Despondency

The countenance of her face was one of despair as gloom filled the room like shadows from storm clouds rolling in on a sunny day. The incessant beeping behind her was like a timer ticking down to an inevitable catastrophe about to destroy her world, each beep striking a chord in her nervous system like the pluck of a violin string. She wasn’t prepared for this despite having three years to ready herself. She removed herself from the room with misty eyes.

He was sullen in thought, angry to be put in his current position, yet feeling insurmountable pain and grief that he feared showing for her sake. He tried to remain resolute, but it took his focus away from the matter at hand. A rhythmic hissing in the background brings him back to face his nightmare, causing cracks in the wall of his psyche like lightning through air. He watches his ex-wife exit the room, drying her eyes. There was a time when he would rush to her side to console her, not that he was being petty, but what is the modus operandi between estranged partners during times like these.

She returned, pulling a chair to her son’s bedside, pulling his arm out from beneath the gray woolen blanket that covered him, rearranging his wires so she could hold his hand. Click. Click. Click.

“What are you doing,” he asked.

“I’m trimming his nails,” she said, her voice trembling. “The nurses have been neglecting him lately,” she tells him with a sniffle and a hint of ire.

He watched her as she channeled her anger, her sadness, her fear, and her regret into caring for their son. He admired her for learning how to channel her emotions into productivity. It had to be healthier than bottling them up the way he did. He watched as she swept away the clippings and tucked their boy’s arms back under the blanket. She pulled it up tighter towards his chin and reached into her purse, pulling out a hairbrush and brushing his overgrown hair. He leaned in and looked closely at his son’s face.

“The hair on his lip is getting darker, isn’t it,” he points out.

“He’s thirteen now. A man in some cultures.”

“Remember when he was three and I shaved my beard for the first time? He came into the bedroom looking for me when I got out of the shower, but he didn’t recognize me, thought I was a burglar, or a bugliar, as he would say.”

She grins at the memory. “The look on his face when he came around the corner into the kitchen was one of sheer terror, but it was so cute. ‘Mommy, get da knife ders a bugliar in you woom,’ he said with such urgency,” she laughs as she looks at her son lovingly.

“He was a funny little guy.”

“He was my sweet baby. He loved dandelions at that age. While we waited outside for you to get home from work, he would run through the yard picking a bouquet of cotton white seed heads for me to blow for him. He would look on with fascination in his eyes as they danced on the wind. It’s one of my fondest memories.”

“Hard to believe that’s the same kid that as a five-year-old drew chalk outlines of his stuffed animals in the driveway,” he says with a chuckle.

“Don’t get me started about that. You were the one that let him watch that cop show with you… what was that called?”

“I don’t know. It was so long ago, I forgot. He was a sweet kid though. Around the time Ashley was two, he would build a fort for the two of them and he’d read stories to her, making voices for each character. She would squeal with laughter.”

“He loved his sister. I couldn’t lay her down for a second when she was a baby. He would put her on a blanket and pull her around the house like he was walking a dog. He was a good big brother. Do you remember that baby polar bear of a dog the Portner’s had?”

“Yeah.”

“It leapt the fence while Ash was playing out in the back yard when she was little. I heard her screaming as she ran to the front of the house. By the time I got to the door, Caleb was between her and the dog with a tree branch, beating that monster back.”

He lets out a hoarse laugh, his eyes red and wet at the thought of his son’s heroics. “When was this?”

“About four years ago, while you were on that hunting trip to Colorado.”

“You should have said something. I would have made them put that dog down.”

“I took care of it.”

They both look over at their son, lying there motionless and uncomfortable, wires and tubes running in every which direction, keeping him alive. She grabs the nail trimmers from her purse, uncovers her son’s feet, and begins working on his toenails. He cocks his head empathetically, wondering if she’s gone beyond channeling and is now busying herself to avoid discussing the matter at hand.

“I think it’s time we discuss…”

“Do you remember that last vacation we took as a family,” she interrupts.

He pauses, realizing she cannot deal with it quite yet and smiles, “How can I forget. It was our only family vacation. Branson – Silver Dollar City, Dixie Stampede, we rented that boat on Table Rock Lake and he reeled in that five-pound bass.

“Was it only five pounds? It looked bigger than five pounds, but what do I know. Anyway, I think we need to find that picture and have it enlarged. You know what I’m saying? I need your help finding that.”

“I have it on an SD card at the apartment. I’ll take care of it.”

“Blue was his favorite color. I have always thought blue looked good on him, really brought out his eyes. We need to go shopping to get him some new clothes,” she said, choking up. “Crap, I don’t even know his measurements anymore. Look how much he has grown. It seems like just yesterday the nurse handed him to me, and he opened his eyes, straining against the light to see the face of my familiar voice,” she said as tears rolled down her cheeks like condensation on a cold glass of lemonade on a hot summer’s day.

“I know,” he says softly, “and he was just getting to that age where he wasn’t a little kid anymore. We were just starting to get a glimpse of what kind of man he was going to be.”

“Ugh, he wanted to be an Air Force pilot,” she said with disgust. “Ever since you told him that Air Force pilots are like X-wing pilots from Star Wars, he has insisted that was what he was going to do with his life.”

“I didn’t think I was inspiring a career decision in a five-year-old at the time, but he would have made a hell of a fighter pilot. I would have been proud.”

“Me too. He took after you, the little thrill seeker.”

They both sat quietly, staring at their son, each one deeply reflecting on their relationship with him for ten years prior to the accident that changed their lives. She had been running late that morning. She was putting on her makeup while driving with her knees on the way to drop her son off at school, something she had done a hundred times. She ran a red light and was struck on the passenger side by a box truck. Her son was in the front passenger seat at the time. His head hit the window hard, putting him in a coma three years ago. She was grief stricken and riddled with guilt, unable to eat, unable to sleep. She couldn’t even cry anymore. Her world was bleak. Her husband left her, taking their daughter without a fight.

“Have you noticed we have been talking about him in the past tense,” he asked.

She looked at him with tear filled eyes and nodded her head, yes. “Are you ready,” she asked.

“Can you ever be ready for something like this?”

She looked at her son lying there one more time. Without looking away, she said, “Let the doctor know we’re ready.”

He left and came back with the doctor, who spoke some words of condolence that neither one paid any mind to. With the flip of a switch the hissing of the ventilator stopped. Within seconds that incessant beeping changed into one long scream as if it were speaking for the hearts of the boy’s parents as the doctor announced the time of death before shutting down all the machines. Both parents, one on each side, leaned over and gave their son one last kiss. On their way out, he put his arm around her as she cried inconsolably and walked her to her car.