Mac slid his vehicle sideways into the porch and was out of his truck before the engine kicked off. He ran around the back and up the three steps to their house and saw the front door was open but forgot about the screen and crashed through it, stumbling into their living room. On the way home he dialed 911 and was told an ambulance would be on the way. Serena was kneeling next to her mother, crying and holding her hand.
“Mommy fell down!” Serena said.
Carol had fallen on her back and hit her head on the floor as she succumbed to the veil of unconsciousness, and went into a backward plunge. She hit so hard that the impact split her skull. There was a small pool of blood forming around her hair like a crimson halo. Mac ran over and winced as his knees hit the floor.
“Carol! Carol! Oh, please God, no!” Mac could see she was in bad shape. He could hear sirens in the distance.
“Daddy, she just fell down and I tried to wake her up. Mommy wouldn’t wake up.” Serena said. Mac grabbed Serena and held her close.
“I know you did, sweetie. Bobby, can you take your sister outside, please. The paramedics are going to need room.” Mac said. His voice sounded very faint to his ears.
“Yeah, Dad. Serena, come on let’s go outside.” Bobby reached for her hand and she ran to him clinging to his waist.
“You kids go on.” Mac said. He quickly turned back to his wife, not ready to let her go. The ambulance pulled up in front of the house, its lights flashing through the windows and against the living room wall. Heavy boots hit the porch and he could hear them coming with a stretcher and bags of equipment.
“Sir, we need you to step out of the way so we can work. I’m sorry,” one of the men said.
Mac could not see his face, and even though they were professional and lightning quick, he felt helpless as the strangers handled his wife, took her vitals, and assessed Carol’s condition.
“She fell down.” Mac said. It was all he could think to say.
“Sir, we’ll take real good care of her. Are you riding in the ambulance? I saw some children outside, but we can’t take them in the vehicle.”
“Those are uh, my kids. No, we don’t have anyone else right now. I’ll have to, um, follow you. Which hospital are you going to?” Mac said. His mind was in shock.
“Sacred Heart. It’s about ten miles south of here. Can you drive, Mr. MacDonald?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Please help my wife.” Mac said.
The two men put Carol on a stretcher and moved her through the living room and out the door. In a moment she was in their ambulance and Mac could see that they were sticking tubes in her arms with bags of liquid hanging from the ceiling. Mac motioned for the kids and they followed him to the family truck, an old Hummer Mac bought at an auction a few years back. It had originally been the property of Uncle SAM during the last war in the Congo, and it still had a .50 caliber mount on the roof, something Mac would not remove. He would argue that it was a war machine from birth and if he ever needed to mount a .50 caliber machine gun on the roof again he could do it.
“Get in kids; we’re following the ambulance to the hospital where they’re taking your mother.”
Mac followed the flashing lights in front of him, dazed and disoriented. Serena sat stoic in the backseat. Dried tears streaked her dirty, pretty face, and Bobby, a born conversationalist, sat quietly in the front seat, staring out the window. Mac flipped on the radio to a local rock station and his mind flashed back to the day he and Carol met. She was sitting beside the base pool, the child of an officer, and he a young Second Lieutenant. For days he’d tried to get up the nerve to walk over and talk to her, but he always thought Carol seemed disinterested and bored when she looked his way. He eventually decided to throw caution to the wind one afternoon in July. That day Carol was by the pool wearing a bikini top, and short-shorts that showed off her slender, tan thighs, as she sat curled up on a lounge chair, reading a murder mystery. Mac took a deep breath and approached the lounge chair beside her and asked her out. She told him she never went out with strangers and made him sit next to her.
“You know, when I first met your mother, I thought I was on a job interview. She would not go out on a date with me until I answered a battery of probing questions. That was something else.” Mac said to the kids.
“Looks like you passed her test.” Bobby said.
“Yeah, ha ha. I did, and it gave me insight into what life would be like with her. I’m glad I passed her first test, but it wouldn’t be the last.” Mac said. He couldn’t think of anything else to say, so he turned the radio up.
They finished the drive in silence. Mac was too distracted to talk and the radio kept his mind from the creep of panic. When they arrived at the hospital, Mac parked in the visitors section as the two paramedics burst through their ambulance doors with Carol, unconscious, laying on the stretcher. They extended the stretcher’s accordion style legs and wheeled her inside through a set of sliding double doors that read ER above them. Mac, Bobby and Serena all walked inside as he fumbled around in his pocket for the phone. He had to reach his sister Lorraine. If Carol’s condition deteriorated further he would need her there to help with the kids. He hoped she would answer his call, but first he needed to find out where the paramedics had taken Carol. He walked up to the front desk to see a tired grey haired woman sitting behind the counter in a white polo shirt with a caduceus embroidered on the left breast and Patient Services written beneath that. On her right breast was a name tag with Pam engraved. She was on the phone talking, and ignored Mac as she gave directions on how to get to the emergency room to the person on the other line.
“Excuse me, ma’am; the paramedics brought my wife through here. Can you tell me what room she’ll be in?” Mac asked. The woman paused for a moment, looking up at Mac with an unconcerned and irritated expression.
“Please, can you help me?” Mac asked.
“What’s her name, sir?” Pam asked.
“Carol MacDonald.” Mac replied. Pam stared into her screen and tapped on the virtual keyboard beaming out from the monitor onto her desk for a moment.
“She’s down in the ER triage. Doctor Skinner is down there looking at her now. He’s the attending.” Pam pointed down a long grey hallway and Mac could see the signs for ER leading the way. The medicinal odor of industrial cleanser made the whole place smell like it had taken a chlorine bath. He wondered just how many viruses were lurking behind every corner of this house of the sick and dying.
“Dad, is mom down there?” Bobby asked. Serena was holding her brother’s hand.
“Sir, children can’t go down to the ER. There are two gunshot wounds and a stabbing down there. They’ll have to stay here.” Pam said. She was hanging up her phone.
“Daddy?” Serena said.
“They can sit here with me. Do you have any family coming?” Pam asked.
“Guys I gotta’ go call your aunt Lorraine.” Mac was staring into his phone as the kids sat on old plastic hospital chairs behind the counter, next to Pam in a room full of half sleeping strangers.
He dialed the number and listened as it rang twice.
“Hello? Mac?” Lorraine asked.
“Hey, yeah, it’s me. Carol had to be rushed to the ER.”
“What? Oh my god, is she… how is she?” Lorraine asked.
“She passed out while Bobby and I were in town for supplies. Serena called me and she was pretty shaken up.”
“I’ll bet. How is Serena doing now?” Lorraine asked.
“She’s scared. Worried about her mother, but I’d expect that. Lorraine, I have to leave the kids up front for a few minutes while I go back and see Carol. There’s some gunshot wounds and stabbings back there, it’s pretty gnarly stuff, I guess. Bad for the kids to see. Although, with what’s going on in the world I wonder how long we can shield them from that stuff.” Mac said.
“I’ll be there in a few hours, just hang in there and tell the kids their aunt Lorraine is on the way.” Lorraine said. Mac hung up with his sister and walk
ed back inside the hospital waiting room.
The kids were sitting next to Pam mindlessly thumbing through some magazines. He waved to them with a half smile and surveyed the room full of strangers. Each waiting for their own version of news from the condition of loved ones or friends secreted away to curtain veiled cinderblock rooms. He followed the signs through toward the emergency room, and as he did a text appeared on his phone from Lorraine, that read, On my way. He looked and it was a link to map coordinates for his phone mapping software. Mac accessed the link with his thumb and a map of Missouri and Arkansas appeared. A little blue dot appeared on the location of Lorraine’s house, a red dot showed the hospital location and connecting those dots was a pink line with a moving black icon of a car. Mac felt some relief knowing that his sister was on the way, because since they had moved out into the country, there were times when he felt like the only man on earth, especially when Carol had episodes. And she’d never gotten hurt like this before. He placed his phone in his back pocket and navigated the maze of hallways to his wife.
When Mac found Carol, she was lying in a bay with five other people, but the staff had taken the liberty of closing curtains around her, which at least provided the illusion of privacy. Although Carol was still unconscious, a nurse had changed her into a white smock and covered her up to the waist with a blanket to keep her warm. A stern-faced doctor was standing over her reading the screen of a handheld medical chart and shaking his head. He was startled when Mac stepped through the curtain.
“Doctor, I’m Mac MacDonald. Carol’s husband, can you please tell me what’s going on with her?” Mac asked. The doctor looked up from her chart and turned to Mac with a grave expression.
“Mr. MacDonald, I’m Doctor Skinner.” He shook Mac’s hand. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but your wife’s cancer has spread to her brain through the liver and lymphatic system.”
“Well, is there anything you can do? You know, like surgery, or something?” Mac felt his heart plunging even as the words left his mouth. The doctor cocked his head and grimaced.
“Mr. MacDonald…”
“Call me Mac, please.”
“OK, Mac. We ran a scan of your wife’s vitals and found that her cancer has spread at an alarming rate. It hit her liver and spread so fast there is very little we can do but make her comfortable.”
“Her last doctor, uh, Reginald Boxer, told us there was an advanced therapy we could try just two weeks ago. She’s gotten worse that fast?” Mac asked.
“Carol developed a massive tumor in her brain that’s growing around her pineal gland and although we could go in and take it out with new methods of brain surgery, the rest of her body is too far gone.”
“There’s nothing you can do? I just don’t understand…with all of our technology?” Mac said.
“What Doctor Boxer was going to attempt is an experimental cell reversal therapy that uses cord blood stem cells to eliminate cancer cells and replace them with new cells coded for the affected organs, or systems within the body. In some cases, with patients caught early enough, we’ve seen dramatic improvements in health. Two weeks ago your wife was not showing signs of a brain tumor, or a massive spread through her lymphatic system. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do. Her body is so weak that anything we try might make the situation worse and kill her faster.” Doctor Skinner said.
Carol woke up and squinted. She was looking at the men as they talked with sleepy eyes.
“Well, nobody lives forever.” She whispered. Her voice was cracking from dehydration. Little balls of white spittle clung to the corners of her mouth.
“Hey sweetie.” Mac said. He moved around the bed and took her hand in his. It was ice cold.
“How long do I have?” Carol asked.
“A week, maybe two.” Doctor Skinner said. He looked at her with a perfectly blank expression. Doctors were always too good at that, Mac thought.
“Thank you for your honesty, doctor. Can I speak with my husband please?” Carol asked.
“Yes ma’am. I’m sorry to have to deliver this news. Please, let me know if I can make you more comfortable.” Doctor Skinner said. He nodded to them and disappeared around the corner.
“You’re not planning on leaving me here are you? I’m not dying in a hospital. You have to take me home.” Carol said.
“Yeah, of course we’re out of here, but I don’t know what to do, Carol. All my life, I’ve always come up with the answers. This is the first time I’ve ever been unsure of where to go next.” Mac said. She gripped his hand tighter.
“We are going to take it one day at a time and I’m going to spend my remaining life with you and the kids. Where are they?” Carol asked.
“They’re out in the waiting room. Lorraine’s on her way.” Mac said.
“That’s good, because you’re going to be a mess when I’m gone. Is she staying with us?” Carol asked.
“I think she’s staying, but I don’t know for how long.”
“Call your sister back and tell her to go to the house. I always liked Lorraine…” Carol nodded off again.
Mac walked out of her room over to a nurse’s station where some ladies were working behind their computer screens.
“I’d like to check my wife out and take her home, please.” Mac said.
“OK, let me get the doctor and he’ll be right with you.” One of them said. She was a small, frail looking young woman with black rings under her eyes. He wondered how many late shifts this twenty-something had worked. As soon as she said the words, Doctor Skinner walked around the corner.
“Doctor, I want to take my wife home.” Mac said.
“I thought you probably might, so I wrote a prescription for a strong opiate that’ll help her with pain.”
“But doesn’t that mean she’ll be high as a kite?”
“That’s the best I can do, but yes.” Doctor Skinner said.
“Alright, thanks I guess.”
“I’ll approve her discharge. Take care of yourself, and the kids. This is likely going to get worse before it gets better.” Doctor Skinner said.
“That’s the second time I’ve heard that today.” Mac said.
“Here’s the number to a grief counselor that I’ve known for twenty years as well if you need to talk.”
Despite the stress, Mac never minded a direct approach and shook the doctor’s hand before they parted ways. Minutes later Carol was awake again and being placed in a wheel chair by a well built male orderly in blue scrubs. Mac walked beside her, looking sideways at the man pushing his wife. He had long blond locks falling in his eyes and had a habit of blowing them out of his face, to have them fall right back down in front of his eyes once more. As Carol rolled by the front desk, Bobby and Serena hopped up with bright smiles on their faces. Mac looked at them with a smile on his, unsure what to tell them.
“Don’t worry, big guy. I’ll tell the kids tomorrow morning.” Carol grabbed and squeezed his hand. He wanted to cry, but he knew he couldn’t.
“Mommy! You’re awake!” Serena yelled.
Bobby walked over and gave Carol a kiss on the cheek as she hugged him from her chair. Weak arms surrounded her children as she fought another fainting spell to stay awake for her little ones.
Mac drove them all home and filled the prescription for her drugs. Lorraine arrived later that night, and for the next week he tried to pretend that the normal world still existed as he watched his best friend slowly wither in their bed. Carol wanted to see the sunlight and be out in the fresh air, so Mac set up the hammock on their porch for her to lie in. Bobby and Serena were unsure how to behave around their mother now that they knew the painful truth about her condition, but they both acted out their roles as if any day Carol would stand up and play with them again like she used to. Lorraine had been helping out with the kids as Mac spun his wheels and fought giving up. Lorraine approached Mac out on the front porch as he stared into the night sky, his thoughts heavy.
“Penny for your
thoughts?” Lorraine asked. She surprised him and he was jarred out of his trance.
“What? Oh, hey. I’m just trying to wrap my head around this whole thing. I feel like a five hundred pound gorilla is sitting on my chest.”
“You want to talk?” Lorraine asked.
“I don’t have a lot to say. I feel like I’ve already lost her and she’s still alive. I never expected how painful this prolonged agony was going to be.” Mac said.
His head went into his hands as he let the tears go for the first time. “God dammit! Why did this have to happen to her? I’d trade places now. Lorraine, I’ve been involved in so many bullshit projects where people were treated worse than cattle. I can’t get that horror out of my mind and I can’t lose her now. I need Carol to be here to help me fix my brokenness. I know that’s selfish as hell, but I love her.”
“Big brother, I can’t help you with the things you did in the past, unless you ever need an ear to bend, but I can help with the kids. This is total shit, and I’m sorry for you guys. I’m here as long as you need me.” Lorraine tugged on his shoulder and Mac allowed her to hold him. She had never seen him break down, and her eyes were teary.
Friday night, a week after Carol was discharged from the hospital Mac was sleeping by her side when he heard a noise in the house. Something fell in the living room, and his eyes shot open in surprise. He looked to his left and Carol was no longer there. Mac’s heart raced as he raced out of bed and ran through the darkened bedroom.
“Carol!” Mac yelled.
She was sitting in the living room staring out the large bay window into the star-filled night. The twinkling lights glinted and winked back at him as he walked over, confused.
“Are you alright?” Mac asked.
“It’s beautiful tonight.” She said. Carol stood and glided across the room in her white night gown.
“How are you out of bed? Are you feeling better?” Mac asked.
“I’m feeling better than I have in quite some time. Do you ever wonder how many stars there are out there? How many planets like the one we live on?”
“I know there are others, just not how many. The General wanted me to go find one of them.”
“Billions. There are millions of billions of earth-like planets out there waiting to be explored, with people just like us living there and evolving.” Carol said.
“How do you know that? We should go back to bed.”
“You know he’s right.” Carol said. She turned to Mac and smiled at him with the soft features of the twenty year old girl he had fallen in love with so long ago.
“I can’t talk about it. They’ll come for you if they find out I’ve said anything.” Mac said.
“You have to make sure the kids are safe now. This is going to be hard, but I have to leave, and I need you to go on that mission. Lorraine will be here to help Bobby and Serena.” Carol said.
“I’m not sure I can do it. What happens to the kids if I don’t make it back? The last crew died.”
“Mac, the earth is going to renew herself very soon. Too much death and injustice has happened, with the pollutants in the ocean, radioactive waste, and the bombs from our wars tearing her apart, so you have to go and save our children.” Carol said.
Mac held her from behind, around the waist as they watched a star fall to earth from the great beyond.
“Make a wish.” Carol said.
She turned toward Mac and kissed him softly on the mouth. It was the deepest most soulful kiss she had ever given him, and he fell into her arms, tumbling through her embrace and into the void. The world went dark as he popped his eyes open and looked to his left, terrified and knowing what he would find. Carol’s spirit had moved on sometime in the night and although her body no longer contained a soul she wore the smile of a woman at peace. Mac wept as he touched her still, cold face.
Later that day, when the coroner had come and Carol’s body was removed by Everley Brothers funeral home, Mac decided to change his clothes and found the little black metal device General Martin gave him in the pocket of his jeans when he pulled them out of the drawer. In the midst of the emergency, he’d completely forgotten to keep it hidden. Mac sat down in the plush chair in their bedroom and clicked the little button on bottom. He watched as the holographic movie materialized and the camera began to traverse the stars. What he did not know was that General Martin had the mechanism inside programmed to probe Mac’s thoughts and consciousness and to send the data back to an application General Martin had loaded on his phone. The General was in effect reading Mac’s mind when the device was activated, so while his former progeny was watching a movie about planets in deep space, General Martin was finding out whether the commander was ready for his mission to Zeta Reticuli. From the look of it, there was going to be a funeral in a few days.
“OK Mac, it’s time to pay you a little visit. Sorry for the loss, pal, really, but it’s time to get back to work.” General Martin said to himself.
The next few days went by in a blur. The kids were asking questions about what happened to their mother, but Mac was finding trouble in addressing them and left it to his sister. Three hours before the funeral, he took a walk up the hill to the burnt tree and sat quietly, facing their house.
“Carol I don’t know if you can hear me or not, but I just wanted to come out here to be alone with you, before the three ring circus of your funeral begins.” Mac said to himself. A robin perched on part of the tree that still stood as he paused. The bird’s song alerted him to its presence and he looked toward it for a moment, wondering.
“I don’t know how to go on from here, but I want you to know that I’ll do what you asked of me.” Mac said.
As he sat atop the hill Mac thought about the million little things he would never experience with Carol again. He could see the curl of her lips when she smiled at him, the diamonds in her eyes when she caught him teasing her. He remembered the way she held their kids—when they were babies—in her arms like she could never let them go. His mind drifted through the wonderful things they did together in their long marriage, and he wanted to pound the earth with his fists. Mac wanted to tear off his skin and curse God, he wanted to throw hand grenades and watch beautiful things die as his rage boiled over. A bottomless hole had opened in his heart that was sucking him in like a vortex as his mind tricked him to experience the sorrow of his friend, wife, and soul mate leaving him forever. Pain stabbed him in the heart, traveling up his body and stinging his eyes as the tears rolled down his cheeks.
“Fuck!” He screamed. “I have to go now. I love you, always. I’ll miss you.”
His world became colder that day. Darkened, like a tattered black and white photograph. He began walking down to his house to get ready. As he did, the little bird flew away.
Lorraine drove as Mac, dressed in his best black suit, and the children in their Sunday church attire, stared out their windows in silence. When they pulled up to the funeral home, Serena began to cry and put her head in her hands. Bobby held the little girl as tears rolled like silent soldiers down his red face.
“Come on, kids, let’s go get this done.” Mac said.
“Later, we’ll go get some ice-cream.” Lorraine said. The offer seemed absurd even as it left her mouth, but she didn’t know how else to comfort them.
“That’s sounds good, Aunt Lorraine.” Bobby said. His voice cracked and it broke her heart to see them all in so much pain. She was going to miss Carol too.
When they entered the funeral home, General Martin was standing over Carol’s coffin paying respects as Mac walked up to him. The General was wearing a black suit instead of his dress blues, something Mac had never seen in the entire time he worked for the man.
“Good morning, Dick.” Mac said. General Martin turned around and Mac could see a tear in his eye.
“Hi Mac, I’m very sorry for your loss. Carol was a good friend. She’ll be missed.” The General said. Mac extended his hand, believing the sincerity in his voice.
&n
bsp; “Thanks General, none of this has been easy. The kids are having an especially difficult time as well.” Mac said.
The General released Mac’s hand and then came in for a full hug. Mac could smell his aftershave as the senior officer brushed his cheek. It reminded him of his father’s, and Mac was eleven years old again for a split second when his mother had just passed on. Lorraine walked up with the children next to her and Mac put his arm around Bobby. They all took a seat next to Carol’s grieving mother, Grace, and Mac placed an arm around her shoulder. She nodded and smiled at Mac and the kids through her tears, but remained silent.
“I’m sorry as hell about this, kids. It’s not fair, but we’ll get though it together.” Mac said.
The small family stood next to the coffin as their mother lay in eternal rest before them.
“Mommy looks like she’s sleeping.” Serena said. Mac and Bobby nodded.
The funeral home had done a superb job with her makeup, and as Mac looked at his wife he thought she looked ten years younger.
Bobby turned his head as tears welled and walked over to take his seat in the front row.
“Mac, is there anything I can do for you?” Lorraine asked. Her long blond hair draped over her left shoulder and as Mac looked at her, Lorraine reminded him of how much she looked like their mother. Her kind eyes and easy going manner made these tough times a little easier, and Lorraine was a good shoulder to cry on. Although it had been hard to recently, Mac found it was always easy to talk to her, because she listened with her heart.
“I think I just need to get through today.” He hugged her, gave Carol once last look and took his seat.
Although the ceremony was grueling for him, Mac stuck it out and the kids managed to hold back their tears until the coffin lid was closed. Mac assumed his role as pall bearer and helped to carry Carol out to the waiting hearse. Lorraine drove them to the gravesite, and as they got out Mac noticed that the General was right behind in his black BMW. General Martin walked with Mac to the back door of the hearse and grabbed a side with four other men as they rolled Carol’s coffin out. Beautiful words were said in her name and tears were shed as a good friend, sister, daughter and mother was laid to rest on a sunny Tuesday mid-morning without a cloud in the sky. General Martin was careful to pick his moment, and as the crowd was dispersing to drive back to Mac’s house for the wake, he sidled up to his grieving friend. Grace silently walked toward her waiting car and was gone before ever saying goodbye.
“Mac, I know this may seem like an awkward time to bring this up, but have you thought any more about that offer?” General Martin asked.
“What is it you want me to do?” Mac asked.
“I don’t know, are you onboard?” The General asked.
“Yeah, what the hell, if my kids are taken care of. I don’t do this unless my children and sister can join me on that new planet. They’re what I have left in this God forsaken world.”
“It’s done, you have my word. When you get that star gate open your kids will be waiting for you. This is a great thing you’re doing, not just for your country, but for the world. We need a man like you who has seen the things you have, who knows about the projects in the cave.”
“Is that nightmare still ongoing?” Mac asked.
“No, we shut it down once we found the planets in Zeta Reticuli. No need to spend more black budget dollars when we have a lead on a viable human life-sustaining planet. I know the experiments shook you up, but if it had not been for the C24 serum and the endless supply of vagrants shuffled through that facility we may never have discovered our ticket off this dying rock.” The General said.
“I suppose, but I still have nightmares about it.” Mac said.
“Those people we used may have had their brains turned to mush, but I promise you that was the most useful any of them had ever been in their lives.” The General said.
“We turned them into fertilizer for industrial farms.” Mac said.
“Sure, we had to get rid of them afterward and emulsifying them was the most efficient way to dispose of a nasty problem. Honestly, I don’t know if they were ever used as fertilizer, last I heard the barrels were being dumped in the ocean.” The General said. The corners of his mouth turned downward for a moment and he shrugged.
Mac shook his head in disgust; the General had never been one for the social graces of tactful conversation. He was more like a pit-bull who would sell his own mother to get the job done.
“Are you going on this little quest?” Mac asked.
“No, not this time. I’m more interested in the crossing once you get the TSA-2056 fired up and open the star gate back to earth. I’m staying in the rear with the gear, as they say, so I’ll leave the heavy lifting to you and your crew.”
“You’ll get another star for this, won’t you?” Mac asked.
“Colonel MacDonald, you may get a star for this.”
CHAPTER 4