I give her a head start before I follow her up the steps and out to the dirt lot, where I look toward my tree once more, sending my last “I love you” to Ellie for the week. When I make it out to my truck, I see the backside of a navy blue hybrid pulling out onto the main road.And that’s that, I guess.
My thoughts feel scattered as I make my way through the grocery store, picking up food for the week, as well as a get-well kit for Charlotte. I may not have been married for a long time, but I think I know what makes women feel better. Or I’d like to think that.
She has made a much larger effort to help me than I have made to help her, so this is an opportunity for me to thank her and maybe prove I’m not as big of an asshole as I sometimes appear to be.
After putting my own groceries away, I jog across the street and knock on Charlotte’s door. I believe I hear what sounds like a crow squawking at me to come in so I open the door slowly, finding her curled up on the couch under a blanket. “Guess working from home isn’t going so well for you today,” I say, closing the door behind me.
“Not at all,” she croaks.
I sit down at the edge of the couch and pull the grocery bag up to my lap. “I got you some stuff.” I pull the tissue box out and place it on the coffee table beside us. Next is the Advil and Nyquil, then a box of chocolates, and finally every single chicky magazine I could find on the racks. As her eyes settle on the magazines, she props herself up on the couch.
“Wow,” she says. “You are quite the desirable bachelor.”
I don’t know why, but her words cause me to back up and switch from sitting on the edge of the couch to the edge of the coffee table. The irony of just rehashing the fact that she doesn’t “go there” only a couple of hours ago, tells me I might have jinxed myself.
Charlotte places her hand on my knee. “Hey.” Her eyebrows knit together with an accompanying look of frustration. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly.
“Was it weird that I said that?” She squints one eye closed as if she were preparing to take a blow to her head.
“I—I am so fucked up, Charlotte.” Truth. Nothing but truths here right now…no point in being anything but honest, as she’s beginning to learn just how fucked up I am.
“I’m well aware,” she laughs through another fit of coughs. One thing I’ve liked about Charlotte is that she doesn’t tiptoe around off-limits subjects. “I have no filter, but I’m not sorry I said it. It’s the truth.”
I look down at my hands, searching my mind for a non-asshole-like response, but nothing comes to me because I know I shouldn’t say anything rude since I’ve been thinking the same thing about her being a desirable bachelorette.
“How was the garden?” she asks, kindly changing the subject. For my sake, not hers.
“It was fine,” I sigh. “Want me to make you some tea or something?”
“No, thank—,” she says through a sneeze.
I stand up and take the empty bag into the kitchen, dropping it into the trash bin. “If you want me to get Lana off the bus today, I can.”
“Okay.” Awesome. I just ruined the only friendship I’ve managed to maintain for longer than two weeks. “Oh, your sweatshirt is hanging on the closet door,” she adds in.
“Thanks.” I grab it and at the same time feel my phone vibrating in my back pocket. Pulling it out, I see that it’s Olive’s school calling.
“Hello?” I answer, immediately hearing the school nurse explain something to me in a way that I can’t understand. Or maybe I don’t want to understand. “What do you mean? Is she okay?”
Panic drives me out of Charlotte’s house without a goodbye or explanation. Panic drives me down to Olive’s school going twice the speed limit, and panic has me racing through the school doors, passing by the preparing EMT’s, praying that God spares me any more heartache.
CHAPTER FIVE
There was atime in my life when I questioned why I was so lucky. I had two parents who beat the age-old odds of divorce, good grades were just something that happened for me, money was never an issue thanks to Dad and his successful business, and then in the girlfriend department—getting the girl was never an issue because I always had one. I sometimes sat down at the edge of my bed and asked God, “Why me?” It wasn’t that I ever expected things to come easily, or for the luck to ever continue, but I was always grateful enough to fear the day when my luck might change. Maybe part of me always knew it would.
Until the moment I saw Ellie lying on the hospital bed, dead, I didn’t realize that shewasmy luck—all of my good fortune clumped together into one being. Those other things in my life: happy parents, money, intelligence—that wasn’t luck. I thought I was good at appreciating what I had, but I came to find out that I never truly appreciated it the way I should have. I appreciated the wrong parts of life. Now I appreciate time—the time I had with Ellie, the time I take to be a dad and raise Olive, and the time Olive is awake and home from school. Time is what I’m grateful for, because without time, nothing else matters.
I bust through the front office doors and into the nurse’s office, searching around the room until I see the school nurse, principal, and receptionist hovering over Olive. “What happened?” I snap. They already told me over the phone, but I need to hear it again. I need every single detail.
The EMTs are on my tail and I’m forced to back away so they can take care of her. One of them is pulling up her eyelids checking her pupils with a flashlight while another checks her limbs. I hold my gaze on the EMTs as the nurse describes in detail about this “misfortunate accident” on the playground.
“She climbed up to the top of the play gym and stood on the monkey bars while reaching for the sky. By the time her teacher saw, it was too late…Olive’s foot had slipped through one of the openings and she fell off the side. The drop was about seven or eight feet, and she fell directly onto her head.”
This was one of my biggest concerns during open house. I asked them how carefully they watch the children on the playground. They explained how great their teacher/student ratio was, and that each child would be carefully supervised. Don’t they know it only takes one second?
“Looks like a grade three concussion,” one of the EMTs says, matter-of-factly, without a hint of emotion in his voice. As another EMT rushes past me with a stretcher, they place a brace around Olive’s neck, and it nearly covers her face. I can’t even touch her because they have closed in around her, keeping me away. I can only see through the cracks of their bodies, allowing me a view of the dirt staining her pink leggings.
