The way she said ‘those people’ made my stomach turn. It was obvious she viewed Bill and Lily as nothing of value, as something less than her and disposable. That little bit of rage within me grew in intensity until it was an inferno of loathsome contempt towards the woman who’d raised me.
“You can’t stop me.” I stalked in her direction and noticed how she backed up a few steps when I approached. “Those people have more strength, honor, determination and intelligence than you can ever hope to have. What’s more important is that they have a heart, something which appears to have turned cold within you. Bill raised Lily as best he could as a single father. He gave her everything and he raised a beautiful person in the process, however you and dad turned your backs on him when he needed you. You could have done something, but you chose to turn your noses up at him because he didn’t fit the mold of your perfect fucking family! Bill McCormick and Henry James raised two amazing children and they did it in the best way they could, meanwhile you and dad raised a fuck up — but you were too fucking busy to even notice. Luckily for you, those people stepped in and did something about it. They accomplished something in three months that you and dad couldn’t bother to complete over a 19-year period. So, no mom, I’m not going to sit around and prance for your friends to make you look better — because it’s not your achievement.”
I pushed past her and walked quickly to the foyer.
“How do you expect to get there, Hunter? You don’t own your car and we’re not giving you permission to drive it to Florida.”
I turned around to find her with her arms crossed over her chest. Her gloating expression showed me that she thought she had me cornered. I intended to show her that two could play that game.
“Then have me arrested, mom. Be sure to raise enough of a stink about it that it’s all over the news. I’m sure it’ll be much easier for you to explain that I couldn’t join dinner because I was sitting in jail than it would to simply explain that I was visiting relatives.”
Her eyes narrowed and her skin took on a red tone. I’d cornered her right back and she was too focused on her precious image to continue with her threat. I turned back around, grabbed my bags and stepped out of the house determined to fix a mistake and find the only person that mattered.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ellison
It was like he’d given up as soon as he was put in that hospital bed in the living room.
When they’d first transported dad to the house, he looked the same, spoke the same - acted the same. But over the past two weeks, I’ve watched him age 30 years. It’s like nothing I could have imagined. It was almost as if I’d taken photos of him every day for those 30 years and created a fast moving flip book. The only difference was I couldn’t flip it back to the way he was before he got sick.
Before they brought him home, I’d been up all night, barely able to fall asleep while I wallowed in self-pity. The only thing that broke up the ‘pity party for one’ was the aggravating text I received from Hunter when he’d threatened to leave school. The one fucking thing I didn’t want for him and he threatened me with it immediately when the shit hit the fan. I’d pushed myself out of bed that morning and typed out a lengthy email about it. He was the one good thing in my life that my father’s cancer wasn’t destroying, and I couldn’t allow him to mess that up. I’d tucked him away in Massachusetts, far enough that he wouldn’t be dragged into the desperate helplessness of my life. I wanted him to stay there, to become something. It was the only victory I felt like I had over this nightmare situation — letting him go was the hardest thing to do, but he was a star that I launched into the sky so that his light would be protected from the shadow that was slowly creeping into my life. If nothing else, I could look at that light and think that at least one thing hadn’t been tainted by my father’s disease.
And Hunter threatened to fuck it up by coming back.
I haven’t been responding to his texts very much, in fact, I’ve kept my phone tucked away in a drawer most of the time. I have nothing to say to him, nothing to tell him that wouldn’t make him want to rush down even more. I’ve dropped 10 pounds already over the last two weeks. I’ve been a constant caregiver to my father and I’ve only had breaks when Jake or the nurses were here to let me sleep. I could sleep forever and it wouldn’t be enough. I’m exhausted, I’m beat down and my heart is torn from my chest every day and every hour — it feels like it never ends. But I keep getting up, keep brushing off the pain of watching my father die to cook for him, clean for him, and administer his medications. I can’t tell Hunter those things. I couldn’t lie to him either. So I just said nothing.
The paperwork said his disease could progress rapidly and they hadn’t been lying. It’s not even something that I could explain because any words I used wouldn’t accurately describe what it was like. Each day was a new problem — a new hurdle to be jumped and an avalanche of pain to be avoided. My father was in so much pain and even the morphine barely touched it. I couldn’t stand to see him so weak, so confused. It wasn’t him. And that’s the thing about cancer. You don’t lose the person on the day they die, you lose them when they become so weak that they are no longer the person you used to know. I was caring for a shell of a man that used to be my father, and only on rare occasions did he seem to come out of the fog. The brief glimpses I had of who he’d been meant more to me than anything, and even though they only lasted for a few seconds, I cherished every single second that he had them.
It started slowly. He slept a lot, the pain medications at least did that for him. I could handle when he slept because I could pretend that everything was okay — like he’d fallen asleep watching movies on the couch. But over the weeks, when the meds weren’t working as well anymore, they’d switched him to a different type and what was once a nightmare became a living Hell.
He had a break with reality that lasted two full days. For forty-eight hours I didn’t sleep, didn’t eat, didn’t bathe, could barely find time to run to the bathroom. Most of the time, my father thought he was five years old again. He kept asking for his mom or his dad — he would cry for them like a child who’d been separated from his family. He didn’t recognize me and he was afraid of me. I cried while attempting to remain strong for him — to take care of him. Watching him break was leaving me broken right there beside him. There was nothing I could do to calm him down and it was like some twisted dream from which I couldn’t wake. Here I was taking care of the one person who I used to be able to go to for advice, but he couldn’t give me any and I was lost as to what I had to do. Eventually, I was able to calm him down. I read him old books I found on my shelves from when I was young. There’s nothing like reading a children’s book to a grown man who reacted like any normal five year old would to hear it. He smiled, he clapped, and I’d read the story to him enough times that he’d memorized and could repeat it back to me.
I thought the worst was over when he remembered he was an adult. I was wrong — so.fucking.wrong.
At first he was obstinant. He kept trying to get out of bed when I knew that he’d fall and I wouldn’t be able to pick him back up. His bones were so weak they would break from the pressure of my grip. I had to remain constantly by his side to keep him in bed and he was so angry. He was suddenly my father again, calling me by my full name while demanding I let him go to work. It was bad enough when he was angry at me, but when he became terrified, I almost lost myself to his madness. Every time I tried to give him his medication, he cried. He accused me of trying to kill him, he kept asking me why I would do that to him when I was supposed to love him. He didn’t understand that he was sick, he thought I was making him sick. He blamed me for everything that was happening to him.
I was angry with him and that anger only made me feel guilty for having felt it. He was losing his life, he didn’t know what he was doing, yet I was selfishly taking his comments personally and feeling resentment. What about me? What about my exhaustion and terror and pain?! I worried that I
wasn’t giving him enough love, that I was thinking about myself too much when I took a minute break. I became worried that I wasn’t strong enough to keep going.
He fell asleep finally. Forty-eight long hours and he graciously closed his eyes and let dreams take him. I couldn’t sleep. I was too afraid that if I fell asleep he’d wake up and hurt himself. I needed help, but there was nowhere I could go — nobody who could help me. Even though Lily and Bill were aware now that daddy was dying, they couldn’t come here. He wouldn’t want to be seen in this condition. Calling the nurse would have only resulted in him being forced into the hospital and I couldn’t do that to him either. So, I sucked it up and stayed awake.
I was in the kitchen drinking coffee when he woke up again. He sat up as much as he could and looked straight ahead of him. His eyes moved up and down as if something was standing in front of him.
“Anna?”
I looked over to where he stared. There was nothing. But that was mom’s name he’d just said.
“Oh, Anna. You look so beautiful.”
My shoulders straightened and I pushed off the counter to walk into the living room but stopped — I just stood there and listened. Tears welled at the back of my dry and tired eyes and I listened as he argued with my mom. From what I could understand by the things he was saying she wanted him to go with her, and he refused because he had to stay here for the kids. It wasn’t an angry argument, just a normal disagreement that sounded like ones I heard between them many times before mom had died. It was oddly comforting and I laughed softly to myself. I was desperate for anything to be hopeful about and hearing him talk to her had given me the smallest bit of light. The paperwork had said that when people died they talked to people who passed before them. It was supposed to be normal and expected. They advised to just go with it, not to argue and say that the other person wasn’t there. Now, to hear it and see it, to know that it happened often enough to have to be acknowledged, it touched me — made me wonder if we truly did go on after we ceased breathing.
My arms came up to wrap around my abdomen and I leaned back against the counter. I gained a bit of strength when I listened to him talk to her. I pretended that I could hear her voice as she responded to him. It’s crazy, I know, but when you’re in a situation as futile as mine, you become desperate for any bit of happiness or hope you can find. It hurt to think it might simply be another symptom of the illness, but it also calmed me. It gave me a reason to believe that when he finally passed, he wouldn’t be alone and he wouldn’t just be gone — as if he’d never existed in the first place.
Eventually, after talking to my mom for what felt like an hour, my father fell back to sleep, but he did so with a smile on his face. I didn’t move, just stood at the counter with the dogs sitting sympathetically at my feet and I knew that they were grieving too. From around the curtains over the windows I saw headlights pull up to Bill’s house. I looked at the clock and noticed it was late. Chuckling to myself, I thought Lily must have missed curfew again.
I startled when someone knocked at my door.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Hunter
It was a 17-hour drive back to Florida. I got lost about 15 times and had to pull over and sleep for a few hours at a shady as hell rest stop in Georgia. I was afraid that I’d wake up to my car being on blocks because I was in a bad area, but my eyelids felt like 50-pound weights over my eyes and I pulled over anyway. Thankfully, I lived and my car wasn’t stripped before I’d made it to her house. I stood outside debating whether to knock or wait until a decent hour.
Walking around the house, I noticed that the bedrooms lights were off, but I swore I saw a dim light on in the living room. I knew Henry would kill me for showing up at three in the morning, but I had to see her, to talk to her, to know that she was still in one piece — that she was okay.
Walking up the steps to the door, I prayed that Ellison answered the door and not Henry. I didn’t want to piss the man off within the first five minutes that I was back, but I was willing to take that chance to see her.
After she threw the door open and after I saw the shock turn to a murderous look in her eyes, I kind of wished it had been Henry who answered after all.
“What in the hell are you doing here?!” Her voice was whisper quiet at first, but her tone told me she was a hundred percent pissed off. She quietly shut the door behind her. “Explain to me right now why I’m standing on my porch looking at you when you are supposed to be a thousand miles away.”
She looked like shit and it was a punch to the stomach to see her initially. Her clothes were stained and wrinkled and I would have placed a bet on the fact that she’d worn them for several days. Her hair was up in a messy bun. Bits and pieces of it were pulled out at the sides, sticking out in every direction. I could see the bones of her shoulders through the thin cotton shirt she wore. Her cheeks were sunken in and her eyes would have been as well if they weren’t so swollen from crying. The blue of her eyes looked neon compared to the dark red rims that surrounded them.
“El, don’t be pissed at me.” I stepped toward her and she stepped back nearly pressing her back against the door. She held up her hands to stop me from getting closer. My hands fisted at my sides to notice that no emotion was clear on her normally expressive face. She looked raw, hollow — as if every bit of life and vitality had been drained from her, leaving a weak shell in its place.
“Ellison, what’s going on?” My voice broke when I whispered out that question. I don’t know why I kept my voice so low, but looking at her, I worried that anything louder could break her. She’d been fighting, that much I could tell. I could barely shake the driving need I had to wrap my arms around her and not let go.
She looked at me; just stood there staring out of empty and passionless eyes. “You need to go home, Hunter. There is no reason you, of all fucking people, need to be standing in front of me right now.”
Her voice shook as she spoke and I could see her eyes glisten with unshed tears. I swallowed down the frustration that was drowning me in that moment. My throat hurt, my stomach cramped and the blood rushing to my head pushed along the headache slowly creeping up the back and sides of my skull.
“I’m here for Thanksgiving. I don’t have school for a week, so I had time to get down here. I wanted to see you.” It was like talking to a mental patient. The person standing in front of me looked like Ellison, but her words, the way she spoke and the way she was holding herself, she wasn’t the girl I’d left behind a little over a month ago. I spoke slowly, clearly, in an attempt to calm down the rage I saw simmering behind her eyes and beneath her skin. “Will you tell me what is going on? You look … ”
“I know how I look. I didn’t need you driving down here to tell me how I look. I have a mirror.”
Fuck, there was no emotion to her voice at all. Normally, I could pick up something; anger, frustration, teasing humor — but this, this was mechanical and cold.
“My dad is dying, you know that. His condition worsened, but that’s all you need to know. Enjoy your Thanksgiving with Lily and Bill, and then go back to school. I’ll text you when I’m not so busy later on.”
The cracked quality of her words carved splinters from my heart. I’d known she was avoiding me when I texted her, but I didn’t know why. My answer was the haggard and spent shell of a woman that stood before me.
She leaned back against the door and folded her arms over her chest. “I won’t be accepting visitors for a while. I wish I could say I’m glad to see you, and if you really are just here for the holiday, that’s fine, then I’m glad. But come Saturday, you better have your butt headed back up north.” A single tear finally escaped her eye and I reached up to wipe it away. She flinched when I did so and I pulled my hand back to my body to see her react in such a way. She was fighting and she was fighting hard — but against what, I had no idea.
Her resolve broke in front of my eyes and she doubled over as if she was in pain. Her back shook with her fitful br
eath. I reached out and placed my hands on her shoulders, pulling her body against mine. She crumbled when I finally had my arms around her. I leaned back against the railing of the stairs to take her weight and I silently held her as she shattered completely within my grasp. My shirt stuck to my skin where her tears had soaked through the material and, even though I fought hard not to join her, I couldn’t fight back my own in reaction to her pain. I wanted to question her, talk to her, make her think of anything but whatever was going on behind the front door, but I knew she wouldn’t answer. I was afraid to speak at all, for fear that she’d remember that she didn’t want me here and would make me let her go.
I don’t know how long we stood like that, but eventually her sobbing stopped, her breathing shallowed and her body relaxed. I gently nudged her. “El?”
She’d fallen asleep standing up. What had made her so fucking tired? When her legs started to collapse beneath her, I caught her and picked her up to carry her inside. There was nothing that could have prepared me for what I saw when I entered her house.
Medical supplies were scattered over every available surface of the house. In the middle of the living room was a hospital bed, and in that bed laid a man who at one time would have been Henry James. I was shocked to see how much he’d changed over a few weeks. His hair had greyed and his skin sagged over his bones. He was motionless as he slept and his jaw hung open from how deeply he breathed.
Rather than tearing across the room as they normally would, Sasha and Bear slowly approached me. When they reached me, they rubbed their heads softly against my legs and sat down at my feet while I stood in shock taking in the details of the house. It was chaos. Dishes stacked in the sink, towels and blankets in piles on the floor. Amongst the boxes of supplies and bottle after bottle of medications that lined the counters and tables were wrappers tossed aside, most likely when Ellison had been moving quickly to do something for her dad.