Deanna Roy - Forever Loved

I tried to imagine what I’d do if Finn had done something bad, broken a window or stolen a pack of gum from the grocer. As much as I didn’t think I’d blow, clearly it was in me, that slow burn that just ignited.

The world knew what it was doing.

The minister droned on. Corabelle watched the coffin, probably not registering any more than I was. I tried to focus in. This was all Finn would get, his baptism, his funeral. I should pay attention.

“God’s will is a mystery to all of us.” The minister looked over the smattering of people in the chairs. “But we know Finn rests safely in the hands of the Almighty, and will know no pain or suffering in this world.”

He’d just said all the things I was thinking. Finn had been spared. Been saved from me. I glanced at Corabelle again, so pale and fragile, barely sitting up in her chair. Her dress was damp, I could see. I hadn’t even helped with that. I’d been useless. Pointless. And quite possibly, a threat to the well-being of her children.

“God speaks to us on the matter of death and sin in Romans 6, verse 23.” The minister laid his finger on the open book in his hand. “The wages of sin is death.”

His words crashed over me like the walls had collapsed. He went on, but I couldn’t hear any more of the verse. The wages of sin is death.

Finn’s death was the wages of sin.

Not Corabelle’s sin. She was his mother. She had done nothing wrong. She was innocent of everything.

But I was not. I had a family history. A black mark. And I’d tempted her, over and over again, until we’d hit disaster. It was right that I was the one to sign the papers taking him off life support. I was the one who would have ruined him, like my father clearly had ruined me.

The minister bowed his head to pray but I kept my head up and turned to my old man. He didn’t look down either and rolled his eyes when he caught my gaze. The burn began again. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted him to be in pain. This was no way to live around anyone I could harm, and certainly not for children. I would never have any. I would not do that.

Corabelle reached for my hand and clutched it. I bowed then with her, knowing she needed me to assimilate, to do what was expected.

The minister raised his hands. “And now for a final blessing for Finn Mays as he makes his way to Our Father.”

One of the black suits walked toward the casket. I thought at first he was just stepping up to escort us out as soon as the minister finished his rousing finale, but instead he moved toward the coffin. Before I realized his intention, he had lowered the rod holding up the lid of the coffin and dropped it down.

Corabelle gasped, turning to me, her face so white I could not imagine she still had blood in her veins. I jumped up, but the man was latching the sides down. The minister paused as he saw me.

Corabelle jerked her hand from me. I had failed her. She had only asked this one thing, and I hadn’t followed up, hadn’t spoken to the staff.

“Sit down, boy,” my father bellowed.

But the roar in my ears drowned out everything but the fact that I didn’t belong here, didn’t deserve that boy, or Corabelle. I had nothing to offer anyone but incompetence or rage. The minister tried to go on with his blessing, but I couldn’t listen to another word. I took off down the aisle, stripping off the foul jacket and leaving it on the floor. The tie was so tight on my neck that I jerked it off, discarding it by the door as I pushed through.

I needed to get away. I couldn’t bear Corabelle’s distress over the coffin, my father’s condescension.

The Camaro sat waiting for me, firing up with an easy twist of the ignition. I squealed out of the spot, no idea where I was going, but the clanging in my head didn’t start to ease until I was outside the city, the desert stretching in every direction. The blankness of the scenery and the long stretch of empty road suited me. Nobody to piss me off. Nobody to let down. Nobody anywhere near me at all.

I’d lost control that day. Control of my temper. My actions. My responsibilities.

The ICU was quiet except for the humming of machines, soft beeps, and the whir of Corabelle’s ventilator by my head. It didn’t sound like Finn’s, I remembered that now. His had been more metallic, like the choppy blades of a helicopter. Hers was a soft wheeze in and out.

The sheet beneath her arm was wet. I had been crying. Stupid.

No, not stupid. Normal. It was normal and fine, and I shouldn’t hear my father’s words, “Don’t be a damn sissy,” as he smacked me across the top of the head. I should forget his lessons, his ridicule, no longer let it penetrate.

He had rarely actually hurt me. I don’t think the town would have stood for beatings, black eyes, or real injuries. His form of discipline had been a hard shove or a hearty backhand, enough to knock me around but just light enough for witnesses to shrug it off as “family business” rather than “call the cops.”

Maybe it was the attitude that hurt more, the indication that I was a failure in everything, that even if something was going right, I’d eventually screw it up.

I had given him too much power. As a little kid, maybe it made sense. He was my father, big and important and in a position to tell me what to do and when to do it.

But now, he was nothing. I didn’t see him, talk to him. I had no reason to be like him at all. I didn’t even have to know him.

How much could we escape our past? Corabelle and I had been trying, ever since that first day on the beach when I drew that line in the sand and she stepped away from our history and into our future. Now here we were, and everything about this place we’d landed in was so much like where we’d been that I could scarcely bear it.

At least the business with Rosa was behind me. Her cousin was surely right. Rosa needed a champion, and I’d simply been the easiest target. I’d figure out a way to block her number. Tijuana was in my past, like my father. I’d spend the rest of my life trying to fix all the screwups I’d made in the first eighteen years. The disappearing act. The vasectomy. The father rage.

I had to believe I could do it.

The sheet had already begun to dry. I laid my head back down, shifting so that I leaned against the bed frame, still mostly hidden if someone just glanced over. Weariness began to take over everything else.

The second time to awaken in the hospital was far worse than the first. My mouth hurt, lips bruised, like I’d been struck in the face.

My lungs were cement blocks, heavy and stiff. Every breath was a struggle but the air was strange, sweet almost, and cold. Something tickled my nose and I lifted my hand, feeling the tube running inside my nostrils. I was on oxygen.

“She’s coming around,” a voice said, female but low, and I pictured Large Marge from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. My eyes seemed glued together. I blinked, trying to clear them.

“Here, honey, let me get a cloth,” another female voice said, this one lighter and higher, and I envisioned a perky young nurse in a white cap and starched uniform.

The sounds weren’t right for my room. Too many machines, too many beeps. “Where am I?” I asked, my voice horrid and croaky.

“You’re in ICU,” the deeper voice said. My gown shifted at the neck, exposing skin to the air. “I’m going to take another listen, then we’re going to roll you to X-ray to check on your progress.”

“How long have I been here?”

“About 24 hours.”

Something cool touched the skin of my chest. I wanted to rub my eyes, get the gunk away so I could open them, but only one hand was free. On the other I could feel the weight of an IV and the length of a tube across my shoulder. “What happened?”

“You had a complication called pleural effusion, where fluid gets trapped in the lining of your lungs. You went into respiratory arrest.”

She moved what I assumed was the disc of a stethoscope to another part of my chest. “Can you breathe deeply for me?”

I tried to focus on drawing in a breath, but the sharp pain was so acute that I gasped and let the air out too quickly.

She placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. “That’s okay. Relax.”

The hand and the disc withdrew and now a warm cloth covered my eyes. The lighter voice said, “We’ll get this cleared up.”

I was a mess. Another day gone. Definitely not going to class tomorrow. I wondered if Gavin had tried to come back. Tears pricked my eyes.

The cloth withdrew. “Try to open now.”

I blinked, still feeling the stickiness, but now my lashes were willing to part. The room was dim, and two women stood over me, one in a white coat, the other in sea-green scrubs.

“We want to see where we are with the effusion,” the doctor said, and I was able now to match her voice to her body. No Large Marge, but she was definitely tall, stately, and older than I expected, her gray hair tight in a French twist. “I’m Dr. Adams. I’ve been with you since you came to ICU. Apparently you went on a little expedition and collapsed?”

That’s right. The bereavement room. The pacifier. I nodded. “Is Gavin here?”

The doctor looked over at the nurse.

“She must mean the young man we found sleeping by your bed last night,” the nurse said. “Dark hair, brutally handsome?”

He’d been here! “Yes.”

“He’s in the waiting room. So are your parents. We haven’t let them back.”

“Are they — fighting?”

The nurse patted my arm. “They are worried about you.”

The doctor picked up an iPad and tapped a few things in. “You’re going to X-ray. I’ll come by later today and we’ll see how you look. Hopefully we can get you back to a regular room again soon.”