Page 10 of King of Guilt

Before I knew it, Dean was fast asleep with me gently stroking his hair.

And I soon followed…

One loud beep crashed into the next, savagely waking us up like an incoming airstrike. I felt both our bodies shudder and leap off the sofa as if by an invisible force. Without thinking, I started yelling, “Nurse? Somebody help!” And in a blink, Dean bolted toward Pearl’s room, clutching her arm as soon as he could reach it.

In the few steps that it took for me to catch up with him, the room was already swarming with doctors and nurses. Words like ‘crashing!’ and ‘failing!’ filled the air, and my eyes landed on Dean’s face embodying indescribable horror.

“No. No, no, no. Pearl. Pearl—Mom! Pearl! Goddammit!” he shouted, breaking my heart.

“Get him out.”

“Get them both out!”

“Mr. Allen? Please get out.”

“Get him out, now!”

“Mrs. Allen, would you please?” A nurse practically yelled at me while she and another large male nurse grabbed Dean by the shoulders, shoving him into my arms and pushing us both through the door and back into the lounge.

With this man in my arms—not crying, but raging like an untamable bull—I knew I had to cling to him as tightly as I physically could. In an attempt to keep him facing away from the devastating scene of his mother being resuscitated over and over again, I struggled to spin him away, while he insisted on getting closer to her. “Is she gone? Is she gone? Doctor, fucking answer me! Pearl? Pearl!” he continued to shout.

And I was only human… and there was only so much I could take.

Losing all my strength, I started audibly weeping, fighting to continue to hug Dean before the machines finally paid tribute to Pearl’s last heartbeat.

At that moment, he, too, understood that it was over. Still in my arms, his whole body stiffened for a second before going limp. I didn’t want to continue crying; I genuinely wanted to be strong for him. So, I bit my lips and stifled my whines, looking up at his face to realize that he still hadn’t shed a single tear.

He must have been in shock.

Slowly and as gently as he could evidently muster, he pushed me away by the arms, glaring at the doctors and nurses marching toward them. “Get out,” he hissed, instantly following with a shout, “Get out! Right this instant!” He then spun around, pointing a finger at me as he commanded, “Out!”

And just like that, we scrammed, and I turned around to witness the shattering second when he slammed the door shut in my face.

For a few seconds, I stood there feeling lost before a nurse handed me a box of tissues, murmuring, “I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Allen.”

In a heartbeat, everyone around me disappeared, allowing me to collapse onto the couch, burying my face in my hands and letting the tears take their course.

A minute later, I heard a man’s voice say, “I’m too late, aren’t I?” Looking up, I saw who could have easily been described as Dean Allen thirty years from today, in a fine Italian suit and an even finer physique. I quickly grabbed a tissue and started haphazardly wiping my cheeks, eyes and nose, and fixing my hair. “You must be Emma,” he said from between his calm tears. “Mark Condon, Pearl’s brother.”

“Oh my God,” I hopped to my feet, rushing to grab his hand with both of mine. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Mr. Condon.”

Much to my surprise, he pulled me in for a hug. “Look at you, you’re shaking. Oh, dear. We saw this coming,” he added as he kindly patted my hair. Pulling away, his teary eyes regarded me with a broken gaze. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to your wedding. And I’m sorry your honeymoon turned out—”

“God, no. No.” I took a step back. “Please, don’t say that. I’m the one who’s sorry.”

Clearing his throat, he scratched his chin. “Uh—Where’s Dean?”

I pointed to the closed door. “He—Um. He still needs a moment.”

“Of course.” He sat down in an armchair, sighing and wiping his face with his hand. I held out the tissue box for him and he pulled one out. “Thanks.” Looking down at the tissue, he shook his head. “My heart breaks for you two. Dean, especially. Why would newlyweds have to deal with this?”

That was when it hit me. As far as Dean was concerned, the fifteenth of January was always going to be his first day being married to me. It was also, eternally, the day that he lost the most important person in his life.

And I knew that there was no recovering from that.

six

The Broken Warrior

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