Page 2 of Capacity
Coco slid her fingers through the crop of mahogany and copper curls on her head then said, “I’m going to go out on a limb and say you don’t even know what today is, do you, Lumi?”
“No, what day is it?” I asked. My tone was blank and devoid of all emotion. I couldn’t understand what I did wrong. I wasn’t supposed to be alive. I didn’t want to be alive.
I cut to kill. Not to flirt with death or kiss its cold cheek but to become one with it. To mend my bones to its scythe and fade into nothingness.
“It’s September fourteenth.” Coco let her words hang in the air, pausing our conversation.
“Fuck,” I groaned. It was all I had the strength to say right then. I was full to the brim. There was too much sorrow and loneliness swimming inside for me to remember something trivial as my fortieth birthday.
“It’s your fucking birthday, Lumi. I caught a flight down here to Texas to surprise you because I hadn’t heard from you in a week and I walked in on the most awful scene.” Her voice wobbled before cracking into a million tiny fragments. Fragments that I caused.
My empty chest twisted seeing my best friend in so much pain. That’s why I wasn’t supposed to be here. I wasn’t supposed to see any of the tears or anger. I was supposed to be with Kaiden.
Even thinking his name in the shrouded privacy of my mind hurt too much. His name brought with it images of his smiling face and sparkling brown eyes. It brought the sound of his laughter and the crash of his toy cars. It brought the sight of his small shoes at the front door and by the couch and sometimes in the kitchen because he never picked up his shoes when I fussed.
Tears heavy like stone broke me down and turned me to dust in my hospital bed. My shoulders jumped up and down with my sobs. Just when I thought my tear ducts had dried up, there was another flood waiting.
“Oh, Lumi, come here.” Coco threw her arms around me and tried her best to hold my broken pieces together. I was coming apart all over the place. Far too quickly for Coco or anyone else to stop. I was quicksand. I was grainy sludge with no hope of being a full person again. I was some mixture of human and vampire because the only creatures I’ve ever known to walk above ground without a beating heart were the kind that sucked the life from others. That’s what I felt like while my best friend sat at my bedside hugging me. I was a vampire sucking all the warmth and love from her, unable to reciprocate.
“I called your mother,” Coco said once she pulled away. Her eyes were red with tears. “We need to have an intervention. I’m not religious like you are but I believe in a power higher than you and me and…”
“I’m not religious anymore either,” I said. Just like that, my mood switched from wrought with emotions to desolate and dry.
“I know it’s been a while since you’ve been to church but…”
“I don’t want to set foot back in that place. I looked for help and they asked me what I could do for them.” My words were bitter. Even speaking about church left my tongue sour and my teeth grimy.
When I was trying to piece my life back together after losing Kaiden, I naturally turned to the church. You don’t grow up in Texas without growing up in the church. I was like all the girls my age; I was in church every Sunday and on Wednesday’s for bible study.
When I got older, I sang in the choir, I cooked and baked for all the repasts, I helped organize church functions and I gave back to my brothers and sisters in Christ whenever I could afford to. I lived and breathed the church until I asked for a sliver of the help I’d given them and received a request instead of an offer.
The pastor wanted me to tithe more. To give more of myself. To pour from a cup that was bone dry. He said getting involved in the church would help take my mind off things.
“All my prayers went unanswered and my heart is still broken. What exactly can the church do for me now?” My wrists moaned with pain. Their slow cries weren’t heard but I felt them in my bones.
“Nothing,” Coco said. She seemed just as over church as I was. “You don’t need church to heal though.”
“Heal?” My laugh was harsh and icy, a perfect fit for the barren cavity in my chest. “My son is gone.” My unsteady voice reached a fever pitch. Coco’s back went stiff as a board. “He’s never coming back. He was shot in the throat and there was nothing I or anyone else could do for him. He was dead before he ever hit the ER. I couldn’t tell him goodbye. I never got to make any decisions about whether to take him off life support. I never got to make peace before his light was snuffed out. He was only five years old.”
Coco wiped the tears from her cheeks and cast her stare down. Even she couldn’t give out a dose of love tough enough to withstand my pain. “I know, Lumi.” She reached up to touch my hair. “Nothing I can say will fix the pain you feel. There are no words when you lose a child. Hell, I probably would be right where you are if something happened to Luke.” Coco’s son was a senior in high school in Connecticut where they lived. She had him when she was young so they grew up together in a lot of ways. I knew for a fact that he was her best friend. She wasn’t just trying to comfort me when she said she’d be where I was if she lost him. It was the truth.
“I wish I could show you how much you’re loved right here amongst the living. Lumi, your life isn’t over. You may have turned away from the church but you can’t turn away from your creator. The universe isn’t done with you yet.” Her words were interrupted by a soft knock on the door.
“Lumi?” My mother rounded the corner and I felt sick. I had to look at the woman who gave birth to me and explain to her that I was irrevocably broken. “Sweetheart, I had no idea you were hurting so much.” Coco moved to the other side of the bed after hugging my mother.
“I’m tired of talking about it, Mom. I’m tired of being here without my baby.” Seeing my mother’s kind eyes pulled some sort of plug wedged inside of me. It let all the remaining tears leak from my eyes.
“You’ve got to come home, Lumi. I won’t hear another word about it.” Even though she’d lived in Connecticut for years, her Texas drawl was still undeniable. There was no washing away the sound of home.
“I can’t up and move, Mom.”
“You can and you will. You think after this we’re letting you sit in that house alone? So far away from your family? Absolutely not,” Coco huffed, folding her arms. “Lumi, we can’t afford for this to happen again. I know you. Next time you won’t allow yourself to get caught.” A thick sheet of silence covered all three of us only to be broken by a nurse I didn’t recognize accompanied by Dr. Lawson. He met me with a gentle smile after greeting Coco and Mom. I’d worked with him numerous times in the ER when I was head nurse on the floor.
“I’m shocked you’re awake. You lost a lot of blood, Lumi. Lets me know you’re a fighter.”
He was wrong. I wasn’t a fighter. I was a loser. I wanted to lose. I wanted to give up. “I’m keeping you overnight to monitor your vitals and to make sure you respond well to the transfusion.”
My eyebrow jerked up in response. “Why? A transfusion doesn’t require overnight care.”
