Stay With Me (23 page)

Leaving behind the dirty dishes and the untouched
cake, he led her to her couch. Worry tried to creep in, but she reminded
herself of his words, “Trust me.” She could. From the moment they met, he had
done nothing but earn her trust.

They spent the remainder of the evening on her
couch, not a word passing between them,
just
kissing. No urgency, no
compulsion drove them to do anything more than savor every second, every
sensation for its own worth. When finally Rebecca nestled her head on his
chest, and he circled her in his arms, he breathed one word: “Heaven.”

She couldn’t agree more.

19

What Will Become of Me?

A month or more of Saturday nights passed with motorcycle
rides, dinners, long walks, and a few movies sprinkled in between. Their
relationship had developed a sense of inevitability that Rebecca delighted in.
Just one thing bothered her, niggling at her conscience, irritating it like a
rough tag on the inside of a shirt. While she realized she loved Chris long
before their breakup, she still hadn’t told him.

If she blurted it out in the heat of the moment, it
would seem insincere. If she said it in response to his declaration, it would
be anti-climactic. She kept waiting for the right time until she realized there
could never be a wrong time to tell the man who loves you that you love him,
too. Chris had been so patient. Even now he hadn’t pressed her, asked her, or
even hinted at it.

They had cut the evening short since Rebecca had to
work early in the morning. Closing the door behind him, after another long
goodbye, she decided she would tell him the next time they were together.

She tidied the room, put the remote control back on
the shelf, and placed an empty glass in the sink. As she padded toward the
bathroom in her stocking feet, she slid the elastic band from her ponytail and
freed her hair.

With a flip of a switch, the bathroom light
flickered to life. She slid her hand through her hair surveying herself in the
mirror. Squealing brakes resounded from outside her window. Screeching tires
were followed by the sickening thud of crunching metal.

Until recently, the intersection of Orchard Spring
and Wood roads had stop signs only along Wood Road. Stop signs had been added
to Orchard Spring Road in order to reduce accidents. It worked when people
actually stopped at the new signs, but drivers accustomed to blowing through
the intersection as they descended Orchard Spring Hill were known to ignore the
signs out of sheer habit. The number of accidents had actually increased.

In a minute or so she’d hear the sirens. She turned
on the tub faucet, and her heart lurched. Chris. He couldn’t be much farther
than the intersection.

She turned the water off and didn’t bother with the
light. She grabbed her cell phone and house keys, slipped on her ratty sandals,
and took off out the door. Her hair, freed from its band, whipped behind her as
she raced down the stairs and out toward the sidewalk. As she reached the street,
she noticed cars stopped in either direction. Acrid smoke rose from two
vehicles whose fluids leached out into the street. Although no precipitation
had been forecast, the ground was wet, so there had been a rain shower. She ran
faster and tried to see around the large, black SUV in the middle of the road.
Cloud cover blocked the moonlight, but the intersection was fairly well lit.

As she neared, she spotted it—Chris’s motorcycle
lying on its side.

Where was Chris?

She slowed to a jog as she scanned the area for
him.

The wail of emergency vehicle sirens pierced the
air, growing incrementally louder. Thunder cracked overhead, and in seconds, a
deluge ensued.

Her heels slid on the wet leather soles of her
sandals, and she fell. She brushed the gravel from her skinned knee with her
fingertips and ignored the blood running down her leg.

Her pulse raced and tears formed in her eyes. Had
Chris worn his helmet today? She never saw him ride without it, but he told her
that on particularly nice days he left it at home and enjoyed the feel of the
sun on his face and the wind in his hair. He had it at her apartment, didn’t
he? She berated herself for not paying closer attention. It had been overcast
when he arrived, and she hoped he had worn it. She couldn’t form a thought
other than the prayer she repeated in a continuous loop, “Please, Lord. Let him
be okay.”

A sick feeling settled in her gut. Chris had been
hurt, maybe worse. Her heart pounded, and a sob burst from her lips as she
quickened her pace.

Where is he?
  Tears and rainwater
blurred her vision.

When she came on the scene, the paramedics hadn’t
arrived yet, and Chris lay on his back, half on the berm, half in the street. A
bearded, middle-aged man sat next to him, his lips moving.

She pushed the wet hair away from her face wanting
nothing to obstruct her view of Chris. Eyes closed and motionless, he appeared
unconscious. His left arm curled protectively around his midsection. His helmet
lay on the ground by itself, but his face and head appeared unharmed save for
some abrasions on his right cheek. Rainwater streaked the dirt and blood on his
face, and she wished she could shield him from the storm.

Rebecca dropped to her knees alongside Chris,
opposite the man, and her pantyhose ripped and ran up her uninjured leg. The
fresh brush burns and rough gravel stung her knees. Her discomfort was nothing
compared to the pain Chris must have felt when his body slid across the road.

The smell of burnt rubber, oil, and antifreeze
filled her nostrils. She reached to touch Chris then withdrew her hand for fear
of hurting him.

“Is he alive?”

The man looked up at her, his face blank with shock
as water dripped from his nose and beard. “He’s breathing, but I think he’s
unconscious. I’ve tried talking to him, but he doesn’t respond. Do you know
him?”

“He’s my boyfriend. He left my apartment five
minutes ago.” Her
boyfriend
. Had she ever called him that before? He
loved her, and he reminded her of that at every opportunity, and she hadn’t
even been able to call him what he was to her.

Flickering red and blue emergency lights reflected
in an oily puddle on the side of the road. In seconds, the emergency personnel
descended and jostled her out of the way. An EMT removed Chris’s boot and cut
away the bottom of his jeans. How hadn’t she noticed that they were soaked in
blood? Another EMT worked near his head. A third prepared to transfer him to
the ambulance.

The police diverted traffic around the accident,
which seemed to involve Chris’s motorcycle, the bulky, black SUV, and a maroon
Dodge Ram. Several people—the other drivers or witnesses?—surrounded one of the
police officers.

Rebecca turned her attention back to Chris. The
EMTs got in position to lift him into the ambulance.

“I want to go with him.” She didn’t know what protocol
existed or if she had to be family, so she said it with as much determination
as she could muster through her tears. She would not leave him.

“Sorry, miss. Only patients in the ambulance.”

She needed to be with Chris when he arrived at the
hospital. She wrung her hands and swallowed back a fresh round of tears.

“Miss?” The bearded man who had sat with Chris
touched her arm. “I can drive you.”

“Can you? Thank you so much.” It crossed her mind
that she had just agreed to get in a car with a strange man, but she dismissed
her worries. She’d just have to trust that this guy really was a Good
Samaritan.

When she arrived at the hospital, they took Chris
from her again. They had to treat him, of course, but it frustrated her
nonetheless. She provided the admissions desk with all of the information she
could. She hadn’t even thought about searching for any of his belongings at the
scene and assumed the police would take care of that. He kept his
identification and insurance cards in his wallet, which he tucked in his back
pocket.

Contacting Chris’s family concerned her most. She
didn’t have his parents’ phone numbers, but Chris texted Alan from her phone
once when his battery died, so she had his number. Her call rolled directly to
voicemail. After three attempts, she remembered they were out of the country.
Before their breakup, Chris had mentioned something about them all going on a
European vacation to celebrate his parents’ wedding anniversary. He said he
couldn’t go because of work.

Rebecca couldn’t remember when they had left or
when they’d return, and she didn’t know what to do besides leave messages. She
spent an hour pacing the waiting room, praying and texting Abby when Alan
finally called.

“Rebecca, what happened?” His voice was deep and
raspy. What time was it where he was at?

She told him everything she could about the
accident and Chris’s condition, which wasn’t much. Alan put his end on mute for
a couple of minutes to talk with his family and then told her they’d be on the
first flight home in the morning. “Alan, I don’t think his life’s in danger
although they haven’t told me much, but if there are any decisions to make…”

“Call me, okay? We had our phones off and were
checking messages periodically, but as of now the phones stay on. It’s the
middle of the night here. I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to check my messages.
I’m glad I did.”

“Me, too.”

“Tell him to hang in there, we love him, and we’re
on our way.”

“I will.” Tears filled her eyes again, and she
swallowed the lump in her throat.

“Rebecca, we’re glad you’re there with him,
especially my mom. You hang in there, too. We’ll be there as soon as possible.”

It seemed like hours until they finally updated her
on Chris’s condition and moved him to a private room. Abrasions covered most of
the right side of his body, particularly his leg. He had been knocked
unconscious, so they weren’t certain of the extent of his injuries, but it
appeared he had neither broken bones nor any internal damage. They suspected a
certain amount of head trauma in spite of the fact that he had been wearing a
helmet, although it was unclear how it had been removed after impact. Most
likely Chris had taken it off himself before he lost consciousness.

Rebecca sat in the chair and stared at Chris as if
in a trance. The nurse finished adjusting the IV pole and slid the wheeled tray
from the foot of the bed to the side. She closed the window blinds, blocking
the glare of headlights as they passed. On her way out, the nurse gently
squeezed Rebecca’s shoulder, a simple gesture that pushed her over the edge. As
soon as the door closed behind the nurse, all the pent-up tears flowed in a
torrent while Rebecca buried her head in the sheet covering Chris’s lower body.

After a few minutes, she lifted her head and slowed
her tears enough to let her hand grope around for his. Finding it, she pulled
his cool hand out of the covers and lay it on top of the sheet. His gloves had
done their job in protecting his hands. She rubbed her hand over his, trying to
warm it before grasping it firmly in her own.

She stared at it, remembering all the ways she’d
touched and been touched by his hands. She pictured his hand in those
fingerless gloves he wore when she first met him at the dairy case. Those
strong hands staked their canopy in the rain. That hand had been bruised when
he tried to take down a man who dared say something bad about her in his
presence. Later that hand strummed the guitar. That hand gripped a hammer as he
pounded nails into her dad’s porch floor. They were the same hands that so
tenderly touched her face and wove themselves through her hair. She’d seen them
gloved and gripping the handlebars of his motorcycle and bare, folded in prayer
as they rested on the back of a pew. She loved those hands just as she loved
the man they belonged to.

“I love you.” She sobbed and then reached for a
tissue on the table next to his bed, wiping her nose before she dared try to
continue. “I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to say it. I wasn’t sure at
first. I’ve never been in love before. And then I was afraid. I might have to
really think about my faith or take a stand with my dad. And all this time I’ve
been a coward and wouldn’t say it. And yet you stayed with me. And now I’m
afraid I won’t get the chance to tell you.”

Chris lay perfectly still on the bed. She pushed
his hair back at his temple. How many times had his mother done that when he
was a little boy? Her chest tightened and her stomach knotted at the thought of
Chris’s family not being there.
They should be here.

Loathe to admit it, Rebecca envied Chris when it
came to family. His parents provided a stable, loving presence in his life, and
even as an adult, their love and protection surrounded him.

Chris’s life, even his faith life, had a richness
and depth she’d never experienced. Jesus remained at the center, but Jesus’
parents, especially his mother Mary and mother Church played an integral role,
too. A whole communion of saints in heaven as well as brothers and sisters in
Christ on earth stood side-by-side as extended family.

Her dad’s church boasted a tight-knit community,
but in Chris’s parish, though they seemed less personally demonstrative — maybe
less effusive and less apt to share Sunday potlucks — they seemed somehow
connected. Chris attributed it to their being physically bound by the
Eucharist, the sharing of Christ’s body and blood.

Her hand covered Chris’s and she rubbed her thumb
over his, smoothing his skin. She felt compelled to pray, but she wasn’t sure
how. Her gaze drifted from his serene face to his personal items in a plastic
bag on the table next to the bed. She gently lifted her hand, stepped over to
the table, and opened the bag. She carefully pulled out Chris’s rosary
beads—round, smooth, wooden beads strung together and knotted with brown cord.
Simple and masculine.