A gift that will surpass my last breath
I read the poem over and over, doing my best to make sense of it—the gift she’s speaking of—a gift covered in blood. Ellie, my Ellie, the one with a smile always carved into her perfect, rosy lips, never expressed a morbid thought. I want to be in denial of the thought that she might have known of an expiration date. Her parents would have known, and yet they have never shared a hint of expecting her untimely death. Would she have kept something like this to herself?
I’m afraid to read more. I’m afraid to search for more insightful rhymes that I can’t make sense of. I close the journal, hugging it against my chest tightly. “Ellie, what were you keeping from me?” I ask as I lie back against my pillow. Being alone in this cold bed that I have occupied myself for so long, it feels extra empty tonight.
Peering over to the nightstand, I see that it’s two in the morning, and the gears in my head are working harder than they do in the middle of the day. My pain has always been about missing her, sadness for what she lost and what Olive and I have lost out on, but now there’s a pain from wondering about what I never knew—what secrets she was keeping from me.
I don’t remember falling asleep, but when the bed shifts, I know it’s morning. After an endless night, the daylight is painful, filling my body with slight flu-like symptoms. Exhaustion has me pinned to the bed, unable to move other than lifting my eyelids as far as they will go.
Sunshine is filtering through my half-closed blinds and glowing through Olive’s blond curls. I take the moment to look in her eyes, admiring how blue they appear surrounded by the youthful bright whites encircling them. Why does my heart sometimes hurt when I look at her? A father should never feel pain when he looks at his daughter, but I do so often that I feel guilty.
“Are you okay?” Olive asks me softly while running her small hand across my forehead. “You don’t feel warm.” She lifts the covers and pulls them up to her neck, regardless of already being completely dressed from head to toe for school. “Grammy is taking me to the bus stop. She said you aren’t feeling well. Why are you still in your clothes from yesterday, Daddy?” I continue to watch her face move as she asks me all of her questions. “Why aren’t you answering me? Is something wrong with you?”
I pull my heavy arm out from behind my head and wrap it around her shoulders. “I’m just fine, Olive. I’m tired, that’s all.”
“Grammy said you aren’t well,” she continues. “I don’t want you to be sick, Daddy. I can ask Grammy to make you soup. Why do you look so sad?” Olive’s question falls short as her chin trembles and a tear falls from her eye. “Please don’t be sad.” Why is it I’m only good at making people cry?
I pull her against my chest, still having no words to make her feel better. I kiss her head and inhale the sweet scent of her watermelon shampoo. “I’m okay and I love you more than anything in this whole world. Do you understand that?”
“I love you more than the sun, the sky, the grass, the moon, and the stars. I love you so much it hurts, Daddy.” Her mature words sting my nerves, making me wonder how much she understands of what she said. It’s as if Ellie’s whirlwind lyrical thoughts were genetically laced within Olive’s DNA.
“I don’t want you to ever feel pain, Olive.”
“But sometimes—” she pauses, looking down at a piece of lint on the sheet, “When I look at you, I feel your pain.”Oh, God, what have I done?
“Do you want to stay home with me today?” I ask her.
She nods her head slightly as a small smile touches her lips and she lies down in the crook of my arm, nuzzling her head against my chest.
“Olive, we have to go,” Mom says from the hall.
“I’m keeping her home with me today,” I respond.
Mom walks into my room, her hands on her hips and an unsettled look on her face. “Hunter, you can’t keep her home for no reason. The school frowns upon that.” I squeeze Olive a little tighter. “Hunter, did something happen?”
I can only offer her a weak, pitiful smile. “What’s wrong with me, Mom?”
“Olive, sweetie, go downstairs and turn on the TV for a bit. I’ll let the school know you’ll be staying home today,” Mom directs her.
Normally, Olive would be elated to find out she’s staying home, but she’s upset, and it’s because of me. She takes her time climbing out of the bed and brushes by Mom at the door without another word.
Mom comes closer, sitting down at the edge of the bed. “I am very concerned about you,” she begins. “We need to find you some help.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” I remind her. “What the hell is wrong with me? It has been five years and I’m no better today than I was that day at the hospital and now things are pretty much over with Charlotte, too.”
Mom runs the back of her fingers down the side of my face, making me realize this conversation is not one a grown adult has with his mother. I’m not a grown adult at this moment, though. I’m her little boy again. I’m losing it. I’ve lost it—my mind is gone. “Oh, sweetie,” Mom exhales. “They say it takes the same amount of time to get over a person as it took to fall in love with a person. You loved Ellie since you were five years old. That’s what’s wrong with you.”
“You’re saying I’m going to feel like this for another fifteen years?”
“Not this amount of pain, but some pain. For now, though, you need to talk to someone. This is affecting Olive now that she’s old enough to understand. We’ve had these talks, Hunter. You just keep pushing us away, and we can’t do anything to help you if you don’t want our help.”
Everything she is saying is true. I’ve acknowledged it all before but have ignored it for a long time. “Ellie was keeping a secret from me.”
Mom snaps up straight, her brows pulling in toward one another. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Ellie knew she was going to die. She told the woman from the letters—the woman I met last night. She knew Ellie, and Ellie had promised her heart to this woman.”
Mom looks as baffled as I felt last night. “I thought you were meeting with a client last night?”
