Wide Spaces (A Wide Awake Novella, Book 2) (4 page)

"Mamma, what—
"

"Come here, honey." She beckoned Emma to her. "Come here and hug me while I can still remember who you are."

Emma's face immediately crumpled into this strange combination of relief and sadness. She practically sprinted over to her, kneeling and falling into the cage my mother made with her arms. I watched as my mom let her hands travel the length of Emma's hair and then her cheek, memorizing her. Then she switched her gaze up at me. "I feel like I'm barely hanging on and could fall at any minute." A sob escaped. "I don't want to go."

I felt my heart slam inside my chest. She beckoned me to her. I couldn't move until she told me to. I caused this
, and though I had let the guilt go, it still hurt when it came up like this and punched me right in the gut.

I knelt by Emma and Mom hooked her arm around my neck, almost to the point of pain, as she clung to us, clung to the present. She repeated, "I don't want to go. I want to stay here."

I barely held in my own sob and looked up at her, knowing she was going to be taken back into the past of her mind at any moment.

Emma leaned back and looked over at me, hopefulness climbing its way
to the surface. I could see it in her eyes. I shook my head. It wasn't that I didn't want it. It wasn't that I didn't hope for it, but I had researched statistics and medical studies and miracle recoveries. She had been like this too long. I'd gotten my hopes up a couple times before with her, but I just knew…in my guts and heart and bones that whatever this was, it was a gift. Simply that. It wasn't here to stay.

I took Emma's fingers in mine as we sat at my mother's feet and rubbed my thumb over her knuckles. I looked up at Mamma and smiled in allowance as she rubbed my hair like she used to do when I was a boy.

"You call Emma 'Mariah' all the time," I started. "Do you know why you do that?"

She looked at Emma, but her eyes were far away. "I was in a sorority with a girl named Mariah. She looked an awful lot like you. But she's my age now, so she wouldn't
look the same." She touched Emma's hair. "Her hair was the exact color of yours. Not quite wheat, not quite daffodil."Emma's smile showed she enjoyed that. "She was my roommate for two years, but a little bit too brazen for my taste."

Emma cracked up at that
and resumed her rightful place—right up against me, her arm through mine.

We talked back and forth for a while and I made hot chocolate for everyone before ordering some delivery for lunch because Mamma was still with us and I was afraid to leave and lose it.

Then it happened. The thing Mamma and I had never talked about before. She asked me what happened with the accident. Emma gripped my hand tightly, silently telling me that it was OK and she wasn't going anywhere.

I didn't want to, but as
I looked up at Mamma, I knew she deserved to know, even if she didn't remember it later. I told her what happened with the party and how Rick and I both were so drunk. I explained how he tried to leave in his car and I tried to stop him. When she got where the story was going and clutched her chest in an attempt to hold in the sob, I kept going. It all was spewing from the inside and once it started, there was no stopping it. It had to be said. It
had
to.

When I got to the part where I walked home and came upon the accident, how I grieved for my best friend for a full five minutes before I even recognized t
he mangled car as my mother's. How it hit me all at that moment that yes, I had let my friend die by not trying harder to stop him from leaving, and yes, I had pushed the domino over to cause the effect—the fact that she was also harmed by my actions. And then Milo left because of those same actions and it was all my fault. All of it.

Then I told her how that same domino effect had
led me to Emma, and then I confessed something to them both that I'd never uttered out loud. That I felt even more guilty that my happiness in Emma had been found through all the actions before it. If I had not pushed that very first domino, Emma wouldn't be mine, would she? And then I went further and wondered what kind of life Emma would have had after she woke up and had to go back to living the life of the old her. She'd be with Andy and though she wasn't happy with him, he wouldn’t have felt the need to kill himself. So, chalk that one up to me as well. The list of transgressions was a mile long, and I felt every inch of that mile right then.

With my mother's eyes on me, I felt raw. With my love's eyes on me that I could feel on the side of my face, I felt the stitches of the wound that Emma had closed with her love and understanding and acceptance begin to tug and pull.

Would she keep coming to my rescue when the past kept coming to find me? Even when I thought that I was fine and the past had been laid to rest? How many times would Emma have to come fetch me from the depths before she no longer could? Or worse…no longer wanted to?

Peanuts are one of the ingredients in dynamite
.

Mason

My mother snapped to bring me into the present. Her face was fierce, reminding me of the motherly, protective woman who used to take care of me. "Oh, Mason," she said harshly. "Do you honestly think that I was coming to get you because I thought you would drive drunk?" She shook her head and looked so disappointed in me. I deserved it. "Of course I wasn't. I knew you wouldn't drive drunk." I looked at her face and knew that she was about to rip my whole theory wide open.
I braced myself for impact. "I trusted you. I knew you were being stupid kids and getting into trouble, but you were still a good kid. I knew you would never do anything to make me worry."

I shook my head. "No, Mamma. You got in the car and were coming to
get me, to stop me from driving—"

"No, I wasn't," she argued, her eyes hard and fierce. "I knew you wouldn't drive. I was coming to get you because I didn't want you to have to walk, because I
knew you wouldn't drive
. I knew you'd be walking home because your idiot friends would all be drunk, too. You couldn't reach me on the phone to come get you and I knew
you wouldn't drive
, Mason. Do you hear me?"

The ache in my chest hurt
like an open wound. It was like tunnel vision. All I could focus on and hear was the echo of my mother's words.
I wasn't coming to stop you from driving, I was coming so you didn't have to walk home. Mason…. Mason. Mason!

I snapped out of it to find Emma
sideways in my lap, her hands on both sides of my face. I blinked. She looked like she didn't know what to do with me. I just wanted to feel her. I just wanted her to hug me to her-

She wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed herself to me, her lips in my hair. Without even thinking, my arms wound themselves around her. S
he knew what this was doing to me. For my mother to tell me that everything—entire years of hatred—was for nothing?

I leaned back a little and spoke to Emma's chest because I didn't want to face my mother. "Still, Mom. You still got in the car and were coming for me because
you were worried about me. You—"

"I'm your mother, of course I was worried about you. That is my job." I finally peeked at her over Emma's shoulder. She looked like she wanted to take a switch to my behind. I gulped, not from fright from the woman who chased me with a switch on more
than one occasion, but because even though I hated my guilt, it was almost like I was clinging to it. "For you to take the blame and say it was your fault because I was doing my God given duty and right?" She shook her head angrily. "You don't get to take that away from me, Mason."

"I'm sorry, Mamma." Emma moved from my lap and went around to my back. Her hands on my back urged me forward
with light pressure. I followed her lead and let my mother wrap her arms around me the way she hadn't in years. She smoothed my hair like I was a little boy and I told her again that I was sorry. For now, I was sorry I hurt her. Soon, I hoped to be able to let it all go for good and be sorry that I had given her something for me to apologize for in the first place.

Emma took our mugs to the kitchen, I was sure
, to give us a minute alone more than to keep things tidy. She stayed gone for longer than I liked, and I remembered what I'd said. About feeling guilty that the only way I had Emma was through all the things that had happened. That us finding each other was only a product of the crappy things I'd done.

I s
queezed my eyes shut. Sometimes I was
such
an idiot. Emma and I weren't the product of guilt and transgressions. Emma and I were the light that peeks through all the blackness after the dust settles.

I knew she was feeling guilt over what I'd said. Another domino effect. I stood and said, "Need anything from the kitchen? Juice?"

"Juice," Mamma agreed and asked for a pen and a sheet of paper. She wrote a couple words down, folded the paper, and stuck it in an envelope. She asked me to stick it in the basket for mail to go out, so I did. She watched me go to the kitchen with a wistful smile.

I found Emma at the si
nk. She was rinsing the cups, looking out at the snow-covered picnic table in the backyard.

I put my arms around her stomach. She didn't jump, so I knew she heard me. I pulled her hair to the side and
pressed my lips to the skin under her ear. She sighed and leaned back into me a little bit, even if she was upset with me.

"I'm sorry, baby." I kissed her skin again. "I didn't mean that I regret finding you or that everything we are was built on bad things."

"I know," she lied and turned with a teary smile that she tried to play off. "I know. And I know it was good for you to talk it all out with your mom. I hope you feel better about things."

"Emma," I steered us back on track. "I mean it."

"Mason, she's your mom," she reasoned and shrugged. "Of course if you have to pick meeting me or your mom never having the accident, you'd pick that. Of course you would."

"That's not what this is.
It's not me picking that over you. I just felt…so guilty that…" She shuddered a little with the strain of holding in the sob. I felt like such a bastard. "It was all just spewing out. I'm sorry. I would never have said that to you. I just feel guilty sometimes that I can be so…happy with you, that I can't imagine ever having been this happy with someone else had the accident not happened that led me to you. It's like I'm…grateful."

She pressed her lips together. "I'm sorry.
The way we met before my accident…it just all felt like destiny or something to me. It was more than just me loving you, it was like we…belonged. I thought what we have was good for you, to help push your past away."

"It is," I urged and took her face in my hands. "Please don't think for a second that it's not. I love you, Em. I love you so much and I wouldn't want this to go away for anything in the world. We're not made of bad memories, we're made of
salvation. You saved me the day you woke up and I'll always be grateful to you for that."

She looked at my chest, not believing me. I sighed again at my stupidity. I hated that she felt like she was the cause of guilt for me. I lifted her chin and gazed into her gorgeous eyes for a few needed seconds before latching onto her mouth with nothing but love. And I'm sure a whole lot of reverence and adoration because I couldn't hide that. She kissed me back, but
it was the first time that her heart and soul weren't in it. She didn't kiss me with abandon like she usually did. She kissed me back with doubt clinging to the edges.

I hated that I was the one to put it there.

My tongue licked at the seam of her lips, waiting for her to open for me. When she did, I felt some of that crumble away and succumb. The noise that escaped her was a sigh as much as it was a moan. I pulled back, kissing her slower and slower. Her cheeks were flushed and she looked so kissable that it was hard to pull away. I gave her a look to tell her we'd finish this later—the conversation and the kiss. With one final kiss to her forehead, I grabbed a bottle of juice out of the fridge and took Emma's hand, towing her with me so she couldn't stew in the kitchen.

When we entered, Mom's gaze swung to mine and her lips parted in surprise. "Mason?
What happened to…"

I knew I'd lost her again. Though I would keep her with me always, this one long day to spend with her when it wasn't supposed to be m
edically possible, this one day to close the door on the regret and guilt, was worth it. The nurse had come in at some point and patted Mom's shoulder.

I sighed and felt a hundred pounds lift from my shoulders. My mother, the only person who could ever have given me the peace and forgiveness I thought I needed, but wasn't able to with her new mind, finally gave me that last little puzzle piece. I felt whole and light and though I missed my mom with a clear head, she would always be my mom. I needed to remember that though I took care of her, it was her job first, and she always did take care of us.

I turned to Emma with a smile to tell her I was sorry once again and that I felt really, truly free, but she was staring at Mom with teary eyes. My smile slipped away before she could even see it. "What's the matter, Em?"

"First, I mak
e you feel guilty for loving me with all the steps it took to get to me…and now I've taken your mom's last minutes of clarity because you thought you had to come make me feel better."             

"No, Em. We knew it wasn't
going to last."

"But you could've spent it with her 'til the last second that she was here w
ith you." She closed her eyes. One lone tear broke my heart.

"Em, don't. I'm OK. I got to spend all day with her-"

"Maybe I should have left and let you have it with her by yourself. Then you wouldn't have felt like you had to hold back."

I let a slow breath go. "I wanted you here with me. I wanted her to meet you and know exactly who you were and that I was going to be OK. That I found someone that made me happy."

"Yeah," she whispered. "Happy and guilty."

I didn't know what to say to her to get her to understand.
She was so good at saving me from myself, and I apparently wasn't good at doing the same for her.

"Emma, it's been four years. Four years of self loathing." I cupped her cheek. "That takes a long time to undo. When you helped me see that my mom's accident was just that, an accident, that I couldn't take the blame for other people's actions? I understood and accepted it. But for some reason, it's hard to let go of it all. It still sticks and clings to things. I haven't been able to have a real conversation with my mom in four years
, and not being able to talk to her about the accident, about everything, it all just came flooding back. It was like this was the final piece, the final straw, and now I can finally, finally be free of it. I guess I held on to a little bit of that self-hate and blame because only the person who I had hurt could set me free."

She nodded slowly. "OK."

"Em…" I heard myself growl low, "baby, you're everything to me. You're my saving grace, the very heart in my chest. I'm nothing but a hollow man with not a thing to look forward to without you. I thought that's what my life was going to be, and then you came bursting into my world and made all the color come back. You don't ever have to worry about where you belong, because you belong right here." I kissed her palm and then put her hand over my heart. "I'm so sorry that I made you doubt that."

She sniffed and I wiped the wetness away with my thumb. I had to fix this. I leaned forward, pressing my lips to her hair and whispered how sorry I was, over and over. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Please forgive me, baby."

"Mason," she sighed and pulled back a little. "I believe that you're sorry." She licked her lips. "I'm going to go home and pack up some of my things, OK? You can come by later and help me, if you want."

My phone dinged with a text message. I didn't dare open it right then.
"I can go now."

"Just stay here with your mom for a little bit."

My phone dinged again and she sighed, giving me an irritated look that I couldn't blame her for. I opened it up quickly. It was one of those stupid texts I'd been getting for months now that were to the wrong number.

You never gave me a chance.

Perfect timing, I growled to myself. Way to piss off Emma even more. I showed her so she'd know it was something inconsequential and didn't matter. I stuck it in my pocket and was about to tell her I'd get my coat when she beat me to it.

She looked over at Mom
as the nurse took her blood pressure. "Just…be with her for a while."

I knew she jus
t wanted to be alone. I was fine with that. As long as giving her space didn't mean that she was over-thinking. I kissed her lips once before she grabbed her coat and keys and headed to her car. She left her gloves, scarf, and hat, but I didn't say anything.

I stood in the frame of the door and watched her get in
her car and back out. When she reversed out into the street and put it in drive, she paused and looked out her window at me.

I didn't like that pause.