Page 26 of Be My Reason

“Brookie, I’m sorry. It doesn’t look like he’s going to make it.” He pulls me into a hug with Emma.

“No!” I shout. “Stop right there. Stop talking.He will be fine. Michael is fine. Take me to him. He just needs to see me. Everything will be okay when he sees me. We are in the middle of planning our wedding so he wouldn’t leave me now. No. This isn’t right. This isn’t happening.”

I try to rip myself away from Emma and my dad but they are holding onto me so tightly that I can’t move.My dad leads me over to a chair and helps me sit down when a few doctors come in the room to talk to me.

I’m not even here.In this room. I’m not here. I’m out of my body, floating above, looking down on my friends and family as they fall apart. I feel numb. I can’t move. Tears are rolling down my face, soaking the material on the front of my silk blouse. I hear words such as life support and brain death but I’m not really listening. I can’t put together a thought let alone pay attention to these doctors and their technical terms when I know what they are telling me is that my life is over. My love. My Michael. He is leaving me. My stomach turns.

“I’m going to be sick.” I bolt out of my chair and one of the nurses grabs my arm and runs me to the nearest bathroom just in time for me to lose my breakfast into the sink basin. Footsteps fall behind me and then my mother and Emma are both here rubbing my back and handing me some wet paper towels.

I sink down to the floor, staying put until I’m sure I won’t throw up again. Emma hands me a stick of gum. She is always prepared. I look around the bathroom. It smells of bleach. I eye the floor and absentmindedly hope it is clean. It is so quiet in here. The hum of the heating system is the only thing I can hear and it is eerily calm. Everyone is waiting for me to do something. I don’t want to leave this place. As soon as I do, nothing will be the same.

“Brooklyn?”Mom pulls me from my trance.

I look up at my mother and Emma.“I don’t know what to do. What am I supposed to do? Tell me what to do.”

My mother, designer dress and all, sits down on the emergency room bathroom floor next to me and grabs my hands.She looks into my eyes and says, “You go say goodbye to him.”

This is when I start to lose it.I cry hard and loud. My heart hurts so much that I think I must be the only person in the world that has ever felt so much pain. I feel my mother’s soft touch, her hand running down my long hair. She starts at the top of my head and smooths my hair down until she reaches the ends. This is something she did for me as a child when I would skin a knee, or when I didn’t get chosen for the soccer team in middle school, or when my science fair project failed to work.

Or when your fiancéis dying.

Minutes later, or hours—I have lost track of time—she and Emma help me up and lead me out of the bathroom. I let them take me because I am a shell of a person. I am a lifeless puppet being led around by others. I can’t feel my legs move, yet I can see that we are walking because we are passing by strangers in the ER.

I spot a little boy with a twisted arm who is being comforted by his mother while his little sister draws with her crayons on the table next to them. The mother makes eye contact with me and I can see in her eyes that she knows.She knows I will never have a little boy with auburn hair who will fall off his bike and need his mother to take him to the hospital so that his daddy can fix him up. She knows I will never have a grey-eyed girl that will grow up to love to bake just like her mommy.

As we walk down the hallI see an older lady pushing her husband in a wheelchair that is adorned with ‘get well Grandpa’ balloons and my step falters. Michael will never get to be a grandfather. He won’t grow old with me. He won’t grow old at all. I close my eyes and refuse to look at anyone or anything else.

We mustget on an elevator because I have stopped walking but still feel movement. Just like my heart has stopped beating yet I am still alive.

“We’re here,” my mother whispers into my hair, still keeping a tight grip around my shoulders.

I open my eyes and see Michael’s parents outside a closed door.The door that will lead me to my fiancé. The door to the tomb that encases him. I want to go in there with him and never come out.

I look at his parents, his mom in particular and realize she is just as broken as I am.I’ve never been very close to her, but in this moment we share a bond that nobody else can possibly imagine. We are part of a club that nobody wants to join. We love the man behind that door more than any other women in this world. We move simultaneously towards each other and embrace, both shaking and crying. It is strangely comforting knowing that someone else feels the extent of my pain.

She pulls away and looks at me. “Lyn, we thought you might like a moment to be alone with him before . . .” She can’t say the words. I can’t even think the words. I look at the door and can’t help but think that as soon as I go through it and he sees me, hears me, smells me, he will wake up. Our love is so strong that I will be the one to pull him back from where he is. They will all see that the doctors were wrong. They are wrong sometimes. Michael always tells me stories of how people have these miraculous recoveries that are beyond what science can explain. I have no doubt that he will be one of these.

I find the words, “Yes, I would like that. Thank you.” I give her one last hug.

I look back at Emma and my mom.My mother gives me a weak smile and says, “We will be right outside this door if you need us.”

I turn to push through the door when a nurse grabs my elbow and proceeds to tell me that there are a lot of wires hooked up to him and a machine that is breathing for him so there is a tube coming out of his mouth. She tells me there is a bandage wrapping his head and a few others on his arms. All I can do is nod at her and stare blankly.

She lets me through the door and closes it gently behind me. I’m overwhelmed by the soft sounds in room. The whooshing and whirring of the ventilator and the beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor echo through the dark room. I try to match my own heartbeat to his but mine is beating too fast.

I take in his appearance starting with the bandages at the top of his head.I can still see his beautiful face but it is now marred by a gash over his brow and some scrapes on his cheek. He still looks like my Michael. He is wearing a white and blue hospital gown with his arms sticking out and resting by his side. One arm is bandaged almost entirely from shoulder to wrist while the other looks completely unscathed. I sit in the chair pulled close to the bed and take his hand into mine. His hand is much warmer than I thought it would be.

I bring it to my lips and kiss his unmarred skin.“Michael,” I whisper. “I need you. Don’t leave me.” Tears drop down onto his hand and roll off onto the bed. I sit, rubbing his hand, being lulled by the rhythmic noise of the machines. It is oddly reassuring being enveloped in this sound. Maybe that is why he won’t wake up.

“Michael!” I shout at him. “It is time to wake up.We have so many plans to make.” I lower my voice again and say, “My exams are over and I can concentrate on our wedding now.” I go on about our wedding and what I dream it will be like. Then I tell him about our kids; one boy, one girl—just like we planned. I talk and talk until my throat goes dry.

The door opens and his parents walk in.

“No. I’m not ready. He’s not ready,” I cry, refusing to let go of his hand.

“Lyn, sweetheart,” Michael’s dad says to me. “He’s already gone. This is not Michael. It is time to let him go.” He pulls me and his wife into a hug. “Nobody else wanted to be here when . . . ,” his wife lets out a stifled cry as he continues, “well, if you want to stay, we will be here, too.”

A few doctors and nurses come into the room.

---