Page 20 of My Heart Before You

Hanging up his call with Max, Colin immediately found his laptop and emailed an apology to everyone who witnessed his outburst in the OR, and made a mental note to apologize in person the next time he worked with each individual. After he closed the lid to his computer with a long exhale, his legs took him to his father’s chair. Lowering himself into the comforting worn leather, he sat thinking long after the sun had set through the windows surrounding him.

He needed to work through this. The last time he’d lost someone he’d loved, he and his father had clung to each other like shards of broken hull in a shipwreck. As long as they were together, they’d get through. This time he had to do it alone. Avoiding the emotions he’d been stifling for the last several months was affecting his work. After everything that had happened, his near-perfect surgical record was all he had left.

Slowly rising, he opened box after box until he found his father’s photos. Removing the bubble wrap revealed a picture of the two of them deep sea fishing his senior year of high school. Their faces beamed while holding their fishing rods, posing for the picture on the back of the boat. He waited for that burnt taste to flood the back of his throat, for his stomach to drop, but instead he just felt heavy. The strength required to drag his sand-filled limbs to the bookshelves he’d assembled weeks ago was overwhelming, but he forced himself to do it. First with this photo and then again and again.

After he had unpacked all his father’s things and his mother’s books, he wandered into his bedroom and dropped onto the mattress. Turning away from the twinkling night sky, his gaze fell on his bathroom and closet. Resting on the waist-high shelf was the small wooden box. A long ragged exhalation left his lungs as he pushed himself to standing.

When your father passes

The letter stared at him from the top of the stack. He picked it up, broke the seal, and unfolded the creased paper.

Dear Colin,

I stopped and started over and over trying to write this letter. I can hardly fathom the fact that I am losing him now than to try and help you when you lose him later. I am sorry if I fall short. I hope that when this happens that you two will have had a long life together. I can only imagine how you must feel now. I wish I could take away all your pain. I don’t know who you have in your life right now, but I want you to know that you will always have me. I am always with you even when you feel like you are completely alone. I am here, loving you, and looking after you. Read this letter as many times as you need to remember that. There will be a day when even having lost both of us will feel okay. You will always miss us and you will always love us, but there will be a time in your life that you will be able to come up from the sorrow that surrounds you now. Most importantly, I want you to know how much your father loved you. He loved you more than anything in the world, my sweet boy. We both love you so incredibly much.

My whole heart,

Mom

His vision blurred as he finished the letter and fat wet droplets splattered his mother’s handwriting. Colin pushed the water from his face and rubbed the letter to the front of his scrub top to dry it. Unexpected pain crushed at him like a sternal saw slicing him in half. He momentarily lost his breath, gasping in short, inefficient inhales as his legs went from under him. Collapsing to the floor of his closet, his shoulders shook as he finally cried the tears that he’d held in for months.

Colin cleared his throat. “That’s thoughtful of you to bring them over. Thanks.”

If Kate caught his embarrassment, she ignored it as she strode into the kitchen and started opening and closing empty cabinets.

“The plates are still in a box somewhere.”

She gave him a look that clearly said,Really Colin?before moving to the coffee maker. “Actually, the muffins are a ruse. I’m really here to help you unpack your essentials. I just need another cup of coffee first. This one got up three times last night.” She tossed her head back to indicate Owen, whose chubby hands reached for and missed her bun by an inch.

“Kate.” He laid his hands flat on the island. “I’m sorry Max got pulled away from you and Owen because of me, and it’s not that I’m ungrateful for your company or your delicious cooking, but haven’t I already inconvenienced your family enough? Don’t you have work?”

Having started the pot of coffee, Kate moved to her diaper bag and pulled out a fluffy green baby blanket. She ignored his first question and only answered the second. “I’m a realtor, Colin. I make my own schedule.”

Turning and resting his back on the island, he said, “Then mothering.”

She laid the blanket on the ground, unhooked a buckle on the contraption Owen was latched into, swiftly swung him from her back to her hip, and sat him in the center of the blanket. After handing her son a teething toy that she pulled from the pocket of her black skinny jeans, she arched an auburn eyebrow in his direction. “What do you think I’m doing?”

He couldn't help the insolent sigh that escaped his mouth. She was trying to make him feel better, but it only made him feel worse that he’d made such a mess of things yesterday.

“I’m sure that you and Max probably just sit side by side and communicate through grunts and somehow that makes the both of you feel better, but I’m a woman and a mother. I make things better bydoing.” Kate crossed the room to stand in front of him, and he got the distinct impression she was resisting the urge to put her hands on her hips. “So go take a shower, you stink, and let’s unpack this condo. You’ve lived here six weeks, and you don’t know where your plates are.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but she interrupted him, her expression and voice softening as she spoke. “If you want to talk about it while we work, I’ll listen, but you don’t have to. I just want you to know that we care about you, and we’re here for you.”

It felt like the balance of the world was upended. He was the one who was supposed to help people, not the other way around. Kate’s eyes watched him carefully as his words struggled to coordinate into a response.

“Why don’t you get cleaned up,” she said gently.

Normally a pro at the five-minute speed shower in order to get to work on time, he found himself lingering under the hot water, not wanting to face his friend’s compassion. Her presence was a reminder not only of his mistake in the OR, but of his inaction which was the reason for all of this in the first place.

When he returned to his living room in jeans and a sweater, Kate was standing near his bookshelves looking at the pictures he’d set up last night. Stacks of dishes, drinkware, and other kitchen items littered his countertops. Empty cardboard boxes were folded down ready for recycling next to the entry hall, and the two boxes of clothes sat next to the doorway to his bedroom.

As she crossed over the fireplace to the second set of shelves, he caught sight of Owen asleep in the center of his blanket. His little arms were raised over his head with balled fists as his whisper breath slipped through tiny slack lips. A strange tug resonated at the base of Colin’s chest.

“He's the cutest when he sleeps,” Kate half whispered.

His eyes snapped up, and he cleared his throat softly. “That puts a wrench in the unpacking doesn’t it?” he whispered, pointing to her sleeping son.

She waved her arm for him to follow him as she padded behind the island. “I put all your kitchen things out so you could pick which cabinets and drawers to put them in. I didn’t want to organize your kitchen for you. Then you wouldn’t know where anything was,” she spoke softly, pointing to the two boxes by his bedroom door. “Why don’t you put those away instead?”

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