The Song Remains the Same (51 page)

I’d delivered the worst of it.

Jason simply picked up where I’d left off. “Tim and Mack are dead, too.”

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ!” cried Phil.

“But Flipper’s going to be fine,” I said quickly. “And Sheri’s going to pull through this. Viv had only minor injuries. Connor and the rest of the crew made it out without a scratch.”

“Oh God…” Phil moaned, his right hand releasing me and covering his face. His swollen, busted lips quivered as he attempted to control the urge to cry again. “This isn’t happenin’. It ain’t real.”

Jason sniffled. “I don’t know what to do.”

None of us did.

Between X’s parents and Alys, it was decided that X would be cremated, and a funeral would be held when it was possible for everyone to attend. After the cremation, Alys returned to New Orleans with his remains and moved back into our house. Lili and Lewis went with her to make sure Alys wouldn’t be alone in her misery.

A week after the accident, Sheri was awakened from her coma, and her improvement over the following days was borderline miraculous. Jason refused to leave her side, and two weeks after being in a horrific nine-vehicle pileup, Sheri walked out of the hospital and onto a plane back home.

Flipper and Viv left a week after that. His arm was healing, and his crushed ribs were doing well enough for him to venture back home, too.

That left Phil.

Out of ICU, it had become mostly about keeping his pelvis stable, so the healing would be clean. He was put in a private room where an extra bed was brought in for me or his dad or sometimes Connor to sleep in. We kept one room at the hotel, so we could return, shower, and relax in intervals.

Day by day, Phil’s body healed, but his heart and mind slipped further into depression. His demons grew in strength, giving him night terrors, making him dream of X dying over and over. At first, he would talk to me about them, but after a while, he closed up.

Even though his bones were mending, the restricted activity and lack of decent food had Phil dropping weight. His huge frame started to poke through his dwindling musculature, and it was frightening to see the hollows in his face, the sharp cheekbones protruding. His collarbone severely peeked through his shirt.

I brought him food that should’ve made him happy to eat, but he mostly prodded and pushed it around on his plate.

“I’m not hungry,” he told me for the millionth time, clicking the morphine drip again. “I feel sick when I eat.”

“Because you won’t eat at all,” I snapped. “You have to eat to heal, babe. The longer it takes, the longer it will be before you can get out of here.”

“If you want to go home, just go,” he spit.

Shocked, wounded to my core, I asked, “How can you say that to me?”

Looking uncomfortable with himself—
as he should, the prick!
—he couldn’t meet my eyes. “I’ll try to eat later.”

“Do you
want
me to go?” I asked.

“No.”

“You sure about that?”

He nodded. “I’m just sick of everythin’, Kenna.”

“I get that,” I told him, placing the Tupperware of seafood gumbo on the bedside table, within reach if he changed his mind. “I’ll be back later.”

“Where are you goin’?”

“Just have a few errands to run. Your dad should be here in a few minutes.”

Heart sore, I left the room, not bothering to kiss him good-bye. Guilt flared in me, but he was being an asshole. Heading to another wing in the hospital, I made sure no one I knew saw where I was going.

Obstetrics.

A few days ago, I’d snuck into the bathroom of yet another wing of the hospital, and I had taken a pregnancy test. It hadn’t even taken the full three minutes before it showed two pink lines, confirming what I’d already known. Afterward, I’d made an appointment with a gynecologist, and that was where I was headed.

Dr. Umbra was a middle-aged woman who seemed kind and friendly. “So, you’re a doctor, too?” she asked, smiling.

“I am,” I replied, hopping up on the table and lying back.

She had me lift my shirt and scoot down my pants. Then, she squirted cold gel on my belly. My heart was tripping, and no matter what I told myself, I was near sick with excitement and fear. The sonogram roamed along until it picked up the sound of the fetus’s heart.

Swish, swish-swish, swish…

Dr. Umbra’s eyes clashed with mine, and she knew she couldn’t give me the regular spiel she’d be firing off at another patient. She moved the sonogram around more, and still, it was the same.

Swish, swish-swish, swish-swish, swish…

There was something
wrong
with it. She knew it, and
I
certainly knew it. That heartbeat was weak, without proper rhythm, an arrhythmia of fatalistic proportions. How it was even still alive was a total mystery.

“Dr. MacGregor,” she said quietly.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “I…I had a feeling that something wasn’t right.”

Turning off the sonogram and wiping my abdomen free of the gel, she didn’t question my feeling. Sitting up, I pulled up my underwear and jeans, noticing how loose they’d become. I should’ve been putting on weight. Instead, I had been dropping pounds.

“These sort of things happen all the time,” she was saying. “Chances are, you will miscarry.”

Nodding, I’d been thinking along the same lines. Carrying to full-term wouldn’t be happening. That didn’t surprise me. It was as though I’d already prepared myself for this,
expected
it.

“There’s the option of terminating the pregnancy,” she gently told me. “It would be easier on you physically. Unless there are some religious beliefs?”

I shook my head. “No, but I need to think about it.”

“Of course. If you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to come see me.”

“Thank you.”

Instead of going back and dealing with Phil, King of the Grumps, I went to the hotel and got a room for myself. Grabbing my stuff from the room I shared with Connor, I went to my own and simply sat there in silence, searching for some peace in the world of turmoil surrounding me.

This was a new low for me. I had dealt with the loss of loved ones, had grieved deeply for long stretches of time.

But
this…

“I love you already, and I don’t even know you,”
I told it, placing my hand over my womb.
“Even though I had a feeling that something wasn’t right, I still want you.”

Not even consciously aware of what I was doing, I stripped down to my underwear and tank top before fixing myself into lotus pose. Weary, bruised soul deep, I sank into myself, into the soft darkness that was the most comfortable place in my world.

A tiny flicker, a flame with the life force of its father.

I see it, and I head for it. Pulsing with light, it mimics its fragile heartbeat.

Swish, swish-swish, swish.

For some minutes, we simply acknowledge each other, passing back and forth waves of love, a most basic exchange between beings. This little pulsar, weak and unwell as it is, loves me, for I’m its mother, it’s my child, and it was created by the great love Phil and I bear for one another. It knows how much Phil loves because it’s half of him. It knows how strong I am, which is why it’s strong enough to ask me to hold on to it. I have to hold on to it for as long as it’s meant to be within me.

“I will lose you no matter what, won’t I?”

“Yes.” Its voice is not really a voice, so much as a feeling.

But I understand. Somehow, a mother always can, if she listens hard enough
.

Seeing it, feeling it, the abnormal pulse of it, I’m both grateful and sad. More than anything, I want to fight to save it, bring it forth into the world and place it in Phil’s arms. It’s why I can never tell him. Phil will fall in love so hard with this spark, that to lose it, especially now, will destroy him.

“Can you help me to be strong?” I ask my pulsar, flickering in the zephyr created by its
swish, swish-swish, swish.
“Until I have to let you go, will you help me stay strong for him? You love him, too. He’s going to need us.”

“Yes!” it replies, pulsing a little brighter.

Good.

Then, I can be that much stronger, too.

When I finally opened my eyes, some three hours had passed. Though I was beyond exhausted, I felt better, stronger in my head. Knowing what I was facing, I was no longer terrified. Alone, heartbroken, and soul-weary, yes, I was, but I was not afraid.

The thought of having to go back to the hospital and deal with Phil’s shit attitude had me stressed out and feeling sick. I jumped in the shower, scrubbing myself and soaking in the hot water for at least thirty more minutes. When I got out, I was
done
.

Crawling beneath the covers, I was asleep within minutes.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Fuck me
,
is someone trying to break down the damn door?

Groggy and uncoordinated, I located a pair of sweatpants and went to answer it.

“What?” I asked, irritated.

Connor stood there, angrier than I’d ever seen him before. “What do you mean, what?” he snarled. He shoved his way inside.

“What are you doing, banging on the door like that?” I snarled right back.

“You packed up your shit and fuckin’ disappeared, told no one where you were or what you were doing! You made me track your ass down at the front desk! Phil’s going apeshit because you won’t answer your phone—”

“Enough!” I roared. “I needed some fucking privacy and decent fucking sleep! And Phil has been a right little bitch! He can go without me for a few hours—”

“Few hours?”
Connor raged. “No one has seen you for a
whole fucking day
, Kenna!”

“Say what?”

“You left Phil yesterday at two p.m. It’s now the
next day
at four in the afternoon! No one has heard from or seen you in twenty-six fucking hours!”

Grabbing the Burlap Beast, I dug out my phone. Phil had called
sixty-three
times, leaving almost as many text messages. “Holy shit! I’m so sorry. I didn’t…”