal feeling. I find it impossible to describe and even more impossible to withdraw myself from. Like a drug addiction of the most treacherous sort, my tenuous heart longs for that high. I yearn for that feeling of relief that I want so badly. With my eyes closed, I inhale slowly, deeply, hoping against hope that I’ll find what I seek.

  The shirt just smells like the closet, a mix of leather and rubber-soled shoes with faint traces of laundry detergent. No proof of Jake except for the laundry basket itself, which now seems to be the only vestige to prove that he ever even existed. I’ve just wrecked everything else. Grief clenches around my wounded heart, sucking the air from my lungs as it tightens down around me mercilessly.

  Mom gets to her knees in front of me. Her fingers tangle in the shirt I’m holding so tightly in my hands. I reflexively pull it to my chest. I don’t want her to take it, but at the same time, I want this ache to be gone. I want to free myself from this prison made of sweet memories and tragic circumstances. I can’t breathe, I can’t think, I can’t live.

  “He’s gone, Sade,” she whispers coaxingly as her fingers gently tug at the shirt. I shake my head in resistance. “Say it.”

  “Please, no,” I whimper, inaudibly gasping for air through my tears.

  “It’s time to let him go, Sade. Say it with me,” Mom pleads. “He’s gone.”

  “He’s gone.”

  “And he’s not coming back,” she leads me in a sort of mantra.

  “And h-he’s not—not coming back.” I hiccup.

  “Come on honey, let go,” Mom insists softly.

  My grip on the jersey loosens just a fraction, but it’s enough for the fabric to slip from my fingers. I watch, my vision blurred, as Mom shoves the jersey and the basket aside, scooting closer to me. Her arms envelope me and I’m pulled to her chest.

  “Shush, honey. It’s all over now. It’s all over,” she coos tearfully in my ear, rocking me to and fro like a child. My body quakes and trembles against hers as interminable tears of release bubble to the surface and overtake me.

  I haven’t allowed myself this. I haven’t given in to this kind of resignation to the truth. I’ve done quite the opposite for two years. I’ve fought so hard against this in some strange attempt to protect myself against more pain. Maybe somewhere in my tormented brain I thought that I could deny the grief and somehow I could keep Jake alive that way. Once you grieve for someone, it’s like that’s it—they’re really, really gone at that point. A person is born, lives, dies, and the people who love them grieve until the grieving is done and that’s it. I’ve never wanted to have a “that’s it” where Jake is concerned. Even though it has ripped my life apart, hurt the people around me, ended my potential career, and dashed my hopes of being with Zander, I’ve denied mourning because, in my mind, that would’ve been the end of Jake. I had no way of knowing that resisting grief also meant resisting life. My therapist might’ve told me something like that, I think. I heard him but I wasn’t listening.

  I’m listening now.

  I know more clearly than ever that I’ve grieved not just for the loss of Jake and the history that we shared…I’ve been grieving for the loss of myself too. I was no longer a wife, no longer one of a pair—who the hell was I?

  When Jake died, I think I lost a major part of my own identity right along with him. His heart stopped only for a while before it was forced to beat again in its new home. Zander’s chest. That heart that I had drifted off to the unremitting thrum of so many times was going to beat on. It was meant to thrive. It had so many more beats left in it and yet…my own heart seemed to seize. It locked down like a petrified artifact from some long lost chapter in time when I was happy and my heart was full. My own heart, at least figuratively, had become static within me. It was lost without Jake. All of me was lost without Jake. I had become my very own Atlantis.

  I miss him.

  I miss me too.

  I miss Zander most.

  ***

  May 10, 2013

  Talking to the real estate agent was far more difficult than I had anticipated. I can’t sell the house. I don’t know what in the hell I was thinking.

  Once I’ve pulled my car into the driveway and put it in park, my head falls forward to rest against the steering wheel. The last couple weeks’ events have pushed me to the pinnacle of my breaking point. I seal my eyes tightly shut and fight against the tingling sensation in my nose that tells me tears are forming. I fight hard and try to play Jake’s words in my head. I know which ones I’m searching for. I’ve played them back to myself more times than I could possibly count. I squeeze my eyes shut even tighter and grip the steering wheel as if holding on for dear life. I wait to hear his voice. I wait to hear the words from my first love as a monsoon of emotion is dangerously close to ripping through my resolve to be strong. That’s all I want. That’s all I need. I have to hear those words he used to say to me. Please, I beg inwardly. Tell me to be strong.

  “Read the letter, Sadie. It’s time.”

  Words come, but they aren’t the ones I know. They aren’t Jake’s words. They’re Zander’s words. The weight of exactly how much I’ve missed him bears down on me and in one gasping cry outward, all strength abandons me. My head lifts of its own volition, directing my blurred vision skyward, eerily similar to the day Zander found me in the water, and for me, it’s like Jake has died all over again. Except I know I’m crying for the loss of both men. I’m crying for the loss of myself, for the loss of my will to live life, my will to be happy. I’m crying because I know Zander is right. It’s time to read Jake’s letter. I can’t avoid it anymore.

  My sobbing reverberates throughout my car. My
diaphragm cramps painfully, but the aching does nothing to slow my tears. I cry harder and harder until sheer exhaustion has won the battle I just waged with myself. My red, puffy eyes become an inconvenience to keep open. Somehow I grip the handle of the door just enough to unlatch it, swinging it open, giving me an exit. I clamber out of the driver’s seat, dragging my purse with me. Thank God the walk to my front door is a short trip, because my meltdown has thoroughly exhausted my body.

  I collapse on the couch on my left side, facing my purse, which is on the coffee table near the window. I watch the purse numbly. I guess some dormant part of my conscience is urging me to reach inside the pocket and get out the worn envelope with Jake’s handwriting on the front. I know I need to, but I’m scared. I’m so damn scared. Reading his letter makes things so…final.

  Be strong, Sadie. I recite to myself the words that Jake told me so many times.

  It’s time, Sadie.

  I add Zander’s words, because they too have meant so much to me. He’s so much of the reason why I want to imagine my future in a positive light. He’s given me so much more than I’ve given him. Looking back on the awful way I acted when we first met gives me the incentive to make the final push towards closure. I leap forward off the bed and snag my purse. Without thought, I pull the letter from the side pocket that it has sat in for so long and slip my index finger beneath the flap. I slide my finger along the seam of the envelope, breaking the adhesive seal as I go. With one deep breath, I brace myself for a second goodbye. A final farewell.

  Sadie,

  Most would think that writing this letter is morbid and it may be. But not writing it is something I can’t do.

  If your beautiful eyes ever meet this page, it’s because something has happened to me. I hope that life has something better in store for us, but things happen in my line of work, so there are things that I must make sure you know. I could never have the right words to tell you what you mean to me, but I’ll try.