Boys South of the Mason Dixon

  Luke Monroe

  STANDING OUTSIDE THE barn, I heard Charlotte screaming hysterically. I think I died a thousand deaths in that moment. The terrified sound coming from my wife was unlike anything I’d ever witnessed. The time it took for me to run from the barn to the house seemed forever although it was only seconds. My whole world was is that house. With each foot I got closer to the house, I knew I wasn’t ready to face what was awaiting me inside.

  Bursting through the door, I found Charlotte bent over my daughter’s limp body doing CPR. For a second, my vision went blank. I quickly moved her out of the way and took over.

  “Ambulance is on its way,” she wailed. “She was just standing there when she suddenly went pale and collapsed. I thought she’d fainted. But her heart,” Charlotte let out a loud sob. “Oh, God, please don’t take our baby. Please, God, please,” she begged as I continued doing chest compressions to get Dixie’s heart beating again. My own seemed to have stopped. My baby girl was lifeless under my hands. No parent should ever have to experience this.

  The siren came, but I didn’t stop. I heard Charlotte run to the door, screaming at them to hurry. I just kept pressing on her chest, begging her heart to start beating. I wasn’t letting my girl die. She was too young and so full of life. This wasn’t happening.

  I felt hands on my shoulders trying to move me back, but I fought against them. “No! She needs me!” I screamed.

  “Luke, let them save her,” Charlotte pleaded. “Please, save her!” she cried out at the EMTs who were now using a defibrillator on Dixie. Right there on our living room floor.

  “It’s beating,” One man yelled as another moved her to a stretcher.

  “Life Flight is here,” another said.

  I ran after them as they hurried my baby out the door and to the helicopter that had landed in my front yard.

  I saw the Sutton boys running up the hill just as they were loading Dixie onto the helicopter.

  “We’re taking her to Memorial,” a woman explained to me and hurried in behind them.

  “We can give you a ride in the ambulance. It will be quicker,” the man who had moved me off Dixie offered.

  Charlotte was weeping uncontrollably. I turned to her only to realize my own vision was blurred from tears. What had just happened?

  “Mr. and Mrs. Monroe, are you ready to leave?”

  I couldn’t move. My little girl was unconscious and being taken to a hospital in a helicopter. “What happened?” I asked, shaking my head in confusion.

  “We don’t know yet. But they will soon.”

  Charlotte buried herself against my chest, her sobs turning into full body shakes.

  “What happened?” Asher Sutton roared from nearby, his face void of color and the same terror running through my veins mirrored in his own eyes.

  “We need to go. Get you there as soon as possible,” the EMT insisted.

  “They need to get to their daughter, so we’re going to have to ask you all to move back,” the man said addressing the Sutton boys who all stood behind Asher, looking stricken.

  Climbing into the back of the ambulance, I felt like I wasn’t in my body anymore. It felt like I was hovering above, watching all this unfold. This couldn’t be real. This wasn’t happening. I heard Asher Sutton demanding answers and pleading for some hope. I heard them give him the hospital name before the doors to the ambulance closed and the sirens started to howl.

  Never had I felt so helpless.

  Charlotte Monroe

  I had just finished cleaning up the breakfast table when I realized that Dixie hadn’t come down as early as she normally did on work days. I’d called up to her and she’d said she’d be down in a minute. When she walked into the living room, her face looked ashen and her eyes tired.

  “Are you sick, sweetheart?” I had asked.

  She frowned. “I think I might be. I was fine when I woke up, but as soon as I started walking around, I began to feel funny. I feel weak and I can’t take really deep breaths. It’s weird.”

  I became concerned. “I hope you’ve not got that flu going around. It’s a nasty stomach one. You may be dehydrated. Let me get you some juice. Sit down. I’ll call the salon and let them know you’re not well.”

  She nodded. “Okay.” But she didn’t move. Her eyes appeared to lose focus as she stared at me. As if they were suddenly empty.

  Then she’d just collapsed right there. On the floor.

  I closed my eyes as the horror of those moments replayed over and over in my head. I’d checked her pulse then and couldn’t find it. If it was there, it was weak. Too weak. The screaming, calling for help, and then working to bring her back all ran together into one horrifying memory. I felt paralyzed by fear.

  A loud sob startled me and I felt Luke’s body shudder against mine. He wailed. The sound of pure pain. One that only a parent could feel for his child. His little girl. Another wail ripped through him and I held onto him. He’d been strong. Worked on her heart without pause. Now he was breaking apart and I wasn’t whole myself. We were slowly shattering together.

  “My baby,” he sobbed as he held onto me. Tears streamed down my face. This was the first time I’d ever heard my husband cry. I wanted to tell him she would be okay. That she was going to be fine. But I needed someone to tell me that. She wasn’t mine by blood, but she’d been mine by heart for many many years. And if she didn’t make it, she’d take my heart with her, too.

  Asher Sutton

  BRAY WAS DRIVING. I didn’t remember much about getting in the truck. I heard the EMTs say her heart had stopped and that they didn’t know why. That was all I knew. Nothing more. Then they drove off, leaving me only with the name of the hospital to which they took her.

  This didn’t seem real. It was as if I’d been stuck in a nightmare unable to wake up. The horror and fear on her parents’ faces said all I needed to know.

  I had to get to that hospital. She wasn’t leaving me. She was too young. Healthy eighteen-year-old girls didn’t need Life Flight. They’d fix this. She’d be fine. She had to be fine.

  “Breathe, Ash, Breathe,” Brent said as his hand touched my back. I inhaled sharply and my lungs burned. Similar to the way they did when we were kids and would compete against each other to see who could hold their breath the longest under water. I hadn’t even realized I’d stopped breathing. That was the second time Brent had to remind me.

  “Not much further,” Bray said glancing up at me through the rearview mirror. I couldn’t respond. Speaking required too much. I was doing all I could to keep it together. My cheeks were wet from silent tears. Fear, disbelief, pain, all mixed inside me, reminding me I couldn’t live without Dixie.

  My brothers weren’t talking either. Not much, anyway. Dixie was special to all of us. She’d been in our lives as long as we could remember. Momma was on her way, too. Dallas was driving her. She was getting the people in the local churches to pray and she also packed me some things because she knew I’d stay there with Dixie. I wouldn’t leave until she could. And Dixie would leave. She’d come back home with me.

  “Think they’d tell us anything if we called the hospital?” Steel asked.

  “Doubt it. Family only,” Brent said.

  I just stared out the window. We had to get there. She needed me there.

  “Did the EMT say anything more, Bray?” Brent asked. Bray had talked to them more than any of us. I’d been out of my mind. I still was. I wouldn’t okay until I saw her. Talked to her.

  “No,” he said glancing up in the rearview mirror again with a concerned look. He knew more, he just wasn’t telling us.

  “If you know something, then I want to know,” I told him, speaking for the first time.

  Bray didn’t look at me this time. He remained silent.

  “If you know something,” I started and Steel looked at me.

  “Don’t. None of us know any facts. Let’s just get there.”

  He was right. I needed facts.

  It had been a
helicopter. Motherfucking Life Flight. I’d only ever seen one after a car accident. When someone had almost died from the injuries. Not at someone’s house. And not there to collect an eighteen-year-old.

  “Get out here,” Bray said pulling in front of a building. A large red sign in front of us said Emergency. We were here. “I’ll park and meet y’all inside.”

  I didn’t wait. I was out of the car and inside within seconds. I ran to the lady at the sign in sheet. “Dixie Monroe. She was brought in by Life Flight. Do you have information on her? “

  The lady casually looked at her computer smacking her gum like I hadn’t just said the words Life Flight. This was no big deal to her. She’d been desensitized by other people’s nightmares.

  “She’s not in the ER,” the woman said frowning. “She’s admitted, though. She’s in the Intensive Cardiac Care Unit.”

  I had no fucking idea what that meant other than she was alive. Right now, that was enough. “Where is that?”

  “Go left around the large turn, then take the elevators on your right to the fifth floor. Take a left then and go straight until you see the waiting room.“

  Bray was inside now. The four of us headed in the direction we were told. I knew that, even without telling them to do it, that one would text Dallas and give him directions. I was always the one who keept them together, stood with them, ready to face anything and anyone. Making sure everyone was taken care of. Not now. Now, they were standing with me. By my side. Because they all knew that if something were to happen to her, I’d fall apart. She was my center.

  Walking toward the waiting room, I could see Luke pacing in front of it. He ran his hand over his balding head and the tense lines of his face were obvious even from afar. Charlotte saw us first. She stood up and walked toward me, pulling me into a hug. “She’s alive,” she whispered in both relief and desperation. Because that didn’t mean she was okay.

  “What happened?”

  “She just . . . collapsed. Her heart stopped. There’s the doctor,” she said letting me go and hurrying over to Luke who was already there in front of the man dressed in white.

  “Would you like to go somewhere private?” the doctor asked.

  Luke looked back at us, at me standing there. “No. This is her family,” he said.

  The doctor nodded. “Dixie has a rare congenital heart condition called Long QT Syndrome. Many people have no signs or symptoms until the moment their heart stops, thus ending their life. It almost always goes undetected until it’s too late. Dixie was lucky. Her mother was there with her and you kept her heart pumping until the paramedics could revive her. Most aren’t that lucky. I want you to understand the severity of what she’s been through and that she isn’t in the clear just yet. We have put her in a drug induced coma and packed her in ice to bring her temperature down. In two days, we will warm her back up and bring her out of the coma. She will be in it for about four days total. I have done this before and it’s been successful. And I’ve done it and it hasn’t been. But we will do our absolute best to bring her through this. She’s a fighter. Once she’s brought out of the coma, we will then fit her for an implantable cardioverter defibrillator that will regulate her heartbeat.”

  Her heart had stopped. Dear God, she could have died. Today. I’d have never gotten to hold her again. We wouldn’t grow old together. She’d have never grown old. The idea of it rocked me. I sank down onto the closest chair and buried my head in my hands. She didn’t die. She was alive. The coma they had put her in scared the fuck out of me. She had to open her eyes and look at me. She had to let me tell her we were forever. She had to let me give her everything she ever wanted, everything she deserved. It wasn’t over yet. We still had a lifetime to live first.

  Asher Sutton

  I OPENED MY eyes squinting against the sun now coming through the waiting room window. I saw Scarlet sitting across from me. She had her knees pulled up under her chin and her arms wrapped around her legs. She had no makeup and her hair was in a messy knot on top of her head, but she was still the same striking redhead that had almost torn my brothers apart. She was Dixie’s best friend and I was happy she was here. I just hoped Brent and Bray weren’t back anytime soon.

  Sitting up, I yawned and stretched. She dropped her knees and straightened. She looked like she was ready to be told to leave, or worse.

  “Someone must have known where to contact you. Dixie will be happy you’re here.”

  My words seemed to ease her some.

  “Charlotte called last night,” she said.

  “Good.”

  She was quiet for a few minutes staring down at her hands. “I must have missed some things since it isn’t Steel sleeping on those chairs.”

  I was the only one still here. Her parents had paid for a guest room. The rest had gone to a hotel. But I wasn’t leaving. Not while she was here fighting for her life.

  “She broke it up with Steel a couple of days after you left.”

  “I figured it was something like that.” She paused, then added, “Charlotte said her heart stopped.”

  The screaming, the sirens, the helicopter. I could still her them in my head. I’d never forget them. I knew I’d keep re-living the horror of those moments in my nightmares.

  “She’s going to wake up, isn’t she?” Her words were both a question and a statement, a plea stemming out of her fear.

  “She’ll wake up. Dixie is strong. You know that.” I had to believe that.

  Scarlet nodded, but then frowned. “How long do I have? When do the others get here?”

  “They’re all at a hotel with Momma. I expect they’ll be here in an hour. I can text Steel to let me know when they’re headed this way.”

  “Is it that bad? Do you think I need to leave?”

  I didn’t want her to feel like she couldn’t stay, but I knew her presence here would hurt my brothers even more at a time when they were already hurting. “They’ve come to blows. It didn’t fix things. They’re not the same, Scarlet.”

  She hung her head and closed her eyes. “I wasn’t thinking. I should have never let Brent believe I loved him.” She shook her head as if to clear it and stood up. “But that’s not what is important now. Dixie is what’s important and when she wakes up, she will need you here. Not me. I’m going to go, but I won’t go far. I’ll ask Charlotte to keep me updated.”

  This wasn’t easy for her. I knew that. I would have understood had she wanted to stay. All the drama with my brothers felt less important right now.

  Scarlet hadn’t been gone long when my mom and brothers returned. Momma came to sit beside me and put a bag with what smelled like buttered biscuits and bacon in my lap. “Eat,” she said. “Won’t be as good as mine, but it’ll do. You need to eat.”

  I didn’t have an appetite, but telling her that was pointless. She’d make me eat anyway. So I did as I was told.

  “Heard anything?” Brent asked, sitting down in the seat Scarlet had been in not long ago.

  I thought about telling him and Bray, but decided against it. “No,” I just answered.

  Momma patted my leg. “I had Brent pull this condition she has up on the internet with that phone of his. I read about it. She one of the lucky ones. And she can live with this. Now that they know about it, they can keep a watch on it.”

  I’d done the same. I had read everything I could find on my phone about this Syndrome. The doctor hadn’t been exaggerating when he said she was lucky. She’d shown no symptoms until she collapsed, and she could have easily died then had Charlotte not been there to see it and act fast.

  Even once she was released, I didn’t know how I would ever let her out of my sight again. My fear of something happening to her again wasn’t going to go away overnight. I knew I had to deal with this.

  Her mother walked into the waiting room. “They’ll be taking the ice away and warming her up today. The doctor said she is responding well. He feels good about it all so far.”

  I felt both relieved and str
essed even more. Something could go wrong. They weren’t talking about that, but I knew it could. I suddenly needed some air. I felt like the whole room was closing in on me.

  “I’m going for a walk,” I said and headed for the door without looking back.

  When I got outside the waiting room, I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. She needed me to be strong for her. To believe she could do this. I wanted to be strong. But right now, all I wanted to do was cry. All I could think about was that I could lose her. That fear was slowly choking me.

  The door behind me then opened and while I expected to see my mother walking through it, my eyes found Charlotte. I got myself together. She didn’t need to see me breaking down. She was scared as it is and I didn’t need to add to it.

  “Sorry. My family can be too much sometimes,” I said, wondering if she was needing to get away from them too.

  She smiled. “They’re fine. Great, really. Having all of you here means a lot.”

  Several of the people from their church had come by, including the pastor. They’d brought flowers and snacks. But no one had stayed overnight. Dixie’s aunt was in town, as was her grandmother. They’d come yesterday and said they would be back today.

  “I can’t leave her.”

  Charlotte nodded. “And if it were you in there, she wouldn’t be able to leave you either. She’d be much like you are now, doing all she could to hold herself together. The two of you,” she smiled to herself before continuing. “You’ve been dancing around each other since you were kids.