The Dandelion

by Michelle Leighton

  And I love in return.

  Dinner goes off without a hitch. There is great food, great wine, and great company. We laugh together, like people who have been friends for a lifetime, and we exchange smiles like people who will be friends for a lifetime more. For once, Sara’s sickness, the elephant in the room, is easy to ignore. It’s almost like she isn’t sick at all. It’s a happy, carefree time that I never would’ve expected to take place in the company of Sam and his wife and child.

  But it does.

  And it’s not one I’ll soon be forgetting.

  “You cooked, I’ll clean,” I tell Sam as the evening winds down and he scoots back his chair and grabs his plate. Sara keeps smothering yawns behind her hand and I know it’s approaching the hour when bedtime needs must be addressed. Sam needs to concentrate on his wife and his daughter rather than a kitchen mess. That’s something I can do. “No arguments. You three go about your nightly business.”

  For a few seconds, I’m hyper aware of both Sam and Sara’s eyes on me, as well as a bizarre kind of unspoken gratitude permeating the air. I merely smile and nod firmly at them, then stand to begin stacking plates, clearing the outdoor table, and carrying it all inside.

  I hear the low tones of Sam and Sara’s voices drift in through the open doors, along with the occasional higher pitch of Noelle’s as she chimes in. I smile, feeling full in ways I didn’t expect.

  As I’m wiping down the countertop, the trio comes back inside through the wall of glass, Noelle in one of Sam’s arms, Sara tucked under the other. Sam explains, “We’re off to read bedtime stories. Tell Abi goodnight.”

  Both Noelle and Sara give me an obligatory goodnight, and we all laugh since Sam’s instructions weren’t meant for his wife.

  “Goodnight,” I return, somehow not surprised when Sara slips out of her husband’s grasp to come and kiss my cheek as she passes.

  “You’re beautiful inside and out,” she says to me.

  “Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you.”

  I wait until they’re out of sight to return to my work. When everything has been returned to its spotless and orderly condition, I take up my glass, still half full of wine, and head back out to the patio. For some reason it feels intrusive to hang around inside, like I’m an interloper in a moment that was deemed family only.

  The night air is warm and humid, and it carries with it the scent of a thousand trees and miles of water, a smell peculiar to the lake in summer. I suck deep gulps into my lungs, holding the sweetly familiar air in them until it burns. Only then do I let it out.

  I sit down in the chair I once occupied across from Sara when I came to talk to her that first Sunday. So much has happened since then. Or at least it feels like it has. It’s as though time has sped up, as though the formation of relationships has been greatly accelerated. Maybe that’s the way of it when someone is dying. Maybe it’s a form of God’s mercy, so that suffering doesn’t drag on and on and on.

  I sip my wine, allowing my head to fall back as I finally relax. The sky is a moonless black, boasting an infinite sprinkling of stars. I focus on the brightest one as I listen to the gentle lap of water against the shore. I’ve always thought it was a hungry sound, that constant lapping. Sam used to say I was crazy, that it was the most soothing sound in the world. I couldn’t disagree with the soothing part, but to me that noise meant hunger, hunger for the shore. The one thing the water always comes back to, as though it can never get enough. Some might say it’s the shore that is consumed by the water, but me? I think it’s the other way around. I think the water is consumed by the shore. It always returns because it can’t stay away. It’s in its very nature to keep coming back, over and over and over again.

  As I listen, I think of how this lake has always felt a part of me, and I’ve felt a part of it. Maybe that’s because I know this kind of hunger. I know what it is to feel consumed. I’m so much like this lake, always coming back to the shore, never able to get enough.

  Sam is my shore.

  He always was.

  And I think it must be in my nature to come back to him, always, lapping hungrily like I can’t get enough. Because, in truth, I don’t think I can. I don’t think I ever could.

  I drift away on those thoughts, thoughts of hunger and lapping and the always nature of Sam and me. The next thing I’m aware of is being swept into the safe harbor of Sam’s arms, and letting myself be absorbed into the sand.

  CHAPTER 25

  ABI

  Fast

  The phone rouses me. The room is dark, as is the sky past the curtains, but I’m in my bed in the cabin that has become home to me. I recognize it instantly. It’s familiar. Comforting. A refuge.

  Drowsily, I remember Sam driving me back here last night. He brought me in my car, which was still parked at his house from the day I ran home. What I recall most clearly is him looking over at me from the driver’s seat, love shining more brightly from his face than the lights from the dashboard. Even now it warms me.

  The phone buzzes again, forcing me out of the fog of half sleep. This time it brings me fully awake.

  Alarm vibrates at my nerve ends. The only calls received in the middle of the night are bad calls, and when I see Sam’s number staring back at me from the softly lit square of the screen, my stomach quivers with dread.

  My chest is tight when I answer. “Sam?”

  “I’m sorry to call so early, but can you come over?”

  I sit up. “Of course. Is everything okay?”

  Everything is not okay. I know this without the confirmation of his words. I feel it like that unsettling tension that permeates the air before a storm. It’s electric. Enough to raise the fine hairs on your arms. But not in a good way.

  “It’s Sara.”

  My heart drops. “Is she—”

  I can’t push the word over my trembling tongue.

  “No, but she’s…she’s unresponsive. I’ve called for an ambulance and talked to the physician on staff tonight at the ER.”

  “What happened?

  “I think she’s had a stroke. A massive one.”

  His voice…it’s quiet and solemn and so empty that I feel my chin begin to quake. The man I love, the man I’ve loved since I was in high school, is losing his wife, his companion, the mother of his child. Someone he has loved for many years. He’s hurting and he’s only going to hurt worse when her time comes to an end.

  And there’s absolutely nothing I can do to take it away.

  I feel helpless and desperate and bitter, but none of that will help Sam. He needs me to be strong. And so I will be strong.

  “What can I do, Sam?”

  He doesn’t answer right away, and even when he does it’s not an answer at all. “I thought I was ready for this, but…” Sam’s voice breaks on the last causing a fist of icy fingers to constrict around my heart. “I’m not ready. There were still…there were still things I wanted to say, things I wanted to do for her. I thought we had a little more time. I thought…”

  His voice trails off. The silence that follows is filled with his grief, filled with his regret. It’s like a tangible presence looming over my bed.

  I close my burning eyes. “I’m so sorry, Sam.”

  It feels so weak, so cliché, but I can’t think of a single other thing to say to him. My soul bleeds with his. I know this pain. And I know this suffering. But I also know there’s nothing anyone can say or do—ever—to change or ease it. The death of a loved one is one of life’s great sufferings that must be endured. Survived.

  “I should’ve done more.” His tone is bleak and full of remorse. “I should’ve spent more days at home. I should’ve taken more pictures. I should’ve told her I loved her in the middle of the night. I wanted that to be the last thing she heard. I loved her.” The last is said on a tortured whisper and tears prickle in my eyes.

  “She knew, Sam. She knew. She told me so.”

  “I hope so. Oh, God, I hope so.” I know he’s trying to h
old it together, trying to hold in the sobs and the despair. I want to tell him to let it out, but that isn’t Sam. This is. This is how he deals. This is how he grieves. This is what shows, even when his insides are being torn to shreds.

  I get out of bed and reach for a pair of jeans, dragging them up my legs as I wait. When the silence on the other end of the line stretches on, I feel compelled to ask about his child, the other person whose world is being irrevocably altered in the wee hours of the morning. “Noelle?”

  I hear a soft sniff before, “She’s sleeping. I didn’t want to wake her.”

  I get that, and I think it’s the best choice. She shouldn’t have to see what comes next—an ambulance showing up to wheel her unconscious mother from the house on a stretcher before the sun has even had a chance to rise.

  “Okay. Sam, I’m coming. I’m on my way.”

  “Thanks, Abs.”

  “Always.”

  I hang up and hurry to the bathroom where I swish some mouthwash as I run a brush through my hair. My mind flounders in disbelief.

  I’ve heard dozens of stories about sick people having a sort of precognition about when they’re going to die. Maybe it’s nature’s early warning system, or maybe God’s way of giving everyone a chance to make peace with life and with death. My father died unexpectedly. My daughter died unexpectedly. Momma is…well, in a way she died unexpectedly, too, so I’ve never really experienced this kind of thing firsthand.

  Sara is my first.

  I remember in nursing school, during our hospice rotation, we were told of a “golden day,” a day when the patient might do exceptionally well, seem to rebound in fact, as though they’re making a rapid recovery. Only that’s not what a golden day is. A golden day is like a last breath. It’s like the body’s way of giving one last courageous push before it gives up. Patients tend to take a turn for the worse after the golden day. Some even die.

  Yesterday was Sara’s golden day.

  I feel it in my bones.

  It was her last hurrah, her time to make peace and share laughs and say goodbyes. I wonder if that’s what she did last night. When they went upstairs together, I wonder if she said all the things she wanted and needed to say to her husband and child. I hope so. Not just for Sara’s sake, but for Sam’s and Noelle’s, too.

  I know Sara knew she wouldn’t be around long. She said as much on more than one occasion. Maybe she really was just waiting for Sam to find someone. And if that’s the case, I suppose I’m responsible, in an indirect way, for sending her to her grave.

  Another life I’ve taken.

  Bile gurgles at the back of my throat, threatening to spew up and out, but I swallow and swallow and swallow until the urge to vomit passes. By sheer force of will, I push those thoughts from my mind so I can better focus on the task at hand. Noelle needs me. Well, she will when she wakes up. Sam will need me, too. He’ll need to know someone is taking care of things while he’s at the hospital. He’ll need to know that his daughter and his home are being cared for so that he can concentrate on spending time with his wife, and even helping her recover if that’s possible at this point. I can provide that help for him. It’s all I can do, but I’m going to do it to the best of my ability. I can fall to pieces later. After.

  Because there’s always an after.

  I might even argue that it’s the hardest part.

  When I pull in, the ambulance is in the driveway and the front door is ajar. I park in the grass so as not to obstruct the exit of the paramedics.

  My pulse pounds as I walk inside and up the stairs. It’s surprisingly quiet, all things considered. Eerily quiet. Deathly quiet.

  My palms begin to sweat when my foot hits the second floor landing and I turn left. Noelle’s door is closed and I can barely hear low voices coming from inside the master bedroom. I pause, uncertain of what I should do now. I’m hesitant to interrupt what’s going on in Sam and Sara’s room, but I don’t want to risk waking Noelle either. More than either of those considerations, however, comes the desire to at least see Sam—his face, his eyes, the set of his mouth. To see how he’s doing. And to let him see me, to let him see that he isn’t alone. Hopefully he can draw some amount of comfort from knowing that I’m here and that I’ll take care of things so he doesn’t have to worry.

  I pad silently down the hall to the open door. I stop just outside it. The paramedics are securing a limp and unconscious Sara to the gurney, lines and leads trailing away from her still form. Sam is standing a few feet from them, looking on. His skin is pale, his lips drawn. His eyes are trained on his wife.

  I wait. I wait for Sam to notice me. As if sensing my presence in the room, his head lifts and his gaze meets mine. When it does, I feel the blood drain away from my face. My eyelids burn and my fingers tremble. I don’t move. I don’t speak.

  Sam’s eyes tell the story. The loss in them is staggering and they hold a hollowness that I know won’t disappear for a long, long time.

  Sara may not be gone yet, but the mourning has already begun.

  Hot tears spill down my face when Sam returns his stare to his wife. From the corner of my eye, I see the paramedics bend to collapse the gurney. It snaps into place, the quick clacking sound enough to make me jump. I move further into the room and to one side as they approach the door. The two men nod at me as they pass and then they are gone. And Sara with them.

  I don’t turn as Sam makes his way to me. I don’t think I can bear to see his agony up close and personal.

  I feel him stop behind me and I whirl to take him in my arms, wishing with all my might I could take this pain from him. Take it for him. I’m no stranger to it. This kind of anguish is what I deserve. But not Sam. He doesn’t deserve this.

  “I’m so sorry, Sam.” His shoulder muffles my whisper where my mouth is pressed to it. He says nothing, just buries his face in the curve of my neck.

  Finally, he mumbles, “Thank you.” When he pulls away, he cups my cheeks in his broad palms and stares down at me as though willing me to believe his words. “I mean it. Thank you. For everything.” Gratitude is there in the now dark, dark gray of his irises.

  With his thumbs, he swipes tears from the corners of my eyes. I reach up to wind my fingers around his wrists, hoping to convey with my touch what I can’t find the words to say. As if he hears me loud and clear, Sam closes his eyes and leans his forehead against mine, exhaling in one long, labored breath.

  “Tell Noelle I took Sara to the doctor and that I’ll be home a little later.”

  I nod, not trusting my voice.

  I feel Sam’s lips brush my eyebrow and then he’s walking away, down the steps, out of sight. Less than a minute and I hear the muted rattle of the garage door followed by the throaty rumble of his truck as he pulls out and barrels down the road.

  I turn and stare into the empty bedroom. That’s when the tears come. All I see is where Sara should be, but isn’t. A gaping hole, and I’ve only known her a couple of months. It’s this, this emptiness, that will kill Sam.

  I slide to the floor and I cry. I shed tears for Sam and Sara and Noelle. For my child and my father and my mother. For what was and what should’ve been. For what will never be and what can never be again.

  I’m still sitting in the same place when Noelle’s voice sounds from behind me nearly two hours later. She gives me a sleepy smile at first, but then her eyes flick to the unoccupied bed beyond me. Her expression turns wary. “Where’s Daddy?”

  Noelle’s question speaks volumes. Sam has taken care of her for so long, and Sara has been sick for so long, that Noelle’s biggest attachment seems to be to Sam rather than Sara. That’s as relieving as it is heartbreaking. Sara was cheated out of the close relationship with her daughter that she should’ve had. But, for Noelle’s sake, I can’t be too sad about it. She will feel the loss of her mother, no question, but it won’t be as poignant as the loss of her father would be. For that, I’m grateful.

  I stand up, my smile neutral. “He took your mom to
the doctor. He said to tell you he’d be back later.”

  Her brow pleats into a deeper frown. “Is she coming back?”

  My insides freeze with panic. I’m not prepared to answer these kinds of questions. I don’t know what Sam wants her to know or how he’d want to tell her.

  The problem is: Sam isn’t here. I am.

  She stands in the doorway, watching me. She shows no signs of moving until she gets an answer. The fact that she would even ask that question speaks to the intuitive nature of this little girl.

  I rack my brain for the best response. I end up going with the vague truth. “I’m not sure. She might have to stay for a while.”

  And, honestly, I’m not sure. I have no idea if and when Sara will be home.

  “But Daddy’s coming back?”

  The worry in her eyes is clear, and it’s heartrending. I want to take her in my arms and shield her from every hurt in the world, from all the anguish that’s coming her way sooner than she knows. But I can’t. No one can. No one can save us from life. Only living it, only moving on through it, even if you have to do it limping, can ease the pain.

  I crawl the short distance to her and stop, sitting back on my haunches so I stay at eye level. “He is. I promise. How about we go get some breakfast? I’ll even let you pick what you want to eat. Then we can watch Dory.” Anyone who has any experience with kids knows this is a mistake, but it’s just this once. Just for today. I’d give her the moon if she asked for it today.

  With the resiliency found only in children, Noelle brightens. Her eyes widen and her lips curve up into a joyous smile. “I can have anything?”

  I comically narrow my eyes on her. “Within reason.”

  With a squeal of glee, she throws her arms around my neck and basically climbs into my arms. “Let’s go, let’s go,” she urges as though I’m a pony she’s trying to prod along.

  I stand, shifting her weight to one hip. The hallway—and the stairs at the end of it—stretches out in front of me like an insurmountable obstacle. Sweat breaks out across my upper lip and fear gnaws at my gut. I have to think quickly.