LOVED (15 page)

I nodded, “She’s gone.”

“What we talked about the other day. Take care of her. I need you to promise me, Erik. Again. Promise me. I know what you told me before we even talked, but there’s a difference. Promise me,” he muttered as he wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

“Gene, I promise,” I said.

“Dry,” he said, wiping his lips again.

I turned and looked at the bedside table. I grabbed the cup sitting there and pulled a few ice chips from the cup. I placed one of them in his mouth. He winked his eye. I placed another as soon as he was done with the first.

“You’re a good man, son. You never fooled me. Act all tough to those pissy friends of yours, but I know better. You’re a good kid. My daughter’s lucky,” he rasped.

“I’ve got a sale underway on the dealer. I’m going to sell it. I’m going to give you two the money. Kelli doesn’t need to run that damned place to make me happy. You take care of her. That’ll make me happy,” he paused.

I placed another ice chip into his mouth.

“But it’s your dream,” I said.

“Mine, yes. Not hers. She has always wanted to make me happy. Making me happy would be living a productive life with someone that takes care of her and cherishes her, just like I have. You hurt that girl…”

I shook my head.

He slowly raised his hand.

“You hurt that girl and I’ll come back from my grave and cut your dick off, son. Remember that. Clean off. You can bank on that, you hear me?” he asked.

“Yes sir,” I responded.

“Don’t mention the dealership to Kelli. She’s convinced I’m going to get out of here. I haven’t had the heart to tell her I only have one kidney yet.
Can’t decide if I should. It’s tough son. It’s just tough,” he began to cough.

I squeezed his hand in mine.

“I may ask her if she wants to stay with me tonight. Maybe I will be able to muster the courage to talk to her. I really need to,” he said.

I placed another ice chip in his mouth.

“Hell, you ought to be a caregiver, you big dumb monkey,” he laughed.

His laughter caused another coughing fit.

I leaned into the bed, took the bottom of my tee shirt, and wiped his mouth. He winked at me again as I did. The door opened and Kelli walked in with three bottles of water. She walked up to the bed and handed me one. She placed the other beside the bed on the bedside table.

“Baby, I need Erik to take care of some stuff for me at the dealer. You want to stay here with me tonight? I’ll
scooch to the side of the bed and make some room for ya,” he said, smiling.

She looked at me for assurance. I nodded.

“Yes, daddy. I’d love to stay with you,” she said.

“
Scooch now,” she said as she walked to the other side of the bed.

I grasped the blankets that were underneath Gene and pulled them in my direction, moving him to the side of the bed.

“Well, if I’m going to get that stuff done, I better get out of here, Gene,” I said as I set the water on the table.

Kelli
adjusted herself onto the bed beside her father, and laid down on her side. On top of the blankets, she scooted closer to him until her body was against his.

I walked to her side of the bed and leaned down to kiss her cheek.

“I love you, Kelli,” I said.

“I love you back,” she said.

“Thanks son. I love you,” Gene said.

Two people other than the men I rode with were telling me they loved me, and I knew that they both meant it. This was new to me.
New, but welcome.

“I love you too, Gene. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said as I grabbed my water and walked to the door.

I opened the door and stepped half way through it. I turned back to face the room. I had something I wanted to say, but I wasn’t sure what it was. Kelli raised her hand in the air, her palm open. As she did, her father raised his hand in the air slowly, his index finger extended. She grasped his finger in her hand and squeezed in into her palm.

And they both closed their eyes.

KELLI.
I carried the ladder up the steps and into the kitchen. It was heavy and awkward to carry. I knew if I dropped it or drug it on the floor, Erik would notice, and I would be in trouble. I needed to get it up the steps and to our bedroom.

I gripped it tight in my hands and grunted as I started up the steps.

When I got into the bedroom, I set the ladder beside the bed and spread the legs apart. I stepped onto the rung and made sure it felt secure.

We all pray to the same God. Call him whatever you prefer.
Allah. Buddha. God. It doesn’t matter, there’s one. We all believe in what we believe in. That belief gives us hope. It provides us with a form of power. The power of prayer is the power of belief. Belief that the prayer and who you’re praying to will work.

The power of prayer.
The power of thought. The power of hope. Some of the simplest things in life are the most powerful. From within our own self, when considering our experiences, we can find hope, strength, and comfort in living and believing. Believing is solving.

We all need
something
to believe in.

Erik had told me of the talisman. It had been blessed and was not to be touched. He said it was blessed and was to provide him with protection from harm. Not a good luck charm so to
speak, but a medallion of a powerful nature. It was something that could protect him from bad coming into his life. It would also protect people that he loved, because people that he loved being hurt would hurt him. That was my guess anyway.

The talisman was not to be touched by anyone. If someone touched it, it would absorb all
of the bad that is within them, and then it would not provide Erik with the protection and the good that was intended. Only if Erik trusted the person one hundred percent could he ever let them touch it. They had to be pure, and never intend on bringing him bad. They had to be a person that had Erik’s best interest as their best interest.

I looked up at the ceiling and climbed the ladder. When I got to the top and leaned toward the medallion, I shook. Not from the ladder being insecure, but from something else. I reached out toward the talisman and hesitated. I closed my eyes and thought.

I have no choice.

I reached for it and grasped it into my hand. The metal of it felt cold. As I held it, I felt an odd feeling of three people being in the room.
Erik, my father, and I.

Three.

I closed my eyes and prayed.

God, if you’re listening, I have to talk to you. I need a favor, God. I’m not really sure how to do this, but I know you don’t want lip service from me. I’m not going to make you promises. I’m not going to change my life if you do some miracle for me. I just want to talk.

I clutched the medallion in my hand and held it close to my heart.

God, my father is sick. You know that. He is a child of yours so you know. I ask that you stop and
take a look at him for a minute. He’s a great man. He took care of me for my entire life, and he did a good job. I grew up and I made bad decisions. Me. I made them. If he knew some of the things that I did, he would skin me alive. But the decisions were mine.

He raised me well.

God, he needs help. I am asking you in the name of Jesus, that you consider giving him what it is that he needs to survive. I know that he can’t live forever, but you can make him live for a while. Just a little while longer. I have a plan, God, and he’s part of it. Just take a look at him and see what you can do.

One more thing, God.
For whatever reason, you put Erik in my life.

Thank you
for that.

I squeezed the talisman in my hand and opened my eyes. I looked around the room. I closed my eyes and continued.

I know holding this thing may seem weird to you God, but it’s all I have. I wanted to be as close to you as I could be, and I felt that this was the best for us both. If Erik is in my life to replace my father, I guess that you made a good choice. Erik loves me, I know he does. I ask that you bless him too, God. Keep him healthy. I can’t survive on this earth alone, and do it as good as I can with him. Keep him healthy, please.

Help me make all good decisions, God.

I try so hard to do whatever it is that is good, but we all make mistakes. Help me make as few of them as possible.

Please look after all of Erik’s brothers. You know who they are. They’re good men, God. They are.

God, if you decide to take my father, I cannot change that. I guess if you take him from me and from this earth, please take care of him; because he is a special man. He is a good man. He’s my daddy.

God, I ask that you take care of him s
o when Erik and I get to Heaven he will be in good health for us. We both love him so much. I hate seeing him sick.

I know you’ll do whatever your plan is. Whatever it is, help me understand it.

Understand it and accept it.

In your name I pray.

Amen.

And.

Thank you.

ERIK.
There are two kinds of phone calls that are received at three o’clock in the morning. It is either bad news or a wrong number. When the phone rang, I was hoping for the latter. What I got was not what I wanted, nor was it what I was ready for.

I
switched the light on and placed the phone back on the top of the dresser.

“Kelli, wake up,” I said as I shook her.

“Kelli,” I shook her again.

“Huh? What’s going on,” she
rolled over, squinted, and looked at me as if she were lost.

“Get up, baby girl, we need to go,” I said as I put on my jeans.

“Why?” she asked, still wrapped into the blankets.

“Baby, we have to run to the hospital,” I said softly.

“Why? What time is it?” she asked as she rubbed her eyes.

“Baby, i
t’s 3:16 in the morning,” I responded as I looked at my watch.

She sa
t up in bed and rubbed her eyes again.

“What’s going on,”
she asked.

“Baby, it’s your father. We need to go.
Now
,” I demanded softly as I pulled my shirt over my head.

“Okay,”
she got out of bed and wandered to the closet.

She stepped out of the closet in a pair of sweats and a tee shirt.

“Get some shoes, baby girl,” I said.

“I’ll wear my slippers. He’s going to be alright,” she said, nodding her head slowly.

“Baby, he’s really sick. We need to go,” I said as I walked to the doorway.

“He’s going to be fine,”
she said as she shuffled to catch up to me.

Witnessing Kelli’s denial of her father’s impending death was probably no different than my friends watching for years as I denied the fact that my mother was dead. It made me sick to think about Kelli’s father dying. In the short period of time that I had come to know him, he meant a tremendous amount to me. In addition to being Kelli’s father, he was a damned good man. I was disappointed that I hadn’t known him longer.

The doctor stated that he was dying and we needed to get to the hospital post haste. There was question of whether or not he would live until daylight. His kidney had failed totally a few days prior and the dialysis was not going well. His body had finally shut down and other organs were now in question.

“He’s going to be fine, isn’t he?” she asked as I backed the car out of the driveway.

“Kelli, it’s hard to say,” I responded.

I didn’t kno
w what else to tell her. I turned on the bright beams and sped up down the road toward the city. I turned off the music so we could talk on the way. Kelli stared intently out the window of the car into the darkness.

“Baby, we just need to be prepared for the worst,” I said softly as I drove.

She turned to face me.

“Like an operation, you mean?” she asked.

“Baby, I don’t know.
Something
,” I responded.

She wasn’t making this any easier.

As we drove along the street to the hospital, I gripped the steering wheel and clenched my jaw. I looked into the dark star filled sky. And…

I did something I had not done since I was a kid.

I prayed.

Looking through the windshield into the starry sky, I
squinted my eyes and spoke to my inner mind.