Author's Notes: I... didn't really edit this much. This here? Is a shitty first draft. I just didn't have the heart to change it.
I had no idea how to end it. There really is no end to it.
I said to her: "I'll write you a story, I promise." So, I did. I don't know if I could've made it better. I don't even know if she'd like it. I just know it needed to get out, and I wanted people to read it.
That's… about all.
"here's to hoping"
by: Rosalyn Angel
-
When Riku shuts his cell phone closed the first thing he does is sit and stare. In no way does he have any active thought. He won't even later remember what he was staring at.
The only way he'll be able to describe it is this: His mind was floating. It was floating far and high above his body. He couldn't remember even having a body; couldn't remember the pull of muscle as he set the phone onto his bedside table. The entire span of time he sat there and stared will be a blank. He'll only be aware of the fact that, yes, he had indeed sat there, and stared.
The next conscious memory he'll have is dialing the number again. It's the same voice from before—the same drawn-out, tired voice—that answers his call. He asks for specifics. He asks for times, direction—today, tomorrow, now? The voice, that of his father's, only gives tired, vague responses: "It's up to you," he repeats, "whatever you want. Up to you."
Riku understands that as, "Please come now."
He gets up slowly and gets ready even slower. He's already dressed, so he just brushes his hair and teeth, reapplies deodorant, grabs his wallet and keys, and then stands at the door.
Riku stares and considers that wooden door for a while.
He doesn't want to go. Once he opens that door, he knows he'll have to. He'll follow through the necessary steps to his car, to turn on the engine and pull onto the street that leads into the highway. The driving will be done without much thinking. He'll see the signs directing him and blindly follow, applying all the usual signals and precautions.
He won't remember the actual drive much. He will remember, however, the big green sign pointing him into the parking lot of his destination. He'll remember that it's straight off the highway—one simple turn and the massive, white building is looming over him.
He parks at the front entrance and walks with his hands in his pockets. The doors are automatic and whoosh open for him. Inside the air feels cold and stale.
The lady at the front desk smiles kindly and politely answers his questions. She directs him down the hall and to the right; the elevators will be right there. Sixth floor, she says. Follow the signs.
He passes by many doors, each of them closed. He doesn't look at the name plates. Instead, he watches the floor. It's tiled in a checkered pattern: white and teal.
He is joined in the elevator by a middle-aged woman. She is holding a Kleenex to her mouth and nose with a tremulous hand; her make-up is streaked down her face from her eyes and her hair is mussed and falling out.
"Five, please," she says in a quavering voice. He presses the button for her without a word.
The elevator ride is short and quiet. Several times she sniffs and blows her nose.
When they arrive at the fifth floor, she briskly leaves, her shoes clacking away. Riku watches her figure disappear around the corner as the doors slide shut again.
For some reason he won't understand, this woman will stand out clearly in his memory.
He exits the elevator and reads the signs pointing to the room he seeks. He passes by many more doors. This time some of them are open: He can catch the briefest glimpse of light green curtains drawn closed around beds.
When he nears the room, Riku first sees his father and stepmother standing outside of it. His stepmother resembles the woman from the elevator, in the way that she holds a tissue in one hand while the other grasps her elbow. She's rubbing her nose and nodding as his father speaks lowly to her, until the aged man glances up and sees his son standing a few feet away.
For a moment they just stare, taking the other in: that familiar face, seen only every other weekend when Riku was younger, and not much at all now that he's older.
He steps closer, and his father says, "She's inside with Grandpa."
Riku nods and ducks past them because he feels like he's intruding.
There are no flowers or get-well cards around her bed. There's a reclining chair which his grandfather sits in, an IV line disappearing into the sheets, and a small basin that holds her urine tucked underneath.
He does not look at and will not remember the machinery.
His grandfather is rubbing a liver-spotted hand across his wrinkled brow, slowly shaking his head back and forth. The hand does not cover his trembling lip.
Riku stops at the end of the bed and looks at the elderly woman lying there.
Her face is long and haggard. At first glance he thinks she might be awake because her eyes aren't entirely closed, but she's unresponsive and the breaths she takes are slow and labored, aided by a tube. Her body, so small now, is wrapped up in several, heavy white blankets.
It is her face he concentrates on. He studies the hair, half-brown because it never seemed to fully turn gray, short and matted tight against her head. He studies the partially open eyes, how they slightly bulge, and how everything seems to fall and bend to the side she lies on. Her nose and mouth, both pale and sickly, look like they want to follow gravity.
"She hasn't woken up since noon yesterday," his grandfather is saying in his slow, drawling voice. "They said it's any time—any time now. She's been in so much pain when she wakes up; it's unbearable to see. I don't think—don't think she even recognizes us anymore—just looks and says help me, and all I can do is say—say that I'm here…"
He trails off into little quivering sobs.
"I'll—I'll go talk to your father," he croaks out. "We've been taking shifts… I think he's staying here with her tonight…"
He stands from the chair with great effort and ambles out the door. Riku turns his attention back to her.
He stares, while his mind floats.
Later that week, Riku sits on his couch eating leftover rice straight from the tuber ware. The television is on but muted, so he sits and watches the picture move. His cell phone sits next to him on maximum volume, as it has been for the past couple of days.
When it rings, he sets his rice down and looks at the caller ID before he answers.
"Riku?" says his father on the other line. "Riku—she's—thirty minutes ago. We're calling everyone now. She's gone. About thirty minutes ago."
The only thing Riku can manage is, "Oh."
They hang up soon after. He picks up his tuber ware again and eats his rice. He watches the muted TV.
And then, during a commercial, he remembers everything. It all crashes upon him like a wave; he's suddenly immersed deep in its waters.
This is what he remembers:
The layout of the old house he visited when he was young. He remembers the small kitchen with the sliding cabinet, and the stool he used to reach the Doritos chips on the top shelf. He remembers the fuzzy screen of the old TV where he watched Tiny Toons, and the rough texture of the living room couch. He remembers the bed he slept in when he was there, and the basket full of Berenstain Bears books, which were read to him only at bedtime. He remembers the glass table where he played board games like Monopoly and Mouse Trap, and most of all—the most vivid part he remembers, the most cherished and loved—is the memory of his grandmother in each of those places: her venous hands shaking the chips into a big silver bowl for him to munch on; her sitting on that couch and sowing while he watched cartoons; and her voice strongly and animatedly reading each and every one of those books, no matter how many times she's read them before.
He remembers her giant gold earrings and her natural make-up and her wobbling steps. This is what he wants to remember—this is how he wants her memory—not the haggard and sloping face lying in the hospital bed, not the tube helping her to breath, not the list of things wrong with her body, and not the sad, shaking head of his grandfather.
Of this moment Riku will remember dropping the rice to the table and the clatter of the spoon. He will remember how his lower eyelids squeezed to meet his upper eyelids halfway, and how the lamp's light in the room blurred in his vision and appeared to extend, shining like a star.
He will remember his mouth twisting down, his chin dimpling, his neck muscles straining; and he will very, very clearly remember the feeling of tears gathering and clumsily spilling out—remember how his nose began to run and how he began to hiccup and sob—how he hugged himself and rocked back and forth—and how he cried even after he could make no sound beyond a sniffle.
He will remember these things, whether happy, painful or insignificant. For a long time they will be the very core of his grief.
But here's to hoping: That somewhere down the road, some day further on, he will remember these things, and they will be the very core of his comfort.
It's the best, he'll suppose, that anyone can ask for.
-fin