Violet nodded into her shoulder. “We need to talk,” she whispered.
Once she composed herself, the three of us took a walk down to the cafeteria, where we each ordered a coffee, but none of us seemed to have an appetite or even want to drink. The cafeteria was bustling and loud.
By unspoken agreement, we trashed our coffees and found the hospital chapel. It was empty and quiet, a peaceful shelter existing between the thin film of life and death.
I had accepted this responsibility, imagining the difficulties of it, but at that moment, sitting in the midst of the storm, I realized I hadn’t understood how hard it would be.
“Tell me if my brother is going to die,” I said, staring up at the cross on the wall.
Scarlett put a hand over mine as her other hand fiddled with the cross around her neck. It was something she did often—some women twirled their hair or bit their nails, or even the skin from their lips. Scarlett stroked her cross.
“He made it through the night,” Violet said. “That’s promising. But he—oh God.” She sniffed hard, attempting to keep her voice under control. “He lost almost half of his left leg!”
Scarlett squeezed my hand so hard that I almost expected one of her bones to break. Violet plunged forward, not able to stop.
Mitch had left New York the month before after another fight between him and Violet. He had decided to go home for a while, try to reestablish himself. He had saved up enough money for a down payment on a house. Two weeks ago, he had found one that felt like home.
It was a fixer upper, and its inhabitants were rats, possums, and him. And a gang of cockroaches, but he had kicked them out after he’d woken up with one or two crawling up his neck. It was the land that he was after, though, and the dream that one day, he would find himself in a place surrounded by his things and the life he wanted.
Mitch had a habit of keeping himself centered for a while until his demons started to get loud in his ear again. The line between the straight and narrow and easy street started to blur until the line was no longer distinguishable.
Mitch was a lot like his old man, though the man hadn’t been around much when he was growing up. Sam Lewis was a womanizing biker who took the odd job to keep his life afloat.
All Mitch and Mick knew of him was that he was alive—sometimes debt collectors called them about him. He wasn’t a man to take responsibly for his actions.
If Sam Lewis got a speeding ticket, it was because the slow driver ahead of him made him rage enough to speed and then get caught. Mitch, after the line became nonexistent, had the same mentality.
It went something like this: Violet could be living in the house with him. Their children could have been picking out rooms and paint colors. All of his pain and suffering could’ve been avoided if his brother hadn’t fallen in love with the woman he loved, though Mitch had never claimed her, even when he could have.
One thought fed another thought, and suddenly he became poor Mitch Lewis, and because Mitch Lewis had been dealt a bad hand, he deserved a drink—one and then another and then another, until he couldn’t remember who he was.
All of those drinks had cost him his leg—and he wasn’t out of the woods yet.
I couldn’t even entertain the idea that he could have hurt or killed someone else in his reckless need to destroy himself for mistakes he made but couldn’t own up to.
“Mick is—” Violet sighed, breaking through my thoughts “—beside himself because Mitch never told him that he left us in charge. He feels he should be the one to make all of the decisions. Of course, their mother is egging on the hostility, even while Mitch might be—” She shook her head, refusing to say the words. “I—don’t have the energy to even deal with that right now. Butshedoes.”
We all knew that if the roles were reversed, and it was Mick facing death’s door, Sybil Lewis wouldn’t have the energy to lift her head. Another point of contention between the two brothers was their mother.
Whatever Sybil Lewis gave to her sons, it was a right for Mick, but a privilege for Mitch. This caused turmoil. Mitch blamed Mick to a certain degree, but he mostly blamed their mother. When he blamed Mick, it was because Mitch wondered why his brother never pointed out the difference in treatment. Mick placated their mother, no matter what she did or said. Mitch sometimes demanded to know why.
It wasn’t the time to hash all of this out, given the circumstances. Though, hashing out anything with Sybil Lewis never accomplished much. Mick would always be the golden egg and Mitch the bad one.
Violet rested her forehead against the wooden pew, shutting her eyes tight. “The chaplain came and gave him his last rights,” she whispered. “They had to—bring him back.”
Before I could speak, Scarlett squeezed my hand again. “We’re here, Violet, but only as support. Whatever you want to do is fine by us. Mitch wanted you to make these decisions for him.”
I realized, belatedly, that even though we had all been included in his living will, my wife and I were meant to be support only. He had wanted Violet to make the decisions he wouldn’t be able to.
No matter the status of their relationship at any given moment, apart from Scarlett and me, Violet was the only other person on this earth that Mitch trusted with his life. He had once confided in me that she kept his soul in her care, too. She belonged to him, damn the rest of the world. He made that clear enough plenty of times.
“I can’t let him go,” she said, and it didn’t seem like she was speaking to us. “No matter what. He’s mine.” She made a fist, a mixture of fear and anger rising to the surface, creating defiance. “No matter what they say, I refuse to give him up! Do you hear me? He’s mine! Always has been.”
With that, she stood, wiped her eyes, and left.
* * *
Over the next week, a vigil had formed in Mitch’s defense. During visiting hours, we each took turns sitting with him, waiting for him to be able to breath on his own. The doctors said he had age on his side, but he’d been through a lot, and they were not confident about his recovery. Mitch Lewis, probably hearing this, was out to prove them wrong. Or perhaps it was Violet. I had never met a more determined woman, apart from my wife.
