Essence

by Mandi Lynn

  I know he’s not. If he was fine, he wouldn’t have to depend on machines to keep him alive. One wrong move and his thin lifeline is cut. No way to repair it—the heart monitor would just read flat.

  Another noise comes from my dad. Whatever treatment they are doing is painful. I gasp as I hear him yell out.

  “I know it hurts. This should help…”

  The phone line goes dead before I can say good-bye to my mom, and I’m left wondering what happened.

  Chapter 22

  The Promise

  I was only four when my dad made me a promise. My mom had been called into work, and he had been assigned to watch me for the day. Before lunch I spent my time playing with my favorite stuffed animal, Barry. I thought I was brilliant for coming up with the name because it sounded like Beary, but spelled differently. My mom had taught me how to write out his name in my messy script. He was a big brown bear of course—about as big as I had been at the time. Whenever I hugged him, I would end up on top of him on the floor, so he doubled as a giant pillow. His fur was a mess, because I dragged him everywhere.

  On that particular day my dad was trying to wash him. “Emma, don’t you want Barry to be nice and clean?”

  “No!” I said, clutching onto his dirty fur like it was my own life. “I don’t like baths and neither does Barry!”

  I ran outside into our backyard, taking Barry with me, aiming for the shelter of the tree house. My small legs could only take me so far, but I was ahead of my dad until I tripped. Barry’s legs had been dangling, and instead of dragging him by the arm, like I usually did, I was gripping him around the neck. My foot caught on one of his paws, and the next thing I knew, my face made contact with the green grass.

  I don’t think my dad had ever heard me scream so loud.

  He rushed to pick me up, but it was too late for Barry. When I had stepped on his leg, the seams gave out, and Barry was officially missing a leg. I didn’t see it at first, because my eyes were closed, too busy wailing over the cuts and bruises I had collected when I fell. It wasn’t until my dad picked up Barry that I saw my lifelong companion had lost a limb.

  My dad didn’t know what to do with me, so he took me and Barry inside to clean up. He rested me on the kitchen counter, running a wet cloth over my cuts. By then I had stopped screaming, but it was only because my throat hurt too much to continue. I just looked at my poor little Barry.

  “Listen, kiddo. It’s gonna be all right,” my dad said, opening a box of colorful Band-Aids.

  “But, Barry!” I said, though all that came out was mumbles and crying.

  My dad placed a bandage over my scrapes. When he finished, he smiled up at me, but I met him with a frown.

  “Barry,” I said in a sad voice.

  My dad sighed and kissed my forehead, before he picked me up and placed me back on the ground. Once my feet made contact with the floor, I ran to my bear, which had been resting on top of the dinner table.

  “Barry.” I grabbed him by the ear and hugged him tightly. As I did this, stuffing fell out of the hole where his foot had been detached. “Daddy!”

  He came over and took the bear from my hands. “Fix him!” I shoved the bear toward my dad, who took it carefully from my grasp. He looked the stuffed animal up and down, examining the dirt-stained fur. I know part of him wanted to throw out the old toy, but I always refused to give it up.

  “Tell you what,” he started to say, kneeling down in front of me. “You let me clean up Barry, and I’ll make him good as new.”

  I looked at my poor old bear that’d been through the world and back with me and tried to picture him clean. His fur would be a lighter color, maybe even softer.

  “You’ll keep him safe?” my voice whispered, quiet and low. A tear had started to fall down my face, but I didn’t notice until my dad brushed it away with his thumb.

  “I’ll treat his life like my own.”

  I nodded my head and gave Barry a kiss. Touching his face, I saw how his fur had crusted together from when I had dropped him in the mud.

  _________________

  That night, without Barry, my room felt empty. The door was closed, so I couldn’t see into the hallway, but I could hear my parents talking down the stairs with the television playing softly.

  I curled myself into a ball, using the sheets as a shield against any monsters, but it didn’t help. Within seconds a tap, tap, tap came from the other side of the room. I closed my eyes, begging the monsters to go, but they didn’t.

  “Mommy!” I yelled out, burying my face into the pillow. After what seemed like an eternity, I heard my mom slip through my door and come to my bedside.

  “Emma, what’s wrong?” She took the blankets off my body enough so they didn’t cover my head. I rolled to my side to face her, tears welling up in my eyes.

  “There’s a monster tapping,” I cried out. Within the next two breaths, I leaped from my bed and into her arms. She didn’t expect it but allowed me to take comfort in her embrace.

  “Shh… It’s okay,” she murmured.

  “Daddy took Barry,” I mumbled. “Barry scares the monsters away, but tonight he can’t because Daddy took him.”

  When I opened my eyes again, I saw my dad standing at the doorway. With blurry vision I could barely make out my mom nodding her head and my dad walking out of the room. We were alone, just me and my mom, so she sat on my bed as I clutched her neck.

  “Emma, what’s wrong?”

  “They’re tapping,” I told her in a scared voice, pointing to the far side of the room. Before I could even finish my breath they began again. Tap. Tap. Tap. “There!”

  My mom listened for a second and began to rub my back. “It’s okay, Emma. That’s just the radiator. When it heats up, it makes noise.” She pointed to where the noise was coming from, showing me the long piece of metal that made the length of my room.

  I leaned into her, still too scared to feel safe in my room alone. That’s when my dad walked in with Barry. Not some stuffed animal he bought to replace my friend, but Barry himself. He was clean, but most of all, he had all his limbs attached.

  “Barry!” I called out to him, opening my arms to my friend. My dad walked over and placed the bear in my arms, and I hugged Barry tightly. My cheeks pressed into his fur, and it was soft beyond my imagination. I looked up to my dad and something in his eyes was sad.

  “I’m sorry, Emma, I forgot to give him back before you went to bed.” He sat on my bed also, next to my mom. I slid off her lap and onto my pillow. With the four of us here—Barry included—my bed felt impossibly small.

  “Why did you take him?” I said with sad eyes.

  “I needed to make him like new again. That meant he had to go way for a while—sorta like a retreat. See his leg? Now it’s all better.” My dad gave Barry’s leg a little tug, and I was about to yell at him, but I saw Barry was still in one piece; in fact he was in the best condition I had ever remembered seeing him.

  “But I had no one when he was gone,” I told my dad.

  “Emma, you have me and your mother. We’re always going to be here for you. If you ever need someone to fight off the monsters in Barry’s place, I’m your man.” My dad smiled at me, and I loosened my grip on Barry.

  “Always,” my mom added, curling her arm around me to place me in her lap again.

  “Really?”

  “Pinkie promise.”

  My dad held out his pinkie for me, and I offered my own. My finger was so small in comparison, but it was a sealed promise just the same. As our fingers entwined, my mom leaned forward to kiss the crown of my head.

  That night I slept at ease. My parents tucked me into bed again, this time with Barry at my side; but even if he hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have felt alone. I slept knowing my dad gave me a promise. Like the princesses in the movies, he was my knight in shining armor. When the monsters or dragons came, I could always count on him to fend them away.

  But now he couldn’t do that anymore. My dad’s arm
or has begun to rust and with it sickness came. He made me a promise, and I have no doubt he will always to try to keep it, but some things aren’t possible.

  My daddy won’t always be here, that much is clear.

  Chapter 23

  Fear & Loss

  It becomes treatment after treatment, and nothing seems to help. There are some side effects, like hair loss and vomiting. I watch through the window of his hospital room, as nurses hold a bucket to his face. My mom stays curled up in the corner.

  His room is on the bottom floor, and when it’s nice out, the nurse leaves the window open. After surgery, another surgery, while my dad is still under the spell of medicine, I climb through a window. At first I just stand there staring, waiting and watching. It’s silent aside from the monitor beeping, telling me my dad is alive. I watch as his chest struggles to move up and down. His face, now worn with treatments, no longer looks the same. He’s pale, and his skin is paper-thin. All his hair is gone, and he vomits after eating. Everywhere I look, there is some sort of wire keeping him alive.

  I sit at one of chairs next to his bed. People are walking out in the hall, and I can make out some of what they are saying. One man is on the phone. “It’s going to be okay. She can make it—she’s a fighter.”

  I wish I could say the same for my dad, but his time is coming. I can see it; in the dark circles under his eyes, in his brittle skin, in every part of his bandaged body. Momentarily I wonder who this girl is they are talking about. I hope she is okay for the sake of her family. I know how one lost life can damage someone.

  Out in the hall someone shouts orders, and a wheelchair goes by that holds a mother with a swollen belly, pregnant. Her face is red, and she’s clutching her husband’s hand, as he pushes her wheelchair down the hall to deliver the baby. Life comes and goes out of this world.

  I’m startled when I hear a gasping sound come from my dad. I know he’s in pain, but I’m forced to leave before he sees me. Before I go, I press the button on his bed that calls the nurse, knowing this is the only help I can provide.

  I stand outside the window, until I hear a nurse step into the room to know my dad is in safe hands. She fumbles with some of his wires and tubes, presses buttons, and removes and replaces a bagful of urine connected to the urethra. She leaves again after double-checking everything and gives him a fresh dose of medicine.

  I step in one final time and watch as he slips back into unconsciousness. As I look out the window and see the sun going down, I know I have little time left today, or any day, with my dad. I’ve learned to think of each breath as if it were his last. I come see him every day and stand outside his window—his guardian angel.

  “I love you,” I whisper. I’m surprised when I see his hand move in response, and a smile crosses his face. I hold on to this memory as I run back to Phantom Lagoon, knowing it’s impossible to know the future or predict its path.

  _________________

  Weeks pass and things get worse as my dad manages to cling to his small, thin lifeline that somehow keeps him alive. Whenever I see him in the hospital, I feel like I’m looking at the skeleton of my dad in both senses. Physically he is here, skin and bones, but mentally he’s left in some hazed world from so much medication. The doctors want to try a new surgery, and my mom finally gives them the okay after much talk of the risks and benefits.

  The procedure is painful, that much I can tell. Since my dad has been sick, he hasn’t been talking much, but now he is almost unresponsive. He used to make sounds of pain and agony; now he’s just quiet. My mom talks to him, and he stares back as if she isn’t even there. This surgery turns out to be a huge mistake. His body responds in the worst way possible. His brain has started to swell and has shortened his lifetime dramatically, leaving us to count our moments.

  It’s been a long time since my dad has walked, and now his bones are so frail they can’t support any weight. The nurses handle my dad with the utmost care as they attempt to bath him without hurting him. I try not to imagine the wails that escape his lips when they take off the bandages to clean his wounds, or put in more needles, or just move him. I have to remind myself that, if he can feel pain, he is alive. I tell myself that this is better than when he had kept quiet after the surgery that made his brain swell.

  H

  I hear my mom on the phone at our house talking to relatives. Some of them have come to see my dad to say their good-byes—it’s clear now that his life is very limited in time. They come to see him, but he doesn’t remember them. He doesn’t remember anyone who isn’t immediate family. He just stares blankly at them as they talk, sometimes mumbling a short response to something he sees. This afternoon my aunt is talking to my mom in the kitchen while I sit under the open window, hiding behind a bush.

  “He didn’t even remember me,” my aunt mumbles.

  I hear my mom looking through the cabinet for something while she cooks. “He doesn’t remember anything now,” she says.

  “He seemed a lot better today than when I had seen him a few days ago…” my aunt trails off, shaking her head. “Today he seemed different, happy even. He looked at me like a stranger, but he was talking about Emma. He mumbled something about her coming to see him once, that she came through the window. He said that Emma came in after surgery and pushed a button when he couldn’t breathe—she saved his life. Then after the nurse came and left, he said she came back in, but before she left, she whispered ‘I love you.’ I can’t help but believe him, because I know she’s looking out for him now. He knows who his guardian angel is.”

  “He said that?” my mom asks in disbelief.

  “Every word. He was so sure when he said it too. He said he missed her visits but knows she can’t always be with him. He kept saying, ‘My little Emma…’”

  There is silence after that, and I can tell my mom is absorbing every word that is coming out of my aunt’s mouth.

  _________________

  He went into surgery again. The doctors keep trying, but nothing is working. Things have gotten worse, and they know that; something will slip soon.

  I sit outside my dad’s hospital window and listen to his heart monitor, counting each beat, making sure he is alive. I hear relatives tell my mom a miracle will happen, but it never comes.

  My dad becomes more talkative, but his voice is hoarse—it took me days to even realize it was him speaking. He tells my mom the same thing he had told my aunt; I’m his guardian angel watching over him. I know I had made the right choice in coming back. My mom answers with a slight nod of the head and reassuring smile—nothing more. I feel abandoned by her now. In the beginning she had made sure that I didn’t forget her. I knew that this time would come though. Someday she would leave me behind and convince herself it was all just a dream. And now it’s happened.

  I tell myself to forgive her. I can’t get it out of my mind that she had never truly said good-bye. I remember clearly in my mind the last time I had talked to her. It was on the phone after my dad had just come to the hospital, and she found out he had brain cancer—she hung up after my dad made a loud cry. She forgot to say good-bye.

  The last time I talked to her in person was the day I found out about my dad’s illness. She told me everything she knew and walked into the house without saying good-bye or looking back at me. Even when she spoke to me, she looked through me, like I wasn’t even there—like I was a ghost. I suppose this all happened when my dad became sick—maybe she’s afraid to lose another loved one. I still wish she had said good-bye. I’m gone to her now. I exist more to my dad, and he needs me the most. My mom needed me once, and I needed her but not anymore.

  Before I thought I was here to help her, but how can I do that when she is pushing me away? The only person I can help now is my dad. He’ll be gone soon and then what? Will my mom need me again or will she continue to forget?

  _________________

  Two months later they give us the news. There is nothing more we can do. The treatments are making things mo
re painful for him. We all know that but don’t want to give up.

  My mom is the one to make the final decision to stop the treatments. When I sit outside in the cold winter air behind my house, I can hear her inside, trying to figure out how she will let go of her husband. She must have fallen asleep, because soon the house falls silent. I stay until the final rays of sun fall across the sky.

  When I return the next day, she is already gone. I sit in the backyard, leaning against the house until I hear a car pull up—two in fact. One is a van that holds my dad and his equipment that will keep him pain free but not alive. My mom is in the other car, and watches as nurses walk into our house and help my dad settle in. When I’m able to catch a glimpse of him, he looks much older than I had last seen him. Now it appears as if he’s in his late seventies, not in his forties.

  The nurses wheel him inside and put his IVs into place before saying good-bye. “Good luck,” one nurse whispers to him, a final good-bye. My mom cries silently as they leave, closing the door behind them. The nurses that have helped my dad for so long drive away, leaving my dad behind.

  _________________

  I come to see him every day now. My mom is at his side each minute, trying to make sure he is comfortable.

  I watch through the window as my mom cares for him. He is wrapped in a wool blanket my grandma had made for me when I was little. Its bright pink and blue, but my dad looks shocked when my mom takes it out of the closet.

  “That’s Emma’s,” he says in a rough voice.

  My mom looks down at the blanket for a minute—maybe thinking back to when she had talked to me after I died, though she still thinks that was all just a dream now, I guess—but she walks over to my dad and places it across his body, until he is fully covered.

  “She wants you to be safe,” she says, and suddenly I think that she does remember; maybe I was the one who had left. But then when she sits down, I see her shake her head. I know that she’s still trying to figure out if it had been real.