“At the office. He was in a meeting with his assistant, Claire, and one of his favorite editors, Rebecca. They told me he was gone before they even finished dialing 911.”
“If he went so quickly, then there would’ve been nothing you could’ve done. It sounds like it only took a few minutes to take his life.” His eyes, more brown than green for the moment, were filled with tears.
“My head knows that, but it’s hard to tell my heart.” I rested my head on the bed and clasped his hand. He sensed my need for quiet, and we spent the rest of the ride in silence. It was companionable and not at all uncomfortable. I tried to push visions of the day my father died out of my taxed brain, but I became plagued with the scenes of his funeral passing behind my closed eyelids.
The glossy black wood of the casket reflected the spring sunlight and hurt my eyes. I couldn’t look away. The pain in my eyes was nothing compared to the breathtaking agony in my chest. Thinking about the pain made it worse. My breath shortened while my sternum was being crushed by my grief. My ears rang. A voice kept talking and talking, but it was tinny and far-off. A minister, it was a minister. A minister, because I was at a funeral for my dad.
In that box was the last of my family. My father was… Daddy, how did this happen? I gripped my knees to combat the pain, digging my nails in until it hurt. I finally tore my eyes away from the wood containing my father to stare at the drop of blood my nails brought out of my skin.
I blinked at them once, twice, while the droning of a faceless minister irritated my ears. My leg was cut. How did that happen? Fingers wrapped around my hand, gently pulling it away from my knee. I looked up at Todd, my best friend in the world, my rock. His eyes swam with tears. He whispered something to me and squeezed my hand, but my ears wouldn’t work right.
I looked to the casket, focusing on the man in clergy robes speaking behind it. Why was he speaking? I’d never seen him before in my life. I turned to Todd. “Why is he here?” Todd shushed me. “Why… I don’t understand what’s going on.” I trailed off in a whisper. “Why is he dead?”
Todd pulled me into an embrace to shush me. My body was limp, so I leaned against him. Everything was wrong, wrong with the world, wrong. Wrong, this is wrong. Why are we here? I watched the sunlight on the casket again, but black began to crowd my vision. Wrong, wrong, wrong. My heart beat in unison with my obsessive thoughts. Wrong.
“Breathe, Ellie. You’re going to pass out.” A voice with hot breath whispered in my ear, startling me and causing me to suck in a deep breath. Spots dotted around my eyes, and I understood the world again. The world was cruel, and my father was dead.
I turned to my right, to the hot-breathed voice, the man that swept my Todd off his feet. Rick. He married Todd, and I was thrilled with the match because he was so good for Todd. He was good for Todd.
Todd would get me through this pain. Todd would help me. Todd always helped me. He helped me when my mom died. He helped me when my father remarried, and I realized what a witch my stepmother was. I remembered then that my stepmother was there. She was there, and so were her offspring.
She sat in a black suit, her red hair glistening in the sun. She looked beautiful, regal. Pitifully, she dabbed her eyes behind her round black sunglasses with a pristine white handkerchief. My upper lip curled. She had the face of an angel, but her heart was black and evil. I knew that firsthand.
The sun flashed off the wood, again, and I jerked my gaze to my father. My father. He taught me so much. He taught me how to be kind. He taught me how to persevere. He taught me how to do algebra when I couldn’t get the concept. He taught me how to swim.
A soprano voice, singing a song I’d never heard snapped me out of my memories. I sucked in another breath and regretted the interruption. For a moment, the pain lessened as I remembered my parents when we were happiest, the summer before Mom was diagnosed. I caught lightning bugs at dusk while my parents fed each other roasted marshmallows.
The soprano finally stopped her warbling, and my father’s best friend, Charles, stood. His words didn’t penetrate the fog in my brain, either. I went back to gazing at the box that would finally take my father from me for good. To be a thing of torture, it was pretty.
My chest constricted again. “Breathe,” Todd whispered, his head above mine. I realized he was still holding me tight. I pulled away and straightened in my chair, directly in front of the offending box.
“I’m twenty-years, seven months, and thirteen days old,” I whispered. It seemed important to remember that. I needed to know how many days I had with my father. Twenty-years, seven months, and thirteen days, and then I put him in a box and put that box in the ground. My chest hurt so much. It stabbed.
“What was that, dear?” I blinked at Charles, once, twice, but didn’t answer him. He was talking directly to me, now. I couldn’t remember when he’d moved from behind the casket to stand so close to me. I couldn’t see my father because Charles blocked my view.
Whatever else he said, I nodded, and he walked away. I didn’t mean to be rude; he was a wonderful man and a lifelong friend to my father. I simply couldn’t hear him.
Nobody took Charles’s place to speak about the man I loved so dearly. The man that was healthy only one week before. Wrong. It was so wrong. Todd pulled me to my feet as people began to file in front of me, grabbing my hand and shaking it.
“Thank you,” I murmured to another person I couldn’t see or hear. I hoped I was saying the right things, but my body was on autopilot. My eyes stayed glued to the casket until the next person blocked my view and I was forced to say some sort of appreciation for their condolences. When I could think clearly again, I’d have Todd tell me who I spoke to and what they said. I knew I’d appreciate it one day, but on that day, I couldn’t hear them. Why was the world so wrong?
Luckily for my stomach, the ride, even without the lights and sirens, passed quickly. I guessed our injuries weren’t threatening enough to warrant all the hoopla, and I was thankful for it. The press would make enough of a commotion when they found out.
Arch sent Gray and Wes a text before the ambulance left the scene of the crash. They somehow managed to beat us to the hospital and waited for us in the ambulance bay. Gray’s skin was pale with worry. Wes continuously wrapped the shaggy strands of his hair nervously around his fingers. Their concern for their best friend made me smile.
Gray and Wes ran over to check on Arch as the paramedics helped him out of the rig. As soon as my gurney was wheeled out of the truck, they abandoned Arch to stand on either side of me. As the paramedic pushed me into the ER, Arch trudged behind us until the other paramedic rushed over to him with a wheelchair.
We moved as a group into a large room with two beds and curtains for privacy. Wes opened the curtains as the nurses helped settle us into the beds. People in scrubs and white coats scurried around us both, hooking us up to monitors to take our heart rates and blood pressures. They asked us a million questions about what happened, where it hurt, and our medical histories. Lights were shined in our eyes, muscles were squeezed, and heads were examined thoroughly. Finally, the medical experts did enough preliminary work to leave us in peace while they ordered CAT scans.
“What the hell. You two don’t look that bad, but they’re treating you like you’ve got broken necks.” Gray, visibly agitated, darted his eyes around the room nervously.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“I’m not a big fan of hospitals. They make me nervous.”
“We will be fine, man. I need my nose set and, at worst, she probably needs a few stitches.” Arch turned to me with a lowered voice. “When we were kids, he had a bad experience in a hospital.” I turned to Gray sympathetically.
“I know that, but my heart is racing. Ignore me. I won’t be able to calm down until we’re out of this place.” He sat in the corner and darted his eyes around while he took deep calming breaths.
