Everything Between Us

Chapter Five - Slate

I sat in the hospital chair next to my mother, I had said my goodbyes. Now we were just waiting. Waiting for the inevitable.

Everything else seemed so inconsequential compared to this very moment.

Who cared about Afghanistan, Olivia, anything? My mother was dying. She was the one person who helped me through everything, she had loved me even when I hated myself. She had helped me get help when I had gotten back from the Marines, even when I resisted at every turn...she had saved me. I would never be able to repay her for everything she did for me. And now she was just going to be gone. How does someone just disappear?

I jumped at the sound of the flatline that now filled the room. It was the only sound that filled my mind, time slowed. I saw Mackenzie jolt and sob; I saw the light leave my father's eyes as the love of his life left this world.

Grief so intense filled my chest, I couldn't breathe. I gasped for air but found none. She was gone. My mother was not on this earth anymore. How can the rest of this world keep spinning when she is gone? I do not know how it will.

We all stared in eerie silence as our nurse, Kathryn, came in and turned off the vitals machine that continued to create that devastating sound.

We all sat there in silence for what felt like a lifetime, until there was a knock at the door from who I assumed was the transporters. My father looked up at the sound and nodded slightly. My heart broke as I watched him lean up and kiss my mother on the cheek.

"I love you, my dear." And with a final look he walked out of the room. Mackenzie and I followed him. I knew what was powering my dad in that moment, he was the strong one and he knew in his heart that my mother would be devastated if he let her death destroy him. That very fact was the same thing that kept my own legs moving.

We stood on the corner of the hallway and watched as they took away my mother's body. I felt the sounds around me drown out. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mackenzie collapse into my father's arms. And I just stood there, perfectly still. I couldn't move. How could I move when this life-changing moment was happening around me?

I stared at the moving stretcher until it rounded the corner, and it disappeared.

She disappeared.

The space the stretcher had occupied stared back at me. After what seemed like a lifetime the sounds blended back into life. This was the beginning of my life without my mother. The one person who I could always count on, the one who would listen and not judge. Everyone had that one person who could turn the light on when they were dark. While there were many people in this life I loved, there was now a place in my heart that felt hollow.

My eyes rose from where they stared at the empty space. Then I saw someone who brought so many emotions into my already cluttered mind. There was Olivia standing near the nurse's station. The sight of her brown hair and green eyes soothed my chaotic brain for a moment. Her eyes were filled with unshed tears, our eyes connected, and she blinked a tear rolling down her beautiful face.

Then she mouthed, "I'm sorry" and my heart broke a second time. And I knew in that moment she was not crying because of the death of a woman who was like a second mother to her. She was crying because she knew I was feeling the pain that she had. In this moment I knew she loved me, everything I had not seen before was so clear. But right now I didn't care at all. My mother had died and everything else in this entire universe didn't matter at all.

***

I had not slept all night; I had sat exactly where I sat right now. I was sitting at my dining room table staring at all the food people had brought over. It had only been a night since my mother had died but somehow what seemed like everyone in this small town had brought over a casserole or pie. I knew their intentions were good but after staring at this food for however long I had, I wanted it to disappear. My brain was reminding me constantly of the hole that was now in my life, I didn't need a shit ton of food too as well.