Scratch the Surface

“Nice,” I replied sarcastically.

“Well”—my mother reached out to take hold of my hand—“can I assume this means you won’t be living in your house full-time for a while?”

I nodded. “I can work there, and his school and his jobs are in Sacramento. He’s not mobile.”

“I understand. He told me how much he loves you, and I can certainly tell how you feel about him, so you being there with him is the only thing that makes sense, though I’ll miss you terribly. You had better show up for every holiday,” she warned me.

I cleared my throat of the sudden lump lodged there. “He told you he loves me?”

“Yes, he did.” She squeezed my hand. “You’re the most important person in his life; he made that clear. He also said he didn’t want to hurt me, but that living with you was necessary for his happiness.”

I nodded.

“As I suspect is the case for you as well.”

I squinted at her. “I don’t know what happened, but there was this––”

“The sun came out when he smiled,” my father said, and we all turned to look at him leaning on the doorjamb, grinning. “I know exactly how it is, kid. Believe me, I do.”

My mother’s eyes were swimming with tears, and she rushed over to my father and into his arms.

“Don’t worry,” he told me after he kissed my mother, holding her close. “We’ll take care of the house for you and Jeremiah. This’ll give your mother the opportunity to get in there and redecorate without you underfoot.”

“What?”

“The artwork can stay; that’s all lovely,” she declared, sniffling, turning her head to look at me, wiping away her tears. “And your office is rather charming with that gorgeous orrery, but all the rest is so very––”

“Antiseptic, cold, like a sensory-deprivation chamber?” Courtney offered cheerfully.

“I was going to say like a hospital,” my father chimed in. “Or some sort of military facility, perhaps, like an underground bunker or a bomb shelter.”

“A bomb shelter.” My mother gasped. “Yes, that’s it exactly.”

“What?” I repeated defensively, glaring at my parents.

“Oh,” my mother said, pointing behind me.

AJ lifted his head, yawned, and then dropped it onto the back of the couch. Rick was next to come around, and finally Jeremiah, who was squinting at us through his left eye.

“Don’t you guys have a party to host?” he slurred, and then lay back down, followed by one dog, then the other.

My mother grinned, thoroughly enchanted, and we watched as she darted over to the couch and walked around the front to give each of her dogs a kiss. Jeremiah was next, and she pushed his hair back and planted one on his forehead.

He smiled just like the wolfhounds did.

19

Jeremiah

A month later, as we were preparing to drive back to Palo Alto to spend Christmas with his parents, planning on staying until the day before New Year’s Eve so we could spend that night alone together in Sacramento, I got a call from his assistant, Donna, that he’d been in an accident.

It was the Thursday before the holiday, and I didn’t have to work, so I was home to receive the news.

I rushed out of the apartment and climbed on my bike, which Zack had promised was good as new but Cameron still hated, and blew out of the complex and sped toward the same hospital I’d been in not so long ago.

It was surreal, the things that went through your mind in times of untold stress. As I drove to reach him, everything that had happened since Thanksgiving, like his family welcoming me wholeheartedly into the fold, flashed through my mind. His best friend, Mike, and Mike’s wife, Talia, had been uncertain of me at first. Their kids had not. When they piled on top of me, all three of them, and we all lay on the floor and colored, that was it, I was family. It solidified when Talia learned I was going to be a social worker. She was an elementary school teacher, and we started talking nonstop.

If I wasn’t on the phone handling a work situation, I was talking to her, Makayla, or his mother.

All of that went through my head as his assistant’s words played back on a continuous loop, that he’d been in a car accident and was in the hospital.

We’d been together such a short time, but it finally felt like I could have the things I’d always dreamed about: a husband who made me happy, a home that was warm and inviting, a family that loved me, friends who counted on me, colleagues who respected me, and a career to be proud of. I didn’t see darkness anymore, it was all light, all sunshine, rich amber tones, no more gray.

But now…

My heart wrenched in my chest, and it was difficult to keep the motorcycle steady, what with how hard I was shaking. When I pulled into the hospital lot and parked, I went to get off my bike and run inside, but all of a sudden my vision blurred and I couldn’t breathe. It took long minutes to find my control and not hyperventilate, and once I felt somewhat stable again, I stood, but was on the ground seconds later, my knees having buckled under me. The tears were no surprise. I pressed my hands to the pavement and tried to push myself up, needing to get to my feet, needing to reach him, to hold his hand like I always did.