Sliding Down the Sky (34 page)

“We need to face the truth, no matter how much it hurts,” Coop said, still holding Steph. “We need to let her go. It’s what she would want.”

“You can’t just give up on her!” I insisted.

“We’re not giving up on her,” Dad said. “We’re letting her go. It’s not the same thing. We’re doing this for her, not for us. You heard the doctors – do you think any of us want this? We love her, we all do, but this is just… she’d hate this.”

“You’re killing her!”

“No, we’re not. She’s already gone.”

“Well I don’t agree,” I snapped. “She’s not gone. She’s still there, in that bed, and as long as she is, she’s still with us.”

“It’s not a democracy,” Coop said tiredly, brushing Steph’s hair away from her face. “We don’t get to vote. It’s up to Dan. He’s the only one who can make this decision.”

I felt like the room had been tipped sideways.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“It’s not like that, Coop,” Dad said. “I’d never –“

“No, I know that. I’m just saying. You heard them. Yours is the only voice that counts here, legally speaking. You’re still married to her. You’re the only one legally entitled to sign the paperwork.”

“No,” I shook my head. “No, that can’t be right. I mean, you left, and she… I mean, Coop –“

“It’s the law,” Coop said, his eyes finding mine and holding them. “They’re still married in the eyes of the law.”

“That’s just bullshit!”

Something inside me snapped, and I lashed out at the thing nearest me – a chair, which I kicked halfway across the room.

Everyone jumped, and Jack tried to talk me into sitting down but I shrugged him off, pacing like a wounded animal.

“It’s bullshit,”I said again. “It has to be.”

“It’s the law, son.”

“Don’t call me son!” I yelled. “I stopped being your son a long time ago!”

“Callum, please,” Coop begged, as Steph sobbed into his shoulder. “Please don’t make it worse. We need to talk about this logically. She’s not going to wake up from this –“

His voice broke and he took a moment to compose himself before he continued.

“It’s the right thing to do. More importantly, I agree with Dan – it’s what she would want us to do.”

I wanted to argue with him, I wanted to come up with an argument that would convince them all otherwise, because it felt like I was holding her life in my hands and it was just slipping through my fingers.

But I couldn’t. I didn’t have one. I just had all this love for her, and all this pain that I didn’t know what to do with.

How could we just let her go without a fight?

How could I just let her go without telling her how much I loved her?

“Some people hide more than others, and it does intrigue me.”

– Tori Amos

Sass

The previous few days felt like an eternity. I hadn’t heard from Callum, and Leo and I were barely speaking. I wasn’t angry with him anymore, I just didn’t know what to say to him. Gemma said she didn’t want to get between us, but she also said that he was only doing what he thought was right. He was worried about me. I knew that, because he’d told me that himself, but strangely, it didn’t help.

It wasn’t just that he’d kept something so huge from me, it was that I didn’t know what to do with it now that I knew. How could I have kept something so important hidden from myself? Didn’t I trust myself? Didn’t I think I deserved to know?

As a result, shifts at the bar together were long and quiet. I was preoccupied, going about my work like a robot. One foot in front of the other, one customer at a time, one hour at a time. I knew Leo was trying to figure out how to help, but I also knew there was no quick-fix for how I was feeling. I wish there was.

Ally came in on Thursday night, right before closing time. That was weird for several reasons.

I’d never seen her come into the bar on her own before.

It was late.

And something was wrong.

I knew that as soon as I saw her face. It was tight, drawn. She was worried about something. She was using her crutches, so I walked over to meet her on the other side of the bar, leaving Leo with the register.

“Hi,” I said tentatively. “You just caught us, we were about to close up.”

“I thought so. I need to talk to you. Is it okay if we do that here?”

“Yeah, of course. What’s up?”

I nodded at the nearest table and we made our way over to it.

“I don’t actually know where to begin,” she said, easing her way carefully into a chair.

I followed her lead, sitting across from her, the bad feeling in the pit of my stomach growing stronger. She didn’t even bother trying to make polite chit-chat.

“It’s Callum,” she said, leaning her crutches against the table and turning her full attention on me. “His Mom’s had an aneurysm, and she’s in the hospital.”

My heart squeezed.

“Oh no. I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“Unfortunately, it gets worse,” she said, blowing out a breath. “His Dad’s there, at the hospital.”

“Oh… God. Really?”

“So he told you, about his Dad, their relationship?”

“Yeah, a little. I know they’re not close.”

“No,” she said, glancing down at her hands, clasped on the table in front of her. “They’re not close.”

She looked up at me again.

“The thing is, he called Jack from jail the other night.”

“Callum did?”

“Yeah. He was drunk and he got into a fight… I don’t really know the details, just what Jack’s told me, but he had to drive over there to go bail him out. Jack said he’s taking it really hard. He’s kinda out of control, to be honest. Jack’s really scared for him. We both are.”

And here was I, so self-absorbed, I thought it was all about me. I had no idea. The world continued to turn, whether I hid from it or not. My heart went out to him. I could only imagine the kind of pain and confusion he might be feeling.

“I’m really sorry,” I said, embarrassed. “I mean, we had kind of a… fight I guess, the other night, and I haven’t heard from him since. I just thought that he was keeping his distance. I was pretty hard on him.”

God, how I wished I could take all that back now.

“I don’t think any of that is gonna make any difference now,” she said gently. “His mother’s on life support. The doctors have recommended they switch it off.”

“What?”

“She’s not expected to make it through the night.”

“Oh… oh my God.”

She reached over to take my hand.

“He needs you. Jack asked me to come and talk to you, to ask you to go over there. I know it’s a long drive, and it’s a lot to ask, but I really think he’s right. He
does
need you.”

I stared at her, swallowing the lump in my throat.

“But I –“

“I’ll come with you. I was going to go anyway. Can you get away?”

“Tonight?”

“Yeah, tonight. We’ll get there late, but it won’t matter. Jack’s with him now, they’re at the hospital. I really think we need to get over there as soon as we can.”

“But, he… I… “

She squeezed my hand, her eyes burning into mine.

“None of that matters now,” she said. “What matters is that he needs you. Will you come? Please? For him?”

“But I don’t know what to say to him,” I murmured. “What do I say?”

She smiled thinly.

“You don’t have to say anything. Just be there. I promise you that’ll be enough. The rest will work itself out, you’ll see.”

Then she paused.

“I’ve never seen him fall for anyone the way he’s fallen for you, and I’ve known him a really long time. He may be stubborn, and reckless, and he drinks far too much, but trust me, his shortcomings – and he has a few – are incidental. He’s as loyal as the day is long, and I see the way he looks at you. He loves you. I don’t know if he’s said that to you yet, and it doesn’t really matter either way because it’s so damn obvious. That’s why I’m here. I know that if there’s anyone he really wants by his side right now, it’s you.”

I stared at her through tears that had appeared from nowhere. Suddenly, there was nothing I wanted more than to be wrapped up in his arms.

“Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them

as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens

when the word is made flesh.”

– Leonard Cohen

Callum

I was with her when they turned the life support off. We all were. We took turns holding her hands and talking to her. I don’t think any of us were really ready to let her go. I know I wasn’t.

I thought it would happen immediately, that her heart would stop and then it would be over. Like pulling off a band-aid, I guess. Flip the switch and the body stops working. But it wasn’t like that. She lingered. I like to think she was saying goodbye to us all in some way. I like to think that maybe, on some plane, some alternative platform that was just beyond our comprehension, she was hovering nearby, watching us as we grieved for the hole she would leave in our lives.

I didn’t do much talking over that time, that in-between period. I just sat and held her hand, thinking about how much I loved her and how many opportunities I’d had over the years to tell her that. I missed a lot of them. I was angry for many of them, too. Strangely, now, that anger had withered. The vacuum was filled with the pain of knowing that I’d never see her name pop up on my phone again. That I’d never receive another birthday card from her, or Christmas card. It was the little things I’d miss the most. I wanted to believe that over time, the grief and the guilt at the lost opportunities would pass, but I didn’t really know if that was true. It was just something I told myself, to make it hurt a little less.

The hospital had moved her into another room, not far from the ICU, to afford us some privacy while we sat with her and waited, silently hoping for a miracle that never came. When her heart finally stopped beating and the nurses confirmed the inevitable, my heart felt so heavy, I thought it might fall from my chest.

We all escaped into ourselves. Coop and Steph comforted each other. Dad and I kept our distance. No one wanted to talk. It felt like we’d already done enough of that. Now was the time to be still, to allow the numbness to wash over us and wait for the grief to sink in. Jack was there, watching from afar, sitting on the edge of our circle of sorrow.

He hugged me, for the first time in I don’t know how long.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, holding me tight.

I couldn’t speak, so I just nodded. Memories flowed over me, some sticking for several minutes, like autumn leaves to a windshield, before being blown away and replaced by new ones. A lifetime, broken down into moments, passing through but not strong enough to stay.

I sat staring at the floor for I don’t know how long while the numbness settled into my bones. I wanted it to stay. I didn’t want it to leave, because I knew that when it did, it was gonna hurt like hell. It doesn’t work like that, though. You can’t command your heart not to feel. You don’t have control over it, it just happens. I could feel the pain begin to seep in, and I wanted to be alone when it did. Self-preservation, pride – whatever. I didn’t want anyone to see me like that.

“I’m going outside,” I croaked, wiping my eyes. “I need some air.”

Wandering down the corridor blindly until I found a door, I pushed through it out onto the balcony. I breathed in the fresh, icy, night air so deeply that it stung my lungs. There was no one else out there, just me and the stars. I had no idea what time it was. The past few days seemed devoid of something as trivial as time. Stars came and went. The sun slid down the sky. The moon shone down from above. Time passed, regardless of who lived or who died.

My knees buckled with the weight of the grief that pressed down on my heart, and I sank onto the balcony, the railing at my back. It was just like when Robbie died. Just as I did then, I wanted to hide from the world. Like a child, I folded myself inward, pulling my knees up and hugging them tightly, burying my head in my arms.

“Callum?”

Looking up slowly, I blinked. Sass stood there, her skin glowing, her slender form engulfed by the light that shone in through the glass doors she had just stepped through. It was as if she had stepped out of another world, and now she was here, in mine. There was no chaos around us, no distractions, just the two of us, staring at each other in the moonlight.

I had almost convinced myself that I must be dreaming, even as she sat down beside me. Tears shone on her cheeks. Then she reached out to cradle my face in her palm, her fingers cool and white as they tenderly caressed my jaw. I closed my eyes and leaned into her hand. Dream girl or not, I didn’t care. Just the thought of her made me feel like I wasn’t alone anymore.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered into the darkness, wrapping her arms around me.

I don’t know how long we sat there like that, but I wanted it to be forever.

“If you cannot find peace within yourself,

you’ll never find it anywhere else.”

– Marvin Gaye

Callum

I don’t know how Coop did it. He insisted on organising everything, said he wanted to keep busy. Personally I was grateful, because making decisions about caskets and hymns was beyond me. Most everything was.

We were all in limbo. Mom had died the day before, and the funeral wasn’t for another two days. Coop was dealing with the arrangements, which left the rest of us free. But free to do what? In reality, what it left the rest of us to do was avoid each other. Jack and Ally checked into a motel, saying they wanted to give us some space. Steph wouldn’t come out of her room. Coop was constantly on the phone. Irene, Mom’s friend and their neighbour, kept trying to feed us. The woman would not leave the kitchen. She cooked up enough food for a small army.

Sass kept to herself, mostly spending her time sitting on the swing seat on the verandah. She said she was there if I needed her, but I was afraid to need her, and I think she knew that. I couldn’t concentrate properly, and I needed to find the right words to tell her how sorry I was, for everything. I needed to not mess that up so I found myself avoiding her, which made me feel worse. She’d come for me, and I was too scared to meet her halfway.