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I can’t help but think that if I’d been honest with her from the beginning about her father’s decision to end his life, none of this would have happened. Cassidy wouldn’t have spent the last two months lying in a hospital bed. We’d both be home watching our baby girl sleeping in her crib in the nursery I painted for her.
I move to the foot of the bed and lift the covers, examining the dressing on her foot. The small blister she’d complained of the day before the accident — evidence her pregnant feet were getting too swollen for her shoes — had transformed into a terrible bedsore in the weeks after the crash. I couldn’t help but feel responsible for this. Cass always gets swollen feet when she’s pregnant. I should’ve reminded her to wear bigger shoes. I should’ve reminded the nurses to move her more often.
Cass keeps kicking her legs like she’s trying to run away from her coma. All she manages to do is rub off the tape on her dressing. But it seems to be intact right now.
I cover her feet again and pull the visitor’s chair up to her bedside. As I take her hand in mine and press a soft kiss into her warm palm, she mutters something I don’t understand. I stand up and lean over her, hoping she’ll continue, and I’ll hear her better this time.
“What did you say, Cass?” I ask.
She sighs, and she’s silent for a moment before she very clearly says, “Do it.”
I sit back in the chair, her words siphoning the air from my lungs. I know she doesn’t mean them the way I’m interpreting them, but I can’t help but wonder if she does. Is she telling me to pull the plug?
I bring her hand toward me, pressing my cheek to the back of her hand as I close my eyes. I don’t want to lose you. Come back to me.
I repeat the words in my mind until the anguish from hearing her speak has subsided. Then, I say the words aloud.
“Come back to me, Cass,” I whisper, reaching up to brush a stray strand of wavy, brown hair out of her long eyelashes. “Wake up, baby.”
But she doesn’t respond. She continues sleeping, her mind lost in a dream world I may never know. I don’t want to lose her, but I can’t keep pretending as if life has a pause button. I have responsibilities, and I don’t know how much longer Ruth can continue grieving her little girl.
Losing Teddy and Cass within months of each other has taken a toll on her, and she was put on two different heart medications last week. Ruth claims it has nothing to do with the stress of Cassidy’s coma, but I see the truth in her face, which has become as gaunt as mine. I see the gray clouds in Lina’s and Carter’s eyes when they visit. None of us can bear to see Cassidy like this.
I lay a soft kiss on my wife’s forehead and whisper, “I’m so sorry.” Taking a seat in the chair again, I hold my head in my hands. “I’m sorry I failed you, Cass. Please forgive me.”
Please forgive me for what I’m about to do.
I draw in a deep breath and wipe the tears from my hollow cheeks as I stand. I watch her for a while, hoping she’ll give me a sign that I’m wrong. I bargain with myself.
If she opens her eyes or moves her hands, it’s not time to say good-bye. If she moves her eyebrows or mumbles incoherently, I’ll hold on another day.
I’ve been striking these bargains with myself for fifty-six days. Meanwhile, the world outside this hospital room has continued, seconds ticking by coldly, pressing onward as if the fabric of spacetime hasn’t been ripped in half. On one side, the secrets. On the other, the truth.
Cassidy lies still, indifferent to her own suffering. I don’t want to believe she knows what’s going on around her, but it’s this very thought that keeps me up at night. The fear that she’s completely aware of her surroundings, but unable to interact in any way is terrifying.
I imagine this was the fate Teddy feared awaited him. I don’t blame him for not wanting to stick around for that portion of his life. Still, I can’t help but wonder, if I hadn’t kept Teddy’s secret, would Cass now be suffering the same fate he escaped?
Pulling the plug on a coma patient who can breathe on their own isn’t as quick a death as crashing your prized car into a tree. Saying good-bye to Cass in this state means I agree to allow the hospital staff to starve her to death.
Am I merciful for not forcing her to live a life where she’s trapped inside her mind? Or am I a monster for condemning her to a slow, torturous death.
I lean over and plant a long kiss on her soft cheek, hoping we can be frozen in this moment. “I could die here with you,” I whisper, “but I know you wouldn’t want that.”
As I stand up again, her right hand clenches into a fist. I reach for it, sliding my fingers inside her fist, so she doesn’t break the skin of her palm with her fingernails. But as I attempt to relax her fingers, she grips my hand harder.
“Cass, can you hear me?”
She doesn’t respond, but her grip remains firm.
She’s done this before. Still, I interpret this instance as the signal I asked for. But as soon as this thought occurs to me, I wonder how long I can play this bargaining game with myself. How long can I justify her suffering using childish superstitions?
I shake my head as I recall Cassidy renouncing her pregnancy superstitions a few months ago. I smile as I remember the ultrasound where we found out the gender of the baby. It was the day before the accident, and Cassidy said something I’ll never forget.
As we were waiting in the room for the ultrasound tech to arrive, she said, “If there’s something wrong with this one, I want to keep trying. That way, if you die before me, I’ll still have a piece of you.”
“You’ll always have a piece of me,” I whisper to her now. “I’ll never be whole again.”
I try to let go of her hand, but her fingers remain tightly curled around mine. I stand there for a couple minutes, watching the movement of her eyes beneath the thin skin of her eyelids when they suddenly fly open.
She stares at the ceiling for a few seconds. An agonizing moment where she seems to be holding her breath. Then she lets out a harsh gasp, and her heart monitor begins beeping loudly as she flatlines.
I race out into the corridor and immediately turn left. The nearest person who’s sitting at a desk in the nurses’ station jogs toward Cassidy’s room, swiftly followed by a doctor and three others. I race back to Cass, but one of the nurses begins ushering me out of the room.
“My wife is dying!” I shout. “I need to be with her!”
“Marc, you need to stay out here, so you’re not in the way,” she replies firmly. “Just stay out here, so we can do our job.”
“But she’s—” I stop myself before I say the word “dying” again, afraid I may be making a self-fulfilling prophecy. “Okay,” I mutter, feeling defeated but not wanting to keep the nurse occupied any longer. “Please save her.”
The nurse rubs my arm before she enters the room to assist.
My chest tightens painfully, and I realize I’m not breathing fast enough to keep up with my racing heart. Taking a few long breaths, I approach a nurse who comes out of the room next to Cassidy’s.
“Can you tell me what’s going on in there?” I say, pointing at the open door of Cassidy’s room.
The nurse glances inside. “They’re trying to stabilize her,” she replies, tilting her head as she looks at me. “Do you feel faint? You look very pale, sir.”
Without acknowledging her remark, I spin around and head straight for th
e private restroom around the corner. Mercifully, the indicator above the door handle reads “UNOCCUPIED.” I enter and quickly lock the door behind me.
My hands begin to tingle as I turn toward the sink. I hastily splash cold water on my face a few times, hoping this will wake up my parasympathetic response and get my blood flowing again.
Gripping the rim of the porcelain sink, I take deep breaths until the tingling in my hands subsides. Then I look up and catch my reflection in the mirror. With this new growth of facial hair, the nine pounds I’ve lost, and the dumbfounded look in my eyes, I feel like I’m staring at the eighteen-year-old Walker Ainsley I left behind in East Waterford, Pennsylvania.
I should have never doubted Cassidy’s love for me. I should have known she would never judge me for the sins I committed before we met. I hope she’ll still feel so forgiving if she ever wakes up. I close my eyes, and, for the first time since I left home over a decade ago, I pray.
I don’t know what I believe in anymore. I strongly suspect no one is listening. But I do it anyway. Because I’m not praying for me. I’m praying for her.
Exiting the restroom, I turn the corner onto Cassidy’s corridor and almost slam face-first into a frantic nurse, the same nurse who ushered me out of Cassidy’s room.
Her brown eyes are wide, and her mouth is stretched into a broad smile. “She’s awake. You have to hurry.”
My skull fills with a roaring white noise that blocks out all sound as I fly past the nurse and burst into Cassidy’s hospital room. My knees almost give out when I see her eyes open, following me as I walk around the foot of the bed.
“Baby, you’re awake,” I murmur as I reach for her hand.
She nods ever so slightly, and her eyes widen as her gaze locks on my beard. Opening her mouth, only one word comes out as she reaches for my face: “Shadow.”
