Tears breached my eyes.
I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
I felt a presence behind me. When I looked, it was Tom, Will and John holding each other side by side, and Susan standing guard over us.
Protecting our moment.
Our love.
Our mourning.
“Charlie, Honey. I need you to get checked out. Make sure you are okay,” I wanted to get him away from this tunnel. I needed him safe.
“You too, David,” Tom said. “Clearly you took a hit,” referencing his head.
“No, I don’t want to leave him. I can’t leave him,” Charlie screamed and sobbed hysterically as he broke away from me and crawled to his father.
I followed to try to hold Charlie back, but he threw himself down onto Mike, like he was protecting him from a falling object. I didn’t know what to do. This was breaking my heart. In so many different ways. I looked over at the group. They all had sorrow in their eyes.
David walked up and whispered in a really rough voice, “We would have been up way sooner once we got through the tunnel collapse into room four’s entry, but he refused to leave until we got Mike out too.”
Oh my God.
I sat on the ground, putting my hand on Charlie’s back, rubbing him. Our group moved over to cover us again and at some point Betty had joined, who was also crying silent tears.
“Honey,” I leaned down, laying my head on Mike’s chest with Charlie so I could look into his eyes, the right one was swollen and bruised. “You didn’t leave him. You got him out. You are above ground. You didn’t leave him.” I was trying to be quiet. To give him a sense of peace. “You did so good, Honey. You were so brave. But you can relax now. Breathe for me, okay? Deep breaths.”
He started to calm a little. His wet eyes soaking into Mike’s jumper which was also covered in blood from unknown injuries he sustained. After ten minutes, he sat up on his own. He looked down at his father, his unlimited tears still flowing. He leaned down and kissed Mike’s forehead, and I heard him whisper through a sob, “I love you.”
He turned to me and fell into my chest and arms. I looked up at David who came around and helped us both up with assistance from Tom. I took Charlie into my arms, just as David had, cradling him into my chest. We were guided to the office where there was a medical professional waiting to examine Charlie, David, and John.
That was where I heard the whole story, and if Richard and Dan hadn’t already been dead and still in this mountain– It wouldn’t have been for long.
When we eventually got the all clear and left, I refused to look back toward the disaster. But if I had looked back to the white tunnel, to my personal hell, I would have seen the chit board that greeted me five days a week for almost the last decade, and the eleven chits still hanging there.
thirty-four
Numb
Charlie
Ididn’t know what day it was anymore. All I knew was that I was in a bed, a bed I had demanded I be in. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else right now.
My memory was a blur of events from digging out of room four while the blast site was smoldering behind us, slowly filling the cavern with smoke. Then digging my father out of the blast zone while trying not to get burned. We found Dan too, but we left him there, only taking my dad to the surface with us. Apparently, it had been almost another full shift of being down in the mine by the time we appeared.
We were the last of the living to arrive.
I didn’t remember much about getting to the surface other than the loud noise. The next thing I knew, I was being checked out, bandaged, and given oxygen out of a new state-of-the-art portable tankthat looked like a mini missile, to help make sure my lungs were clear. Other than my right eye, my left elbow was bruised and had a deep scratch from landing on it.
I didn’t remember much about leaving except the drama with Karen, or more like her shrill voice. She apparently was waiting with a small crowd at the road. I didn’t know what happened with that, but I overheard David tell Jimmy that Tom took the blunt of it so we could get through while he attempted to pull her to the office so he could give her an update. But she refused to go, so Tom told the entire group that was present that it was her husband that blew up the mine and killed good men.
If she wasn’t an outcast before because of everything, she was now.
The biggest loss outside of my own, was Paul. No one deserved to die, but him– with a baby on the way. If my heart wasn’t already shattered, it would break for Linda and what she was going through.
I remembered wanting to go home though. Which was why I ended up in my dad’s bed, surrounded by his things, his smell and his ghostly presents. Jimmy took me to his place, but I said no, and kept walking.
I remember being washed for the longest time.
