Authors: R. K. Ryals
“The Lockstons?” I whispered.
The woman looked at me, horror and pity on
her face. “She’s not here,” she breathed. “She’s been transferred
to a different hospital.”
Deena’s hand tightened in mine.
“Which hospital?” I asked.
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Are you
family?”
“She’s the son’s fiancée,” Deena inserted
smoothly.
Her gaze passed between us. “She’s been taken
to Atlanta.” Writing the hospital’s name on a piece of paper, she
slid it across the desk.
My body grew numb.
Deena glanced over my shoulder. “The same one
Dad was at,” she gasped.
Staggering backward, I clutched my stomach.
“We need to call Nana.”
Deena scoffed. “Why?”
Pulling my phone free of my pocket, I handed
it to her. “Call her.”
Releasing my hand, Deena searched my
contacts.
Walking outside, I leaned against the
building, letting my back slide down the stone, my butt meeting
concrete, my fingers absently popping the band on my wrist.
“She’s on her way,” Deena said, joining
me.
She slid down the wall next to me, her head
falling onto my shoulder.
It felt like hours rather than minutes before
Nana pulled into the hospital parking lot.
She found us against the wall, her eyes sad.
“Come on, girls. Let’s go to Atlanta.”
Leaving my Buick parked in the lot, we
climbed into the van, the silence loud. In a single summer, the
Lockston family had become a part of our family, and Eli had stolen
my heart.
His pain was my pain, and I wasn’t with him
to help him bear this. I knew, better than anyone, what it felt
like to have a parent who’d given up on life.
I knew better than anyone what it felt like
to feel guilty about it.
“Thank you,” Deena whispered, glancing at
Nana.
Nana’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
“Suicide …” She exhaled loudly, and then tried again. “Pain,
mentally and physically, isn’t always easy to deal with. People
make choices sometimes, and we don’t always understand them. The
impact goes so much further than many realize—”
“We know,” Deena said, cutting her off. “It’s
okay, Nana. We know.”
She nodded. “I love you, girls.”
It was the first time we’d heard those words
spoken by an authoritative family member in three years.
Deena clammed up, hugging herself.
My eyes found the back of my grandmother’s
head. “I love you, too.”
Deena stiffened, her gaze flicking from me to
the driver’s seat. “Yeah, me too,” she said finally, sinking
against the seat.
Reaching out, I took Deena’s hand in mine.
She didn’t pull away from me.
Instead, she squeezed my fingers.
Eli
Fluorescent lights were the devil’s
invention, the bright bulbs stripping the world of color,
interrogating anyone who sat under them, spotlighting things no one
wanted to see.
The waiting room was cold, the hard chairs
begging us to get out of them.
Jonathan paced the room, a TV blaring above
his head. Two other families shared the space. A baby cried. Two
young women argued.
Pops sat, shoulders squared, his back stiff,
staring.
My head rested in my hands, my body bent
forward.
The waiting room had carpet, the design
squares inside of squares. Gray on blue on brown on green. All
sickly shades. Stone gray on hypothermic blue on shit brown on puke
green.
“Stop it!” a woman warned, her fingers
wagging at a toddler.
The boy, his big blue eyes framed by blond
hair, pulled his hand away from a table of precariously stacked
magazines.
A remote to the TV sat next to it, and the
woman picked it up, flipping channels, until a cartoon popped on,
grabbing the boy’s attention.
The baby—a tiny thing being rocked by his dad
on the opposite side of the room—kept crying.
The argument between the two women escalated.
Something that sounded mysteriously like a
he-said-she-said-they-said situation.
My head lifted, my eyes finding the
cartoon.
A man in blue scrubs walked into the room,
and everyone froze. “Carson Lockston?” he asked.
Pops stood, and I stood with him.
The man motioned us into the hallway. “I’m
Dr. Bryant,” he greeted, offering Pops his hand. “Ivy Lockston is
your daughter?”
Pops nodded.
“And your mother?” he asked, glancing at
us.
“Yes,” Jonathan answered.
Dr. Bryant’s gaze returned to Pops. “Your
daughter is a very lucky woman. Considering. I’ll be honest, it was
touch and go. They pumped her stomach and intubated her at the
other hospital, but it was the fall they sent her to us for. She
had minor internal bleeding along with a concussion, but the most
extensive damage is to her spine. We’ve done what we can for now.
Paralysis is a strong possibility.”
My gaze shot to Pops’ face. “Fall?”
He ducked his head. “She jumped from a second
floor window.”
“Shit,” I cursed, running my fingers through
my hair.
Jonathan stared at the doctor. “That’s not so
bad, right? People have survived falls from farther with less
damage.”
“It’s happened,” Dr. Bryant answered, “but
your mother was under the influence when she jumped. Had she landed
on her feet maybe, but she landed on her back.”
“My God,” Jonathan murmured, stumbling
backward, his hand splayed against the corridor wall.
“She’s in ICU until we know more. There’s a
separate waiting room for that if you want to wait there. Visiting
hours are posted on the wall.”
“Thank you,” Pops murmured.
The doctor left.
“She jumped?” I asked, staring at my
grandfather.
“Why?” Jonathan hissed, his red eyes glaring.
“Is it what we said to her? Does she love us that little?”
“Jon—”
He held his hand up, stopping me. “Don’t,
Eli. I want to go home. To DC.”
“I’ve already called your dad,” Pops informed
him, shoulders slumped.
I looked at them, my grandfather and my
brother, and I said, “You should stay, Jon.”
Jonathan laughed coldly. “Why? So she can
tell me she didn’t mean it? So she can tell us what a burden we
were? So she can cry and tell us she didn’t want us, but she still
loves us?”
“Not because Mom needs you.
Stay because
we
need you.”
He froze, silent sobs suddenly shaking his
shoulders. “She could be paralyzed,” he whispered, tears sliding
down his cheeks.
Pops wept with him.
Why, Mom?
It was crazy how Mom managed to tear us apart
and draw us together at the same time.
Tansy
Returning to the hospital where Dad died was
like walking into a nightmare.
“Seems so long ago, right?” Deena asked.
Nana moved ahead of us.
Stopping at the information desk, she flashed
a smile at the woman behind it.
“And yet it wasn’t,” I answered. “Time is
strange sometimes.
“His death didn’t hurt like Mom’s did,” Deena
admitted.
My heart lurched. “You, too? I thought maybe
I was cold to feel that way. I cared about Dad, but it’s like he
lived his entire life to push us away—even when Mom was alive—so
that when his time came, it wouldn’t be what you think losing a dad
should be.”
We fell silent, lost in thought and painful
memories.
“She’s in ICU,” Nana reported, returning.
Deena shuddered. We’d spent a lot of time in
that unit, going home sporadically to eat and shower, and then
staying continually those last two days when Dad’s condition became
“any minute now”.
We headed for the elevator bank, the hospital
familiar to us.
The doors opened and closed like metal jaws
chewing us up before spitting us into the hallway leading to the
ICU unit.
“I hope she makes it,” Deena muttered. “As
angry as I was at Dad, I didn’t want him to die the way he
did.”
Our shoes were loud against the hard floors,
heartbeats created by our feet.
The waiting room was a short walk away from
the locked ICU, and we stopped in the entrance.
Jonathan stood against the wall, his hand
pressing the surface, anger and frustration warring with fear and
confusion on his face. Pops sat, his hands clenching the metal
armrests. Eli waited next to him, lost in thought, his elbows on
his knees. No other families surrounded them.
Entering first, Deena cleared her throat.
The men looked up.
Eli’s gaze caught mine, relief sweeping his
features.
The room filled with hugs—silent embraces
full of loud, unspoken words and offered comfort.
Jonathan’s arms shook when he folded them
around me. Pops felt like he was falling.
Eli came last. He stood, his gaze taking me
in before he suddenly hauled me into his arms, his head resting on
top of mine, his grip so tight I could barely breathe. He didn’t
let go, and I didn’t make him.
When he returned to his seat, he kept me with
him, drawing me onto his lap.
Nana and Pops spoke to each other in low
tones.
Deena stood beside Jonathan, appearing small
next to him, and yet she looked bigger. Stronger. Confident.
Peering up at him, she pinched her lips
together, determination written on her brow. Her hand shot out,
reaching for his, her cheeks flushing. “It’s okay,” she told
him.
Jonathan’s gaze remained averted, but he did
let her take his hand. The girl with the scratchy façade supporting
the guy who seemed to always have it together.
“You didn’t have to come out all this way,”
Pops told us.
Nana smiled. “We’re going to stay a while. If
that’s okay with you.”
Pops glanced at his grandsons, at the way Eli
embraced me, at the friendship Deena was offering Jonathan, and he
nodded. “That’d be good.”
Eli
Holding Tansy helped clear my head, calming
me.
We spent the night together. All of us,
discomfort finally forcing us to pull out the three hard couches in
the room, transforming them into equally hard beds.
Finding a nurse, we had two more rolled
in.
Tansy and I shared a chair, draping a thin
hospital blanket over our legs, my arms keeping her from falling
off of the narrow furniture.
“They don’t want you to be comfortable, do
they?” Hetty groused good-naturedly.
“Used to be I could sleep on the ground and
it be enough,” Pops agreed. “Damn getting old.”
Silence. Each of us staring at each other,
cold air blowing from a vent in the ceiling. Like the previous
waiting room, a TV hung above us, but we left it off.
Deena turned down the lights.
Placing a soft kiss against Tansy’s neck, I
whispered, “Thank you for coming.”
Her hand found mine, clasping it against
her.
***
Morning brought stale coffee and changing
shifts. Chatter echoed down the hall, the ICU unit door swinging
open automatically and sealing shut each time one nurse left and
another entered.
“You should go in first,” I told Pops, my
gaze on the posted visiting hours. “Jonathan and I can take one of
the other slots.”
“I don’t want to go in,” Jonathan
protested.
Deena watched him, a knowing look on her
face. “It’ll make you feel better if you do … in the long run,” she
told him.
His dark gaze slid to hers, his frown
deepening. “I’ll go last then.”
Standing, Pops smoothed his hands down his
clothes, and left the room. He looked out of place in the hospital,
older and more fragile.
Pausing in front of the intercom system, he
pressed the button.
A crackling voice exploded from it. “Can we
help you?”
“Carson Lockston for Ivy Lockston.”
A chime sounded. The door to the ICU swung
open.
Squaring his shoulders, Pops marched forward,
his war face on. It couldn’t be easy knowing his daughter was back
there, her life forever changed because she’d wanted to end it.
The worry lines on Jonathan’s face deepened.
“I’m guessing Pops called Uncle Andrew?”
Andrew was our mom’s brother, Pops’ oldest
child, and Lincoln’s father.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
Mom didn’t get along well with her brother,
but even so, I didn’t see him not coming at all.
A figure darkened the doorway. “Eli?
Jon?”
My head shot up, my gaze meeting a
dark-haired young woman, a loose tunic shirt and palazzo pants
enfolding her ample figure.
Jonathan was the first to move.
“Heather!” he exclaimed, throwing himself at
her.
Standing, I tucked my hands into my pockets
and waited.
When the hug ended, she peered up at me, her
eyes shining with tears. “Hey, Eli.”
Unlike Jonathan, Heather and I had spent the
majority of our childhood in the same house, and even after a year
apart, it felt like she’d never left.
I opened my arms to her, tucking her head
against my chest when she moved into them. “Did you know about
Mom?” I whispered. “About what she did to us when we were
kids?”
She nodded against me.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
Heather pulled away, her eyes meeting mine.
“Seemed easier not talking about it. Mom’s always been a little …
off.” She swallowed hard. “I didn’t think she’d do this though.” A
tear slid down her cheek.
Swiping at it, she glanced around the room,
and I suddenly became aware of the other people with us.
Stepping back, I introduced them. “This is
our sister, Heather. Heather, this is Hetty Anderson, and these are
her granddaughters, Deena Griffin,” I gestured at the wiry
fourteen-year-old, her curly hair a mass of early morning tangles,
“and Tansy Griffin.” Reaching for her hand, I tugged her toward me.
“My girlfriend.”
Heather’s eyes lit up with interest. “Your
girlfriend?”