I don’t say anything more. There’s no use in trying.
“And I love you way too much to let you suffer in silence, so please, talk to me.”
I’ve reached my tipping point. The ground beneath me is sinking. I’m drowning. I gasp for a mouthful of oxygen, struggle to find more, but it’s like there’s none left for me. Like the atmosphere is a thick, scalding soup, and the more I try, the more my throat closes up.
“Chris,” I hear my wife very gently say.
“What?”
“Listen to me carefully.” Her voice turns firm with just the right measure of tender guidance. “I want you to lean on me.”
“I can’t.” My speech is slurred, and it sounds more like a cry for help.
“You can. Lean on me, baby. That’s what we do—it’s what we’ve always done.”
“I don’t know how to anymore.”
“You do—you’ve just forgotten. I’ll help. Can you remember what we used to do when things made us scared?”
And all at once, I do remember. The time in college when we got the news her father had died after a massive stroke. The temporary scare when doctors found a suspicious shadow on my liver. Those long nights we spent so vigilantly in the hospital at Devon’s bedside after he contracted pneumonia, unsure whether he’d live to see the next day. Jenna would lay her head on my chest, listen to my breaths, and synch hers to mine. Together we would breathe, and together everything would feel better. All the fear, all the worries in our lives melting away, the two of us becoming one.
“Chris,” she says, “go ahead. Do it right now. Breathe with me.”
I try to draw air.
“That’s it,” she says, inhaling deeply with me, then letting it out. “You can do this.”
My respirations are loud and frantic, hers soft and calm, but we are doing it. We are breathing together, and little by little, she is bringing me down.
“Keep going,” Jenna says, inhaling deeper. “You’re doing fine.”
I feel my throat start to open up, the oxygen slowly finding its way back and replenishing my lungs. Soon, my rhythm finds hers and we dovetail together.
We are one.
In that exact moment, something within me breaks wide open, something more powerful than myself, and there is no longer fear, there is no longer doubt, there is only truth.
“I’m so scared,” I say, voice fracturing.
“I know, sweetheart. I know . . .”
“It’s the same thing. It’s the same goddamned thing as my father.”
“It is not,” she says, her tone falling weaker as if hearing this is more than she can bear.
“It already is. I’m losing my son, and the worst part—the most agonizing—is that I know he’ll never forgive me for this, that he’ll end up hating me the same way . . .” I stop, not wanting to drive the knife in deeper.
“That isn’t going to happen. It’s just not.”
“How can you possibly know?”
“Because,” she says, “it’s not Devon you need to ask for forgiveness.”
“Who then?”
“It’s yourself.”
I don’t answer—not because I don’t have one but because I know she’s just spoken the truth. Truth I’ve been trying to avoid for most of my life.
“Come home, Chris,” my wife tells me. “Come back to your safe place.”
46
The night was brutal.
I spent a good part of it staring at the ceiling, but all I could see was a life coming undone. A mind slipping away. A family falling apart.
While I’m grateful to Jenna for talking me off the ledge yesterday after my living nightmare inside the MRI tube, I also realize that even she can’t erase the images and sounds that traveled through my crumbling mind. Something else I know: if those were more than products of a head injury, Jenna will be just as powerless as my mother and I were during my childhood.
I drive toward work with the fear that this new day may only throw more conflict my way.
When I arrive at Loveland, my concerns prove well founded: the parking lot is now less than two-thirds full. With the vacancies now so much more obvious, my thoughts skyrocket on the rewind.
Stanley and Nicholas.
The cafeteria.
This parking lot.
My suspicions were no overreaction, and with that comes a new reality, the size and scope of which are much bigger than I’d first wanted to realize.
Loveland Hospital is vanishing before my eyes.
I have to talk to someone.
Don’t do it. Do NOT.
But something horrible is happening.
As horrible as your ass getting wiped out next?
Heat flushes my face.
Mind your own business. Keep your mouth shut.
My feet stumble over themselves. After finding my stride, I pick up the pace and rush toward the building.
Down the hall toward my office, worries trail me and refuse to let go. I need to see whether Melinda has e-mailed the information I’d requested, so I can get to the bottom of all these strange happenings. But halfway there, Jeremy materializes from a bathroom door. He takes one look at me, then strolls my way. I’ve got no time for him right now, but his demanding expression says I don’t have much of a choice.
“Christopher,” he says. “Something very strange is happening.”
“I’m sorry?” I try to avoid choking on my words.
“I keep checking my e-mails for updates on your progress with Donny Ray’s evaluation, but for some reason, I’m not finding them.”
“Oh, yeah.” I coerce a laugh. “That.”
“Yeah, that. Any idea at all why that might be?”
“It’s with good reason,” I say. “I guess I’ve been a little involved and forgot. I’m actually making great progress with him.”
“I don’t need to remind you how important this case is, do I?”
“No, sir. You most certainly do not.”
“And that tomorrow is our deadline.”
“No need to remind me about that, either. I’ll meet it.”
“Excellent. So, keep me updated, all right?”
“Absolutely, and again, my apologies.”