Chocolate Ice Cream

*note: cw - dying/death (no specifics, but takes places in a hospital room with a dying person), grief/loss/mourning

The drive over is rough. I can’t help but think to myself how wrong it feels for it to be a sunny afternoon. Like a cosmic betrayal. The radio plays Vienna by Billy Joel. She knows the words much better than I do, so I just drive and listen. 

I can’t help but smile as I remember her singing it to me on our road trip to Thunder Bay last summer, with all the windows rolled down. She was never a good singer, but I always thought that it was beautiful. How you could hear her smiling as she sang along. She danced around a little bit in the passenger seat, not letting go of my hand. I would just tap my fingers against the wheel to the beat, looking over every once in a while to admire this beautiful thing that was somehow mine.

I pull into the drive-thru and instinctively order the same thing I have once a week for the last six years. I only realize the problem when I get handed two drinks at the window. My tongue is bitter. I finally get here and park at the far end of the lot. I bring both cups in with me to see her anyway.

‘‘I was thinking about our first kiss last night. My brother’s housewarming thing, sophomore year of college. I thanked you for coming with me to that party. I knew you didn’t feel great but you came anyway, for me. We weren’t really together-together just yet, but we both knew that’s where it was going. There were four other times I could have kissed you before that night, but I wanted it to be perfect, so I always hesitated.

‘‘So, we sat in the car for a few minutes under the streetlights outside my brother’s old house, not really saying anything, and then you just quietly said: ‘I hope they have chocolate ice cream…’ I grinned and told you to look in the bag between your feet. 

‘‘I had gotten some for you when we stopped at the gas station. A pint just for you because I knew you hated vanilla and I knew that’s all Greg would have had at his place. That’s when I knew that I would do absolutely anything for you. Anything to make you happy. 

‘‘And then you looked up at me and smiled so wide and your eyes were so bright, I almost thought that I had done something wrong because it looked like you were crying. And you leaned in and you kissed me. And it was perfect. And that was the moment when I realized that I was the luckiest guy on earth because the most beautiful girl in the world loved me back.’’

The buzzing of the fluorescent lights and the slow beeps of the heart monitor bring me back into reality all too quickly. She doesn’t look right like this. Her breathing is uneven and almost rasping. Her skin looks thick and gray. Her bouncy, deep brown hair is all gone and her lips are dry and chapped. 

I’m not letting the girls see their mother like this. They can resent me for the rest of their lives, but this isn’t how she should be remembered. God, the girls. How in the hell am I supposed to raise them by myself? Sure, I grew up without a mother, but I didn’t exactly need someone to teach me how to put on mascara or what to do about periods. It should be me instead, withering away in here.

I want to cry. I want to scream. I want to break something. I can’t do this. I want to tell you that I’m scared, but I don’t want you to worry about me. What cruel creator decided that I have to spend the rest of my life without her? I had to watch her suffer for 18 months, and now she’s being taken from me anyway?? AT LEAST SHE GETS TO LEAVE! I HAVE TO STAY HERE AND KEEP LIVING MY LIFE WITHOUT HER!! 

I am being selfish, but guess what? Without her, there will be no one to care about how I am. There will be nobody to tell me I’m doing things right, nobody to kiss when I wake up and before I fall asleep, nobody’s hand to hold while I’m driving, and no mother for my children, and I’M JUST SUPPOSED TO ACCEPT THAT?! IN WHAT WORLD IS THIS FAIR?!

I know that I’m not strong enough to stay in the room as her heart stops beating. So, through bitter, hot tears, I trace the side of this face that I knew so well with my other trembling hand and kiss my love goodnight one last time. And for the first time in our lives, she doesn’t kiss me back. And I break. 

I bury my head in her neck and just start sobbing. I desperately try and sniff for her perfume, but the sterility of hospital sheets and hand sanitizer have taken that from me, too. I wanted to say I love you, but instead scream out into her chest a cry of pain like I’ve never felt before. One that I hope to never feel again. 

My brother comes in and pulls me away from her without a word. He holds me for a moment and shushes me, trying to calm me down, like our mom used to do. My face is hot and teary and covered in snot. I wipe it on the bottom of my shirt and look up at Greg. He gives me a solemn nod, and I look back at her wistfully, for the last time. He stands me up, and I have to pull my hand away from hers. Her fingers fall numbly to the bed. I whimper and start walking away fast, knowing that’s the only way I’ll ever be able to leave her.

I walk out of the hospital and it’s raining now. Completely grey. Like it was all coming out. It feels right, almost cathartic. The world is crying with me. My brother hands me a cigarette. As I light it, I breathe in deeply and I think to myself how great it would have been in that final moment, if had I been able to feel her hand squeeze mine, to let me know that everything is going to be okay. But that just isn’t what happened. 

I hope that she heard me. I hope that it was enough. I hope that it was all enough. I hope that wherever she ends up, she is more loved than I could ever try to love her. I hope that they have chocolate ice cream up there.