A stronger woman would have walked into Dan Harris's office and faced him as she put in her notice. I barely have the strength to get out of bed in the morning and shower, much less prepare myself to go through the torture of watching another patient fade away. I didn't spend thousands of dollars on nursing school to watch people die, I did it to help people. When I first took the position with CompCare, I told myself that I would be fine because I was helping my patients maintain a quality of life, however short the quantity.
That worked, until I watched one of the strongest men I knew fall to his knees as we realized Alyssa had taken her last breath. Until I had to pronounce the death of a woman I had grown to love as a friend. Until the moment Xavier reached out to me, begging me to give him a little more time before calling the funeral home. Until the first time I held a little boy as he cried himself to sleep because he misses his mom.
After burrowing under a blanket on my couch for three days, watching movies and living off snack foods, I decided to take a page out of Xavier’s book. He and Jacob have been gone for a week now, visiting North Carolina. I didn’t bother questioning him when he said he has family down there. It’s been a long time since we were a couple, so I suppose it’s possible he has an aunt or cousins he never mentioned. Although my official last day isn’t for nearly a month, I still have ten days of mandatory time off, required after the close of each case, and enough vacation time that I won’t have to go back in. There’s no better place to figure out where I want to go in life than on the open road, with no reminders of how crappy my life back home is.
As I load Brody and his supplies into the car, a single tear trickles down my cheek. I’ve never been the type of person to amass a huge network of friends, but I could always count on Stacey to be there when I needed her. And then I started looking forward to my time with Alyssa and Xavier. Even Braydon became someone I love as a friend. But now, I’m folding myself into my Prius and there’s no one to tell that I’m going to be gone. No one to call at the end of the day and tell them I’m safely at my next destination. It’s the first time I’m truly alone and I hate it.
The sun is just barely peeking over the edge of the horizon when I pull out of the parking lot. I hadn’t planned on leaving so early, but seeing as sleep hasn’t been my friend lately, I see no point in waiting. There’s something peaceful about driving down the freeway before it’s congested with morning commuters. When I look around, I notice that the last bits of winter are finally gone. The grass is starting to turn green again and the trees are filled with buds. It always amazes me how easy it is to get used to the drab shades of winter and how beautiful it is when spring finally arrives.
I allow myself to think about Alyssa as I ease my way onto the Interstate. If we had met under different circumstances and she wasn’t married with a little boy, I could see the two of us hitting the road, Thelma and Louise style. I laugh as I think about her having to come out to the parking lot of a honky-tonk in the middle of nowhere, threatening to kill someone for me. I’m the good girl and she’s the bad-ass.
The first time in the eleven days since she’s been gone that I allow myself to smile as I think about the adventures we would have taken. There were so many places Alyssa wanted to see that she’ll never get to now. On the days when she wasn’t feeling great, we had plenty of time to daydream about all the things we would do if we had unlimited money and time. At the top of her list; Memphis so she could walk down Beale Street. My Louise might not be sitting next to me, but I’m determined to make the trip for her.
Death makes people do crazy things. Take me for example; I told Alyssa I didn’t have time to go out of town almost every time she asked me. And yet, the night she died, I jumped online and found a condo near the ocean. The morning after we laid her to rest, Jacob and I got in the car to drive eleven hundred miles away from the pain. If Alyssa was here, she would have warned me that that many miles with an inquisitive four year old was a bad idea. But she’s not here and I’m left to learn these lessons the hard way, it would seem.