by Mara White
“Hey, Scotty, wait up!” he hollered and ran to catch up with his brothers.
Later that afternoon when his father returned, he told him about the cat on Redcliff Road.
“I saw a dead cat. I think it got hit by a car.”
“That’s too bad,” Cal said rather absentmindedly. He was looking for the iron to help Andres put new patches on his hockey jersey.
After dinner that night when his mother was washing dishes, Ryan heard her say to Cal: “You know, Trixie never came home for her dinner.” Trixie was an outdoor cat with a penchant for mischief but she always made it back to the Walter’s friendly Cape Cod for her nightly can of Fancy Feast. Cal checked the cat door in the kitchen he and boys had made to make sure that it was working. He went out into the yard and whistled for the cat, as if she would come running like a dog. He came back inside and looked curiously at Ryan.
“Come out on the back porch with me, son,” he said. Ryan followed him out, hands in his pockets. His mother stopped with the dishes, wiped her hands and moved to the back door.
“What did the dead cat you saw on Redcliff today look like, Ryan?”
“Kind of like Tiger, with the same the kind of fur.”
Cal placed a firm hand on his son’s shoulder and squeezed. He knew Ryan to be the best looking and most naturally athletic of all his sons. Ryan was tenderhearted and sensitive, too, he was the only one whose young heart was already full of compassion and empathy way beyond his years.
Ryan watched in confusion as tears sprung to his mother’s eyes. She put her hand to her lips and quickly turned from the door.
“How do you know the cat you saw wasn’t our Tiger?” Cal asked.
“Well,” Ryan thought the answer was pretty obvious, he didn’t know what his father was getting at. “She had mean teeth and her eyes looked mean, too. Her fur was the same color but it was all sticky and not smooth.” Ryan answered assuredly.
“Okay,” Cal nodded. He took his son by the hand and brought him into the kitchen. He got some garbage bags from under the sink and threw in Diane’s gloves from the dishes. When they went down the front steps of the house, Cal stopped to get the snow shovel from the garage, which he handed to Ryan. Ryan dragged his sneakers as he led his father all the way back to Redcliff Drive. It was nearly dark when they got there.
The cat lay in the same spot with the same grim look upon her face, and the wind blew against her fur, parting it and exposing her pale flesh underneath. Cal leaned down and gingerly placed a garbage bag over her body, tucking the corners underneath the cat.
Without a word the two of them got Trixie into a bag, Ryan holding it open and Cal wielding the shovel. By the time they made their way to the back yard, it was already dark. Cal turned on the porch light and ran an extension cord with a blaring single caged bulb while he dug a hole next to Pepe, the deceased Guinea pig. Ryan helped mechanically and worried a bit that he hadn’t done his homework for tomorrow. When they lowered the cat’s body into the hole, Ryan’s shoulders began to shake uncontrollably. His father handed him the last shovel full of dirt and as he tipped it, cold tears raced down his face.
His father retrieved a football from inside the shed. He tossed it to Ryan, who caught it expertly already at seven. Ryan ran a few feet farther into their yard and spun the hell out of the ball as he threw it as hard as he could at his father. They tossed the ball back and forth almost violently, until Ryan’s deluge of tears had subsided. By the time they went back inside, the house was entirely dark and silent. Ryan brushed his teeth and Cal helped him into his pajamas.
“I hate God,” Ryan whispered to his father, as he tucked him into his bunk. Cal kneeled on the floor and put his hand on Ryan’s chest.
“Sometimes God takes away what we love. We have to accept his lessons, even when we don’t like them.”
“She didn’t do anything wrong!”
“We don’t control the world, Ryan. We are just visitors.”
Ryan felt full of rage and he obsessed over the spot by his pillow where Tiger liked to sleep. He touched it with his hand and then smoothed it out, just how she liked it.
Cal kissed his son’s cheek.
“I know this hurts.”
It was all the comfort his father could give him, but he held his son’s hand tightly until he was sure he’d fallen asleep.
Chapter 50
Ryan
Jenny walked with him, squeezing both of his hands. He knew he was in shock and his body and mind refused to absorb the information she was giving. When they’d made it to the desk at the Emergency Room, Ryan felt like he was having an out of body experience. He remembered suddenly that he didn’t like Jenny because she never appreciated Jackie enough. Then he hated the whole driving school because they didn’t screen her clients and how could he keep her safe if the people getting into the car with her weren’t even properly filtered by the employer. Next, his brain raged about marriage licensing and why you needed a stupid piece of paper in the first place. He didn’t want to say fiancé́ anymore, he wanted to say husband. Jackie was his wife. His whole life.
He didn’t like the young man in scrubs and a mask either who kept telling him, “sorry,” every other world that left his mouth. And he seemed too young in the first place to be running operations in an emergency room as big as UCSF. What he really felt like doing was apologizing to them all, telling them he was sorry they’d all gotten it so wrong. That Jackie was at home, eating cold cereal in their sunny kitchen, or else out walking Digby or filling the planter boxes like she’d written on her “to-do” list on their refrigerator. Their refrigerator. He felt like he was going to collapse. Jenny, who he didn’t like, seemed to be supporting most of his body weight.
“They’ll remove a small piece from her skull to relieve the enormous amount of pressure.” Ryan heard the words like an echo chamber, as if someone were throwing them down the hallway instead of speaking directly to him.
“Bleeding on the brain.”
Ryan’s blood pressure seemed to surge and then fall. He wondered how Jenny was so strong to support a man at least twice her size. He wanted to ask Jackie if Jenny lifted weights at the gym.
“Compound break to the femur, multiple broken ribs, hematoma on the liver and kidneys, serious contusion to the face that has caused a partial collapse of the temporal portion of the skull.”
Ryan hated the word skull. He thought of Jackie’s soft, beautiful face. It was the opposite of the word skull. Her temple, her cheekbone where his lips would fall so perfectly. How in that kiss he could feel her smile rise under his lips and her skin would warm ever so slightly when a blush rose to that sacred spot.
“I think I’m going to be sick.” He heard himself say it but didn’t recognize his own voice. Things become so distorted in death, he thought as strong Jenny yanked him to a nearby garbage can where he emptied the contents of his stomach. They brought him a water. Then later a coffee and a tiny cup of Pepto. Next they brought him a blanket and then a little pillow. Ryan stared at the wall and watched the shadow of the setting sun move across the room. When night fell, the pace of the ER picked up, more admits, more EMTs racing by with gurneys.
Jenny took his phone to make the call to Jackie’s dad. He knew he should do it, knew it, but couldn’t. Someone brought him socks, short blue ones with non-slip bottoms. Jenny brought him more coffee, which he just clutched in two hands until the heat slowly disappeared.
The next person to come talk to them was a young black female doctor who introduced herself as Sabine. She said the words, “ICU,” and “very critical,” and Ryan’s least favorite, the phrase, “multiple life threatening injuries.” Jenny did most of the talking, she couldn’t keep any part of herself still.
“When can we see her?” Jenny asked. Good question, Ryan thought. He felt unable to form words. He wondered how long someone has to stay in the hospital after having a “portion of their skull removed.” He hoped it wasn’t too long. Could he bring Jackie home with
a hole in her head? She could just watch movies on the couch and he would take care of the rest. He’d seen some bad injuries in Guatemala. Someone lost an eye in a fall from a Chicle tree. He wished Barbara and Jonah were here. They were so good with emergencies.
Jenny paced the whole rectangle of the room, switched directions every ten minutes or so. Ryan sat. He held his jaw so fixed, that it began to give him a migraine.
At three A.M., he awoke with a start. Jenny was asleep across from him, with the blanket and a pillow. She’d placed a Snickers bar on his lap while he slept like the Easter bunny.
His head felt clear, his vision sharp. Reason had returned like an icepick stabbed through his heart. He shook her awake and told her to go home.
“Are you sure?” She asked, eyes wide. They were bloodshot and dry. She was a good friend and Ryan felt like an asshole for being angry at her for delivering the news.
“Yeah. Feed Digby, maybe give him a walk?” he asked her. He tossed her his keys and she caught them. He noticed his cell phone battery was dead and he thought it was symbolic because he felt like he’d never need to talk to anyone else ever again.
He walked toward the nurse’s station, finally this time, not dragging his feet.
“I need to see her. I’ll suit up. Do whatever it takes,” he mumbled to the woman behind the desk. She bit her lip and nodded, pressed the call button and motioned him to a door across the hallway.
He met with Sabine and another doctor he couldn’t remember if he’d already spoken with. Ryan was still wearing his scrubs but they gave him a clean set and surgical booties, a hat and a mask. He heard only a few words as he stared at their feet and wondered why all the doctors wore clogs instead of sneakers. He made the mistake of letting his mind wander to Jackie’s little, perpetually cold feet and her absurd love of flip-flops.
“Ventilator.”
“Induced coma.”
“Severe swelling on the brain.”
“Unrecognizable due to facial trauma.”
“Internal bleeding.”
“Advanced directive.”
“Life support.”
He wanted to wave away their words, tell them to stop being so dramatic. But with clarity came acceptance. These words were reality.
Ryan emitted no sound but he was crying. His sobs felt like physical assaults of pain being inflicted on his body. He bent forward and clutched at the sterile items they’d given him.
“Will she live?” His voice clawed its way out of his chest. He sounded raw, wounded and hopeless, like a man asking for a life vest or flotation device when he already knew there weren’t any left.
Chapter 51
Ryan
Ryan dragged a hand down the wall for balance and for a simple reality check. A stationary wall helped him to feel like he wasn’t dreaming. The nurse brought him to a back corner of the Intensive Care Unit and pulled back the curtains. Ryan stood there blinking in the harsh, insensitive light, because he couldn’t rush to her—there was nowhere to stand. Jackie was enshrouded by machines. The nurse motioned him to walk around the bed to the other side. He saw Jackie’s arm. It lay against the white sheet. Her arm looked perfect, her taut golden skin that was never olive or pink, seemed to retain some eternal sunshine year round, like she’d recently been to the beach.
As he came around the far side of the bed, Ryan could make out that her face was mostly obscured by gauze bandages. He could only see the lower right portion, her chin, her lips, a fraction of her nose.
The nurse moved a few of the machines that were on wheels to make a space for Ryan to get closer to the bed. He wrapped his fingers around Jackie’s exposed arm. It was warm. There was still so much life in her, he was gripped with disabling relief.
“Jack, I’m here!” he choked, as he lay his face on her arm. He kissed the length of her arm, leaving a trail of wet tears along that one perfect part of her. The nurse brought a chair and Ryan’s knees finally gave out. He slid out of the chair onto his knees and held onto her hand. With his forehead against the cold metal of the bedside, he asked God to please give him one more chance.
Calvin and Diane arrived by mid-morning. He met them in the hallway as the doctors wanted only next of kin, so that Jackie was exposed to as little infection risk as possible. He emerged from the ICU like a vampire stepping into the sun. He hadn’t slept or eaten. He’d spent the entire night and morning holding Jackie’s hand and praying to God.
He fell into Diane’s outstretched arms and his father grabbed them both.
“The whole congregation is praying, Ryan. We called a special prayer service last night after Jenny called and everyone in the community showed up.” Ryan nodded, fresh tears starting to fall. He felt like telling his father that prayers weren’t going to be enough. They needed a miracle, a time-traveling machine. Ryan needed to believe that there was hope but it was plain to see that the kind of hope he wanted to hang on to would be delusional.
“What are they saying, son?” Calvin asked him. He could tell that both of his parents had been crying.
“Not good, dad. Even if by some miracle she wakes up, there’s been permanent damage done to her brain from the impact and the swelling. They have her on life support already and from what the EEG scans are saying, she’s what they would deem brain dead.” He let the words go and wanted to physically push the awful words off of his chest. As if casting them off could somehow lessen their damage.
His mother crushed him harder and began to openly sob.
“Poor, dear Jackie. Oh Lord, her father!” Diane exclaimed, as it dawned on her what a sick and cruel injustice this meant to Jackie’s father—to lose every woman in his family in a deeply tragic manner. “Has anyone called Rose?”
“I think Jenny did. Everything’s been a blur. I think Jenny said she’s on a flight.”
All Ryan wanted to do was step into the back yard with his dad and toss the football back and forth to release some of the rage, until his body burned with the output and some of the demons had escaped. But he knew that it would be a long time before that would happen again. He wouldn’t leave Jackie’s side as long as blood rushed through her veins. And even if it was only the slightest possibility that she could hear him. Ryan wanted the sound of his voice to wrap around her heart and his words to protect her.
“Mom, suit up and go in with her. I’m running over to Physical Therapy to shower in the locker room and I’ll be right back. Ten minutes.”
Those ten minutes of respite were all he got in the next forty eight hours. The rest of the time he sat, prayed and slept steadfastly by her side. The pace of the machines never changed, her heart and brain remained at a steady rate, showing no sign of recovery.
Ryan watched the sun set and the sun rise and he realized that these would be the last he would see with Jackie Bowen by his side. He caressed her arm and he kissed the side of her chin that was exposed, whispered prayers in her uncovered ear and told her how much he loved her. Ryan didn’t want to dwell on the time they were separated and what had happened in their pasts. But he did let her know that she was the love of his life, his one and only, his heartsong and soulfire.
“Any of those times in college, Jack. any single one. Had you ever said stop, let’s stop playing games, let’s stop being scared. I would have been ready for you, baby. I would have straightened up and stuck by your side forever. Anytime I acted like an asshole, it was because I was so in love with you, that I couldn’t even see straight. Jackie Bowen, you are my light. I’ll love you to eternity and back and even if you can’t be here with me, I’ll keep loving you, alright? Cause flesh withers and bodies die, but this light doesn’t go out,” Ryan pounded on his chest. His heart was a burden the size of a whale, but he wouldn’t let Jackie hear that part. Only strength as she waned, only love as she faded. Because the joy that Jackie brought him far outweighed the misery and he couldn’t let her leave this life believing that she’d done something wrong or caused him too much pain. And beyond that, down the roa
d into whatever his future would bring? He knew that he could survive it and he knew this for one reason only. He’d seen Jackie herself do it. She was hit with a crippling loss, not once, but twice and Jackie, like a fucking Phoenix had walked right back up out of hell and into Ryan’s arms. He would follow Jackie’s lead and vowed to her that he’d never give up.
Funny thing was, Jackie did have an advanced directive and she wanted no part in being a vegetable for anyone to tend to. Jackie Bowen had donated her whole damn body to science and Ryan smiled and wept at her spitfire that burned from beyond. Mr. Bowen had spoken to Diane and he didn’t want to come to California and nobody questioned it. Because what could any of them possibly say to a man who’d lost it all? It will get better? There’s a reason behind it? It all sounded like platitudes and reeked of bullshit.
Ryan requested to be alone with Jackie when they shut down the machines and upon request they maneuvered her body so that Ryan could lie beside her and hold her while he said goodbye. And unbelievably, even to him, it felt like a beautiful and free release as one by one, they clicked off those machines and pulled the tubes from her body. Ryan held her cradled in his arms. His tears splashed on her face as he watched the most precious life to him ascend.
“I love you, Jack. Thank you for everything you gave me.”
Ryan held her and rocked her and kissed her arm and that one unscathed span of her chin, her delicate jaw.
He thanked her over and over again for sharing his love.
Chapter 52
Ryan
Had life and death been a perfectly acted play, he would have made mad love to Jackie Bowen, kissed her on the mouth and whispered, I love you to the moon and back, before he left for work that day. Or he would have answered the tragic call that his phone received a little after four that day. Had it been an accidental call or the very last thing Jackie willfully did, he would have answered and proclaimed, I love you, I love you, I love you, a million times until his or her breath wasted away. But neither of those scenarios was the reality Ryan lived with and “Don’t forget to pick up the dog food,” weighed more heavily on his shoulders than any words English or any other human language for that matter. But at the same time he was thankful for Digby. His twice daily runs with the dog were what got him out of his bed every morning, face swollen from crying himself to sleep. There were three senseless holes punched in the drywall in their bedroom and Jackie’s full length mirror had been shattered by his fist when the lawyer called to tell him the results for blood alcohol level of the man who had jack-knifed her that fateful Thursday. Some days he wanted to kill someone—the driver in particular and other days he wanted to pull the shades down and the covers up and not let even a peep of light in.
