Seeking Tate
Chapter Two
FFFWhen I thought of anniversaries, I didn’t necessarily think of stale coffee and having to rely on the dull and fleeting comfort of cigarettes to survive. I’d always imagined something else – anything else: the reservations made and the rose petals, the star gazing and hand holding. I’d even fantasized about just staying in, relaxing with the person I loved and whom loved me, kissing under blankets after long movies and popcorn fights.
Hospitals – specifically St. Joe’s – was not and was never what I’d pictured.
But it turned to be a nightmare come to reality as June twenty-eighth rolled around with Tate’s cool blue eyes still going unopened and unobservant to the world around her.
“John… Do you think-” my father started, but stopped from his chair at the tiny breakfast table set up across the room. He cleared his throat and sat up higher in the plastic material he’d sunken into. “I don’t mean this in any bad way, and I really do have hope, but what if – what if Tate doesn’t wake up?”
I pinched my eyes shut and wrapped my fingers around my wife’s tighter.
If she doesn’t wake up – as in brain dead, as in no improvement and no possibility of any sort of neurological recovery. That was what he really meant.
I couldn’t blame him, no matter the amount of hatred I felt for having him ask. Everyone at one point since the accident had wondered about it, but no one ever wanted to ask.
I could feel everyone’s eyes on me: my dad’s, my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law. They all were gauging my reaction and waiting to hear the answer.
There was no way in hell I could do it. I couldn’t tell the doctors to pull the plug, to shut off life support. I wasn’t strong enough, and I guess in ways I was too selfish to do it. No matter the circumstance or the medical feedback, I would always have hope for her – for Tate.
After all, aside from the love and attachment I felt to her, it was only fair to have that kind of blind faith in her, in her recovery and in her life. For years, she’d done the same for me.
She’d watched as I’d hit rock bottom, waited patiently for me to pick myself up and straighten out the things that I needed to solve and pick apart on my own.
She deserved someone on her side, just as she’d been on mine when not even I thought I had a chance.
It was just that simple.
But I couldn’t say all of that. Not when it was all hypothetical, not when I was sure that she would, in fact, flutter those eyelashes at me once more.
So instead of saying everything that ran through my head and instead of earning myself a boat load of more questions, I only shrugged and found myself studying the delicate lines of Tate’s knuckles.
I ran my thumb around the ring I’d placed on her finger after the nurses had handed over the clothes she’d been rushed into the hospital with – the very ring I’d proposed to her with, fished out of the shower drain for her and searched practically the whole town of Tempe for after she’d misplaced it only to later discover hiding in the very bottom of her purse. It’d been through hell and back, but it never seemed to stay off her finger long.
It meant the world to her, or had up until recently.
“She’ll wake up,” Holland stated, clearly uncomfortable thinking otherwise. She shifted in her seat, setting aside her Sudoku booklet to fully join the conversation.
She looked around at the faces staring at her, the blue eyes she and her sister shared focusing on the only unmoving body in the room.
“I know her,” she stated calmly, clasping her hands together. “We all know her. She-she has too much to live for, especially now.”
A silence settled over the room, a tension-filled silence that no one intentionally tried to create, but created regardless.
“A miracle,” the doctors had called it.
And so far it had been a miracle, but no one wanted to jinx the one finicky chance of luck by acknowledging it as much as we should.
The scene of Tate just weeks before, excitedly tugging me into the house after work played behind my eyelids. The way she grinned and sat me down at the table to break the news: that she was pregnant.
I could still feel that scared, excited, crazy kind of emotion I’d felt as we’d lost ourselves in the kitchen in that brief moment of pure bliss. I could still feel the way she'd wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me down only slightly to kiss me. It'd tasted of salt and strawberries from the tears gliding over the soft skin of her cheek and the fruit she'd been fidgeting with just that morning. It'd been an almost indescribable moment, one of the best memories I could think of in the entirety of my life.
Strange. It was almost remarkable how fast life can switch.
Holland and I made eye contact one more time, her eyes reassuring almost, as if she could look into the future and already knew that her sister would be just fine.
But Holland wasn't a fortune teller. In fact, she was probably the worst predictor out of the bunch of us. Her deduction skills and abilities were so sorely lacking that it was nearly pathetic, and if I hadn't grown to know her and the way her passion balanced out the mix, I probably would have never given the girl a second glance - deeming her as dim-witted and not worth the effort.
She was a good girl though.
Tate had made the two of us friends. Tate made everyone reevaluate their thoughts. She was just that good, that manipulative without even knowing it sometimes. In our less than happy moments together, I’d hated her hold that she seemed to have not only on me, but everyone else also. But her capabilities never exceeded into anything other than goodness and out of love.
Considering the drastic differences between the two of us as people when our love story first began, I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand how we managed to work and click.
I ran my thumb over her knuckle once more and sighed softly. Life had become a waiting game that easily could turn into a never ending one. For Tate, though, I would sit, quiet and complacent for all of eternity.
“Everything will work out.”
Hospitals – specifically St. Joe’s – was not and was never what I’d pictured.
But it turned to be a nightmare come to reality as June twenty-eighth rolled around with Tate’s cool blue eyes still going unopened and unobservant to the world around her.
“John… Do you think-” my father started, but stopped from his chair at the tiny breakfast table set up across the room. He cleared his throat and sat up higher in the plastic material he’d sunken into. “I don’t mean this in any bad way, and I really do have hope, but what if – what if Tate doesn’t wake up?”
I pinched my eyes shut and wrapped my fingers around my wife’s tighter.
If she doesn’t wake up – as in brain dead, as in no improvement and no possibility of any sort of neurological recovery. That was what he really meant.
I couldn’t blame him, no matter the amount of hatred I felt for having him ask. Everyone at one point since the accident had wondered about it, but no one ever wanted to ask.
I could feel everyone’s eyes on me: my dad’s, my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law. They all were gauging my reaction and waiting to hear the answer.
There was no way in hell I could do it. I couldn’t tell the doctors to pull the plug, to shut off life support. I wasn’t strong enough, and I guess in ways I was too selfish to do it. No matter the circumstance or the medical feedback, I would always have hope for her – for Tate.
After all, aside from the love and attachment I felt to her, it was only fair to have that kind of blind faith in her, in her recovery and in her life. For years, she’d done the same for me.
She’d watched as I’d hit rock bottom, waited patiently for me to pick myself up and straighten out the things that I needed to solve and pick apart on my own.
She deserved someone on her side, just as she’d been on mine when not even I thought I had a chance.
It was just that simple.
But I couldn’t say all of that. Not when it was all hypothetical, not when I was sure that she would, in fact, flutter those eyelashes at me once more.
So instead of saying everything that ran through my head and instead of earning myself a boat load of more questions, I only shrugged and found myself studying the delicate lines of Tate’s knuckles.
I ran my thumb around the ring I’d placed on her finger after the nurses had handed over the clothes she’d been rushed into the hospital with – the very ring I’d proposed to her with, fished out of the shower drain for her and searched practically the whole town of Tempe for after she’d misplaced it only to later discover hiding in the very bottom of her purse. It’d been through hell and back, but it never seemed to stay off her finger long.
It meant the world to her, or had up until recently.
“She’ll wake up,” Holland stated, clearly uncomfortable thinking otherwise. She shifted in her seat, setting aside her Sudoku booklet to fully join the conversation.
She looked around at the faces staring at her, the blue eyes she and her sister shared focusing on the only unmoving body in the room.
“I know her,” she stated calmly, clasping her hands together. “We all know her. She-she has too much to live for, especially now.”
A silence settled over the room, a tension-filled silence that no one intentionally tried to create, but created regardless.
“A miracle,” the doctors had called it.
And so far it had been a miracle, but no one wanted to jinx the one finicky chance of luck by acknowledging it as much as we should.
The scene of Tate just weeks before, excitedly tugging me into the house after work played behind my eyelids. The way she grinned and sat me down at the table to break the news: that she was pregnant.
I could still feel that scared, excited, crazy kind of emotion I’d felt as we’d lost ourselves in the kitchen in that brief moment of pure bliss. I could still feel the way she'd wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me down only slightly to kiss me. It'd tasted of salt and strawberries from the tears gliding over the soft skin of her cheek and the fruit she'd been fidgeting with just that morning. It'd been an almost indescribable moment, one of the best memories I could think of in the entirety of my life.
Strange. It was almost remarkable how fast life can switch.
Holland and I made eye contact one more time, her eyes reassuring almost, as if she could look into the future and already knew that her sister would be just fine.
But Holland wasn't a fortune teller. In fact, she was probably the worst predictor out of the bunch of us. Her deduction skills and abilities were so sorely lacking that it was nearly pathetic, and if I hadn't grown to know her and the way her passion balanced out the mix, I probably would have never given the girl a second glance - deeming her as dim-witted and not worth the effort.
She was a good girl though.
Tate had made the two of us friends. Tate made everyone reevaluate their thoughts. She was just that good, that manipulative without even knowing it sometimes. In our less than happy moments together, I’d hated her hold that she seemed to have not only on me, but everyone else also. But her capabilities never exceeded into anything other than goodness and out of love.
Considering the drastic differences between the two of us as people when our love story first began, I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand how we managed to work and click.
I ran my thumb over her knuckle once more and sighed softly. Life had become a waiting game that easily could turn into a never ending one. For Tate, though, I would sit, quiet and complacent for all of eternity.
“Everything will work out.”