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“A boat full?” he teased.
“Shut up and hurry up. I love you.”
“I love you, baby. See you in a minute.”
“One week left, Mr. Foster. You sure you don’t want to back out??
??
“One week and forever, baby. I promise.”
I waited for Grant for two hours in my negligee-clad body, surrounded by candles burning before the sinking feeling took over. I started calling hospitals, starting with the ones I knew were on his route. It only took two calls to find him.
The doctor in me listened to Grant’s attending objectively. He was pronounced dead at the scene. I knew that though the doctor didn’t say it. I was certain by the extent of his injuries that he hadn’t felt much or anything at all. He was on his way to me and the idea that he might not make it there had probably never crossed his mind. He’d had no time to process. It was too sudden. I knew that. And it was the only thing holding me together as Jennifer sobbed by my side.
It had been a freak accident.
That was what they said to me.
A freak accident had stolen my whole life from me.
I hoped I was pregnant.
That was my first clear thought and I couldn’t even justify how unreasonable it was. I sat on the toilet in my parents’ bathroom hours after losing Grant, hoping that we had somehow fucked up our plans to wait.
I wanted a piece of him to live and grow inside me, a piece of us. I prayed then for every possible imaginable failure in birth control. Scenarios of being a mother raced through my mind as I thought of what he or she would look like. I hoped it was a boy and had Grant’s beautiful locks. I would never cut his hair. He would be a replica of his father. I would decorate his room in planes and we would talk about him every day. We would live in our ranch home and he would grow up tall and strong like his dad, with a heart just as golden. It was the first time I’d actually imagined a child with him. I’d been so sure I had time to daydream about that once we were married and I’d met my career goals.
We would have kids as soon as I finished my surgical program. We’d decided that together. Well, actually, Grant had wanted them sooner. We’d even fought about it once, but he relented so easily when I insisted we wait a little longer. Everything we’d decided revolved around my life’s plans. Grant just wanted to give me everything I wanted, and now all I wanted was him and a different reality.
For the first time in my life, I no longer wanted to be a surgeon because a surgeon was selfish.
I stared at the urine-covered stick hiding in my parents’ bathroom and prayed like I’d never prayed in my life for that word to appear...and it did with a big fat fucking NOT in front of it. I grabbed a hand towel and gripped it between my teeth and bit down, screaming in agony, as if being pregnant with his child would save me in any way from the hurt that was stretching my chest so painfully. And suddenly breathing was a chore.
Breathing is an involuntary movement. You learn that in basic science in grade school. I say that fact turned false for me the minute I lost him. I was no longer breathing without doing it for myself. I had no help. It was up to me.
As I threw the useless stick of devastation away, I had a new and sudden list of the things I didn’t care about: I didn’t care that I was still young and had a promising career ahead of me. I no longer cared that I had a long list of people that loved me and would still be there for me through thick or thin. I no longer cared for the interview I’d worked my whole life for. I no longer cared about any of it. None of it brought me any happiness. None of it could replace or even come close to what I’d just lost.
“If you would have only left one minute sooner,” I whispered to him. “Why couldn’t you have just left sooner?”
Timing, that’s the last thing I had thought about before I stood, body and mind giving out in perfect unison.
I regained consciousness on the floor sometime later as my father knocked softly on the door, my face planted on the carpet and my body twisted unnaturally. I’d never fainted before and was still unsure of my faculties when he spoke.
“Rose, do you need anything?” I turned on my back to stare at the ceiling and cursed the carpeted bathroom for saving me. I wanted to feel physical pain in the worst way at that moment, to blanket the unbearable pain in my chest as the realization hit me again.
Grant’s dead.
My throat was dry and I could barely get the words out. “Daddy...I’m...okay...Daddy.”
“Come out when you’re ready.” I sensed his hesitation at the door before he walked away and swallowed hard at his words because I knew that I wouldn’t ever be...ready. I didn’t want to see my family stare at me for my reaction to what just happened and cater to my tears because they would be endless. I gasped as my mind came more into focus and his face flashed across it, along with his words after our first kiss.
“Did you feel that?”
Of course I had felt it. It was lightning. We were a sudden anomaly in a sea of lost people. We’d found it right then. The thing that everyone wants. The thing that everyone should experience in their lifetime. It was real. The romantic in me believed him in an instant. It was if he had awakened her with his conviction, and I’d initially ignored her.
Why couldn’t I have acknowledged more quickly that I was right there with him in every moment? Why did I have to try so hard to deny what was instantly between us? The recognition? The connection? I was such a bitch to him at first, so eager to prove him wrong. I lost a month of reveling in our love by denying it was possible. A month, a second, a minute, a breath, I had no idea how precious our time was.
He’s gone.
