Thirty Hours: a semi memoir of psychosis and love

by KL Evans

  3:59 AM

  She is still warm. I am marginally aware of the fact that I’m approaching bat-shit crazy, but I’m holding it together. I’m also running out of things to tell her.

  “Ava brought me a charger at around ten yesterday morning,” I say, still holding her hand. She’s still warm. At this moment, my hands are cold.

  Over the past thirty hours, my hands have vacillated between cold and hot, and dry and clammy. Hers have remained a constant warm. Just warm. A nice, still, consistent warm.

  “She had to go buy one since mine is at the house. I didn’t want her to go in there. I don’t know if anyone’s allowed to go in there yet. I don’t know what’s going to happen to it.”

  I don’t want to think about the house. That goddamned crime scene that’s home to a bunch of memories that are simultaneously precious to me and that I wish I’d never made.

  “Then at around five,” I go on, “she and Missy came with grilled chicken and Caesar salad because Missy didn’t like the idea of me eating hospital food. She said it’s usually terrible and if I’m going to be awake this long I should eat something nutritious. They brought coffee too, and I drank that. I couldn’t eat any of the food. I don’t really feel like eating.”

  I am very mindful to watch her eyelids often. If they happen to flinch, I need to see it. It’s the same reason I can’t let go of her hand; just in case she twitches a finger. I have replayed the scenario in my mind over and over.

  Her eyelids flinch. Or her finger twitches. Then I repeatedly mash the call button while hollering for Ginny Baker, whom I first encountered when I came to see Jade and who began her shift at 5 PM.

  Ginny! I can see myself yelling and pressing the button. It’s working! She’s responding!

  It hasn’t happened yet, but I’m ready in the event that it does.

  I exhale loudly and attempt to roll the stiffness out of my neck and shoulders. “You know, Charlie, you ought to hand it to me. When I first met you, there’s no way in hell I would have ever stayed awake this long. Or skipped a shower. Or skipped shaving.” I rub the scant stubble on my chin. There’s not much. I couldn’t grow a beard if my life depended on it. “I was really anal retentive when we met. I’ve loosened up a lot, don’t you think?”

  I stare at her closed, unflinching eyelids and I want to see the gray-blue so badly that I’m tempted to peel them open with my fingers. To satiate that desire, I stroke her forehead for the umpteenth time.

  “That’s how good you’ve been for me, you know?”

  I’m really trying, but the well of words has dried up and that feels wrong. How many people wish for an opportunity like this? To know death is impending and to have the chance to tell a loved one everything they want to tell them? I feel like I’m wasting it, but I can’t think of anything else to say to her except—

  “Charlie, look at me. I know, at least on some level, you can hear me. So look at me. Or squeeze my hand. Or something. Just give me a sign that you can hear me.”

  The heart monitor chirps steadily. The ventilators inhale and exhale for her. I hear footsteps approach the door, and then I hear a quick knock before the door opens.

  “Seth.” The voice belongs to Ginny Baker, who commented on my article about her and told me how hard it was for her to order Jade off life support, and who is now standing in the room holding a stack of papers.

  The sight of the papers causes my stomach to curdle and my hands instantly grow hot because I know what they are. I drop her hand and spring from the chair. “Ginny, can I just have like, maybe fifteen more—”

  “I’m so sorry, Seth.” I don’t think nurses typically cry in these situations. After all, I’ve spent my fair share of time around nurses during tragic circumstances and know they’re battle-hardened and tough. They can mask their emotions better than anyone and Ginny is no exception. But even she knows this is different and the rims of her eyes are suddenly a darker shade of red. The tip of her nose is a little pinker than it was even ten seconds ago. “We’re all out of time.”

  “I know,” I agree, sounding like I’m pleading because I am. “I know we are, but can I please just have like five minutes?”

  “Seth—“

  “Two minutes?”

  She sighs almost inaudibly. “Two minutes. I’ll be right outside, but then I have to come back.”

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  As soon as the door shuts, I spin on the balls of my feet, march toward the bed, and every fiber of me wants to slap her back into consciousness. And I almost do, but opt instead to grip the bedrails and get in her face.

  “Charlie, you need to open your eyes. You need to look at me. This is it. It’s all over. This is the end. So if you don’t open your fucking eyes right now, you’re done.”

  She doesn’t.

  “It’s over, Charlie. And you haven’t even made an effort. I’ve been doing all the work for the past thirty hours and all you’ve done is just lay there. It’s time to fight, okay? You need to pull something from way deep down inside of you and claw your way back like your life depends on it, because guess what? It does.”

  The monitor is chirping and I feel like Ginny is probably peeking through small, square window in the door, watching me completely lose the very last ounce of my composure and sanity.

  “I don’t fucking understand you. Do you really want to die? There’s nothing after this, Charlie. This is it. You’re not going to be reunited with Jade. You’re not going to meet up with your parents and it’s not going to be some magically perfect reunion in a bunch of happy, puffy clouds. You’re only twenty-four years old. You have so much time left to do whatever you want. You can’t possibly believe there’s literally nothing left for you. You can’t possibly believe that this temporary funk you’re in deserves a permanent solution like this. You can’t possibly believe that you won’t eventually get over your grief or that you won’t find something else to live for.”

  She is still and silent and I wipe the sweat off my brow.

  “Charlie, I know I’m not Jade, but I’m something. I could be your something. I could be your reason. Or I could even be your temporary reason until you find your real reason. I’m totally fine with being a placeholder. I can help you find something in life that’s worth living for. If you just gave us some time, we could be worth living for. You didn’t even give us a chance. We had all the potential to be amazing and happy together. Do you even realize what you’ve…”

  My jaw is gaping and I can barely see her through a bleary film on my eyes.

  I blink.

  Stage five: acceptance.

  “You’re not even in there anymore, are you? You haven’t been here this whole time, have you? You haven’t heard a word I’ve said. You haven’t heard my side of the story.”

  And because she hasn’t heard my side of the story, the cruel reality abruptly sets in. “You don’t know. The last thing you knew about me was that I was mad at you and that I wasn’t attached to you. That’s the last thing I said to you. You don’t know because I never told you until I was sitting in here with you. And that’s probably why we’re here like this. If I had told you before…”

  The knock sounds again and the door opens. “Seth.”

  I release my vise grip on the bedrails and move my hands to her cheeks. Still warm. I know she can’t hear me. I don’t say it for her. I had that chance umpteen times and wasted it because I am selfish. I am still selfish and I say it for me.

  “I love you, Charlie.”

  I stand up straight and turn to Ginny, who still wears red-rimmed eyes and a pink-tipped nose. “Do I need to leave?”

  “No,” she says, and her voice is quiet and kind. “You can stay. You should stay. If you want to.”

  “I’d like to.” I opt to stand because I’m not going to sit, because fuck that creepy voice.

  Time seems to simultaneously speed up and drag along as Ginny flips a switch. She flips another switch. She flips one more switch, and then, with carin
g, gentle hands, removes the ventilator and I once again have an unobstructed view of those lips.

  The atmosphere in the room is suddenly filled with a high-pitched buzz and a sigh so quiet I wouldn’t have heard it had I not been listening for it, and I think of the children’s book she told me to read months ago. The last breath exits her lungs as her chest falls and, in a way, it sounds like farewell.

  Goodbye, Charlotte whispered. Then she summoned all her strength and waved one of her front legs at him. She never moved again.

  Ginny flips the last switch and the room is perfectly hushed.

  “Time of death, 3:59.”

  I expected those words, and yet, they are like a sucker punch to the gut.

  You can expect it. You can know it’s coming. You can prepare in every possible way. You can convince yourself that you’re ready. You can grit your teeth and steel yourself. You can even look completely fine from all outward appearances. But nothing you do can prevent the dizzying plummet of your stomach or the blunt piercing sensation at the center of your chest that occurs at the moment in which the anticipated realizes itself.

  Like a flying leap off a cliff, or like a word that shouldn’t have been said, once it happens, it can’t be undone or unsaid. You can only deal with the aftermath.

  I can’t save her this time. I had that chance and I couldn’t make it happen. Now it’s over. Charlie is gone. And I can only deal with the aftermath.

  Ginny places her hand on my arm and there is a subtle hitch in her breath. “Take all the time you need, okay?”

  I nod and Ginny leaves. I stand a few feet from the bed and, with all the monitors and tubes removed, she just looks like she’s sleeping. The sight of her sleeping is, at this point, very familiar to me, and if not for the absence of that hair I loved so much I could’ve pretended that’s all this is. Just Charlie taking a nap. Slumber in the sweet afterglow of intimacy.

  Despite her missing hair, the illusion is surprisingly convincing. So convincing that I find myself lowering one of the bedrails and sitting on the mattress next to her. So convincing that I hold one of her cheeks—still warm—and find myself leaning close to her face.

  The first time she kissed me, I didn't kiss her back. So it seems like a fitting bookend of sorts that the last time I kiss her, she doesn’t kiss me back.

  I am not a man who cries and I refuse to right now. I refuse to weep at her bedside because such behavior is reserved men who have lost their beloved wives, not guys who don’t possess the constitution or the cajones to fess up to the woman they love about their true feelings until well after it was too late.

  And I’m just too tired. Too tired to even cry. I’m so tired. And she looks so peaceful; more peaceful than I’d theretofore seen her and she is very inviting.

  The realization that this is the last moment continues to echo in my psyche. I allow myself this one last moment to simply pretend, and I lie down next to her, though I know it’s not really her. Not anymore. Everything I came to love about her is not here anymore, but I allow myself to pretend and I hold her like I did every night for the past few months. I slip my arm under her neck and shift her close to me so that her forehead—still warm—rests against my cheek.

  There is an excruciating sensation somewhere deep within me, a part of me I can’t even identify, and a sigh escapes my lips along with it a single, quiet, yet guttural sob. I manage to reel it back in and hold my breath. I hold my breath as long as I physically can. I hold my breath so long that I become dizzy, and then finally exhale.

  Between the subtle dizziness and my enervating fatigue, after that fucking day, after the subsequent thirty hours of desperation, and with literally nothing else in the world to do, I succumb to sleep.

  “Seth. Seth, let’s wake up. We need to get going. Can you wake up?”

  A hand is rubbing my upper arm and it takes a few foggy moments to recognize the voice.

  “Come on now, sugar,” Missy says in that quiet, motherly tone. “We need to get going, okay?”

  I sit up with fragile energy that feels borrowed and can barely hold my head up. I am face-to-face with Missy’s midsection. Between her inherent maternal presence and my vantage point at her waist, I suddenly feel about six years old, and she may as well be my own mother. She’s standing next to the bed and reaching for the hem of my shirt. Off it comes and she sets it on a neighboring chair. She picks up a damp cloth and wipes the dried sweat off my face and the sleep out of my eyes. I attempt to reach for the cloth to take over for her, but she won’t let me and instead begins cleaning my hands.

  “Hand me that, honey,” she says to someone, and then Ava appears in my line of sight, holding out a fresh, white t-shirt.

  I meet Ava’s eyes for a second out of sheer curiosity that she’ll offer some kind of I told you so, but can see from her puffy eyes and blotchy cheeks that she’ll likely remain uncharacteristically silent.

  Missy tugs the shirt over my head and I pull energy from somewhere to slip my arms through the holes. She runs a comb through my hair, which, even in my completely drained and disoriented state, seems a little unnecessary, but I know what she’s doing. I know why. And I suddenly wish she had spent more time with Charlie than a single, quick meeting in the courthouse lobby. I couldn’t save her, but maybe I wasn’t what she needed. Maybe she needed a Missy in her life. Maybe if she saw a woman who had been dealt so many low-blows and refused to give up, she wouldn’t have given up either.

  I drop my head forward even farther and just as I may topple off the bed, my forehead is intercepted by Missy’s waist, and she holds me close to her, open palm circling on my back.

  “I’m so sorry, sweetie,” she is saying. “I’m so sorry.”

  Ava breaks her silence with the sound of restrained crying.

  The atmosphere is heavy and dense with something colorless, odorless, and tasteless, and yet, it seems capable of poisoning me if I have to bask in it for much longer. Missy seems to tap into this and kneels in front of me.

  “Let’s get you home, Seth,” she says, hands on my cheeks. “You need to get some rest.”

  I’m not sure if I nod.

  “Are you hungry?”

  I manage to jostle my head.

  She holds my hands as she stands up. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go home.”

  I follow the lead of her subtle tug on my hands and stand up, finding myself slightly dizzy once on my feet, and then find myself more than slightly dizzy upon glancing at the bed.

  Charlie. I must not have slept very long, because they haven’t removed her yet. She’s still just how I left her. Peaceful in her permanent slumber. Once I turn to the door, I’ll never see that sleeping face again and something inside of me begins to hurt.

  I pick up her hand—still warm—and lift it to my lips.

  “Bye, Charlie.”

  I am once again in the front passenger seat of Ava’s Mercedes and it’s way too bright outside for my liking. Even with the limo-tint windows, I feel on the cusp of a migraine and keep my eyes closed. The radio is quietly murmuring a Dire Straits song.

  You can fall for pretty strangers, the voice is crooning, and the promises they hold.

  I’m not going to break down, firstly because I am not a man who cries. Secondly, because I can’t feel anything. Not anger. Not sadness. Not the curious pain from deep within. Nothing. Nothing except for the intense desire to sleep. I will go home and sleep. I will sleep for as long as I can get away with it. If I could get away with it, I’d attempt to sleep until I forget about her completely, though I know that would entail sleeping for the rest of my life.

  I can’t do everything but I’d do anything for you, the voice on the radio confesses, I can’t do anything except be in love with you.

  I am exhausted to the point that the radio is disorienting, and I’m hard-pressed to believe that it’s not actually me singing the song.

  All I do is miss you, and the way we used to be, the voice continues, when we made love you used to c
ry. You said ‘I love you like the stars above, I’ll love you till I die.’

  Pulling strength from somewhere, I throw my hand forward and punch the power button on the radio, and the voice goes silent. I settle back against the side of the door and wrap my arms around myself.

  The warmth of the window against my head and the motion of the car lulls me into a shallow slumber and an impressionistic dream of a silent highlight reel of moments with Charlie. Charlie splashing in fountains. Charlie scribbling on newspapers at a bar. Charlie grinning that wide smile at me; those acutely sad gray-blue eyes flashing at me. Charlie, with her obscenely long hair fluttering in the breeze or framing both of our faces while she kissed me with earnest, youthful exuberance. Charlie crying. Charlie wailing for Jade. Charlie, hungover and asleep in my front passenger seat and suddenly roused by a sixth sense of sorts that told you we were near where you needed me to take you.

  A similar sixth sense descends upon me and I abruptly shake myself awake. “Ava. Can you take me somewhere first?”

  “Of course,” she says, her voice small and tender. “We can go anywhere you need to.”

  “Take the Las Vegas Trail exit.”

  Ten minutes later, I feel the weight of both Ava and Missy’s eyes on me as we pull up to the house encircled by police tape. Her car is still in the driveway and I could almost vomit at the thought of what I’m about to attempt.

  “You can, um.” I pause to swallow the rock in my throat and attempt to deter the urge to retch. “You can park in front of the house next door.”

  Ava glances at me and pulls into the driveway of the dilapidated pile of wood. I stare at it. I’d never really looked at it before because it had always been inconsequential, but right now I want to torch the fucking place and watch burn until it’s nothing more than a pile of black ash.