Page 9 of Someone to Remember
“That’s my neighbor. She’s with the kids. I… I need to tell her…” I’m so drained after telling our parents that I can’t imagine going through it all again, even for one of my best friends.
“Do you want me to do it?”
“Would you?”
“Of course.” Iris takes the call. “Hi, Kate, this is Taylor’s friend Iris. She… she asked me to tell you that Will…” Her eyes fill. “He died from his injuries.”
I can hear Kate’s wail despite the call not being on speaker.
“They’re keeping her for observation since her blood pressure is elevated. Can you stay with her kids until her parents get there?” After a pause, she says, “Thank you, Kate.” Another pause. “I will.”
She hands me the phone. “She’s heartbroken.”
“She adored him from the start. She was the first to know he’d asked me out.” Thinking about the beginning of our romance has me smiling until I remember it’s over now, and then I’m sobbing again in Iris’s arms. “How?” I ask her. “How will I ever do this again? And my kids… They love him so much.”
“I wish I had the words you need right now, but there’re simply none that would be adequate. This is grossly unfair.”
“I don’t know what to do. What do I do, Iris?”
“You take it one minute at a time, and you keep breathing. That’s all you can do.”
“My Will. My sweet, precious Will…”
I’m crying so hard, I can barely breathe. How can he begone? He was twirling me around the kitchen—slowly due to my late pregnancy—this afternoon before he left for work. Or was that yesterday afternoon now? I don’t know… I’ve lost track of time and everything else in the last few horrific hours.
Gage returns with a nurse pushing a wheelchair. “We can take you to him, Taylor.”
Iris and the nurse help me out of bed and into the chair.
I’m shocked by how weak and feeble I feel when I did a maternity exercise class yesterday morning with no problem. Shock has sucked the marrow from my bones and left my muscles quivering as if I’ve run a marathon.
I didn’t experience those physical effects when Greg died because I had months to prepare for that loss. As much as I dreaded his death, I also welcomed it by the time it happened as it also ended his terrible suffering. There was a comfort in knowing he was free of the disease that took so much from him—and us. There’s no such comfort in losing my perfectly healthy second husband.
The nurse disconnects me from the baby monitor and asks Iris to push the IV pole as we roll down a long hallway. Every health care worker we pass along the way looks at me with sympathy that makes me want to scream. I’ve already done this once. I want to tell them I don’t want their goddamned sympathy. I want my husband.
I want my Will.
I’m weeping silently as we come to a stop outside a closed door. “Iris.”
“I’m here, Tay. I’m right here.”
I reach for her cold hand and hold on tight as we enter the room where the lights have been dimmed.
Will looks like he’s sleeping on the bed. Someone covered him with a light blanket that I grasp as I stand for a closer look. His skin is already different, waxy, and his head is at an awkward angle, which I realize is from the broken neck. His gorgeousdark hair that gets curly when he needs a haircut is matted with blood from a cut on his forehead.
I drop my head to his chest and wail as the reality becomes impossible to deny now that I’ve seen him with my own eyes. The familiar scent of our laundry detergent clinging to his light blue denim shirt is like salt in an open wound.
Iris is there, holding me as I’m overcome with unbearable grief for myself, my kids and our unborn child who’ll never know his father.
I can’t do this without him. I simply can’t.
I’m not sure how long we’re there in that oddly lit room with the body of the man who was my whole life a few short hours ago and is now gone forever. I raise my head to look at his face, to kiss his cold lips that used to kiss me back with so much heat and desire. There’s nothing now but despair as I run my fingers through his soft, dark hair, which is the one thing that feels the way it should.
“I love you so much. I always will.”
Iris must’ve helped me back into the chair. I’m so undone I can barely function as she pushes me back to my hospital room. When I arrive, Will’s parents are there, and their faces tell the story of complete devastation.
They bend down to hug me and ask where he is.
