Don't Read in the Closet: Volume Four (49 page)

and asked, “Aren’t you going to ask if I have any tattoos?”

He looked at me a little sideways and half laughed. Then he asked,

without even trying to keep a straight face, “Okay, do you have any

tattoos?”

“Yup, sure do. I’ve got two.” He just about fell out of bed he was

so shocked.

“Where?” He demanded.

I pushed the sheet down below our waists and pulled the

waistband of my boxers down. Just below my left hipbone was a

dolphin. Rather than making him ask me about I just told him.

“I was on swim team in college and after we won states junior

year we all went out and got drunk and tattooed ourselves with

various sea creatures. I’m lucky I woke up with a dolphin. One guy

woke up manatee tattooed on his left ass cheek.”

After we both stopped laughing, he asked, “Where’s the other

one?”

This one was a bit more serious. I reached over and took the watch

off my right wrist. Around my wrist I had tattooed, “…And none of

that makes the love not worth it.” He gave me a questioning look. I

took a deep breath and remembered the day Daniel had died.

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Junior was wagging his tail so hard, I knew if he weren’t better

trained he would be dragging me by the leash to get off the elevator.

We didn’t usually visit the oncology floor on Mondays but we were

here to see Daniel. We visited him last, every day, so I could spend

more time with him. We got some funny looks from a few of the

visitors. Not everyone realizes that there are organizations that train

dogs special to visit patients in the hospital.

I waved at the nurses as I passed by the nurse’s station and ended

up in front of room 24. The door was closed so I paused a moment to

take a deep breath. I grabbed a handful of that foam sanitizer stuff as

the “Foam in, Foam out” sign by every door instructed. As I opened

the door, I said a brief prayer that today would be one of his good

days. If he had a few more of those they might let go home before he

… no don’t want to think about that.

As soon as I saw him curled on his side, with his dark blond hair

plastered to his pale face by sweat I knew that today was not a good

day. His arms were curled around one of those pink plastic bins they

give you to vomit in so they can measure it later and he was fast

asleep. I signaled to Junior to sit in the corner and walked over to

Daniel and gently kissed his forehead, making sure not to wake him

up. I settled into the chair by his bed to read until he woke up.

I guess I must have dozed off at some point because I woke up to

him smiling at me and saying, “Charlie.” Even his weak smiles did

something to my insides that had never happened from anyone else.

“Hey, Danny Boy, how you doing today?” I tried to smile back at

him but I don’t know how successful I was.

“It’s a crap day,” he said as he reached a hand around his,

thankfully empty, barf bin to grab mine. I took hold of it and then got

lost in his hazel eyes for a moment. On his good days they would

sparkle with humor and joy and there was no greater sight. On his

bad days, like today, they were clouded over with pain and it seemed

like the candle that was normally lit behind them had been blown out.

When Junior and I had first met him, almost a month ago, his eyes

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sparkled more often than not. Now it had been four days since I had

seen them sparkle.

I was pulled out of his eyes when I noticed him grabbing for

something on his tray. I reached over handed it to him, watching as he

pulled out a piece of gum and stuck it in his mouth. “You’re going to

waste energy chewing a piece of gum when you can barely lift your

hand to pick it up?” I asked him.

“I taste like puke and I wanted you to kiss me today,” Daniel

rasped tiredly. He made a brave effort at a grin but it fell short when

he lapsed into a painful grimace halfway through. It felt like a bruise

to my heart, watching him try so hard when he hurt so much. I would

have kissed him no matter what he tasted like.

I leaned over his bed and pressed my lips to his. I ran my tongue

over his teeth and pressed inside. He rallied with strength I wouldn’t

have thought he had and I felt his nasal cannula smash into my nose

as he clutched my head to his and tangled his tongue with mine. It

tasted like love and pain and was desperate and bittersweet. I couldn’t

help but feel like it was a goodbye. There were tears in my eyes when

we broke apart and that bruise on my heart was three shades darker.

He seemed to collapse in on himself after that, like he had used up

all his strength on those ten seconds and there was no more left. He

closed his eyes for a second and then looked at me and whispered,

brokenly, “Hold me.” I don’t know how the nurses generally feel

about the visitors climbing in the hospital beds with the patients but

there is nothing on God’s green earth that could have kept me from

climbing in that bed and wrapping my arms around Daniel.

We had never done this before, always too conscious of how often

the nurses came into check on him. He settled in using my bottom arm

as a pillow and I wrapped my top arm around his waist and pulled

him up to me so we were touching from the top of his head to the

bottom of his feet. He was so thin and fragile and precious.

He fell asleep that way, until Kelli, one of the nurses, came into

check on him. I gave her stubborn stare and made it clear I was not

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going anywhere unless they had to do something medical that

required him to move. She smiled at me and nodded.

“How’s he doing?” I asked Kelli. He barely stirred in my arms. I

saw her smile falter a bit and somehow I knew, there weren’t going to

be any more days with sparkling eyes.

“His systems are shutting down one by one. We could keep him

alive a little bit longer on a ventilator and dialysis but he has signed

an advance directive and an A.N.D. stating that he doesn’t want

extreme measures.”

“A.N.D.?”

“Allow Natural Death.”

“Oh.” I felt my heart break a little just then. I didn’t want him to

hurt but it just seemed too soon. Any time seemed too soon. I had

known from 5 minutes after meeting him that he was dying but

somehow it wasn’t real until that moment. Daniel woke up as she

checked all his IV’s and ports and whatnot that were connected to

him.

After she left, he turned around in my arms so he could look me in

the face. “I found something for you today,” he said.

“What’s that?” I replied as I tucked his sweaty hair behind his

ear.

“In the tray. One of the volunteers was reading to me from her

poetry group’s blog.” I twisted around pulled out the drawer of his

tray and found a piece of paper. I looked at him questioningly.

“I thank God every day that he gave me you to love this past

month. It gave me happiness I thought I had lost when they told me I

was going to die. But I would take it all back if I thought that loving

me and watching me die was going to break you beyond repair.

Promise me you won’t stay broken.”

Tears rolled down my face as I read through what the volunteer

had copied down for Daniel:

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Broken

You look at me and

You ask

With fear

And disbelief

And maybe just a little bit of awe

How can you love, again?

It shows in your eyes

You think only of

The broken heart

The shattered pieces

The lonely silence

That comes after.

But I say to you

I have been broken,

I have been shattered,

I have been lonely.

And none of that

Makes the love not worth it.

I looked up at him. We had never said I love you. But it was clear,

in the month that we had gotten together, we both had fallen. “I…I…

don’t know if I can,” I stammered, tears still streaming down my face

“You can. Promise me.” He wasn’t even gone yet and my heart

felt broken beyond repair. But he stared steadily at me, waiting for an

answer. And I thought, if he is strong enough to die this bravely, the

least I can do is be strong for him after he’s gone.

“Okay, I promise.” I whispered, as if saying it quietly would make

it easier to follow through.

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“Good.” And he rolled back over so he could be the little spoon

again. He rested his head on my arm again and wrapped one of his

hands around my wrist, holding on for dear life. With my other arm, I

clutched him to me as tightly as I dared, realizing I needed to say it

out loud at least once before he was taken from me, “I love you, my

Danny Boy.”

“I love you too, my Charlie,” he barely said before he drifted off

to sleep. Junior came over then and put his head on the edge of the

bed so I could pet him and I lay there holding Daniel as he slept with

Junior keeping us company.

I don’t know how much time passed, but it couldn’t have been too

long because Junior hadn’t made a fuss about needing to go out yet,

when it seemed like Daniel started breathing slower. Every time he

breathed out I would hold my breath until he breathed in again,

praying this wasn’t it. My head started swimming and I was seeing

black spots before I realized that he hadn’t taken a breath in a really

long time.

I pressed the nurse call button, knowing there was nothing they

could do because he had signed an A.N.D. By the time the doctor

came in, I knew he was dead. I cried silent tears as I held him. This

boy clutched to my chest was the only thing keeping my heart from

falling out and it’s million shattered pieces from being irretrievably

scattered on the floor. His hand was still around my wrist.

Eventually, I had to take Junior and leave. I slept for three days

and when I finally dragged myself out of bed I had the last two lines of

the poem tattooed, on that wrist, so I would never forget my promise.

And, God knows, there were times that tattoo was the only thing that

kept me eating and sleeping and getting out of bed in the morning.

We both sat there in silence for a bit after I finished telling my

story. Job wrapped his arm around me and pulled me in to rest my

head on his chest. And I think I felt him kiss my hair as we fell asleep.

****

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I woke up when the sun from the window started to trek across the

bed. Chaz’s arm was still wrapped around me like he thought I was

going to try to escape or something. I sat there staring at the ceiling

for the longest time trying to decide what I was feeling. It felt like the

night before, Chaz had broken giant pieces of my wall down and now

I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to live like that, all exposed to the

world. But he had done it for years. Just lived, all broken like that.

And now he was whole again, mostly.

Before I could get too worked up over it, I felt Chaz’s lips press