Some Days

I woke up to silence.

Everything was still and pristine. The sunlight was new, breaking and cascading sweetly across the floor, over and under the piles of mess that had accumulated. The room glowed ambers and oranges, with little touches of pinks.

I touched my fingertips to my lips. They were dry and slightly swollen, and a smile broke out across them. My eyes shifted, then, and focused on the sweet, innocent boy next to me. He face was nestled in my chest and his legs tangled with mine. I closed my eyes, although I knew I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again, and listened as he breathed. Inhale slowly – hold – exhale sharply.

His hair gleamed copper in the early morning light. And for a second, just a brief, fleeting second, I wondered how dazzling his eyes would look this early, too. I wondered what his voice would sound like, thick with sleep. I imagined how he would rub his eyes of sleep and think about his disappearing dreams and the smile that I’m sure slowly formed on his lips.

But something inside me hurt a little too much as I thought these things and I had to get up. Carefully settling him into the pillow and quietly tiptoeing my way across the room, I disappeared into the hallway and closed the door behind me.

I found myself wondering how Regan woke Kennedy up this morning.

She doesn’t wake up with a slow smile or rub the sleep from her eyes or take the time to remember her dreams. More often than not, she charges into bed with you and shakes you awake or jumps on top of you relentlessly, until you’re wide awake but have your eyes closed anyway so she thinks you’re being stubborn. She jumps and giggles and shakes you until you grab her by the waist and drag her little body down next to yours, her writhing in a fit of intense giggling and shrieking. Then, and only then, with your eyes still closed to her and your arms wrapped protectively around her, will she quiet down.

I wondered if she did this to Kennedy or if, maybe, she reserved this special energy for her mommy.

Before taking the stairs, I looked back down the hallway and stared at my mother’s closed door. Regan takes after me with regard to early morning energy. I suppose, in a way, I took after my mother with how I reacted to Regan each morning. A smile crept into my lips and I turned, slowly making my way downstairs.

I was met with more silence.

Without questioning it, I wandered into the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. I leaned against the counter, my back to the coffee pot, and stared out the window into the backyard. The sunlight made everything seem new and undiscovered. And if everything was new and undiscovered, didn’t that mean it should be exciting?

Why did everything suddenly make me feel terrible?

I pushed myself away from the counter, over to the sink, and splashed cold water on my face. My stomach churned and growled and my mind told me that something – I had no idea what – had gone wrong when I thought everything had finally gone right. Shaking it off for the moment, I grabbed a couple coffee mugs and turned to see how far along the coffee was.

That’s when I saw it.

A lot of things had changed since I left years ago. With my mom’s deteriorating memory, I realized my father had littered each table with notepads and hung up memo boards around the house, at least one in each major room. He would leave little notes, reminding mom to smile or have happy thoughts, and he’d also leave behind more important matters, such as medicine routines and cooking instructions.

Regan had tried to draw on one of the memo boards a few days ago and when the previous ink hadn’t wiped off, it hit me how long ago he had stopped using them. With mom confined to her bed, I guess he had no more use for them.

But the one stuck to the fridge saw regular usage: grocery reminders, recipes to try, phone numbers of people to call back. All of that was haphazardly wiped away and a frantically scribbled note replaced it all.

Nolan – at the hospital. Not good. Call when you get this

I grabbed the phone off the counter and blindly dialed. My throat was closing up as tears pressed to the surface. Breathing was hard to do and I counted each second between phone rings. I jammed buttons on the coffee maker, trying to shut it off with trembling fingers.

“Answer the phone, damnit,” I cursed under my breath. I tore through the house, grabbing whatever jacket I could from the hall closet, and stepped into a pair of old rain boots.

“Hello?” he sleepily answered.

Just hearing his voice, so filled with sleep and concern, caused me to release a sob. My body collapsed against the closet door and I sobbed again, slowly crumpling to the floor. “Damnit, John, it’s happening.”

“What’s happening?” he yawned.

“Sh- she’s in the hospital,” I whimpered. Holding the phone with my shoulder, I pressed the palms of my hands hard against my eyes to rub away the tears.

“Listen to me. Listen,” John said, more alert now. I heard him rustling around in his bed sheets, no doubt rushing to get up and dressed. “Nolan, are you listening to my voice? Get up.”

I sniffled and pulled myself together long enough to pick myself up off the floor. “Okay. Okay, I’m okay. I’m listening.”

“Go to the hospital, meet me outside. I’m closer than you are, so I’ll make it there first, okay? I’ll be right outside the trauma entrance,” he ordered calmly. “Where is Regan? Is she with you?”

“N-no, Kenny has her,” I shakily answered as I pushed papers around on the coffee table. Where were my keys?

“Good, that’s good. I’ll call him on the way and let him know what’s going on, okay? Just breathe, baby,” John reminded. “The last thing we need right now is you in the hospital too, alright?”

I nodded, snatched my keys from underneath a magazine, and headed for the door. “I’m g-going now.”

“Okay, baby. It’s going to be okay,” he promised, and then the line fell silent. I tossed the phone onto the table by the door and practically sprinted to my car.

John was right. By the time I had parked and dragged myself up to the building, he was already there, waiting on me. He was talking on the phone as I approached and, catching the end of the conversation, I knew it was Kennedy on the other end.

“She just got here,” John said into the phone. “I’ll let you know what’s going on later.”

Before I could come to a complete stop in front of him, he eyed me from head to toe, biting his lower lip between his teeth. He then grabbed my cheeks and pulled me into a kiss. Although I was shocked by his sudden move, I kissed back. The tears running down my cheeks fell onto his but he didn’t seem to mind.

“I promise,” he breathed. With his hands still firmly holding my face in place, he kissed me again, a little harder than the first. “I’ll get you through this.”

I nodded numbly, reached for his hand and tangled our fingers together. Everything after that was a blur. He spoke to the nurse at the information desk and lied to her – he said he was my husband, my mother’s only son-in-law, and I was too shocked to speak, so she gave him the room number instead. When we finally reached her room, only my father was sitting there.

I started crying at the sight of the empty, neatly made bed, and his crumpled figure in the chair. I feared the worst and lost control of my emotions. John helped me over to the chair next to my father and sat down in it, cradling me in his lap. He gently tucked my head into his neck and rubbed my back as he spoke with my father. I don’t remember anything after that.

It was quite a few hours later when I woke up, except this time I was laying down in a bed, John’s thin but strong body curled around mine. I tried to sit up but John’s arms tightened around my waist, holding me in place. I looked over my shoulder at him, staring through bleary eyes. He smiled calmly and kissed my forehead.

“I told you to breathe, Nolan,” he chuckled softly. “But of course you refuse to listen.”

“Oh no,” I murmured, my stomach fluttering to life. “I’m admitted again?”

John nodded and pressed a kiss to my lips. I melted into it and kissed back. “Just for anxiety, not for your heart.”

I nodded and shifted, turning over so I was face to face with him. He kissed me again on the lips and then pressed soft kisses all over my face. “Where’s Regan?” I asked. And then I remembered why I was in the hospital in the first place. “Mom? Is mom okay? Where is she?”

“She’s… She’s okay, for the most part,” he said uneasily. He tucked my hair behind my ear sweetly. “She’s in a coma, Nolan. But breathe, okay? Breathe, baby. They don’t know what’s wrong yet or why this is happening. You have to keep breathing. Not just for me, but for Regan. Breathe for us, okay?”

I tried to remind myself how to breathe but it was just so difficult. “Regan? Does Kennedy still have her?”

“Kenny brought her here a few hours ago,” John said. “He has some family things to do, or else he would have kept her until we were ready to take her.”

I pressed my nose into his chest, closed my eyes, and tried to inhale steadily. He rubbed my back gently and whispered in my ear, softly reminding me to breathe, telling me things would be okay. But nothing felt like it would be okay – not now, not soon, not ever again. How could things be okay if my mother was in a coma? How could things be okay if I had no idea what was going on with her? Things wouldn’t be okay if I couldn’t figure this out in time to explain it to Regan.

“Mommy?” I lifted my head from John’s shirt and saw Regan standing in the doorway. When she saw that I was awake, she launched herself onto the bed with us and cuddled herself in between us. She wrapped her little arms protectively around my neck. “Mommy! I was so scared! Are you okay?”

I kissed the top of her head and crushed her to my chest. I would never let her out of my sight again. “Mommy is okay, sweetheart. I promise. Mommy will always be okay.”

Regan managed to wiggle her way out of my grasp. She looked at John, then at me, and again at John. I could have sworn she would question the situation, but instead, with her eyes a mirror of John’s staring straight into mine, all she remembered were the stars. “Are you going to add another star to your jar now, mommy?”

“Unfortunately,” I said, hugging her again. “Just one more.”

Regan nodded and allowed me to crush her with hugs. The three of us were quiet for a while, lying together as a family. I listened to the hustle and bustle outside of my room. I listened as John told Regan a story and I stored her giggles into my memory. I vowed to never forget this moment, the three of us together, her giggle filling the sterile room. I worried about the questions this would bring up for Regan, and the possible confusion for her. Hell, I worried about my own questions and confusion. Then I noticed the sun setting outside, casting a different light into the room. Sunsets meant closure and the escaping light was less cheerful than that of a sunrise. And then, sunsets and sunrises aside, I wondered where my mother was – not just physically, but spiritually, too.

Not once did I wonder about the copper gleam of hair or the slow smile or the erratic breathing of the boy that had been beside me all those hours ago.