Breathe Again

by Bonnie R. Paulson

  The furor continued. I finally fell to the floor, exhausted. Too much in the last forty-eight hours dragged on my reserves. I gave into the dark side of my mind, slipping into sleep.

  Ring, ring, ring, ring. Incessant, the sound like a mosquito hell-bent on tearing through my mind.

  I staggered up from the spot I collapsed to on the ground, looking down and wondering what happened that I would sleep on the ground. The phone on the side wall continued to scream at me.

  “Hello?” My damaged throat struggled against the pain the single word caused. I swallowed, the sandpaper scraping together.

  “Mag? I hate to bug you, but I was discharged. I was nagging them enough, well, that, and I offered to build a new wing if they’d send me home. I have too much to do. They won’t let me leave unless I’m accompanied by someone who can drive and help me move around. If you don’t get me, they’re going to admit me to a rehabilitation center for a month or so.” Brodan lowered his voice to a mere whisper. “I can’t be away from home that long, I’ll go crazy.” I knew it had been hard for him to ask me for help.

  “You bet. Give me a minute. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” I ran my free hand through my tangled hair.

  “Hey, are you okay? You sound like you’ve been crying.”

  His words crashed the memories in on me. Of course, he would develop observant skills—it was the type of treatment justice preferred to dish me.

  “I—I’ll be there in a little bit.” I hung up on him, surprised by my success in getting the earpierce to the cradle.

  Dean. The letter I’d never gotten. The damn note I wished I’d never received.

  I ran to the kitchen, abandoning my attempt at a relaxing evening. The sink was the closest place to empty the bile rushing from my empty stomach. Wiping my mouth, I leaned against the counter, a sheen of sweat cooling on my brow. Oh how I hated drama. I hated the surprises and the guessing. I hated not knowing what was coming next and I hated that my heart hurt with emotional rawness.

  So, he hadn’t loved me. I got it. He’d loved someone else…and…oh, hell, she’d died in his arms…pregnant with his child. The baby I wanted.

  I dry heaved in the general direction of the steel basin.

  Foggy. Misty. Gray. I couldn’t figure out why I sat in my van in the parking lot at the hospital. Dark summer clouds hovered low in the sky. The humidity pressed against me, weighing me down.

  I stared at the parking lot lamp glowing orange light in the night.

  Brodan! I’d forgotten about Brodan. Wait, no, I hadn’t. I was at the hospital to pick him up. Wasn’t I?

  Opening the door, I forced myself to forge toward the inpatient floor. My shoes, made of concrete, scraped on the asphalt as I dragged them along.

  A blur—the walls, the people, the elevator—passed in my peripheral vision. I didn’t really care. I no longer worked there, the hospital…I shut off that train of thought before I delved deeper into shock. I could admit it, I was in shock.

  “What the hell do you mean ‘down to hours’?” Brodan’s shout reached me as I climbed off the elevator.

  A lower murmur answered and something crashed against the wall. I turned the corner, a little more aware of my surroundings. A nurse poked her head in the door I targeted and scurried away before a full second had passed.

  “Get out! Get the hell out of my sight!”

  A man adorned in a white lab coat and dangling stethoscope hurried from the room, chased by demons yelling at the top of their lungs. Only too late did I recognize Dr. Peat.

  I knocked on the door, cracking it open to slip through.

  “What?” I didn’t need to see behind the curtain to recognize the anger overflowing on his face. I walked a few steps in, my worry for Ryan masked by faux happiness. Pulling the curtain back, I offered a halfhearted smile.

  “Are you ready?” I looked past Brodan sitting in his bed, his leg in a cast. I glanced at Ryan, who, if possible, had paled even more and sprouted multiple tubes connecting him to new machines. “What’s going on, Brodan?”

  His chest heaved as he gasped. Terror, unlike anything I’d ever seen before, covered his face in tears.

  I ran to him and grabbed his clammy hand. “Brodan, what’s the matter?”

  “Ryan.” He sobbed out his brother’s name.

  I glanced over my shoulder, ensuring his monitor showed stable vitals. Confused, I turned back to Brodan. “He’s fine, honey. What’s going on? What did they tell you?”

  “Only hours. His organs are failing and he—” Brodan swallowed, “—Ryan would have been at the top of the list. But he…he didn’t want to wait anymore. He couldn’t even tell me. He just did it.” He leaned his head against the pillow.

  Hours. Not even a time frame worth mentioning. Not months, weeks or days. Not even twenty-four hours, just hours. Organ failure.

  “Oh, Brodan.” I leaned over and brushed his dark hair from his brow. I looked over my shoulder again to Ryan. I didn’t have the words. I’d seen the form denying transplant and I hadn’t been able to assimilate it at the time, thinking he just needed to rest.

  Brodan bent his head into the crook of my shoulder and sobbed. My heart twisted. Loss was staring him in the face and his strength was giving out to fear. I didn’t blame him. I hadn’t known Ryan long, but he’d pulled me together.

  Numbness tingled in my fingers and toes, an icy chill filled my limbs. I’d faced death before, but this was unfair and that last had been unexpected. Waiting would be unbearable. Knowing he would die within a few turns of the clock hand, inconceivable.

  “When did he get worse? I wasn’t gone that long.” I’d left and they’d been talking. I returned to find he was dying.

  Brodan calmed down enough to speak in coherent sentences. “We talked a bit about the DNR. Why would he choose a Do Not Resuscitate? I still don’t understand. I can’t grasp it.” He pulled his head from me and I leaned back to give him space. “We didn’t talk long before he was kind of in and out of it. His oxygen saturation went way down, close to eighty, and the nurses came in. He’s been out ever since.”

  “Did you call your mom?”

  He shook his head and sniffed. “No, the nurses did. She’ll be here in about twenty minutes.”

  I sat up. Releasing Brodan’s hand to stand beside Ryan, I watched the ventilator push air into his weakened lungs. Nothing about him resembled the Ryan I had come to know. “Ryan? Can you hear me?”

  Waiting for an answer or anything to suggest he was in his body, I picked up his limp hand. Holding the tears at bay for a moment longer, I squeezed his fingers in mine. “Goodbye. Friend.” I turned from him. Too much pain filled my heart and I’d never make it to privacy if I didn’t leave immediately.

  “Maggie? Are you gonna stay?” Brodan’s choked voice reminded me of a lost six-year-old.

  Tears sped up in their run down my cheeks. I shook my head, pressing my lips together.

  He nodded. “I understand.” He glanced at his cast then at his brother. “I’m supposed to go home, but I think I’ll stay with him. Is it okay if I call you when…” Brodan swallowed. “Can I call you when I’m ready?”

  I ran to him and hugged him—hard. Everything I wanted to say coming out in my arms. “Of course.” I walked from the room when all I wanted to do was run like crazy.

  I closed the door on Brodan whispering to his brother.

  The steering wheel dug into my forehead. I turned to the side and looked at the house in the dark.

  I’d picked it out myself years ago. When I’d signed for it, my head had swelled with adultness. Without thinking it over, I’d sold it in a day. A day. Longer than Ryan had to live.

  Brodan would most likely want me out of the house. I wished I’d never sold the building. So what if Dean stained it with his blood and brains? I didn’t have anywhere else to go.

  The house, dark in the night, waited quietly on the street. The blank and empty windows stared at me. For some reason, I felt terrible at hav
ing abandoned it so fast. Dean really had done a number.

  “I could have come up to get you.” I walked around the stubby front of my van, reaching Brodan to hold his wheelchair while he stood up.

  A crooked grin greeted me. Did Ryan die or was the doctor wrong?

  I helped Brodan into the van, hoisting his bag into the seat behind him. Standing for an awkward moment outside his door, I patted the handle. I have no idea why. Turning to walk to the driver’s side, I rolled my eyes at myself. Could I be any more sophomoric? Ridiculous.

  “Thanks for picking me up.”

  I slammed the door and glanced at him. Starting the engine, I thought about what I could say without sounding condescending. “No problem. Everything okay?”

  “Oh, you mean did Ryan die?”

  The abruptness in his words rammed into my side. I pulled my vehicle to the side of the road not a full hundred feet from the hospital’s drive.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Just give me a minute.” I sucked in a few deep breaths, ignoring my passenger before returning to the road.

  I searched for the guts to blurt out a question as bold as his comment had been. After a moment of uncertainty, I sighed. “Did he?”

  “Die? Yeah. My brother’s gone.”

  My heart twisted and a rock fell into my stomach. “Just like that?”

  “No, not just like that. He woke up and we had some time to talk.” He stretched his arm out and rested it behind me on the headrest.

  I shot a concerned glance in his general direction. How dare he be so blasé about his brother’s passing? I couldn’t even refer to Ryan as dead, such an ugly word. Dean was dead, Ryan was at rest. “You talked? And that makes you whistling and happy and fine with him…being gone?”

  He pulled his arm down and leaned at the waist to look at me. “Maggie. There is nothing easy about this.” Brodan studied his cast, tracing the fiberglass lines with his finger. “He’s been dying since he was born. I’ve known since I was eight that my brother might not wake up the next day and the next and the next. I’ve coped with his death in more ways than you can know. All that I hadn’t actually faced was the final act.”

  He had time to plan for Dean’s death. No, Ryan’s. Maybe that was my problem, I confused the two.

  “Oh.” I fell silent, trapped in guilt over being on the defensive when his brother had just died. “Are you okay?”

  He looked out the window, leaning into his seat. “It’s more complex than that. I was never okay.” Brodan angled his body my way. “But I think I will be.”

  I returned my gaze to the road, where it should’ve been.

  “Do you want to have dinner tonight?”

  I looked at his leg, smiling. “So is that with or without the cast?”

  “Right. What do you think about two nights from now, after I get my cast boot?”

  I sighed. Too much had happened and he needed more of a shot at the future than I could give him. “Listen, Brodan.” I turned the wheel, thinking my words out carefully. “I’m not good for you. I’ve been throwing myself at you and it hasn’t been for altruistic purposes. You don’t want me. I’m broken goods.”

  “I get you have some baggage to work through. I can’t imagine what it’d be like to find a loved one dead. We can figure that out—”

  “No. It’s not that.” I drove in silence the rest of the way to the ranch. The words fought me or I fought their meaning and how much the reasoning bruised my pride.

  Pulling into his driveway, I was relieved he allowed me to leave it alone for the moment.

  Tucked under his arm, I crutched him up the stairs and into the foyer. “Are you okay?”

  He grunted. “Yeah.” Leaning against the wall to catch his breath, Brodan closed his eyes. One moment for him to rest. One for me to recover from the close proximity to his heat.

  Turning his head, Brodan stared at the door to Ryan’s office. Flat palmed, he pushed the panel open. He laughed, trailing off into a whisper. “I half expected him to be in there clicking away.” Brodan turned to me, sadness mingled with acceptance. “He won’t be here anymore and I—what do I do without my brother? He’s, he was—is—my best friend. He’s gone.” Pressing his fingers to his temple, Brodan groaned and closed his eyes. “My little buddy.” Tears slid down his cheeks.

  I had no words. Tears coursed my own cheeks. I wanted someone to hold me. Maybe Brodan needed to be held. “Come on.” I pulled him to my side and he limped the rest of the way to his bedroom.

  Once he was out of his jeans and lying on the bed, I elevated his foot and cozied him up in the pillows and the comforter. He watched me, exhaustion darkening his expression. Shadows over his cheekbones embellished the loss on his face. Almost to himself, he muttered, “It was always the two of us, just the two of us. He needed me, but not as much as I needed him.”

  Throwing caution to the wind, I crawled in beside him and gripped his hand. Brodan sighed and leaned into me, his head falling onto my upper arm. With my free hand I ran my fingers through his hair, softly like my mother used to do to me when I had a nightmare. “I’m sorry about your brother, Brodan. Get some sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

  In moments he sank into sleep, his deep breathing calm but drawn out. For one selfish second I enjoyed the pleasure of being beside him without expectations. He consoled me without knowing it.

  Before it got too late, I needed to secure a stay-in nurse. Carefully, so as not to wake him, I slid from the bed and tiptoed to the hallway.

  I placed the call and sat at the counter, staring out the sliding doors into the dark. The pressing turmoil speeding around me needed a moment to sink in. The woman inside me might not make it another day in this life without some time to understand the events, discoveries and losses, time to wrap up loose ends and help out others beside myself.

  Dean’s family had blamed me and I owed them the answers I had. Brodan would make a terrific dad and I couldn’t hold him from that—he’d given so much of himself and his life for Ryan and his needs, someone needed to think of him for once.

  Lost in thought, I walked down the hall to peek in on Brodan. His pajama-clad leg poked from under the covers on top of a mound of pillows like a stick in a popsicle. Poor guy slept hard, a soft snore growling from somewhere near the head of the bed.

  I smiled. The doorbell rang and I closed the door with the smallest click.

  Swinging open the door, I welcomed the middle-aged woman in clean scrubs standing there, “Hey, thanks for coming so fast.”

  “My pleasure.” She stepped inside, looking around at the furnishings. “The service called me because I live just a few miles down the road here.” Holding out her hand, she added, “I’m Nancy.”

  I gripped her hand in mine, comfortable with the thought of her staying. “I’m Maggie. So nice to meet you, Nancy. Do you want to see the house or do you…”

  “Nah, I grew up by here. I actually remember when the main house burned down. Just point me toward the patient’s room and I’ll go about my duties.” Nancy set her backpack on the floor next to her removed shoes.

  “Sounds good. Are you staying through the night?” I led the way to his room, speaking in low tones in case he still slept.

  “The service told me you needed someone round the clock. I’m here until eight in the morning and then Betty will relieve me. We’ll switch for the next few days and then another set of partners will take over and we’ll rotate with them until we’re no longer needed. Do you plan on staying around?”

  I pushed the door open a few inches. “No. I have some things I need to get done. I’ll leave my cell number and his mother’s on the counter before I go.” Trying to see through the mound of bedding, I longed for one last glimpse before I left, a chance to say goodbye.

  “Thank you.” She brushed past me into the darkened room, shuffling back and forth from his bathroom to the nightstand.

  I watched for a moment before finding my way to the kitchen
. Doing as promised, I collected a bag from my room and filled it with items to last me a few days. I had no idea where I would be going, but fortunately, my vehicle of choice often doubled as a sleeper, already packed inside with extra blankets, pillows, towels and camping clothes.

  The letter from Dean I dropped onto the top of my stacked boxes. I didn’t need anything getting in my way on this adventure. I had a copy and would leave it with his sister, if she let me see her.

  A soft summer breeze brushed my face outside the door. Glowing stars overhead lit my way to the van. I climbed inside and my tears flowed. I shuddered.

  Ryan’s death would be hard to accept. Worse yet, the reasoning behind Dean’s death. Hopefully I’d be able to eradicate the guilt I harbored over each. A sob escaped me. A moment free from the pain and uncertainty would be much appreciated.

  I turned the key and the van roared to life. “Let’s go, buddy. I need some air.”

  The gas station at the end of the road before the freeway beckoned with neon lights.

  After filling up the tank, I walked inside to pay. On a whim, I grabbed a postcard on the tower stand and threw it on the counter with an orange juice and donut pack. “I need a stamp for that too, please.”

  Thanking the man behind the register, I carried my bag out to the van.

  Settling inside, I found a pen and wrote on the postcard, using my steering wheel for a hard surface.

  Brodan,

  I can’t have kids. Ryan needs nieces and nephews and I can’t give you a future. I’m sorry. I want to, but it wouldn’t be fair.

  You’ve given me the strength to recover and I have no way to repay you. The least I can do is release you to make a great future for yourself.

  I’m sorry.

  Maggie

  A mailbox waved to me from beside the gas station. I’m doing the right thing. I am. I’m being fair. I can do this. I drove up and parked, hurrying as fast as I could to drop the card into the box before I lost my nerve.