After Forever (24 page)

I blinked hard. There was no end of tears ready to come out of me these days, it seemed.

“He needs me.” Grams leaned up and kissed me again. “Goodbye, Cade. I love you. Forever.”

She turned away, and I felt the permanence in her goodbye as well. I slumped back against the wall. Listened through the open door. Murmurs. The steady beeping of the heart monitor echoed. I held it together, struggled to breathe. Murmurs. A sob from Grams. The creak of a bed. Soft crying. Flatline.

I listened, unable to walk away.

After a few minutes, the crying stopped.
 

A nurse flew past me, and I turned to follow her, but she was stopped in the middle of the room, her hand over her mouth. Her eyes were wet.
 

Grams was on the bed, curled up next to Gramps. Their hands were clasped together. They were both gone.

I turned away, and my steps taking me out of the hospital were slow and measured, beyond empty. I sat on a bench in the lobby for an eternity, unable to think or to move. Eventually Uncle Gerry appeared in front of me.
 

I wasn’t close to Gerry. He was a distant man, closed off and cold. He’d served in the first Desert Storm, and he was divorced. That’s all I knew. He’d lived his entire life on the ranch, except for the tours in Iraq. I knew him mainly as a tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired, hard-eyed man on a horse. He seldom spoke, and sometimes, I would feel his eyes on me as we rode, and they would seem resentful.

“Come on. You can stay with me till the funeral.” That was all he said. All the way from Cheyenne to Casper, to the ranch. To his cottage in one of the back fields. I said nothing. There was nothing to say, especially not to someone I knew as little as Uncle Gerry.

~ ~ ~ ~
 

I buried my grandparents on June 3rd.
 

~ ~ ~ ~

I was sitting in the waiting area of the Denver airport when my phone chirped with a text message.
 

Call me. Now.
It was Eden.

What is it?

Call me.
 

I called her. The phone rang twice. “You need to get here right now.”

“I’m in the airport. I should be there in a few hours. Why? What’s going on?”
 

A long silence.
 

“She woke up.”
 

ouroboros: a beginning, an end
 

She was sitting up when I entered her room. Her eyes were open.
 

She’d woken up, and I’d missed it.

Eden was sitting on the far side of Ever’s bed, eyes red. She barely looked at me, barely acknowledged me. She was holding Ever’s hand, fingers tangled together.
 

Ever was staring straight ahead, blinking every once in a while. Her chest rose and fell on its own, the respirator gone. She still had a heart monitor on, but for the first time in a very, very long time, it was muted. The lines rose and fell in the wave-form pattern on the screen, but the steady beeping was silenced. I stood in the doorway, staring at my wife. Awake. Sitting up. Eyes open and blinking.

Eden tried to speak, but her voice gave out. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Look, Ev. It’s Cade. He’s back. I told you he’d be here soon.” Ever blinked twice in a row, and her head pivoted, ever so slowly, toward Eden. She seemed puzzled. Eden lifted their joined hands, gesturing to me. “Over there, sis. In the doorway.”

Ever’s head twisted again, toward me, and then her eyes followed, stuttering across the room, disoriented. Locked on me. Vivid, arresting jade. I stumbled, lurched, caught myself on the doorway. My throat closed, hot and thick. I forced myself forward. Took her hand.

“Ever.” I didn’t know what else to say. “I’m here, Ev. I’m here.”

She stared up at me. Her mouth was open slightly. Her fingers twitched inside mine, and then, with a visible effort, she threaded her fingers through mine. Her eyes never left me.
 

“C-Ca…Cade.” Her voice, Jesus, her voice. Thin, tiny, weak, fractured…and the sweetest thing I’d ever heard in my life.

Eden slumped forward, sobbing. “She hasn’t spoken. That’s the first thing she’s said since she woke up. Your name.” There was faint bitterness in her voice.

I wondered if Ever had noticed it, too. She turned to look at Eden. Her brow furrowed. Her tongue touched her lips, and she sucked in a shallow breath. “Eee—
Ed
en.” She clutched both of our hands.

Eden coughed, choked. “Yeah, Ev. God, I missed you.”

Ever seemed to want to speak, but couldn’t. Her eyes wavered, narrowed with effort, and then went watery with tears of despair. “Eden. Caden.” It was all she could manage.
 

A doctor came in then. Dr. Overton. “Mr. Monroe. Glad you’re back.” He clapped me on the back. “See? Miracles do happen. And you, my boy, walked right into a miracle. Could you step into my office? There’s a few things I’d like to discuss with you.”

I turned to follow him, but Ever wouldn’t let go of my hand. “I’ll be right back, Ever. I promise. I’m just gonna go talk to Dr. Overton. I’ll right back.”

Her eyes went wide with fear. “Nnnn…” She gripped my hand with shocking strength. “Nnnn.”
 

I closed my eyes, panicked. I couldn’t leave her. I couldn’t just walk away. Not now. Not even to talk to a doctor. I couldn’t miss another moment. I turned to Eden. “Can you go?”

Eden nodded, sucking in a shaky breath. “Sure.” She stood up slowly, carefully. She seemed off-balance somehow, holding herself gingerly. I wanted to ask what was wrong, but didn’t.

I leaned away from Ever and snagged a chair without letting go of her hand. Sat down as close to her as I could get. “I’m here, babe. I’m here. I’m right beside you.” I lifted our hands and kissed her knuckles. “I’ll never be anywhere else.”

Her eyes were on me. My Ever, her eyes. I didn’t look away. I just stared at her, held her hand. Sat with her as time slid by us. Eventually, Ever seemed as if she was trying to speak, but once again she got frustrated, and her eyes teared up. She lifted our hands, touched my chest. Leaned forward toward me slightly.
 
“L…Luh.” She blinked hard, green eyes moving back and forth, searching mine. “Y-yuh.”

I hiccupped. “I love you. I’ve always loved you.”

She let her head fall back, and her eyes closed. She seemed to be relaxing, falling asleep. My heart clenched. What if she fell back into a coma? But then she jerked awake, her eyes terrified. She looked around, found me, squeezed my hand.
 

“I’m here. I won’t leave. Not for anything.”

She blinked, stared at the ceiling. I had the feeling she was afraid to go to sleep, afraid of the same thing I was.

Eden and Dr. Overton returned. I glanced at the doctor. “If she falls asleep, will she…” I couldn’t even say it.

“It’s unlikely. She has shown remarkable improvement already, and she’s only been awake for a few hours. There’s no rules that we understand for this kind of thing. Some patients emerge and recover completely, almost immediately. Others can take days just to be able to track you with their eyes. Miss Eliot tells me she said both of your names. That’s an incredible improvement. But we’ll have to be patient.” He focused on Ever. “You can sleep, Ever. You will wake up. But be patient with yourself, okay? This will take time.”

He smiled at all of us, and then left.
 

Eden resumed her seat on the opposite side of the bed from me. Took Ever’s hand. “See? You’re doing great.”

Ever’s mouth twitched in an attempt to smile, but she couldn’t, quite. One more time she let her eyes close, and this time she fell asleep immediately. I watched her sleep. I was still terrified that, despite the doctor’s words, she wouldn’t wake up again. After a few minutes, it was obvious she was deeply asleep.

Eden finally met my eyes. “He said it will probably take a long time before she’s…‘back.’” She made air quotes with her fingers. “And she may never be a hundred percent what she was. He said our support will be the most important thing to her.” She peered at me. “How was Wyoming?”

I closed my eyes. “He…he’s gone. That was goodbye.”

Eden squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them again, and looked at me with concern. “God. I’m so sorry.”

“Grams…Grams, too.”

Eden seemed at a loss. “I didn’t—I didn’t know she was sick?”

“She wasn’t. But I think she just…she went with him.”

“Jesus, Cade. I’m so…so sorry.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“Are you okay?”
 

I shrugged. “I don’t…I don’t know. Ever’s awake. That’s all that matters now. I have to be okay. For her.”

Eden glanced past me, at the doorway, then back to me. “I think, for now, that’s the only thing that matters. For both of us. Okay?”
 

I nodded. “Meaning, we don’t say anything.”

“Not yet. She has to focus on getting better.”

I hung my head. “Yeah. I don’t see any other way.” After a long moment, I looked up at Eden. She was clearly struggling for composure. “She’s going to find out. Someday.”

“I know.”

“I won’t lie, when that happens.”

Eden nodded. “I know. And neither will I.”

She winced, held a hand to her stomach. I frowned at her. “Are you okay?”

She shrugged. “Yeah. I just feel nauseated. No big deal.”

“Are you okay…otherwise?”

She tilted her head and rolled one shoulder. “Yes. No. My sister is awake. That’s like…I can breathe again. But then again, there’s everything that happened, I just don’t know how to process it. How to deal. But I will. I’ll be fine. I’m always fine.”
 

“Eden—”

“No.” She shook her head. “We’ve talked it in circles, Cade. Enough. No more. Not anymore. As of this moment, we never talk about it again. That’s how we deal with it.” She met my eyes, demanding an answer.

I let out a long breath. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just nodded.
 

And so we sat in silence while Ever slept. We took turns keeping watch. One of us would go to the cafeteria, and then we’d switch. When Ever woke up again, we took turns being alone with her; she seemed to get agitated if I left the room for more than a few minutes at a time.
 

Night fell, and I slept in an overnight visitor’s chair brought up from the maternity ward. Soon I was sleeping in her room more nights than I was at the condo. If I left her for the entire night, when I got there the next day she would be agitated, upset, and find it harder to focus on the recovery therapy. So I stayed. Night after night.

She was awake, and that was all that mattered.

Those words became my mantra in the weeks of recovery that followed.

~ ~ ~ ~

Eden

My fingers flew across Apollo’s strings. The bow sawed in graceful swings. The notes poured out, effortlessly. Endlessly.
 

In the weeks since Ever’s emergence from the coma, I’d spent more time playing the cello than ever. Hours on end. I barely slept, barely ate. I visited Ever, went home, and played. It was my only solace.

Seeing Cade, day in and day out, it was…hell. His devotion to Ever was tenacious, ferocious. He never wavered. But I could see the toll it was taking on him. I could see the toll his grandparents’ death had taken on him.
 

Every time I saw Cade, I saw the way he’d been in the moments before he’d left for Wyoming. The way
we’d
been. How I’d felt. How connected, how cherished.
 

That was gone now. It had never been mine. He belonged to Ever, and now that she was awake, every molecule of his existence was tuned to her. I didn’t exist anymore. It was the best way. I knew that. I was letting him focus on her. He owed me nothing. I owed him nothing.
 

Except silence.
 

I felt my stomach lurch and had to quit playing, focusing on keeping my stomach down. I’d been getting nauseous at odd times for a little over three weeks now. I’d attributed it to the stress of containing myself, of keeping my internal struggles to myself. I missed Cade. He’d given me something, given me a taste of what it felt like to be cared for. To have someone focus on me, to care solely about my happiness. It had been a sample, and then it was taken away. That seemed like the worst sort of cruelty, but I’d brought it on myself. I knew I had. I’d let my emotions control me. I’d attributed things to Cade that didn’t exist, that
couldn’t
exist. And I had to keep all this secret from everyone. From Cade, from Ever. I’d never kept a secret from Ever. Not once in all our lives. Everything I’d done, every heartbreak, every success, every crush turned to sex turned to rejection, I told Ever about. Now, with the greatest heartbreak I’d ever known bearing down upon me, I couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t confide in her. She couldn’t handle the stress. Not now. Not for a long time.

So of course I’d feel the physical effects of being under such intense stress, such pain, such guilt.
 

But something niggled at the back of my head. A thought, an errant worry. I pushed it away, took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and summoned the notes. Drew the bow across the strings and began again.
 

But the longer I played, the more the worry in the back of my head began to take form, began to clarify and gain solidity, until I could think of nothing else.
 

Finally, I had to do something about it. I put away Apollo, grabbed my keys, and headed out the door. A few minutes later, I was at CVS Pharmacy. I held a box in my hand. It was a small box, but it seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. There were three letters on the front:

EPT.

baby steps

I sat in my car outside the Home, hands on the wheel, working up the courage to get out. One step. Another step. Stop thinking. Just walk. One foot in front of the other. The elevator carried me up to Ever’s floor, where Cade sat, as always, beside her, holding her hand. She was able to focus on him easily now, and could get out a few words at a time. She could move all of her limbs, just a little, when asked. She was lucid. She knew herself, and me, and Cade.