Make Amends

“The sick teach the cure,” he said.

She gave him a smile that melted his heart but soon her eyes began to flutter and he began to panic. Her expression fell and became blank. Garrett yelled for Dr. Brock and he entered frantically as the machines went crazy.

“Dad, is she going to be okay?” Kennedy asked, knowing he didn’t want the answer.

He looked at him with the most sympathetic eyes he had ever gotten from him, and then that look turned severe and Dr. Brock plunged a syringe into her arm. The vitals slowed down in the worst kind of way and then fell completely flat.

“Dad?” Kennedy said, biting his fist.

“Penny, take Kennedy and Garrett outside,” he instructed as he and other nurses attached Logan to all kinds of machines and performed CPR. The only sound was the steady beep of the flat lining heart monitor.

Kennedy looked at her one more time before Penny pushed them out the door. Garrett ran to the bathroom and Kennedy could hear him retching from outside.

Kennedy waited patiently outside the hospital room. He was squatting with his back pressed to the wall for support. He felt sick and his eyes kept opening and closing as he prayed that it was all a dream.

He heard the door open and stood up immediately. His dad took his gloves off and disposed of them in a nearby bin. He put his hand on Kennedy’s shoulder and once he looked into his eyes Kennedy fell to the ground.

It wasn’t a dream.

++

“Have you ever loved anyone besides Momma?”

Kennedy looked at his son who was stuffing cereal into his mouth. “Why would you ask me that?”

He shrugged, “Mom said she never loved anyone else.”

Kennedy frowned at him, “You going to wear that tie like that?”

His son didn’t even notice the dodging of the question, “I didn’t know how to tie it.”

Kennedy smiled at him and pulled him onto his lap, beginning to tie the piece around the tiny neck. “You know how I learned how to tie a proper tie?”

The boy shook his head.

“A girl taught me.”

Caleb laughed, “That’s funny.”

Kennedy tightened it for him, “So do you know where we’re going today?”

He nodded his head, “That place with the big rocks.”

Kennedy laughed, holding open his son’s suit jacket as he walked into it. “We’re going to be strong, right?”

“I’m the strongest,” Caleb grinned.

Kennedy scooped him up in his arms, “I know.”

The boys waited for a few minutes before Kennedy called into the hallway, “Honey, we’re going to be late.”

Finally she emerged. Her brown hair was pulled back low, tumbling in soft curls. Her black dress was conservative and made her look younger than she was. Kennedy admired her beauty and tried not to think of how something was missing. But it was hard when she looked so empty compared to who he had loved his whole life.

He kissed her on the cheek. “I know it’s hard for you to do this. But all of our friends will be there.”

“I know,” she forced a smile and led them out. Caleb looked up at Kennedy with his big blue eyes and his heart melted. If there was one bright light on this day, it was him.

When they arrived at the cemetery Caleb raced from the car to attack John. John picked him up and swung him over his shoulder, letting him stretch his arms out and fly like a plane. When his parents joined, John set him down and pretended to be out of breath.

“I cannot believe you’re just three years old. You weigh like a million pounds,” John said, crouching to his level.

The boy turned red and pushed his shoulder, “Shut up.”

John gave Caleb’s parents a sympathetic smile and hugged the fragile woman. Together they walked to the crowd in the middle of the cemetery. Kennedy coached Caleb to be quiet and respectful and the little boy just did that as they stood around the headstone.

There was an emotion present in every person’s body that day that no one could quite put a finger on. It was the grief that made their feet feel like they were clad in steel toe boots. It was the fragility of their hearts that felt like at any second it could be ripped from their bodies. It was the salt in their tears that stained their pale cheeks and dripped to the corner of their lips, tasting of regret.

It was too much for a group so young. Too much sadness, too much death. And now another date that would forever be marked with tragedy, another suit to retrieve from the closet.

But the only thing holding some of them together was the fact that one more person could join them; the one person that was the stem of their pain would also be the light on this dark day.

They all looked out of place. The skinny boys in suits, the girls in conservative black dresses. For such a happy group of friends, you wouldn’t guess it by the looks on their faces.

The headstone was large and had been there for a while as a part of a family plot. The preacher said a few words but they didn’t matter. Kennedy looked at Garrett and his downcast eyes. His heart broke for him. He had been through so much more than any enemy could wish upon him.

Kennedy’s eyes traveled to a large headstone a few paces away and farther to the northeast. It read, Ronald Nickelsen, loving father; followed by his birth date and the date he died.

And then his eyes went to a much smaller headstone that read Logan Nickelsen. No engraving. Just her birth date.

“Kind of morbid, isn’t it?” he heard in his ear as everyone created a sort of assembly line to lay flowers on the casket.

He looked at her and realized she was looking the same thing he was, “Definitely.”

“I begged my dad not to make headstones for Garrett and me but he insisted. Ugh,” she shivered at the thought of death like just five years ago it wasn’t a very real possibility.

A possibility that became a terrifying reality for three minutes when she was officially dead on the table. Dr. Brock tried to explain the procedure a million times but it never mattered.

She was alive.

At the moment, the smile that was missing from her face made her a stranger. Anne lost her battle after five years of fighting and to say that it was bringing back memories for everyone would be an understatement.

Kennedy and Caleb waited away from the casket while Logan said goodbye to Anne with Garrett. As Logan approached them her heart skipped a beat like it always did when she saw her boys together. They were perfect.

“You okay, momma?” Caleb asked as she grabbed his other hand so that he walked in the middle of his parents.

“Yeah, honey,” she wiped her eyes with her free hand. “Do you understand where Grandma is?”

“In heaven, right?” Logan nodded her head and Caleb spoke again. “But why couldn’t we go with her?”

“Because grandma was in pain, Caleb. You’re not hurt, are you?” Kennedy asked. “Because mom and I aren’t.”

“Is Uncle Garrett?” Logan and Kennedy shook their heads. “Uncle Eric? Or John?”

They said no and he shrugged, “I guess I’m okay too, then.”

Logan and Kennedy smiled at each other over his head.

They drove to their house where a small get together was being held in Anne’s honor. There were many people there that she knew only by their name because of the letters and flowers they sent her when she was in the hospital. Many of them spoke of the scare she had given them, but none of them asked questions.

Kennedy tried not to smile at the way Logan kept him at her side the whole night. There were a few moments where she looked as if she may fall over from the stress, and in those moments he would kiss her cheek or squeeze her hand and she would be encouraged to continue talking of the times she wished she could forget.

At one point, Caleb ran up and wrapped his arms around her thigh, “Momma, can we go outside and play?”

“Sure, baby,” she said, thankful for the reason to leave the room. She left Kennedy with one of her cousins asking about his band as Caleb found Eric and pulled him outside with them.

Once outside, she yelled at him not to get his dress shirt dirty and he responded by unbuttoning it and throwing it at her before running back to play.

“Yep, that’s my godson,” Eric cheered from her side.

“Well that’s the last time you babysit him,” she laughed.

They sat down next to each other on a foot and a half high block wall. They hadn’t been sitting very long before he moved closer to her. “You doing okay today?”

“Not really.”

He put his arm around her, “Ah, momma Logan needs a hug.”

She nodded her head and rested it on his shoulder. “Both of my parents dead before I’m thirty. That’s pretty crazy, right?”

“Indeed,” he said. “But at least you’re alive, right?”

“Yeah, momma,” Caleb called.

Logan laughed, picking her head up, “He agrees with everything you say.”

“I love him,” Eric said.

“When I was younger I used to think that my biggest contribution to the world would be making it better by some action. You know, like how you play music or other people write books. But after having Caleb I think that he is the best contribution I could have made,” Logan said.

“Disagree,” Eric said, resting his elbows on his knees and playing with his hands. “Your biggest contribution to this world… was you. You have inspired people… just by being alive. That sounds cheesy but it’s true. To some people you’re a hero. And someday Caleb is going to understand that.”

“Thanks Halvo,” she smiled, squeezing his knee.

“I still get shivers when you call me that,” he winked.

She rolled her eyes, “Caleb, tell uncle Halvo to stop harassing momma.”

Caleb mumbled something like what Logan said before Caleb jumped onto her lap and gave her a handful of lilies that he had plucked from her perfect garden.

“Thank you, baby,” she kissed his cheek.

Logan redressed him and the three went back into the house. Before long it began to clear. The people said goodbye to she and Garrett, giving them best wishes, offering condolences, and promising lots of food to come their way.

Once the last person left Logan wrapped her arms around Garrett and hugged him tightly, both of them letting a few tears fall before they pulled away. Garrett took in a breath that Logan mimicked before he smiled and spoke as if to remind himself, “We’re strong.”

She smiled, “Yeah, we are.”

Caleb refused to go to bed unless Eric tucked him in. So once the boy was fast asleep all of them sat in the large living room in silence. It was odd for every one of them. The boys held beers and the girls glasses of cheap wine.

The thought on everyone’s mind was more of a prayer that was never vocalized; that this would be the last brush with death any of them would have in a very long time.

Eric walked out into the living room and over to the shelf of records Logan had received from her dad. He put one in the player, placing the needle into a groove while the static reverberated through the speakers and then an old jazz song filled the room, the volume low enough not to wake Caleb.

Logan kicked off her heels and curled her legs up underneath her. Kennedy had his arm stretched out on the back of the couch and she curled up to his side. He took a sip from his beer and kissed the top of her head, smiling.

John raised his glass in the air, “To Anne, for giving us Garrett and for raising him and Logan into two of the best people I know.”

Everyone muttered their cheers of agreement, those that were close tapping glasses and bottles. Logan felt glad that the cause of sadness or hurt was no longer her. That multiple lives didn’t revolve around her well being any longer out of worry, but that they cared simply just because that’s what friends do.

Logan laid her head in Kennedy’s lap and he brushed the hair out of her eyes. She sent him a smile that he easily returned. After a while the wine began to affect her senses and her eyes drooped.

Five years ago she lay in a hospital dreading sleep because she was never sure if she would wake up. Now, she fell asleep with a smile on her face and dreamed of her life ahead. The possibility of cancer would forever crowd her dreams, but not enough to make her stop.

Tonight, she would dream of miracles. And in the morning she would prove that she was one.