by B. N. Toler
Sitting up, I slid the oxygen mask from his face and lay it on his lap. “I love you,” I whispered as I stroked his cheek. “I will always love you.” Pressing my mouth to his dry, brittle lips, I kissed him softly. It was the only kiss I’d have with him; the real physical him. Laying back beside him, placing my head over his heart, I closed my eyes as I took his hand again and hung on each beat of his heart. When I heard the door open, I opened my eyes to find Kym entering the room, her brow furrowed as she looked from me to the monitors. Inspecting the machines, she turned back to Liam and pulled her stethoscope from her neck.
“I’m sorry to ask this, Ma’am, but I need you to get up.”
Slipping off the bed, I stood as she placed the oxygen mask back over Liam’s mouth and nose, before placing the stethoscope on his chest. She blinked rapidly as she listened and looked back at the monitors.
“What’s wrong?” I croaked. Was this it? Had he died and I hadn’t even realized it as I lay there beside him?
She didn’t answer me, as she moved to the door and opened it. Sticking her head out she yelled to the nurse’s station, “Page Doctor Malcom. I need him now.” As she walked back in, Helen rushed in behind her, wild-eyed and pale. “What is it?” she choked out. “Is he gone?”
A young man I knew had to be her son because he looked exactly like her with his red hair, bolted in as well. “Calm down, Mom,” he murmured, placing his hands on her shoulders.
“I need you all to step outside for a moment,” Kym told us, not bothering to make eye contact.
“The hell we will, not when he’s about to die,” Helen snapped, her eyes fiery. “That’s my brother, and if this is it, I’m not leaving.”
Just then, Dr. Malcom whizzed in with two nurses shoving past Helen. “Blood pressure?” he muttered as he used his stethoscope to listen to Liam’s heart. One nurse gently took my arm and led me around the bed like I was a child.
“Ninety-eight over sixty-two,” one of the nurses called.
Kym turned to the three of us and extended her arms out, gently herding us toward the door. “We need you to leave the room, please,” she spoke gently.
My entire body felt like it was coiled tightly like twisted wire. “What’s happening?” I asked, fear lodged in my throat.
Kym flattened her mouth, a look of uncertainty on her face. “His heart rate and blood pressure are rising.”
Helen and I cut our gazes to one another, our brows furrowed. “He’s going to make it?” David asked, his tone riddled with every bit of shock I was feeling.
“We don’t know that,” Kym quickly answered, “We need to run some tests.”
Finally fed up, she sternly said, “Please. Leave. I promise we will update you as soon as we know more.”
I wanted to zip past her and throw myself on Liam, tell him to come back, to fight, but I knew if the impossible could happen, if he could come back, we needed to let the doctor and nurses work on him.
Without a word to Helen, I hauled ass out of the room and back down to the first floor. This time, the double doors were shut and wouldn’t open when I pulled on them. Frantic, I rushed to the nurse’s station. “Max Porter,” I yelled at the woman behind the desk. “I need to know, is he alive?”
“Ma’am, calm down,” she instructed me as she held a hand up.
“Don’t tell me to calm down, goddammit,” I growled as I grabbed her wrist, demanding her attention. “Is he alive?”
“Let go,” she shouted.
“Tell me!” I shouted back.
“He’s stabilized,” someone yelled, jerking my focus. It was a nurse I vaguely recognized as one of the people that had dragged me off of Max’s body. “He’s still not in the safe zone, but he has stabilized.”
Releasing the nurse’s hand, my chest convulsed once, then twice, then wouldn’t stop as I laughed and cried, my body melting to the floor as I slid down the desk into an emotional heap.
It was too good to be true.
I closed my eyes as I let my head drop.
Then I whispered, “Thank you, Max.”
Three hours went by, and no one could tell us anything. Even though I felt I knew everything would be okay, that Liam would wake up, I still held my breath. I didn’t want to get my hopes up. I also didn’t tell Helen about Pearl. It wasn’t the right time, especially with David around. Helen gave David and me a brief introduction. She introduced me as Liam’s girlfriend and something about that, even amidst the awfulness of the day, made me feel good. I was honored to be known as his, no matter what happened. Each of us paced the waiting room, Helen and I taking turns harassing the nurses at the nursing station for information, but each visit proved fruitless.
I had thought losing all hope was the worst feeling in the world, but I was wrong. Losing it, then having it return with the even the slightest possibility it would just be ripped from you again was worse. The agony of waiting was suffocating, making me want to climb the walls.
David was so much like Liam, the man trying to be strong for us ladies. I knew Liam would be so proud of him. He brought us drinks, and magazines, and made sure his mother ate, telling her she needed to think of his little brother or sister.
Finally, after hours had passed, Dr. Malcom emerged asking us to sit with him. Taking our seats, Helen and I held hands as David rubbed her back and we waited on bated breath for the news of Liam.
“I’ve been a neurologist for seventeen years,” he told us as he removed his glasses and took a handkerchief from his pocket, wiping at the lens. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” he admitted, defeat thick in his tone.
My heart about burst in my chest. This was good news. It had to be.
“It’s still early,” he went on, “but when Liam’s vitals started to rise, we ordered another scan.”
“And?” Helen asked.
“The fluid on his brain has decreased significantly. We ran another round of EEG’s, and two out of the three showed activity.”
“He’s waking up?” I gasped.
Dr. Malcom held a hand up, stopping me. “We can’t say just yet, but he appears to be stabilizing. Even if he does wake up, we still don’t know the extent of brain damage. If he does regain consciousness, he will have a very long road ahead of him.” Standing, he stared down at us intently. “There is no medical explanation for this. The man should be dead,” he reiterated. “This is a miracle, plain and simple.”
Helen and I burst into tears as we squealed and hopped to our feet, hugging. The elation that surged through me could have sent a rocket to the moon.
The impossible happened.
A miracle.
Liam was alive.
After two days, Max regained consciousness but was immediately moved to the psych ward for evaluation. He refused to see me. He’d been lucky. With the amount of pills and alcohol he’d taken, he should’ve been a goner. There was so much I wanted to ask him; where did he go? Did he know he wasn’t in his body anymore? Why did he try to kill himself? But those questions would have to wait. I was glad he was okay. Despite our differences, I’d never wished him dead.
Two days had passed and Liam, despite his amazing test results, still had not woken up. Dr. Malcom reiterated not to get our hopes up, even though he seemed optimistic. If and when Liam did wake up, we had no idea what we would be dealing with. There could be substantial brain damage. After Liam had taken a turn for the better, I called Matt and asked him if he could keep Pim for a couple of days. We’d had a long conversation where I assured him I was not reuniting with Max. I told him Max was ill and I felt morally obligated to help him. I didn’t mention Liam. I figured I needed to give Matt information in small bites.
By the third day, I was becoming anxious. Why wasn’t Liam waking up? I picked Pim up from Ms. Patty’s and brought her to the hospital to see Liam. I wasn’t sure if he could hear us when we spoke to him, but I knew if he could, he’d love to hear her voice.
When we walked into Liam’s room, she immediately grinn
ed when she caught sight of Helen. Helen took her and squeezed her. “I’ve missed this little cutie,” she preened.
“She missed you, too.”
“Look who’s here to see you, big brother,” Helen said as she turned to the bed where Liam lay. Gently, she sat Pim beside Liam, close to his chest as I rounded the bed on the opposite side. If Pim decided to start crawling, I needed to get her off him. She’d never seen Liam in his true physical form and I worried she’d get her usual stranger wariness.
Tilting her head, she looked at him, patting his chest with her chubby little hand.
“Can you say hi, Pim,” I prompted her.
Pim rubbed his chest. Softly, she giggled. “Liam.”
Helen’s eyes were as wide as mine felt when we glanced at each other. “She must’ve heard us call him that,” I quickly pointed out.
Helen nodded. “Yeah,” she agreed. “Had to have heard us.”
When Pim laid her head on Liam’s chest, my heart melted. “Vroom-vroom,” Pim babbled, and this time I knew she hadn’t overheard us.
She knew it was Liam.
And that’s when it happened.
Liam opened his eyes.
He sat outside the church wearing a Yankee’s hat he’d hoped would help him blend in. The guests of the wedding had just begun to emerge from the tall cathedral doors when he saw her. She was wearing a teal dress, the skirt looked like a tutu. His lips curved up ever so slightly before he caught himself.
The sight made him happy. The way a father feels happy when he sees his tiny daughter looking adorable. Now he was frowning as he realized she wasn’t really his daughter, was she?
His ex-brother-in-law stood next to his bride Alice, in her white satin dress, smiling at the photographer. I’d rewarded Matt well for his choices. He’d been a wonderful brother and uncle, and now, he would live a life with a woman he truly loved.
Max tugged his hat down a little further. He knew Matt was not his biggest fan and he didn’t doubt that, even on his wedding day, if Matt noticed him watching them, he’d rush across the street and attack him.
Max’s gaze moved from the bride and groom to the giddy little girl, then to her mother, who wore a matching teal dress, the fabric loose and flowing. Beautiful. That’s all he’d ever seen when he looked at her. As he stared at her, I could feel his regret; his pain radiating off of him. He’d lost her, and he had no one to blame but himself.
Beside her was him.
Liam.
The man who’d taken over his body, his life. Even knowing Max’s pain, I couldn’t help smiling as I watched Liam. He looked nice in a suit, but anything would look better than dirty street clothes. He’d made a full recovery and looked better than ever. Broad shoulders and muscles now replaced the bag of bones he had been after living on the street. Bending, he picked up Pim and held her as he put one arm around Waverly, the three of them smiling as they posed for a photo.
At that moment, Max took his own snap; like a camera, his mind captured the moment, burning the image into his brain for eternity. To others viewing the moment, the image, they might only see a beautiful couple with a gorgeous little girl; a happy family, but Max saw so much more. He saw a man that had everything—that had it all.
His all.
“Lucky man.”
His head snapped toward me, following the sound of my voice. He watched me with weary eyes for a moment, wondering when I’d sat down. He hadn’t even noticed until I’d spoken. He didn’t know who I was, especially not in the form I was. He couldn’t have known I’d been watching him all of his life, that I knew his pain.
“Yeah,” he agreed, as he cleared his throat, moving his gaze back to the church.
“You got a family?” I asked. He furrowed his brow, becoming slightly annoyed with his new bench buddy. He was here spying on his ex, he didn’t want to make small talk. Then, he noticed the small black cat in my lap. I tried not to chuckle as I read his thoughts.
A stuffed animal? He’d been in countless and unending hours of therapy for almost a year, and he’d learned a lot, mostly about himself, but also not to assume things about others. Maybe he didn’t want to talk with me, but he decided he shouldn’t be rude to me either. After all, I was petting a stuffed animal, clearly I had issues.
“I did . . . sort of,” he finally answered, “but they’re gone now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I sighed.
“Only have myself to blame. I just . . . wasn’t ready,” he admitted. “I wanted to be . . . but I wasn’t.”
“Are you ready now?”
He shook his head. He hated to admit it, but he wasn’t. He still wasn’t ready. He wanted to be in love and move on, but he knew when it came to the woman in the flowing teal dress, it was too late. He’d done too much damage where she was concerned. It would be a long and exhausting road to make his way back into the life of the little girl he’d never even held. He wasn’t mentally strong enough to fight for that yet. He still had more to work on.
“She was mine once, the pretty one in the teal dress. That’s my little girl, too.” He nodded his head toward the church just when Liam leaned down and kissed Waverly. Max winced at the sight, his hand fisting against his thigh.
I knew my next words would cut him deeply, but they needed to be said. He needed to hear them. “They both look really happy.”
His mouth flattened, and his Adam’s Apple bobbed as he swallowed hard.
“Sometimes,” I went on, “we have to let things go . . . really let them go, especially if we know we’re no good for them.”
His head reared back as he cut a lethal glare at me. “What does that mean?”
“It means, Max, let them go. If you do, maybe your daughter will seek you out one day when you are ready. When you are better.”
Again, I read his mind. He knew I was right. He still struggled every day to find the will to move through life. It seemed cruel to him as he watched Liam kiss his daughter. He would be no good trying to be a father, but he loathed knowing someone else had taken his role. His eyes teared up as he watched his daughter kiss the man in the suit, a tear trickling down his cheek as he realized, for the hundredth time since he’d woken up in the hospital, what he’d lost. This was hell. This was his punishment for treating everyone so shitty because he felt so shitty himself. He’d lost everything. Not only had he lost everything, but he’d had to watch another man take it from him while he’d been trapped in that man’s body. He’d seen it all.
“You made the right choice,” I told him.
He snickered. Raising a hand, he motioned at the church. “The right choice? He stole my life.”
“We both know that’s not true.”
“It is true,” he insisted, his words clipped.
“Then why’d you choose to live? You knew what would happen if you did. You saw everything. You saw her fall in love with him. You watched as they made love. You knew she would choose him.”
Flicking his gaze at me, he scowled. “How do you know all of this? Who are you?”
“Answer the question, Maxwell. Why did you choose to live?”
His gaze dropped to where his fingers were threaded in his lap. “I wasn’t going to,” he admitted. “I was going to die and take him with me. Maybe I didn’t deserve them, but at least he wouldn’t have them either.”
Glancing at me again, he found me watching him, waiting for him to finish.
“But she begged me to live. She begged me not to take him.”
“She begged you for lots of things, Max,” I noted. “She begged you to love her once; she begged you to love your child. She begged you not to turn your back on them. You ignored her. Why now?”
Moving his gaze back to Waverly, he said, “Because I couldn’t do it to her. To them. He could be for them what I never could. He could be the man I didn’t know how to be.”
When he looked at me again, my eyes were glossed with tears, but I was grinning. He’d done it. He’d changed. Placing my hand on
his cheek, I whispered, “I knew I was right not to give up on you.”
“You did this to me?” he asked, his expression bewildered.
“I did this foryou,” I wept.
“You gave him my life? You made me watch while he took everything? You even gave him the motorcycle letting him think I had bought it.” He shook his head in disbelief as it replayed, whizzing through his mind so fast it was almost a blur. “Why?”
“The motorcycle was for him. Liam is a kind man, and if he was going to die, I wanted to give him something special. The rest of it, Max . . . was to save you,” I whispered.
Tearing his eyes from me, he bit his tongue to keep himself from lashing out. With no place to unleash his anger, his eyes began to tear up again. It was hard to see him hurt so much, but at the same time, it was one of the most beautiful moments I’d ever experienced. He was accepting his pain.
“Put good out, Max,” I spoke in a masculine voice after I changed form, causing him to snap his eyes toward me. “It will come back.” Max gaped at me, his mouth parted in shock. The woman who’d been sitting beside him moments before was gone, and in her place was his doorman Braxton. Smiling softly, I held out a handkerchief to him. His heart thundered in his chest as he reached out a trembling hand and took the cloth. He stared at me as he blotted at his wet face, wondering if he was going mad. He was on quite a few medications for depression, and he suddenly wondered if they were causing him to hallucinate? It was then I decided he’d had enough, and it was time for me to go—or at least vanish so he could not see me anymore—but I left him something. When he looked back at me, he saw only the black stuffed cat I’d been petting moments before resting on the bench.
Picking it up, he stared at it. Something inside him, something he didn’t quite understand, made him want to keep it. Almost as if he didn’t have a choice. Clutching it under his arm, he stood and gazed once more at the world he’d turned his back on—his daughter, finally understanding that he had to give her up. At least for now. He could only hope to have her in his life one day if he stepped away. Maybe when she was older he could explain, make her understand better. Maybe by then he’d understand himself a little better, too.
