“The power of mind,” Emett states simply as he continues jumping up and down. “I was sitting right here, squeezing myeyes real hard, thinking how much I wanted you to wake up because today is your day off and I get to spend it all with you. And you did!”
Like a punch to the gut. Every time. Because it was never supposed to be like this. My four-year-old son wasn’t supposed to keep track of my hectic schedule and have countdowns to that one day when Mom won’t have to go to work.
Smothering the guilt that is more like a life partner these days rather than an emotion, I smile. “Oh my gosh, Emett, that’s so, so cool!”
“I know, right! The coolest!” His green eyes identical to mine widen, his grin grows before his voice drops to an excited whisper. “I should go practice on Grandpa.”
Before I can stop him, Emett is already disappearing down the hallway, and all I’m left to do is just shake my head as I swing the covers off my body and get up. My feet coming in contact with the original hardwood floor that’s seen way better days.
I hope Emett didn’t forget to put his slippers on because we’re one splinter away from serious injury. I look at the floor with a heavy, internal sigh. I may as well start sanding it down myself because getting it done professionally is not in the cards in the next—well, god knows how many—years.
To say the last five years have been tough, is an understatement of epic proportions. In all departments, but if a car crash that should’ve ended our lives didn’t succeed, nothing else will. I’d never let it.
A few minutes later, I hear Emett shout with wonder and excitement, “Mommy! It worked on Grandpa too!”
Hopefully, Dad got some sleep in before Emett worked his magic on him just now. Sleep has been something more and more elusive these days for him. We knew the disease would take its toll on him eventually, yet it doesn’t make it any easier to watch.
Like I said, the last few years have been brutal.
I tug the robe off the small hook behind my door and my eyes snatch to the long, thin scar running down my chest like they always do before pulling it on. The scar that holds a borrowed life. The scar that still holds too many secrets from the night it came to be. The scar that evokes both gratitude and guilt.
Before I can go down the rabbit hole, I tie the knot and stroll out of the room that has belonged to me ever since I was a kid. The room that now has blue colored walls instead of the puke yellow I used to wake up to. The room with two small twin beds against opposite walls that I share with my son instead of my brother. The room I vowed to leave behind and never look back as soon as I could.
I’ve learned since then to not make such foolish promises.
I’ve learned all kinds of valuable lessons as such in the last half of the decade.
I near Dad’s room when I hear my son’s stage voice with special effects and all. Evidently, he’s explaining his most recent hockey-inspired dream. “And then there was an explosion and a hundred million thousand bazillion pucks came flying from the sky!”
This guy…I shake my head, smiling.
Much to his self-appointed Grandma Stella’s dismay, Emett wanted nothing to do with figure skating when she brought him to the rink half a year ago. Because that same day, the local high school hockey team had to use her training center instead of their own for practice, and Emett fell in love with the sport right there and then.
And what do you know, the next day, she stuffed him into his car seat and drove over to sign him up for training. A softy, that one is.
Two months later, the trainer said he’s never seen anything like him and that we needed to get Emett into a more professional setting as soon as possible.
Stella and I looked into a million different options, looking for what could possibly work for us, but the truth is, nothing was an option, and the night I realized it, I cried for hours. I can’t even give this to my son. I can’t give himanythingand it’s killing me. It’s killing me to see his hopeful little eyes every time he mentions hockey, and knowing I can never give him the future he deserves. We can’t move to Boston because we can’t afford around-the-clock care for my dad.
I simply don’t have the means even working three jobs. Our lives are complicated and messy and full of unexpected twists that set us back and I can’t seem to cut off.
But I want the best for him, and I won’t stop trying until we get there.
Emett is the light of my world, and today I have something special planned for him.
“Did you catch them all?” My father’s raspy voice—that unfortunately, has nothing to do with the time of day—says as I push the door open, revealing the hospital bed and his thin, frail body in it.
Seth Johnson is a shadow of the man he used to be because life took way too much from him. It kept on taking until all we have now is a countdown. I swallow a lump of tears at the reminder of how limited our time together is now.
“Grandpa.” Emett rolls his eyes with a sigh going on thirty not five. “Of course, I did. Do I look like an amacheurer to you?”
Dad catches my gaze as we share a silent laugh at Emett’s butchering of big words and that sassy attitude before he proclaims, “My grandson? Never! You were born to be an NHL superstar!”
“That’s right! I’ll be the best. I’ll catch all the pucks and score all the goals. And make lots of money so we can go buy you a pill that will make you feel all better! And mommy won’t have to work so hard anymore to take care of us.”
All the laughs and giggles flee my heart as I watch my son who understands so little yet way too much for his age.
I try to shield Emett from the shitty reality that is our life as much as possible. I try to color it in with exciting paints, so he doesn’t see all the cracks I do my best to patch up but it’s not enough. The rotten walls can’t be patched up with some blue paint.
