“Cara, talk some sense into her.”
I walked away from Sarah as she laid on the couch with feet the size of melons propped up on pillows. Her feet were constantly swollen nowadays and her back was always hurting. I got her a bunch of pillows to put on her bed to help her sleep at night because she wouldn’t take me up on my offer to stay in my room. When she chose a cheap mattress to put in the guest bedroom, I went behind her back and cancelled her order, replacing it with the best mattress on the market. There was no way I was letting her sleep on the shitty mattress she chose.
Cara had been going with Sarah to her appointments because she thought it would help her prepare for the twins arrival. I wanted to be there, but I wasn’t the father, so I couldn’t in good conscience ask for the time off. I did, however, ask Ryan for two weeks off when the babies were born.
“The doctor has told her every week that she’s doing too much, but if she won’t listen to the doctor, what makes you think she’ll listen to me?”
“All the doctor said was that I should slow down, not that I needed to quit working. She hasn’t restricted anything so far, so I’m not sure what you guys are complaining about.”
I walked back over to her, trying really hard not to yell at her. The damn woman had always been stubborn, but right now was the absolute worst she had ever been.
“When you come home and look like your feet need to be drained of about a gallon of water, it’s time to listen to your doctor.”
“Drew, this is not in any way your decision. You are not the babies’ father, so stay out of it.”
I knew that she was tired and stressed. I knew that’s why she said that, but I couldn’t help how much that hurt. I had come to care about Sarah so much over the past few months and it seemed like after she moved in, she pushed me farther away. Where it was difficult to help before, now it was near impossible. If I made dinner, she scowled at me. If I offered to help her with laundry, she told me she could handle it on her own. I wasn’t sure what had caused her to need such a high level of independence, but the tension between us was growing every day and something needed to give.
It was getting on the end of September and the sun was setting sooner every day. The days were chillier and I couldn’t spend as much time outside when Sarah was in a mood. It’s not that I didn’t want to be by her, but it seemed to diffuse the tension if I just stepped outside.
I sat down in my lounger and watched the sunset like I did most nights. However, as the days passed, I felt Iris less and less. Sarah was helping me to move on even though she wasn’t yet ready to do that herself. I couldn’t help but feel a little sad that Iris wasn’t around as much. I knew it would happen when I decided to move forward with my life, but accepting that it would happen and having it actually happen were two different things.
I closed my eyes and thought back to a month before my sweet Iris passed away.
“Drew, we need to talk about what’s going to happen from here on out.”
“No, we don’t because you are going to continue to fight and you’re going to beat this.”
“Babe, please. You heard what the doctor said. They don’t think there’s anything more they can do for me. They caught it too late. We need to prepare.”
“No. I will never prepare to let you go. It’s not happening.”
“Drew.” It was a quiet plea that I barely heard from her beautiful lips. “I need to prepare. There are things I need to say to you.”
“Please, don’t do this. I can’t handle it. Not now.”
“If not now, then when?”
I sat down on the bed beside her. She had taken to spending most of her days in bed. There were times that she could still get up and move around, but it was difficult for her because she was losing her motor function. The tumor in her brain was taking over and making life hell for her. I took her frail hand in mine and tried my best to be strong for my girl.
“I’m listening.”
“I love you more than anything and I want you to know that even though our time together was short, it was the best time of my life. I wouldn’t trade one minute with you for a long life without you. You’ve brought me so much happiness and made my life so full.”
There was no keeping back my tears when she poured her heart out to me. I wanted so badly to be strong for her, but I couldn’t. This woman always had the power to break me. I just hadn’t expected it to happen this way. I thought I would screw up and she would leave. I never thought she would leave and no longer exist in this world.
“I want you to promise me that when you’re ready, you’ll find happiness again and hold onto it. Life is a gift and I don’t want you to waste it being sad over me. We had our time together, but soon you’ll need to move on from me and find someone new to share your life with. Promise me you’ll do that.”
“I can’t do that. I can’t promise to forget you.”
“You don’t have to forget me, Drew. I’ll always be with you and when you’re ready to move on, I’ll still be with you in whatever way you need me. Someday though, you’ll want to live again. We haven’t been doing that lately and I want that for you so much. One day it won’t hurt so much, you won’t think of me so much, and you’ll be ready.”
I wiped the tears from my eyes as the bravest woman I knew asked me to move on without her, to find someone else to love. I promised her that day that I would move on, but I knew in my heart that it would be nearly impossible to live without her. How did you live without your other half? How did you make the decision to keep moving when it seemed impossible?
Another month passed and I knew the days were drawing to a close when she could no longer talk to me. She was basically in a vegetative state. A few days ago, her vision had gone and I think that was the point that her body finally started to really give out. Today, I sat by her side and begged to hear her sweet voice one more time.
“Please, baby. I need to hear your voice. Don’t leave me like this. Please fight.”
I could barely hold my head up anymore as I sat by her side and prayed night and day for God to let me keep her just a little while longer. It shocked the hell out of me when my wish was granted. My head snapped up and energy that I didn’t think I had bloomed from within. She was back.
“I’m forever yours, Drew. Nothing can take me from you.”
That was the moment I broke. Her voice had been so crystal clear, but that was all she said before she slipped into a coma. Though I hoped it was a sign she was coming back, I knew deep in my heart that she was gone. I laid down on the bed beside her and held her in my arms, needing to have her scent surrounding me one last time.
The door to the porch slid open and I quickly wiped away the tears, grateful that it was dark outside. I knew it was Cara by the way she walked. Sarah walked with a sort of hobble now that she was so big.
“You have to give her some space. You’ll only push her away if you keep treating her like a child.”
“I’m not treating her like a child. I’m trying to take care of her.”
“Take it from someone whose older brother perfected the art of overprotection. If you keep trying to tell her what to do, she’s only going to resent you. Right now, she needs to feel like she’s in control. I don’t know what happened to the father, but with all this responsibility bearing down on her, she has to do things her way.”
“And who’s going to tell her when she’s overdoing it? She’s so stubborn, she doesn’t even realize that she’s wearing herself out unnecessarily.”
Cara came to sit down beside me on one of the loungers. She stared off into the distance as she spoke softly.
“I used to work as a nurse at the hospital. I always worked the night shift because I was the low man on the totem pole. My shift ended early that night because we were slow and I was going to end up with overtime. I stopped at the gas station because I was almost on empty and I didn’t want to forget before my next shift. I was always running late and I knew that I couldn’t put it off
.”
I listened to Cara with rapt attention. Part of me wanted to know what happened to her. It would help me understand her and what might upset her, but the other part of me didn’t know if I could stomach her story.
“I don’t remember much from being at the gas station. I just remember starting the pump and then next thing I remember is waking up in a cellar or something. He came to see me every day for ten days. The first day was probably the worst in terms of fear factor. He had a large knife and…”
She swallowed thickly as she tried to finish her story. I closed my eyes as dread spread through my body. I didn’t think I wanted to hear anymore, but I had to let her talk about it if it would help.
“He cut my clothes from my body and slid the knife all over me. Sometimes he cut me, but other times, he just wanted me to think he would. He knew about Sean and told me all the ways he was going to torture me and leave me for Sean to find.”
“Did he…did he rape you?”
“No. Thank God. I don’t think I would have made it out of there if he had. He didn’t do it for sexual reasons. He got off on the torture. After I had been there for a few days, he started to leave his mark on me. He carved the word whore across my breasts. It’s still there. It’s faint, but I still see it. I’ll always have that reminder.”
She turned and looked at me with a blank expression. It was as if she wasn’t even there as she told me about her ordeal. “He did other things too, but luckily, on the tenth day after he left, I screamed and screamed, and someone heard me. A farmer was checking his field by the house that I was in. He heard me and came searching for me. I was so relieved that I wasn’t even ashamed of the fact that I didn’t have clothes on.
“I was in the hospital for a few days and then I stayed at Sean’s house. He took care of me and was wonderful with me, but after awhile I needed space. Not my own space, but space to deal with what happened. There were so many days that I just sat there and stared at the wall, trying to process what had happened.
“People started coming over to check on me and I got so annoyed because they all thought that their words of wisdom would somehow help me. ‘Try not to think about it’, ‘Give it some time’, ‘Don’t let that man steal another minute of your life’.” She laughed wryly as she continued. “They all had the best of intentions, but what I needed was to be left alone. Drew’s friends tried to get me out of the house and my girlfriends all wanted to come over to paint our nails and gossip about the men at the hospital. None of that mattered anymore and it angered me that pretending it didn’t happen would help me. No one ever asked if I needed to talk about it. If I tried, I was told that I didn’t need to relive it. Eventualy, I just started getting angry when people came over. The more they tried, the more I pushed them away. Soon, no one came to see me anymore and I found that I resented that even more. It was like people gave up on me.”
She turned to me with sad eyes. “The thing is, as much as I didn’t want people there trying to make it all better for me, it hurt even more that they gave up on me. I didn’t know what I needed and that was part of the problem. I just needed someone to be there no matter what and be okay with it. I think that’s what Sarah needs. She has to work through this on her own, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t want you around. Just give her space to figure it all out.”
That was the problem though. I didn’t know if I could back off. I hadn’t been able to control what happened with Iris and keep her safe, but I could help Sarah. I could keep her from pushing herself to the point of exhaustion. I could protect her, but I took Cara’s advice.
“I’ll do my best.”
Two weeks until the twins’ birth
I had kept my promise to Cara and backed off. I watched Sarah closely though and did everything I could to help her out without her realizing it. I talked to Hank and told him that she was pushing herself too hard. He knew she was also and gave her a job going over records and doing an analysis of the business over the years. It ensured that she had to delegate more at the bar and do less herself.
Cara had been doing a lot of the housework, laundry, and cooking, so that took some of the weight off my shoulders. I had to admit, I thought Cara would do an excellent job helping Sarah out. I didn’t know how she was around kids, but so far, she was great around the house. Besides, she would have three months with the twins before she was on her own during the day.
Sarah’s bag had been packed for a week now and was sitting by the front door. Every time she came downstairs, I had the sudden urge to ask if it was time. I know that’s silly, but it was so close to her due date and I was one of those typical guys that freaked out because I wasn’t sure what to expect. Unlike fathers, I was just the roommate. I didn’t go along to the appointments, so I wasn’t able to ask questions. I had googled some information, but anyone knows that the more you google, the more you freak yourself out, which was exactly what had happened.
After hounding Sarah and Cara with things I had seen on the internet, Cara calmly told me to chill out before she punched me in the nuts. Yeah, there was something about this group of women. Sarah had just rolled her eyes and walked away.
I had just gotten home from work and it was the weekend. Work had been a killer lately as we worked longer hours to complete some projects that were running behind schedule. I usually didn’t mind the extra hours, but I was anxious for the babies’ arrival. Then again, Ryan had already promised me some time off when the babies’ were born, so I wouldn’t complain about a little overtime.
After shucking my dirty work clothes and taking a shower, I headed downstairs for some food. When I got to the kitchen, Sarah was already devouring her meal. Cara was watching her inhale her food as she slowly ate her own.
“Long day?” Cara was watching me watch them with a twinkle in her eye. She had seen over the past weeks how my attentions were always trained on Sarah. It had become one of her favorite things to tease me about when Sarah wasn’t around. I stepped into the kitchen and walked over to the stove.
“Yeah. We’re trying to finish up a project and we’re a little behind schedule. There were some problems with the materials, so now we’re playing catch up.”
I scooped the stir fry onto my plate and sat down at the table with the girls. “How’s work going, Sarah?”
“Good. I think I might have to stop at the end of the week.”
She said it so matter of fact, like we hadn’t all been ragging on her to slow down for the past two weeks.
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?” I tried to seem indifferent, but knew I didn’t succeed when she stopped eating and glared at me.
“You’ve been trying to get me to stop working for weeks now, so don’t pretend like you don’t know that I’m worn out.”
Geez, it was like a landmine around here. Be nice, boom! Show concern, boom! Avoid pissing her off, boom! There was no winning, so I kept my mouth shut. I was pretty used to doing that nowadays. Crap. I never had to deal with this emotional rollercoaster with Iris. She was always in such a good mood and rarely…
“Fuck.”
I stood so fast that my chair tipped over in my haste to get away from the table. I ignored the girls strange looks as I stalked over to the patio and slid the door open. I slammed the door closed and walked over to the railing, trying to rein in my temper. I clenched my fists and gnashed my teeth together as the fury bubbled up in my gut.
How could I have let this happen? How could I forget? The tears started coming, but it was for a different reason this time. It wasn’t that I missed Iris so much that I couldn’t pull myself together, it was because I had forgotten her. I was so wrapped up in my new life that I actually forgot the one person that I hoped to never be apart from.
Letting my anger get the best of me, I grabbed the patio table and flipped it over as I let out a roar. I didn’t stop there though. I picked up the chairs and flung them across the deck. Every chair that bounced off the deck was proof of the man I was turning into. A man that Iris
would never have recognized or wanted. I bent over and grabbed fistfuls of my hair, letting out an agonized moan. In that moment, it was like she had just died and I had let her down again. I hadn’t been able to save her and now I had forgotten her. I slumped to my knees as the pain and anger took over.
“Drew? Are you okay?”
It was three days ago. Three fucking days was how long it took me to remember. What kind of asshole husband did that make me?
“I’m sorry that I’ve been so…prickly lately. I swear, I’m not trying to push you away, but I feel like I need to do this alone and the more help I get, the more it feels like I need to rely on others.”
The words were flying out of her mouth so fast that I could barely understand her. She continued to blather on about her issues and how she was feeling. All the while I wanted to scream at her that for once, something wasn’t about her. That wasn’t fair to her, but at the moment, I could barely contain my rage. When five minutes passed of her ranting and raving, I finally lost my shit and yelled at her.
“This isn’t fucking about you!”
Shock crossed her face and I expected her to turn around and run back inside. I had promised to never speak to her like that again and shame instantly welled up inside me. I was an asshole. Instead, she walked toward me and knelt down, wrapping her arms around me and holding me tight. Well, as tight as a woman who was pregnant with twins could. Her belly took up so much space between us that I had a hard time holding her the way I wanted to.
Her touch soothed me and calmed the fire raging inside me. I hadn’t realized how much I needed this from her until right this minute. I didn’t care if she wasn’t ready or wanted me to wait another ten years. Right now, I just needed someone to tell me that it was okay that I forgot, that I wasn’t a total asshole.
“I forgot about Iris. The anniversary of her death was three days ago and I forgot. For three days, I forgot and hadn’t even thought about her. I hadn’t remembered the worst day of my life. I can’t even feel her anymore.”
Drew Page 18
