The Air He Breathes

“Elizabeth. And you?”

  “I’m Mr. Henson. And if I weren’t four hundred times your senior and very engrossed in the male anatomy, I might think about taking you out dancing at the old barn house.”

  “Dancing? What makes you think a girl like me would be interested in dancing?”

  Mr. Henson kept the look of pleasure on his face and didn’t answer.

  I walked over and sat beside him. “This is your store?”

  “It is. Every inch, every square. Unless you want it.” Mr. Henson laughed. “Because if you want it, then it’s yours. Every inch, every square.”

  “That’s very tempting. But I have to say, I have read every Stephen King book ever published five times over and the idea of taking on a store called Needful Things is a bit alarming.”

  “Between you and me, I thought about calling it Answered Prayers, but I’m not much of a religious guy.”

  I snickered. Tristan did too.

  I looked over at him, pleased that we were laughing at the same time, so he stopped.

  My eyes fell to the books. “Is it okay if I take these off your hands?”

  “They’re yours, free of charge.”

  “Oh, no… I want to pay.”

  Going back and forth, the two of us argued about me taking the books for free, but I wouldn’t let up. Mr. Henson ultimately folded.

  “And this is why I stick to my men. Women are too much like me. Come back in another day and I’ll give you a free tarot reading.”

  I smiled. “That sounds like fun.”

  He stood up and walked toward the storage room. “Tristan, ring her up, will you?” He turned to me and gave a slight nod before he disappeared into the back.

  Tristan went to the cash register, and I followed.

  I slowly laid the books on the counter. My eyes moved to the tan and black photos of the forest framed against the wall behind me. “Beautiful,” I said, staring at the pictures.

  Tristan punched in made-up numbers for the books. “Thanks.”

  “You took these?”

  “No,” he said, glancing at the pictures. “I carved them out of wood then added the black ink.”

  My mouth hung open in disbelief, and I moved closer. The closer I looked, the more I could tell that the ‘photos’ were actually wood carvings.

  “Beautiful,” I muttered again. When my eyes locked with his, my stomach twisted with nerves. “Hi,” I repeated, this time with a sigh. “How are you?”

  He rang my items up, ignoring my question. “Are you going to fucking pay or what?”

  I frowned, but he didn’t seem to care. “I’m sorry. Yes. Here you go,” I said, handing him the money. I thanked him, and before I walked out of the store, I looked at him once more. “You act like such a jerk all the time, and the town only knows you as this callous man, but I saw you in the waiting room when you found out that Zeus was going to be okay. I saw you break down. I know you’re not a monster, Tristan. I just don’t understand why you pretend to be.”

  “That’s your biggest mistake.”

  “What is?” I asked.

  “Pretending for a second that you know any damn thing about me.”

  Chapter Seven

  Tristan

  April 2nd, 2014

  Five Days Until Goodbye

  When the taxi dropped Dad and me off at the hospital, I ran all the way to the emergency room. My eyes darted around the space, searching for something, someone familiar. “Mom,” I shouted, making her look up from the waiting room. I took off my baseball cap and hurried toward her.

  “Oh, honey,” she cried, rushing to wrap her arms around me.

  “How are they? How are…?”

  Mom started sobbing harder, her body trembling. “Jamie…Jamie’s gone, Tristan. She was holding on for so long, but it was too much.”

  I pulled away and pinched the bridge of my nose. “What do you mean gone? She’s not gone. She’s fine.” My eyes moved to Dad’s stare, who was shocked. Confused. Hurt. “Dad, tell her. Tell her that Jams is fine.”

  He lowered his head.

  My insides were set on fire.

  “Charlie?” I asked, almost sure I didn’t want to know the answer.

  “He’s in intensive care. He’s not doing great, but he’s—”

  “Here. He’s here.” I ran my fingers through my hair. He was okay. “Can I see him?” I asked. She nodded. I hurried over to the nurses’ station and they took me to Charlie’s room. My hand wrapped around my mouth as I stared at my little boy, hooked up to more machines than I’d ever thought possible. A tube was down his throat, IVs ran through his arms, and his face was bruised and battered. “Jesus…” I muttered.

  The nurse gave me a wary smile. “You can hold his hand.”

  “Why the tube? W-w-why is there a tube down his throat?” I stuttered, my mind trying to stay with Charlie, but the truth of Jamie was slowly creeping in. Jamie’s gone, Mom said. She was gone. But how? How could she be gone?

  “During the car accident, his left lung collapsed, and he’s been having a hard time taking in air and breathing. It’s to help him breathe.”

  “He’s not breathing on his own?”

  She shook her head.

  “Will he be okay?” I asked, staring into the nurse’s eyes and seeing her guilt.

  “I’m not his doctor. Only they can—”

  "But you can tell me, can’t you? If you were me, and you’d just lost your wife—” The words forced emotion out of me and I choked it back down. “If that little boy was all you had, and you were all he had left, you would want to know how much hope there was, right? You would beg for someone to tell you what to do. How to act. What would you do?”

  “Sir—”

  “Please,” I begged. “Please.”

  Her eyes faltered to the ground before she met my stare. “I would hold his hand.”

  I nodded once, knowing she had just told me more truth than I was ready to hear. I walked over to the chair besides Charlie’s bed and took his hand in mine. “Hey, buddy. It’s Dad. I’m here, okay? I know I haven’t been around as much as I should’ve been, but I’m here now, okay? Dad’s here and I need you to fight for me. Can you do that, buddy?” Tears rolled from my eyes onto his cheeks as my lips rested against his forehead. “Daddy needs you to work on your breathing. We gotta get you better because I need you. I know people say that the kid needs the parent, but that’s a lie.

  “I need you to keep me going. I need you to keep me believing in the world. Buddy, I need you to wake up. I can’t lose you too, okay? I need you to come back to me…please, Charlie…come back to Dad.”

  His chest rose high and when he tried to exhale, the machines started beeping rapidly. The doctors came rushing in, and they pulled my hand away from Charlie, who was shaking uncontrollably. They all began shouting at each other, saying words I didn’t understand, doing things I couldn’t comprehend.

  “What’s happening?!” I shouted, but no one heard me. “What’s going on?! Charlie!” I yelled as two nurses tried to pull me out of the room. “What are they doing? What’s…Charlie!” I said, louder and louder as they pushedme from the room. “CHARLIE!”

  Late Friday night, I sat at my dining room table and dialed a number that had previously been so familiar to me but hadn’t been used as much in recent days. As it rang, I held the phone to my ear. “Hello?” the voice said, smooth and soft. “Tristan, is that you?” The alertness in her sounds made my stomach twist. “Son, please say something…” she whispered.

  I pounded my fist against my mouth, but I didn’t reply.

  I hung up the phone. I always hung up. I sat alone in the darkness for the rest of the night, allowing it to swallow me whole.

  Chapter Eight

  Elizabeth

  Saturday morning, I was certain I was seconds away from waking up the whole neighborhood as I tried to start the lawnmower, which kept backfiring every few seconds. Steven had always made it look so easy when he handled the lawn work, but I w
asn’t having the same luck.

  “Come on.” I yanked the chain to start the engine one more time, and after a few sputters, it went ahead and died. “Jesus Christ!” I kept trying over and over again, my cheeks blushing over when a few neighbors from across the street started staring at me from their homes.

  When a hand landed against mine as I was about to yank the chain yet again, I jumped in freight.

  “Stop,” Tristan scolded me, his brows narrowed and his eyes filled with irritation. “What the hell are you doing?”

  I frowned, staring at his tight lips. “Mowing my lawn.”

  “You’re not mowing your lawn.”

  “Yes I am.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Then what am I doing?” I asked.

  “Waking up the whole fucking world,” he grumbled.

  “I’m sure people were already awake in England.”

  “Just stop talking.” Hmm. It seemed he wasn’t a morning, afternoon, or night kind of person, so he had that going for him. He pushed the lawnmower away from me.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Cutting your grass so you will stop waking up the whole fucking world, minus England.”

  I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry. “You can’t cut the lawn. Besides, I think it’s broken.” Within a couple seconds after he yanked the cord, the lawnmower started up. Well, this is embarrassing. “Seriously, though. You can’t cut my grass.”

  He didn’t turn back once to look at me. He just went to complete his job—the same job I’d never asked him to do. I was seconds away from continuing arguing with him, but then I remembered how he’d killed a cat for meowing wrong, and well, I liked my sad little life enough and didn’t want to risk dying.

  “You did a great job with the lawn,” I said, watching Tristan shut off the lawnmower. “My husband…” I paused, taking a breath. “My late husband used to cut the grass in diagonals. And he would say, ‘Babe, I’m raking up the grass clippings tomorrow, I’m too tired now.’” I chuckled to myself, looking at Tristan, but not really seeing anything anymore. “The clippings would stay there for at least a week, maybe two, which is weird because he always handled others’ lawns so much better. But still, I liked the clippings.” My throat tightened and the burning of tears entered my eyes. I turned my back to Tristan and wiped away the few that fell. “Anyway, I like how you did diagonal lines.” Stupid memories. I grabbed the white metal handle and opened the screen door, but my feet paused when I heard him.

  “They sneak up on you like that and knock you backward,” he whispered like an abandoned soul kissing their loved ones goodbye. His voice was smoother than before. It was still deep with a bit of gruff to it, but this time there was a slight bit of innocence that existed in his sounds. “The little memories.”

  I turned to face him and he was leaning up against the lawnmower. His stare had more life to it than I’d ever witnessed, but it was a sad kind of life. Broken stormy eyes. I inhaled just to keep from falling. “Sometimes I think the little memories are worse than the big ones. I can handle remembering his birthday or the day of his death, but remembering the little things like the way he cut the grass, or how he only read the comics in the newspaper, or how he only smoked one cigarette on New Year’s Eve…”

  “Or the way she tied her shoes, or puddle jumped, or touched the palm of my hand with her pointer finger and always drew a heart…”

  “You lost someone too?”

  “My wife.”

  Oh.

  “And my son,” he whispered, quieter than before.

  My heart shattered for him. “I’m so sorry, I couldn’t even imagine…” My words faded off as he stared at the newly cut grass. The idea of losing both the love of my life and my baby girl was too much; I would’ve given up.

  “The way he said his prayers, the way he wrote his Rs backward, the way he broke his toy cars just so he could fix them…” Tristan’s voice was shaky, along with his body. He wasn’t speaking to me anymore. We were living in our own worlds of little memories, and even though we were both separate, somehow we managed to feel for one another. Lonely often recognized lonely. And today, for the first time, I began to see the man behind the beard.

  I watched the poor soul’s eyes swell with emotion as he placed his headphones on his ears. He began to rake up all the glass clippings, not speaking another word my way.

  People in town called him an asshole, and I could see why. He wasn’t nice, he wasn’t stable, and he was broken in all of the wrong and right places, but I couldn’t blame him for his coldness. Truth was I sort of envied Tristan’s ability to escape reality, to shut himself off from the world around him. It must have been nice to feel empty every now and then—Lord knew I thought about losing myself daily, but I had Emma to keep me sane.

  If I had lost her too, I would’ve been emptying my mind of all emotion, of all the hurt.

  When he finished with his work, his feet stopped moving but his chest kept rising and falling hard. He turned toward me, his eyes red, his thoughts probably scattered. His hand wiped against his brow and he cleared his throat. “Done.”

  “Do you want some breakfast?” I asked, standing. “I made enough for you.”

  He blinked once before he began to push the lawnmower back toward my porch. “No.” He walked toward his porch, disappearing from my view. As I stood there alone I closed my eyes, placed my hands over my heart, and for a small moment, I lost myself too.

  Chapter Nine

  Elizabeth

  The next morning, I knew I had to stop by Tanner’s auto shop for the surprise he’d mentioned to me earlier that week. Emma, Bubba, and I skipped into town, her singing her own version of the Frozen soundtrack, me pulling out my eyelashes, and Bubba being a pleasantly silent stuffed animal.

  “Uncle T!” Emma yelled, bum-rushing Tanner, whose head was looking under the hood of a car. Tanner turned around, his white shirt covered in oil stains, and his face dressed with the same substance.

  He lifted her in his arms and spun her around before pulling her into a close hug. “Hey, munchkin. What’s that behind your ear?” he asked her.

  “I don’t have anything behind my ear!”

  “Oh, but I think you’re wrong.” He pulled his faithful quarter from behind Emma’s ear, making her laugh and laugh, which in turn made me smile. “How have you been?”

  Emma smiled and went into a deep, thought-provoking story about how I let her dress herself that day, which ended with a purple tutu, rainbow socks, and a T-shirt with zombie penguins.

  I smiled. Tanner stared her way as if truly interested in her story. After a few minutes, Tanner sent Emma off with a few dollar bills to go attack the candy machine with one of his workers, Gary. The whole way, I could hear Emma rehashing the story of how her outfit had come to life to poor Gary.

  “She’s cuter than I remember.” Tanner smiled. “She has your smile.”

  I grinned and thanked him, even though her smile reminded me more of Steven.

  “So, I have something for you, come here.” He led me to the back room where a sheet was covering a car. When he pulled it off, my legs almost buckled beneath me.

  “How?” I asked, walking around the jeep, running my fingers across it. Steven’s jeep looked newer than ever. “It was totaled.”

  “Ah, bumps and bruises can always be healed.”

  “This had to cost you a fortune.”

  He shrugged. “Steven was my best friend. You’re one of my best friends. I just wanted you to have something familiar to come home to.”

  “You always knew I would come back?”

  “We all hoped.” Tanner bit his bottom lip as he stared at the jeep. “I still can’t stop blaming myself. The week before the accident I begged him to stop into my shop so I could give the car a tune up. He said he would be good for a few more months. I can’t help but think that maybe I could’ve noticed something was wrong with the car if he stopped in to see me. If he had let me g
et under the hood, then maybe he would still…” He pinched the bridge of his nose and stopped talking.

  “It wasn’t your fault, Tanner.”

  He sniffled and gave me a tight smile. “Yeah, well. The thought just passes through my mind every now and then. Now come on, hop inside.”

  I stepped into the driver’s seat and sat. My eyes closed and I took a few deep breaths as I lay my hand across to the passenger seat, waiting for that touch, the warmth of another’s hand to hold. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. I’m good, I’m good. Then I felt the hold from another, and when my eyes opened, I saw Emma’s small hand sitting in mine, chocolate all over her face. She smiled wide, causing me to do the same.

  “You okay, Mama?” she asked.

  One breath.

  “Yes, baby. I’m good.”

  Tanner walked over to me and placed the keys in my hand. “Welcome home, ladies. Remember, if you need me to help with the lawn and stuff, just give me a call.”

  “Tick already did it!” Emma exclaimed.

  Tanner arched an eyebrow. “What?”

  “I actually ended up hiring a guy to do it. Well, kind of. I owe him some kind of payment.”

  “What? Liz, I could’ve done it for free. Who did you hire?”

  I knew he wouldn’t like the answer. “His name is Tristan…”

  “Tristan Cole?!” Tanner ran his fingers over his face, which was turning red. “Liz, he’s an asshole.”

  “He’s not.” Yeah, okay, he is.

  “Trust me, he is. He’s a fucking nut job too. Did you know he works for Mr. Henson? He’s the freaking case study of insanity.”

  I didn’t know why, but Tanner’s words made me feel as if he were speaking about me. “That’s really harsh, Tanner.”

  “He’s insane. And Tristan is dangerous. Just…let me handle the work around the house. God. I hate that he lives next door to you.”

  “He did a great job. It’s really not a big deal.”

  “It is. It’s just, you’re too trusting. You need to use your head a little more than your heart. You have to think.” Ouch. “I don’t like this at all, Liz. And I doubt Steven would’ve either.”