I stand up from the pew and dust off my jeans. I’ve been wearing them for six days. Disgusting, I know, but I can’t find the will to take care of myself when I’ve lost my heart. I leave the small chapel and make my way through the sterile corridors. Beige paint. White tiles. Empty. Soulless.
Like me.
I freeze at the doorway of ICU room 15. Not because I’m shocked, but because every time I step through this threshold, it feels like one less time I’ll have a chance to. I take a deep breath and walk into the room, taking a seat in the chair that has my assprint embedded into it from the past six days. I slump over against the hospital bed and take Christian’s hand in mine. It’s so cold and limp.
I watch every breath he takes intently, afraid he’ll stop at any moment. His wedding ring is heavy in the back pocket of my jeans, reminding me how fragile everything is. How precious the time I’ve gotten to spend with him is. It doesn’t matter how it began, all that matters to me is doing everything I can to make sure that this isn’t the end. It can’t be.
He lost so much blood. I remember watching Gavin do chest compressions while I put pressure on the wound. When the paramedics arrived, I remember fighting against Gavin to let me go with them. I remember my hands and arms being covered in my husband’s blood and feeling so powerless. I didn’t know how to help him.
They told me that his heart stopped during the emergency surgery they did to try and repair the damage. While they got his heart beating again, he was clinically dead for three minutes.
Three minutes without oxygen. Three minutes without a heartbeat. Three minutes without his love.
That’s all it took to shatter me.
His pupils are responsive, which the doctors keep telling me is a good sign, but he doesn’t react to any other stimuli.
They can’t guarantee that he’ll wake up. Even if he does wake up, the lack of oxygen to the brain could have caused irreversible damage. I’ve had nothing to do but sit and watch my husband for six days, sitting by his side and begging him to come back to me. So I can apologize for not believing him about those murders. I don’t want him to die thinking I was mad at him for something he didn’t do.
I sniffle and squeeze his cold hand, running my free hand along his equally cold cheek.
“Is this what it felt like for you? To not know if I was going to be okay?” Another sob wrecks through me. “Because I don’t know how you got through it. You’d do anything for me, right?” I scrape my nails gently along his scalp. “I’m asking you to come back to me, because I don’t know how to live without you, either.”
I pause, waiting for any sign of life from him, but there’s nothing. I want him to wake up more than I’ve ever wanted anything, but I think I know deep in my heart that he’s gone.
It’s been eight days since I’ve heard Christian tell me he loves me. It only makes me feel worse about all those months ago, when I couldn’t tell him I loved him in Mykonos. I understand now, the agony of wanting to hear those three words from the person you’ve given your heart to. I understand the unimaginable pain of not hearing it back.
Sitting down in my seat, I lay my head down on Christian’s arm and shut my eyes, remembering all the little moments we shared together that made me fall in love with him. From our first kiss to our first visit to the orphanage, all the way up until our marriage ceremony, and everything in between. The steady beat of his heart monitor lulls me into a light sleep. Enough to be considered restful, but not enough that I’d miss a twitch of his fingers in mine.
I feel a small hand shake me. “Mommy?”
I perk up at the sound of Caroline’s voice. “Yeah, honey?”
“When will daddy wake up?”
Never.
Her blue eyes are sparkling like they always are. She’s so innocent. A part of me, a part I would never admit out loud, regrets adopting her. I love her so much, but if I had known that she would know this kind of loss so soon after being adopted by us, I don’t know if I would have gone through with it. It seems cruel to put a child through this.
I sigh and straighten the bow in her ponytail. “I don’t know yet,” I answer. It’s the same response I’ve been giving her for eight days, and the way she so easily accepts that answer feels like a serrated knife in the sternum.
How am I going to tell her that he’s not going to wake up?
Caroline looks up at Christian in the bed and then back to me. “Can I hug him?”
I swallow the painful, burning rock in my throat. My first instinct is to say no, because what if she accidentally hurts him? At this point, would it even really matter?
I give her a sad smile and help her into his hospital bed. I tell her to be careful, and she is. She simply snuggles up next to him, using his arm as a pillow, and falls back asleep.
I cry silently for a few more minutes and then find Dr. Portman in the hallway. I cross my arms over my chest and look back at Christian and Caroline through the window.
“We’ll do it tomorrow morning,” I say, feeling defeated and hollow. Dr. Portman says nothing; simply rubs my arm in a comforting gesture and leaves me alone.
I walk back inside the room and decide that if this is the last night I get to spend with him, I’m going to spend it in his arms where I belong. I crawl into the bed on the opposite side from Caroline, and before I fall asleep, I kiss him one last time.
At six AM, I gently wake up Caroline and ask her what she wants for breakfast. She happily announces that she wants strawberry ice cream.
I let her have all the strawberry ice cream she can eat, because I don’t know any other way to soften the blow for what’s to come. After breakfast, the mood shifts in the air as the doctors start filtering into the room.
