Blue Wide Sky Read online

  “Did you learn anything?” I ask carefully.

  I hear him draw in a deep breath and release it slowly. “I’m afraid it’s not good,” he says, and he can barely get the words out.

  “What? What is it, Ben?”

  He tries to answer, but the words break off. Finally, he manages, “Sam . . . he has a brain tumor, Gabby.”

  I don’t know what I had expected him to say, but I am sure I have heard him wrong. “But that can’t be. He’s healthy and fit and—”

  “I know,” Ben says, tears still wavering through his voice.

  “But . . . how bad is it?”

  “From the CAT scan results they did tonight, it’s not good. I was able to speak to his doctor in London. The tumor has grown since his last scan there. Which explains his pain and passing out earlier.”

  I try to process the words, but it’s as if they are boulders I’m trying to filter through a sieve. “What do we do?” I ask, broken.

  “I’m catching the next available flight there. I’ve asked the hospital to keep him comfortable, so he will be heavily sedated. I’ve also instructed them to add you and your daughter to the visitor’s list.”

  “Thank you,” I say, numb.

  “Will you call me if anything changes? Anything at all?”

  “Of course. And what about his family? His son and daughter, I mean?”

  “I’ll let them know. Thank you, Gabby. See you soon.”

  I end the call, but don’t move, as if I have been turned to stone. I don’t know what to think, what to feel. I just know I can’t see him. Can’t face him. If he wakes up, how can I possibly keep the grief from my eyes?

  I move then, running back into the waiting area and gently shaking Kat awake. “We need to leave, honey.”

  She rubs her eyes and looks at me, her voice hoarse with sleep. “But we haven’t seen Sam yet.”

  “I know, sweetie. We just need to get home, okay?”

  “But no one else is here for him,” she says, tears welling up.

  “I’ll call in the morning,” I say, pushing her through the double doors.

  I help her into the car and then get behind the wheel. My chest feels as if it is going to explode with a horrible mix of anger and sadness. I can barely swallow, and tears blur my vision as I pull out of the parking lot.

  “I don’t understand, Mama,” Kat says, the words a little accusing.

  “I know, sweetie. Neither do I.”

  ~

  AS SOON AS WE get home, I help Kat to her bed. She’s so tired she can’t hold her eyes open. We don’t bother with her pajamas. She just slides under the covers. I pull the blankets up around her, kiss her forehead and leave the room, closing the door quietly behind me.

  It’s five-thirty in the morning, and sleep is the last thing I can think about. I go in my room and change into shorts and a T-shirt, and then put on my running shoes.

  I let myself out of the house just as the sun starts to peek up from behind Smith Mountain. I start to run, as hard as I can, the sprint straining my lungs until it feels as if they are screaming inside me.

  I run along the edge of the state road, grateful there are no cars this early. When the tears come, they geyser up and out of me, streaming down my face and blending with the sweat on my face. I am sobbing outright now, but I keep running. I can’t stop. If I do, I am sure I will drown in the sorrow coming out of me.

  I run until I physically give out, stumbling and falling onto the grass at the side of the road. I pull my legs up against my chest, my arm over my face. And I cry until there isn’t a single tear left inside me.

  There was another time in my life when I cried like this for Sam. When I thought I had lost him forever. I wonder now if I always had some small ray of hope that we might one day be together again. As horrible as that time had been, as grief-stricken as I was, that had been nothing compared to this.

  If we could, I would go back, live through all that again even with no hope of me ever seeing him. Because he would still be in this world. And I could live with that.

  But this? A world without Sam anywhere in it? I cannot imagine.

  Bad dreams are fears gasping for breath.

  ~ Author Unknown

  Kat

  I see Mama falling. It’s some kind of ledge, and I’m running to her, as fast as my legs will move. But I’m not quick enough. She’s slipping from the edge, dropping off into empty space.

  I scream her name over and over again, waking up and jerking upright in my bed. I am sweating, and my pajamas are sticking to me. “Mama!” I scream.

  The house is quiet, but there’s light coming through my curtains.

  “Mama!” I call out again, jumping out of bed and instantly feeling the snap of pain in my back.

  I press my hand to it, half-limping to the kitchen and not finding her there. I hurry through the rest of the house, but she’s not here. I think about the hospital, Sam and what happened to him last night. Mama wouldn’t tell me, but I know something is horribly wrong. And I don’t know how that can be because he looks so healthy, like there couldn’t possibly be anything wrong with him.

  But that’s how we lose people. They can be fine one minute. And gone from our life the next. When I was in the first grade, there was a girl named Cassie in my class whose mama got sick. When she went to the doctor, they told her she had three months to live. She didn’t even live that long, and Cassie had to go and live with her grandmother in Kentucky.

  After that, I didn’t want to go to regular school anymore. I wanted to be at home with Mama where I could make sure nothing happened to her.

  I don’t want to be left. I don’t want to be alone.

  “Mama!” I call out again. When there’s no answer, I sit down on the living room couch and start to cry.

  We all need each other.

  ~ Leo Buscaglia

  Gabby

  I walk back. My legs feel as if they have been turned to lead, and it takes me a while to get back to the house. When I reach my driveway, I see Annie’s car parked at an angle, the driver’s side door open.

  Fear grips my chest, and I run to the door, calling out, “Kat? Annie?”

  “We’re in here, Mama,” Kat calls from the kitchen.

  She’s sitting at the table next to Annie, and I can see that she’s been crying.

  “What is it? Did something happen?”

  “I woke up and you weren’t here. I got worried that something happened to you like what happened to Sam.”

  “Oh, honey,” I say, walking over to drop onto my knees in front of her. “I’m sorry. I’m fine. I went for a run. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “I knew you were upset,” she says, wiping the back of her hand across her eyes. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  I put my arms around her and hug her tight.

  Annie smooths her hand over the back of my hair and says, “Oh, Gabby. Kat told me what happened. I’m so sorry.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut and struggle for composure. “You did warn me, didn’t you? That I would get my heart broken again.”

  Annie leans back a bit, as if I have struck her. “Gabby. This isn’t the same. I never—”

  I start to sob then. No matter how hard I try to hold it back, grief and anger and outrage boil up from deep inside me, spilling out in a flood of fresh tears.

  Annie leans in, putting her arms around Kat and me, encircling us with love and compassion. “How could this happen, Annie?”

  “Oh, Gabby. I don’t know why bad things like this happen to people who surely don’t deserve it.”

  “He’s young. Forty-two.”

  “I know.”

  I open my mouth to say more, and then press my lips together. How many other people have I known who have had tragedy in their lives? People who tried to live right, be kind, give back to the world more than they took. Fair isn’t a word that applies to our existence here. It’s not a word that applies to my love for Sam. Our timing has never aligned with t
he realities of our lives.

  “What can I do, Gabby?” Annie asks softly.

  I stand. “Let me get Kat back to bed for a bit. Maybe you could make some coffee?”

  “I could use some myself,” Annie says.

  ~

  ANNIE IS POURING coffee into two mugs on the table when I walk back into the kitchen.

  “Sit,” she says. “And drink.”

  “Thank you,” I say, pulling out a chair and forcing myself to take a sip of the coffee.

  “What are you going to do?” Annie asks quietly.

  “I can’t go back to the hospital. I can’t see him like that.”

  “Kat said his brother, Ben, is on the way. How long before he gets here?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head.

  “So no one is there with him?”

  “No.”

  Annie reaches out and covers my hand with hers. “I know you’re scared for him, for what you feel for him. But you need me to be your friend right now, so I’m going to be. If you don’t go there and be with him, and something happens, you will never forgive yourself, Gabby. I know you. And I know this.”

  I stare at our joined hands while fear thrashes around inside me. “We just found each other again, Annie.”

  “I know, honey. And he’s going to need you.”

  “When he collapsed, he fell into the lake. I didn’t think I was going to be able to save him, Annie. He just kept going down and down and—”

  “You saved his life. That can’t be for nothing.”

  I know she’s right. I have to go back. As terrified as I am to face what I will find there, I have to see him.

  “Can you take Kat home with you when she wakes up?”

  “Sure I can. Do you want me to come to the hospital?”

  “I think I need to do this by myself. Thank you, Annie.”

  “Don’t shut me out, okay? I want to be here for you. You need me to be here for you.”

  I lean over and give her a hug, more thankful for her friendship than ever.

  If we had known the path, would we still have taken it?

  ~ Author Unknown

  Sam

  I hear people coming and going around me. Soft shoes, hushed voices, the disinfectant smell I recognize so well.

  I’m in the hospital. I try to open my eyes, but it’s as if they’ve been sealed shut, and I’m a prisoner behind them. I want to call out to whoever is in the room, but I can’t force any words through my lips.

  My memory struggles to grab onto something. I can’t figure out what.

  And then Gabby’s face flashes through my groggy thoughts. I hear her voice screaming my name over and over again. I remember falling into the water and then the instant blackness. Waking up on the shore with Gabby over me, looking down at me with frantic eyes.

  I realize then that she pulled me out of the water. Kept me from drowning. She saved my life.

  And for what?

  I wonder if it would have been better for us all if she had let me go, if she had just let me drown.

  By now, she must know. I can hardly bear the thought that I have broken her heart not once in our lives, but twice.

  I feel the tears slip through my closed eyes and slide down my face. I cannot lift a hand to wipe them away.

  There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.

  ~ Willa Cather

  Gabby

  Sam is in the ICU, so I can only go in for brief visits.

  The first time, I can do nothing but stand by the side of his bed, not touching him, not speaking. To anyone looking on, I am a statue, an emotionless bystander with nothing to offer the man lying unconscious before me.

  But on the inside, I am being shredded into a thousand different feelings, and letting any one of them out will surely mean I won’t be allowed to come back in the room again. What I want to do, what I need to do, is scream for him to wake up, to tell me none of this is true. That everything is going to be fine.

  But he can’t. And when my time is up, I walk with my blank face to the nearest women’s restroom where I lock myself in a stall and sob until I can’t breathe.

  I stay in the rest room until I have myself under control again. I resolve to make my time in Sam’s room about him and not me. And so, during the next fifteen-minute visit, I talk about things we used to do, friends we used to hang around with, hopes, dreams. Every good thing I can think to voice aloud, I do.

  When I leave the room, I sit in the waiting area and think about the next time I go in and what I can give to Sam. Making this about me will take more from him. He’s already had so much taken away. I will give him everything I have to give. What else can I do?

  We came into the world like brother and brother; And now let’s go hand in hand, not one before another.

  ~ William Shakespeare

  Gabby

  I have been at the hospital for twenty-six hours when Ben gets off the elevator just outside the ICU. Our gazes meet in instant recognition. I stand, and he walks over to me, his expression heavy and tired.

  “I would have recognized you anywhere,” he says. “You haven’t changed.”

  I shake my head in disagreement, but say, “Thank you. How are you, Ben?”

  “Glad to finally be here,” he says. “How is he?”

  “He seems peaceful. Not in pain.”

  “I stopped downstairs to find out when I can meet with Sam’s doctors. The administrator gave me this.”

  He pulls a folded piece of paper from his jacket pocket. His name is written on the outside in Sam’s handwriting. “What does it say?” I ask softly.

  “I haven’t read it yet. I guess I’m a little afraid to.” He unfolds the paper, holding it where I can see it. It’s only a few paragraphs. He starts to read.

  Dear Ben,

  If you have been given this letter, then I know something has happened before your return from Hawaii. I’ve known about my illness for several weeks now. It took a bit for me to decide how I felt about it, how much I was willing to do.

  It’s a little ironic, I guess, that I’ve ended up with the very thing you spend your days battling. But truthfully, there’s no other hero I would want on my side than you. Once I learned about the trip you had planned, I decided to wait until you returned. I didn’t want to deny you and your family that time together.

  Honestly, even with your incredible skills, I know my case is on the fringes of surgery even being an option. I’ve been told it’s unlikely that the tumor is malignant, but because of the size and location, removing it might mean that I will lose most of my memories, possibly have to learn how to walk and talk again.

  You know me, Ben, and the thought of basically starting life over again as someone other than who I am, well, that’s not something I want to do. I trust you to evaluate my case and make the decision you believe I would want you to make.

  I rewrote this letter a few days ago. Unbelievably, Gabby and I have found each other again, but I know I have been cruel to her for opening a door I had no right to open. I’ve been too much of a coward to tell her, and maybe selfish too. The time we’ve had together has restored my belief in the fact that we really do have soul mates in this world. She is mine. If I can’t be who she fell in love with, that’s not a person I want to be.

  I love you, brother. Be the incredible doctor that you are in making this decision. If I’m not fixable, let me go.

  Sam

  I can’t look at Ben for a full minute after he closes the letter. I stare down at my clasped hands, my chest tight with pain. He reaches over and covers my hands with his. I glance up and see his eyes liquid with an agony I can only imagine he must feel as Sam’s brother.

  “I haven’t seen the scans yet,” he says, “but I will have to honor what he has asked of me.”

  I nod once, but I can’t hold back the sob that escapes my throat. Ben puts his arm around me and pulls me close. “I’m so sorry, Gabby. I’m so sorry.”

 
“And I am for you,” I manage to say. I look up at him then, force my gaze to his. “Can I just say that I understand what Sam has said about how he might be affected by surgery? But for me, I don’t believe that removing a tumor can steal what’s in a person’s heart, can change the soul of who they are. I know Sam’s heart and soul. And those are the things I love him for.”

  Ben puts his hand to my face and says, “I will do everything I can, Gabby.”

  “Thank you, Ben. I know Sam trusts you completely.”

  Ben stands and says, “I hope I can live up to it. I’ll be back to let you know something as soon as I can.”

  As I watch him walk away, I can only imagine the weight of responsibility on his shoulders. He must make decisions like this every day, but with the distance of objectivity and professionalism.

  His love for his brother will be a double-edge sword. It is a terrible place to be.

  The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

  ~ Mahatma Gandhi

  Kat

  I’ve been at Annie’s house for a full day when I suddenly remember Sam’s cat. I tell Annie about him and ask her if she’ll drive me over to Sam’s house to check on him.

  Annie is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, so we’re in the car within five minutes.

  When we pull into the driveway, there sits Eli on the front step in the same statue pose he’d been in the day we got back from Duke.

  I get out of the car, careful not to twist my back, and walk slowly over to him. Annie follows me, saying, “Do you think he has food and water?”

  I reach down to rub Eli’s back and say, “Maybe on the side porch?”

  I pick him up, and we walk around the house to the porch where the door is held open with a flower pot. There’s still plenty of food and water in the two bowls next to a table, so he hasn’t been hungry or thirsty.