Page 159 of Unexpected

I prayed until the ambulance came to a stop at the emergency room entrance. I hurried out of the passenger seat. They already had Hazel out and were pushing the gurney through the doors.

For a split second, and just before the paramedic told me to wait in a room around the corner, I reached out and touched Hazel’s hand. There was no warmth radiating from her fingers that still hung limply over the edge of the gurney. The sheets had been stained red as well. Everything was red with her blood.

But as I touched her hand, I fought the urge to panic about the lack of warmth and told her that she had no choice but to stay.

FIFTY-SEVEN

Luke

For the secondtime in my life, I spent the third day of December standing in a cemetery. For the second time in my life, Josh stood next to me as we stared at the brand-new headstone. Although the two days were separated by fifteen years, it seemed like the first day hadn’t happened all that long ago. I found myself comparing them in silence.

It was cooler the second time, but the air seemed thicker. More people attended the service the second time, too. My parents’ service had taken place in the morning on a Wednesday. Most people had to work, but it was less expensive than waiting for the weekend. There were only a few people—namely neighbors, coworkers, and my uncle that attended along with Josh and me.

People also didn’t want to celebrate the life of a man who killed his wife. And a wife who killed her husband in self-defense.

There weren’t any flowers because that cost was a luxury, and honestly, flowers made it seem like a celebration—I wanted it to be anything but a celebration. They both lived miserable existences and died in just as miserable circumstances. There wasn’t much to celebrate—their deaths had left Josh and me orphans. We were also the worst kind of orphans; we were poor, homeless orphans.

They were both cremated. But after Josh and my uncle insisted on having a place to visit them—a place to visit our mom, at least—I managed to scrounge up enough money from my minimum wage job to afford to buy them two footstones. Mom’s included the epitaph, “Loving Mother,” along with her name and the date she died. But Dad’s was blank but for his name, his date of birth, and the date he died. It was also across the cemetery.

I wish I could’ve given her more. But more words meant more money, and I had no more to give.

The second service was full of people. Although it was a Thursday afternoon, most of them felt it was enough of an occasion to take off work. I hadn’t even gone back to work after spending most of my time in the hospital.

There were also flowers everywhere—her favorite were red and white roses, and they were ordered in abundance. The family’s personal pastor flew down to conduct the funeral and called it a celebration of life as each person stood to talk and share stories.

Not knowing whether I should attend or not, I decided it was best to say my goodbyes and put an end to that chapter of my life. Although I didn’t know if closure would ever really be an option. I arrived halfway through the service and stood in the back while Josh waited in the car. Away from the knowing eyes of her family, I tried to listen to the pastor, tried to comprehend the stories her family and friends told, but it was all muffled like I wasn’t there. I knew I was a ghost of a person—too much had happened.

I didn’t attend the graveside part of the service, but when everyone else left, Josh and I walked over to the freshly dug grave and just stared. We’d been staring for a while when Josh muttered, “Good fucking riddance.”

I nearly laughed, and I probably would have laughed had I not been replaying all the times I had wished Valerie dead. Every time she reentered my life and hurt someone I cared about, I may not have wished her dead, but I hoped she would disappear at least.

The way Valerie lived her life, I knew one day she would likely piss off the wrong person and wind up on the wrong side of a gun. I just never imagined it would be Josh’s gun.

After I hurried Hazel out of the bar and sent the police upstairs, the Taser Josh was keeping on Valerie gave out. The way he described it was that in the split second that she realized that he no longer had control, Valerie lurched for the gun in his opposite hand. They struggled for several seconds, hearing the police pounding up the stairs and into the dark hallway, before her finger slipped on the trigger, sending the bullet straight through her head.

One of the officers saw the ending and vouched for Josh’s side of the story. The police questioned him for a while, but after talking to me and the thug she hired to pick a fight with me outside of the bar, they let him go.

Her death felt unceremonious. I was expecting there’d be more to it, but what I was most concerned about was Josh. Whether it was unintentional or not, he’d had a hand—literally—in ending her life. But not to my surprise, Josh had come to terms with it rather quickly and hadn’t let it weigh on his conscience too much. At least not at that point.

After the police released him and he’d joined me in Hazel’s hospital room, he’d said what we were all thinking: “The world is better off without her.”

“Let’s head back. I’m done here,” I said, walking away without waiting for Josh to respond. His footfalls on the grass behind me let me know he was following, but I didn’t glance back. I didn’t want to see her name or think about her one more time.

The car ride back to the hospital was quiet. There was too much to think about.

Valerie was dead, and Hazel was alive. That was the most important thing: Hazel wasalive.

The wound in her upper chest could have been fatal had the bullet been only an inch or two lower. After hours of surgery to remove the bullet and repair the damage, she’d been unconscious for an entire day. It was one of the worst days of my life, knowing that any number of post-op issues could arise, especially while she was unconscious.

They also reset her broken nose and fingers and tended to the raw skin around her ankles and wrists from the restraints. After she finally woke up, they diagnosed her with a severe concussion, but having to be laid up in a hospital bed made it easier to recover from.

Almost thirty-six hours to the second after we entered the hospital through the emergency bay, Hazel woke up. It was like the world had stopped spinning when she was unconscious, but when her hazel eyes—although swollen and black and bruised—found mine, the earth had resumed its dance around the sun. Because goddamn, that woman was my sun.

I’d sat next to her every second she was asleep. The only time I moved was to use the restroom or find a coffee refill because I wanted to be there when she woke up. I’d felt utterly helpless watching her and hoped to God she would wake up. Her dark hair fanned across the white pillowcase, and I hoped one day I’d get to tangle my fingers through it. I hoped I’d be able to feel her kiss me back with the same urgency and heat I’d once felt. I hoped I’d one day be able to hear those three little words fall from her lips. The same words I had been chanting in my head every time I looked at her.

Staring at her while she was unconscious, I remembered something she’d said that morning after Halloween. Sitting in my kitchen, hungover as hell on her birthday and as beautiful as ever, she told me that not all unexpected things were bad. I hadn’t believed her then—my pessimism about it bone deep. But after everything, I had begun to believe her.

The first time she opened her eyes, it was only for a few seconds, but it was enough. She saw me, registered my face and then smiled before sighing my name and letting her eyes fall back closed. It kept me going for the next hour before she woke up again, that time for slightly longer.

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