Hypothetical Heart (Farewell Fairwood #2)

Chapter 10

10

T he only full memories I have from the day my mom died are all the extremely normal aspects of it.

It’s always been odd to me that the only things I remember about the most traumatic day of my life are the parts of it that happened every other day.

I remember leaving for school that morning, saying bye to Mom as I walked out the door. I remember the ride to and from school with Logan and his mom. Even down to the smallest details, I can recall exactly what I wore that day and what dance we practiced in ballet.

But the last thing I remember is walking through the front door of my house, just like I had done every other day, and thinking it was eerily quiet.

Flashback: 3 years ago

“I’m home!” I call through the foyer as I open the coat closet and hang up my backpack.

I make it all the way through the kitchen and living room before I hear the sounds of rushed screaming. “I’ll be there soon! Tell them I’ll be there soon!” It’s Dad.

I’m taken aback. Dad never yells. “Dad?”

He comes out of my parent’s bedroom and into the living room. “I don’t give a fuck if I’m not allowed to operate on family members! I’m the best heart surgeon in Connecticut, and my wife—” He stops yelling into the phone when he sees me.

“What’s going on?” I ask, sensing something is terribly wrong. “Where’s Mom?”

My dad’s face pales at the question. “I have to go. My daughter is home,” he says, voice void of any emotion. “I’ll be there soon.” He hangs up.

“What’s happening?” I ask again.

“Winnie, we have to go,” he says sternly. “Come on.”

I don’t question it. I follow him out to the car, and before either of us even put our seatbelts on, he’s pulling out of the driveway.

“Winnie, I need you to listen to me,” he says, grabbing my attention. “Mom has been in an accident. I have no idea how bad it is or what the circumstances are, so I need to warn you, just in case.”

“Just in case what?” My voice cracks. “Is she going to die?”

When he said, I have no idea how bad it is ,I didn’t think he meant she could be dead. I thought he meant he didn’t know if she had a broken arm or something of smaller caliber.

She can’t be dead, right? The police would be at the house if she was dead.

When he doesn’t answer, I really start to cry.

“I don’t know, Winnie,” he says, but it’s buried in a deep breath. “There are a lot of worst-case scenarios, but we won’t really know until we get to the hospital.”

The rest of the drive is silent, besides Dad telling me not to tell Weston. He’s in college in California, and telling him would only upset him when there’s nothing he can currently do.

When we get to the hospital, we park at the ER entrance. I know we’re not supposed to, but Dad has special privileges being the head cardiac surgeon, so he knows he won’t get in trouble.

“I need you to go to the waiting room, Winnifred,” Dad tells me as he bursts through the door, me following closely behind. He only calls me Winnifred when he’s serious. “There are going to be things you’re not going to want to see.”

I know what he’s suggesting. If I see Mom in one of the emergency rooms and she dies, that’s going to be the last image I ever have of her.

Although, what I’m imagining right now is probably much worse than anything actually possible.

One nurse led me out of the ER and into a private family room, saying she didn’t want to make me sit in the actual waiting room by myself.

She tells me her name is Melanie, and that she’s going to stay until my dad comes back.

Nobody knows when he’s coming back, and the longer I wait here, the worse I start to feel.

It feels like hours I’ve been sitting here, and if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve been staring at the clock, watching the minutes go by, I would have thought that’s how long I’d been here.

At 5:05, Melanie gets me a snack and a drink, making a comment about how I must not have eaten dinner yet.

I don’t eat it, and I don’t think Melanie takes offense when I don’t say thank you.

More time ticks by, and when the clock hits 6:22, I hear a sob out in the hallway.

I’ve never heard my dad cry before, and I have no real reason to believe it’s him crying in the hallway outside, but somehow, I just know.

And I know my mom just died. A single tear runs down my cheek.

A few minutes later, my suspicions are confirmed when the door of the family room slowly creeps open, revealing my dad. His navy scrubs are covered in blood. I know he tried to help.

Melanie leaves the room when I really start to cry.

“Winnie,” his voice trails off as he approaches.

I grip my chest through my shirt. The familiar feeling of suffocating has completely taken over my body.

Dad grabs my hand, kneeling in front of the chair I’m sitting in. “Try to breathe, honey.”

I didn’t even realize I wasn’t breathing until he was pushing my head between my legs, attempting to open my airway. I hear my gasping breaths. I feel my dad’s hand raking through my hair, but other than that, I’m numb.

“It will pass. Just try to breathe.” Dad’s crying too, his hand running up and down my back, as both of our tears fall onto the floor that I’m staring at.

I don’t know how long we sit there because I’m not staring at the clock anymore, but I know it’s long enough for me to feel my entire body go limp in my dad’s arms and for him to have to pick me up and carry me to a couch.

I know it’s long enough for Melanie to come back in and for Dad to ask her if she can bring him his stethoscope.

I’m not sure how long Dad sits with me, listening to my heartbeat every few minutes, asking me to breathe in and out.

Another doctor comes in, handing my dad a cup of coffee. “Do you think she needs to be admitted?” I faintly hear her ask.

“I’m not sure,” he sighs, taking a large gulp of the coffee. “We’re not going home tonight. I know that much.” I nod. I can’t walk back into my house, where there are pieces of my mom everywhere.

“Is there anyone you’d like me to call?” she asks.

“No, no. I should do it.” Dad stands, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “Do you mind staying with her?”

“No, not at all,” the woman says, taking a seat where he was just sitting on the couch at my feet. “Take your time.”

I turn around when my dad leaves the room. I recognize the woman.

“What’s your name?”

“Elizabeth,” she replies.

“Do you know how she died?” I ask. It was something I was too afraid to ask my dad. It’s always been hard for him to talk about illnesses and injuries of people he’s closest to because he’s a doctor and he knows too much, which makes it so he can’t detach himself from situations.

Elizabeth gives me a weary look like she’s not sure whether she should answer. “Yes, I do.” The look on her face tells me everything I need to know.

“You’re an ER surgeon, aren’t you?” She worked on my mom.

She closes her eyes. “Yes. I was the lead doctor working on your mom.”

“I’m not blaming you,” I assure her. “I knew from the beginning that it didn’t look good for her. I just want to know how it happened.”

“She came in from a head-on collision. A truck driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and came over into her lane. It was shocking in and of itself that she didn’t die instantly.”

“How did she die then?”

“Her spine was almost completely shattered. She also had a traumatic brain injury. Even if she would have survived the blood loss, she would have been quadriplegic the rest of her life with severe brain damage.”

“She wouldn’t have been my mom anymore,” I realize.

“No, she wouldn’t have been.”

End of flashback

That was the only thing that helped me fall asleep in the nights after the accident. Knowing that if my mom wouldn’t have died, she would have been living a life that wasn’t fully hers.

We spent the night she died at the hospital and the next few at a hotel out of town. Weston came into town too, getting time off of school for grievance leave and to attend her funeral.

It was hard for him, knowing he was in another state when Mom died, but his type of pain was different. Even though he stayed in the hotel with us, he could at least go into our house and feel good about the memories he had there.

Dad and I couldn’t.

For two months after our hotel stay, I slept in the Callaghan’s living room and Dad threw himself into his work at the hospital because we were afraid of our own house—of the memories of her that were everywhere.

Genevieve would get me anything I needed from my bedroom, including packing me bags of clothes, and it wasn’t until early summer that I was able to go back inside, let alone sleep in my own bed.

And every night, Logan slept with me. Whether it was on the other side of the sectional or curled up on the floor, he stayed with me.

Through every stage of grief, through all the sleepless nights, Logan was there. Which only makes me even more grateful for him now, lying in my bed with me as I grieve the loss of my mom three years later.

For me, the pain never goes away. It’s like a static TV that sometimes fades into the background, and other times it's turned up so loud you can’t focus on anything else, but the presence of it is always there.

But there are other things just as constant as the loss of my mom that can sometimes help to drown out the noise, like the boy lying next to me.