Part 17 (1/2)

BRANDON.

Mr. Carter?” I turn my attention to the doctor tending to Rene. ”Your wife has developed pneumonia. Her immune system is weak and being out in the rain wasn't the best idea in her condition.”

”Exactly how bad is her condition?”

He looks over the chart in his hands, closes it shut. ”She's pretty sick. She's more p.r.o.ne to catching infections, and when she gets them, it hits hard. We'll move her to ICU, pump her with fluids, keep her warm. Treat the infection as best we can. We'll keep an eye on her, but there's not much else we can do at this stage of her cancer.”

”At this stage?”

He s.h.i.+fts in his stance, raises an eyebrow. Questions my questions as if I should know the answers. ”I'm sure her oncologist can explain further.” He quickly walks away before I can demand any more answers.

Wednesday, Rene and I were fighting in a rainstorm over the death of our son and our marriage. Here it is Friday, and she's fighting for her life. It's frustrating because there's nothing I can do. Still so much I don't even understand. Still so much she won't tell me.

My hand throbs from thinking about how much life has changed within the past couple of weeks. Reminds me how I sent it cras.h.i.+ng through a window because life got very complicated. Nothing in life is promised. What's the point of marriage, saying vows that no one remembers after the ceremony? Just words spoken for the sake of being spoken. I swear, at the rate we're going, the world will soon have more people getting divorced than there are death certificates being issued.

Sydney crosses my mind. Feels inappropriate to think about her at a time like this. I wonder what's going on in her home since we last saw each other. I'm sure her husband knows about us now. Another set of vows gone down in flames to add to statistics.

While the nurses prepare to move Rene to an area reserved for those teetering the lines of life and death, I step outside for fresh air. The moon is so bright I almost forget it's close to midnight. Such a clear sky. With all the stars out, you'd think the Universe was happy. I want to take a gun and shoot all the stars out of the sky like a game of Duck Hunt.

I pull the card out of my pocket the ER doctor gave me. Hospice. He wants me to call a place where people give up hope for miracles. My son died without a choice. No way I'm going to choose to give my wife to the afterlife.

I rip the card into a hundred pieces, tossing it into the trash on my way back inside to stand by my wife's side.

”Take me home,” Rene whispers when I make it back to her bed.

I hold her hand, rub my warm thumb back and forth against her cold skin.

”I don't think that's a good idea.”

She looks up at me with water framing her bulging eyes. ”Please, Brandon. I don't want to be here.”

”There's nothing else we can do at this stage of her cancer.” The doctor's words come back to mind. I look at Rene's frail body lying under a pound of blankets. She didn't want to come here in the first place. My ego made me send her nurse home. Thought I could love her back to health. She didn't need another man for that. Then her dry coughs became b.l.o.o.d.y. That's when things got scary. Fear left me no other option than to bring her here. I wasn't prepared for that, nor am I prepared for this.

”Get my phone,” Rene instructs. ”Look for William's number. Tell him I said to meet us at the house.”

My voice cracks when he answers.

The house is empty. Everything that made this house a home is gone. ”I can't believe somebody else will be living in here in less than a week,” I say to no one in particular.

Rene slowly climbs the stairs, holding onto the rail with one hand and her nurse, William, with the other. They don't need me. Rene doesn't need me.

When William comes back down the stairs, I say, ”Hey man, I-”

He interrupts my apology speech with a nod. ”It's all part of the job,” he says, letting bygones be bygones. ”She wants you upstairs.”

I push open the door to our bedroom. No furniture, no Rene. Same thing in the guestrooms. The only other room on this floor is the room our son had-which we never went in after he pa.s.sed. I open the door to find my wife lying in his twin-sized bed. ”Rene?”

She lifts the cover, invites me under his sheets with her.

I slide my shoes off and join her. Instead of lying in front of her, I slip in behind and wrap my arms around her, holding her with all my might.

”Can you feel him?” she asks.

I can. His presence is so overwhelming I can't even form my lips to tell her so.

”Every night, long after you'd gone to sleep, I'd come in here and just lay.”

I don't know how to take that, so I say nothing. I just let her talk.

”For the longest, I could still smell him.” A light chuckle makes her thin body shake against mine. ”Remember how he loved to puff out half the container of baby powder and smear it on his chest?”

I smile in the darkness. ”I remember.”

”You started it when he was just a baby. It always got a giggle out of him.”

”I wonder if he'd still do it now.”

For a while, neither of us can muster up any more words. We lay and hold each other in the memory of our son in his bed.

A tender knock at the door breaks our silence. William walks in, asks Rene, ”How are you feeling?”

”I'm still breathing.”

”Not for long if you don't keep this in.” He lifts a tube from the pillow, placing it around her head and up her nostrils. He checks her temp and pulse. Holds a cup of water with a straw in it up to her mouth. ”Take these. They'll help you sleep better.”

Before heading out of the room, he asks if I need anything.

I want to ask if he has something to help me sleep better. ”I'm good,” I say instead.

My wife rubs her hand back and forth against mine. ”I'm glad you're here.”

I take my hand from hers, turn her face toward mine. It's hard to look at her frailness so close, but I tell her what my heart has been feeling since the day we met. ”There's no place I'd rather be.”

A tear rolls from her eye and saturates her hairline. Then another. And another.