Page 65 of When He Saved Me
And for the next twelve years after my father’s passing, I successfully carried myself through life with confidence and pride tempered with humor and kindness. I’d done my best to be patient with others around me, to listen just as much as I spoke, and to lead with compassion, always.
When Mom passed, the Technicolor bubble of my life burst. Like a fragile glass ornament landing on a ceramic tile floor, the explosion was magnificent. My life hadn’t simply fractured. This hadn’t been a spiderweb of cracks and fissures running through a pane of glass. This was a spectacular explosion of devastation, with shards of glass landing in places that quite possibly wouldn’t be discovered for years.
And in the absence of that bubble that had allowed me to see life in beautiful, vibrant color, I now saw everything in shades of blues and grays like some kind of post-apocalyptic wasteland that stretched on for as far as the eye could see.
How was it possible that everything could hurt and I could be numb at the same time?
How could I be surrounded by Finn, Asher, and Aunt Cathy and her gang and still feel so utterly, deeply alone?
How could time pass and days go by, yet each day felt the same, one after the next, an endless stretch of nothingness?
Would I feel anything good ever again?
CHAPTER32
FINN
The days followingAnnie’s passing flew by in a blur. Jamie seemed incapable of handling anything, so I’d taken care of notifying Aunt Cathy, who’d then worked through handling funeral arrangements and the notification of friends and family.
I’d gotten ahold of Mitchell at Swope and arranged for Jamie to take a leave of absence for the remainder of the week. They had spring break the following week, and I hoped that perhaps by the end of that time, Jamie might be able to push through the completion of his student teaching. He was so close, and I felt some sort of obligation to Annie to make sure he finished. Still, at the rate we were going, I wasn’t sure two weeks off would be enough for Jamie. I knew grief looked different for everyone, but I was deeply concerned by the state Jamie was currently in. I could only hope I could love him through it, and he’d claw himself out of this depression he seemed to have fallen into.
Asher and Joshua had stopped by, bringing food and companionship. Jamie had barely spoken to them, and though he didn’t show it outwardly, I hoped the visit had helped in some way.
Mitchell dropped off a care package from several teachers at Swope that also included a giant sympathy card from his and Jamie’s students. The notes they’d written all over the poster-sized card had been really sweet, proving that seventh graders weren’t complete heathens after all.
Jamie seemed uninterested in reading them.
He seemed uninterested in anything. He’d taken to sleeping in Annie’s room across the hall, leaving me to sleep in the room we’d been sharing before her passing.
A part of me wondered if I should go back to my apartment. The man I loved was gone, and in his place was a shell of a human who seemed completely uninterested in my presence. But I couldn’t leave him. In all the times I’d pushed him away, he’d never given up on me. He’d saved me from a miserable existence, showing me that life was beautiful when you truly allowed yourself to live it, and I was determined to do the same for him, no matter how long it might take.
On the morning of the funeral, the doorbell rang, and since Jamie seemed unable to deal with whoever it might be and Aunt Cathy was busy getting things ready for the service, I made my way to the door to answer it. The moment the door was opened, I found my arms full of Carmen. She wrapped herself around me, squeezing the life out of me in the open doorway.
I’d had no idea how touch-starved I was until that very moment.
It seemed like months since Jamie had touched me, rather than just a handful of days, and while I’d gone most of my life without hugs and those little day-to-day touches, I’d become accustomed to them since I’d started my relationship with Jamie.
The feel of her wrapped around me did something to my insides, and for the first time in days, I felt like I could take a full breath.
At length, I pulled away, taking her hand and leading her into Jamie’s room. She took the desk chair while I sat on the bed facing her.
“How are you?” she asked, her dark eyes full of concern.
“I’m…I don’t know, CiCi. He’s just so lost. I can barely get him to acknowledge me, let alone eat. And he spends most of his time lying in her bed, but I’m not sure how much he’s actually sleeping. He has dark circles under his eyes, and—”
She held up her hand, stopping me mid-sentence. “You know I love Jamie, and I do want to know how he’s doing, but I asked aboutyou. How areyou?”
“Me? I’m fine. I’m just trying to do whatever I can for him.”
She leaned forward and took my hand. “But, honey, who’s taking care of you?”
I looked at her, my face drawn up in confusion. “What do you mean? Jamie’s the one hurting. He’s the one who lost his mother. You should have seen him the night before she died. He was an absolute wreck. He loves her so much. And ever since then, he’s just been a zombie. It’s so unlike him, and I just feel so helpless.” My voice caught on that last part. “I don’t know how to bring him back,” I whispered, a lump forming in my throat. “How do I bring him back?”
“Honey, I don’t have the answers for you. I think you’re probably already doing everything you can. He has to work through this in his own time.” She squeezed my hand. “But what about you? You lost her too.”
“Yeah, I guess, but I…I… Oh God, I miss her so much.” My face crumpled, and the dam broke, letting loose a torrent of grief so strong it bowled me over. I pitched forward into Carmen’s arms as sobs wracked my body. “She was the mom I always wanted my own mother to be, and I only got her for a few months. How can it hurt this bad to lose someone I only knew for so brief a time?”
“Some people are just like that. They’re like magic. They come into our lives and make an impact so deep, so profound, it shifts something in our soul so that it never looks quite the same again.”
