Not To Us (19 page)

“Michael!” I still can’t see him and now it’s getting dark. They have shut off half the lights on the car deck to probably save money, always trying to save money. “Michael!”

The wind whips me around and carries my voice away with it. I’m frantic, searching for him now. I’ve move past the last row of cars and see the open deck up ahead. There is a large orange plastic netting fence that runs across the front of the steel deck as if to hold back all the cars should they pitch forward for some reason.

I’m just about to turn and go, when I see Michael sitting at end of the deck hanging on to this gangly oversized rope as if it were his own lifeline. His head is between his knees with his one arm circled around the rope and the other around his legs. He looks like a forlorn child gripping this fence. I hear his sobbing as I move closer.

The lights come on overhead, signaling that we are close to our destination, surprising us both. “Michael.” I gently touch his arm.

“We have to go. Come on, baby. I’ll drive.”

He lifts his head and looks at me. His face is streaked with tears. My pulse races as I discern his fight with the bad news that I still don’t even know.

“Come on, baby, I’ll take you back to the car.”

Instinctive, now, I know that it’s Elaina
, S
omething has happened to Elaina. I gasp for breath, but somehow, manage to help my six-foot four husband to his feet and get him back to the car. My surgical incisions all, but forgotten as a different kind of pain rips across me now. I drive the SUV now. Michael just stares straight ahead and every once in a while, he wipes a tear from his face, unembarrassed, it seems, at this open display of emotion. I compartmentalize my fear, refusing to feel it as we make our way through downtown Seattle. Fifteen minutes later, I pull into Swedish Hospital and park in Michael’s designated parking space. His medical office is right by the hospital and he has parking privileges here. Somehow, I already know this, even though I can only recall being at this parking spot one time, the first day we were together, the second day of October, when this whole journey between us began.

Any other day I would think of this and it would be a spiritual experience but, today it is an empty sentiment. I can’t feel anything, as my mind prepares for the grief and sadness that awaits us inside.

I help Michael from the car and he absently takes my arm. The searing pain rips through me again and it’s obvious he’s forgotten my surgery as well as he leans into me for support.

I look up at him then; he meets my glance for only a moment and then turns his head away. “I love you, Michael.”

“I love you, too, Ellie,” He doesn’t turn back to me when he says this.

We ride the elevator in silence each supporting the other by linking our arms together. I welcome the physical pain I feel, hoping that it will take away the other one.
Elaina
. I envision her beautiful face and those green eyes so clearly. I smile thinking of her long auburn hair swinging back and forth in her signature ponytail. How beautiful she looked three days ago in her bridesmaid dress for our wedding. I’m lost in the memories of this beautiful child and don’t even realize that the elevator doors have opened, until I look up and see the crowd of crying teenagers gathered there. Michael and I step out.

“Oh, Mrs. Bradford, I’m so sorry,” one of the girls from Nick’s class says to me as we pass. News of my nuptials and name change has not reached the teen crowd of Bainbridge High School.

I am somewhat stunned to see this many of Nick and Elaina’s classmates in one place. I move numbly forward with Michael, scanning the crowd, searching for Robert and Carrie, my children, and Elaina.

I trail behind Michael to the nurses’ station. We are on the floor for the ER. I’m trying to control my panic as I look around for Robert or Carrie yet, or my children or Elaina, but still can’t find them. Michael pulls me along past the nurses’ station. He stands outside of Trauma One for a moment. He just stands there.

“Michael? Where’s Bobby?” I ask in this faraway voice.

“I don’t…know.” Michael looks over at me with so much pain in his blue eyes that I catch my breath.

“Dr. Shaw, your daughter is this way. We put her in Trauma Two.” A blonde nurse with the name tag, Katrina, has come over to us and is motioning us this way. “Are you a family member?” Nurse Katrina asks of me.

“She’s my
wife
,” Michael says. He puts his arm protectively around me and we follow behind Nurse Katrina through the double doors marked Trauma Two.

I’m not at all prepared for what awaits me on the other side of those doors. There is a gurney and this body lies upon it with so many tubes going every which way from the arms, the chest, and the throat. Then, I see her auburn hair. It’s all I recognize. Elaina’s face is covered in blood and her beautiful eyes are closed and the machines are whirring all around. There is no one else in the room, except for a nurse who stands near the monitor.

I recognize the designer jeans Elaina’s wearing. I bought them for her on a quick shopping spree to Seattle, right after Michael and I decided to get married. It’s the same shopping trip where we picked out Elaina’s dress as well as Emily’s and even my wedding gown.

My mind races, my thoughts incongruent, unfinished. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. The monitor displays her respiration pattern, heart rate, and blood pressure, but I can’t reconcile the girl lying in this hospital bed to Elaina Shaw. Michael goes over to her and takes her hand in his and begins talking to her.

I come up alongside him and touch her hand, too. I’m surprised how cool to the touch it feels. For some reason, I was convinced our touch would cause her eyes to open, but she doesn’t stir at all. A heavy stillness envelops the room. The only sound is the whirring of life-support machines and the unsteady breathing of both Michael and me.

≈≈

I don’t know how long we’ve been here, but when I look up, Robert is there. He takes Elaina’s other hand. He doesn’t look at me. His face is streaked with old tears, but fresh ones begin to fall. He looks over at Michael and I watch in dazed fascination as they exchange this fleeting look. Michael shakes his head from side-to-side and Robert begins to cry harder.

I’m dry-eyed, watching this scene unfold in this surreal stupor.
Nicky must be so sad.

“Bobby, where’s Nicky?” I ask, now.

It is Robert’s face that I remember even now, when I ask the question: “Where is Nicky? My Nicky?”

Robert’s face crumbles, when I say our son’s name. The look of devastation on his face is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I drop Elaina’s hand and step away from her. I hold my arms out in front of me, as if by doing so; I can stop what is happening here. This invisible runaway train comes crashing into me, taking away my life, as I know it to be.

“No,” I whisper. “No. No. No. No. No.” I’m a master of words and can only say
no
. No words can describe this pain. And, I soon discover; there’s nothing in this world that will take it away either.

≈≈

Nicholas Robert Bradford was sixteen years, eight months and eight days old, when he died on the 10
^th
of February
,
a Tuesday. I hadn’t seen him since that Sunday
,
the day after I married Michael and we had dropped all of my children off at Carrie and Robert’s to go bowling. I spend a lot of my time trying to remember just how much of him I saw that day. All I can remember is his wide smile, when he saw Elaina as he scrambled from the car and gave her this big hug for all of us to see. I take comfort in that memory now, knowing that he was with Elaina when he died. He was happy because he was with her. On some unknown level, deep inside,
I live, knowing that
.

One of my wishes has died and I don’t even bargain with God anymore for the others. There are no words to describe this pain. I can’t function. I don’t feel anything beyond extreme sadness.

Nicky’s funeral was much like our wedding just days before, only four times as many people came and most of them were under the age of eighteen and all of them were crying. The service had to be held at the Bainbridge High School because there were so many people that wanted to come and pay their last respects to my son; there wasn’t a church on the Island big enough to hold them all. I was somewhat appalled that his funeral was held there, but I was swept up into the planning by Lisa Chatham, who seems to have stepped into the role as my new best friend, since Carrie and Michael spend all their time at the hospital in vigilance over Elaina.

Elaina. Elaina, who has yet to regain consciousness to even learn of Nick’s death. The doctors are unsure, if she will ever recover, but my surgeon husband Michael and my best friend Carrie are praying for a miracle, expecting one, in fact.

≈≈

Is it less painful when you have more time to say goodbye?
Nick is ripped from us in a single instant and we never get to see him alive again. The pain is so great and the loss of him even greater.

We have spent the last month with Elaina at her bedside. She never regains consciousness. I’ve spoken to her for endless hours about Nicky and somehow I know she hears me. I think that is why she leaves us, finally. Michael goes home for a much needed rest, while I stay. His vigilance for his daughter ends for just a few hours and when he leaves, she dies. I’m prepared for Elaina’s death when it comes. Michael is not.

I believe in heaven and I see both of them there. I could never reconcile the Elaina in that hospital bed with the Elaina that I knew and loved. I am hoping by believing in heaven that they are now together as they should be. Carrie knows. We’ve talked about it. It’s why we can agree to have their cremated ashes side-by-side in matching silver urns. We take turns with the urns holding the remains of our children at each of our homes, but always together. We have decided to wait to find just the right place to spread their ashes, when Michael is ready, when Michael is talking again. When he can talk about Nick and Elaina, we will decide what to do with the ashes of our two beautiful children.

How beautiful young love is, even in death. There is another funeral at Bainbridge High School. The mourners are the same. The tears are the same. The sadness is the same. We have Elaina cremated in her silver dress that she wore to my wedding because Carrie and I agree that she loved that dress.

She was so beautiful in life; it’s hard to believe that she’s gone. I just expect her to come walking in to the funeral in that exquisite silver gown and begin dancing for all of us. This is how I remember her. Of course, her first question would be:
Where’s Nick?

I think all of this as we stand together at her service and her urn is slowly showered with all these pink roses by all these mourners. Emily stands between Michael and me holding both our hands. Mathew is on my other side holding my other hand. He is suddenly taller and even sadder. Nick’s death has been hard on Mathew; and now with Elaina, too. It is too much for all of us.

Michael.

Michael.

He isn’t even here. I try to talk to him, but he does not hear me. I realize, now, that there are all kinds of ways for a relationship to be tested, to be broken. Irrevocable? I don’t know. He stands in front of me, but he doesn’t touch me anymore.

Stephen and Lisa Chatham stand with us at the funeral for Elaina while Carrie and Robert stand across on the other side. After it is over, the Chatham’s follow us in their car to the beach house, where there is a smaller gathering of mourners.

Someone is serving all this food that has miraculously appeared from the Town & Country Market. We have become the adopted family.

I stand uncomfortable in this black maternity dress in a daze of sorts, not even knowing where the dress that I’m wearing has come from. I don’t remember getting dressed this morning. I don’t remember anything about the day, except the pink roses and Elaina’s portrait
,
a single picture taken of her at our wedding where she is smiling at the camera like she has a secret. Her life-size portrait is now in front of me on a wooden easel that someone has brought back from the service. I’m staring at it. Yes, she has a secret and his name is Nicholas Robert Bradford. I know this. It makes me smile. It is an unnatural reaction from me in this past month of sadness.

“Momma.” Emily hovers near me and looks up at me. “You’re smiling.”

“She’s thinking of Nicky.”

I point to the portrait. Emily scrutinizes it for a minute and then nods.

“She is!” Emily hugs me tight. “Momma, your tummy is getting big.”

“Too many pop tarts,” I say with a forced smile.

We have not told the children about this baby. We have not told the children because Michael and I have barely spoken in the past month. He has spent all his time at the hospital. He was either working at his medical office or at Elaina’s bedside. I’ve been working through manuscripts with a newfound zeal for editing other people’s words. I’ve tried to put our life back together, taking care of Emily and Mathew, but struggle to make sense of it all.

We have had pizza every night because all I seem to know how to do is drive to the pizzeria and pick it up or dial the number and have it delivered. The pizzeria knows me when I call; they no longer say how sorry they are about Nick and Elaina.