Page 75 of The Souls of Lost Lake
“Umm ... at the park?” She didn’t sound convincing.Oh, hey! Yeah, I was just chasing Ava Coons through the forest.That would go over like ketchup on pancakes.
“I need you.”
The words shocked Wren from her own current circumstances. Eddie never said things like that. Never. The lump of fear from her encounter with the woman turned into a different sort of dread. “What is it?”
“It’s Mom.” Eddie choked. Was he crying? “You need to get here fast, Wren.”
Gravel spun from her tires as Wren gunned her truck up the Markham driveway. She slammed the brakes as she pulled up in front of the garage. Putting the truck in park, Wren wrenched the door open, slamming it behind her as she sprinted for the house. No one was in the kitchen, so she hurried through the living roomtoward the back hall and Patty’s room. As she rushed around the corner into the hall, she collided with Gary. His hands grabbed her upper arms and stabilized her. Wren looked up into his face. Drawn and haggard, his eyes reflected that moment right before your soul was ripped from you.
“Patty?” Wren asked, breathless.
Gary’s face contorted as he tried to control his emotion. He coughed, clearing his throat. “She’s still with us, but ... going downhill fast. The hospice nurse said we should gather.”
“Oh, Gary!” Wren didn’t bother to ask permission. She wrapped her arms around him. Gary and Patty were soulmates. They were everything Wren wanted someday in a relationship—with Troy?—maybe. But she could feel the grief in Gary, in the way he hugged her in return. He was in disbelief. Shock even. While it wasn’t a surprise this moment had come, was it any less traumatic?
Gary pulled back and patted Wren’s upper arm. He sniffed, but a tear traveled down his cheek, burying itself in his beard. “Come.”
Wren couldn’t speak. The burning in her face was every ounce of internal angst spreading through her blood, her pores, her muscles. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t. She couldn’t say goodbye.
Gary rubbed her arm. “Kiddo, we can do this.”
Wren felt awful, shaking her head at the man whose wife was being torn from him in the name of cancer. “Gary...” Tears dripped from her cheeks and ran down her neck.
Gary’s own fell. “She’s ready to go. She is. It’s time for her to go Home.”
Wren nodded. “Okay.” The empty hollow inside her pressed out any other concerns. It was a resignation to the inevitable. The inevitable stealing away what was most precious and leaving behind only whispers to accompany them into the future.
Every footstep toward Patty’s room was weighted. Time slowed to an almost imperceptible movement. Wren entered the doorway, Gary just ahead of her. Sunlight splayed across the room, the filmy white curtains creating a quiet glow of beauty. Patty lay on thebed, her eyes closed. Wren could see her breathing. Labored ... a long pause ... slowly releasing. She was frail—more frail-looking than she’d ever been. If she could have seen the other world that hovered just beyond the veil of spirituality, Wren was certain she would see Patty’s soul reaching from the shell of a body that had betrayed her life here on earth.
Eddie sat by his mom, his frame curled as close to her as he could be. He held her hand so gently against his cheek. His eyes lifted and met Wren’s. Her breath caught at the helpless pain in them. A lost, stricken look that knew he could do nothing to keep his beloved mother here. A willingness to relinquish her to her Heavenly Father. A brokenness that in that relinquishment came separation. A tearing, a stripping away of who Patty was—to all of them. Eddie was her son, a little boy, a man...
Wren approached the bed, dropping to her knees beside Eddie. Gary lay down next to his wife. The moment was intimate, desperate, and yet somehow peace entered the room as Patty wrestled for breath. Her eyelids flickered. Gary took Patty’s other hand, holding it. She squeezed his fingers. Wren bit her lip hard. She laid her hand on Patty’s blanket-covered leg. It was warm. Soft. She was alive ... but she was leaving.
Wren tried to summon strength from deep inside her soul, only there was none to find. She couldn’t still the stream of grief as it rolled quietly down her face. Gary settled his forehead against Patty’s shoulder, his eyes closed.
“Mama...” Eddie reached out and brushed his hand across Patty’s forehead.
Her eyes fluttered. She opened them, but it seemed as though she barely focused. Then came a brief respite—an awareness. Wren could see the acceptance in Patty’s expression. Even so, in every crevice of her face, she was a mother. No matter when a person held hands with death, they reached with their other to hold on to those they loved.
“Buddy...” she rasped. Her fingers moved against Eddie’s face,her fingertips memorizing the man he’d become, yet her eyes seemed to see the boy he had been.
“It’s okay, Mama.” Eddie turned his face into her hand. He closed his eyes. “Go in peace,” he whispered. He was crying. Wren had never seen Eddie cry. Not like this. Not the letting-go type of tears that left a person with a gentle, empty ache.
Wren bit her lip, not noticing the pain.
Patty turned her head toward Wren. “You’re never lost,” she whispered. A tear trailed down her cheek. “His eyes are on the sparrows—” a pause, a small smile—“on my Wren.”
Wren’s face crumpled. She sucked in a sob.
Patty turned back to Eddie. “My Buddy.” There were no words. There didn’t need to be. Everything a mother needed to express to her boy was in her eyes. The cherished love and years. The moments she treasured she now passed on to Eddie to hold.
Gary stroked his wife’s cheek. Patty closed her eyes, but her words were now for him. “Don’t you cry now.” Her hand released Gary’s. “I’ll see you soon.”
Eddie’s chin shook. His chest heaved, and he laid his head on Patty’s shoulder. Gently. So gently, a soft hum filtered through her lips. Their song.
Good night.
Eddie hummed with her.
