Dim lights in the bar did nothing to dismantle the irritating roar of noise that came from the crowd of oblivious people – howling with loud and inappropriate laughter, consuming drink after drink, unconcerned with anything or anyone else in the world other than themselves. Self-absorbed. They didn't have to care about anything else in the world. They didn't have to see and live through the same things that I did, the things that could leave you defeated and shaken to the core at the end of the day, where drinking wasn't just for fun or for the social aspect. It would be the only thing that would get me to sleep tonight.
"Another one, Joe, please." I requested softly, pushing forward an empty glass.
Every time I close my eyes, I can see the exact same flashes in front of me. The deathly yellow tint to Karin's skin and Arizona yelling at me with distinct blame, wild accusation blazing in her eyes. Why hadn't the history of blood pressure been in her chart? I can't question it. That doubt wasn't allowed for anyone else except for me, apparently.
Another flash. This time, it's the famous Dr. Paul Stadler. He was a talented minimally invasive surgeon and now he was dead because – of what? Helm hadn't even said. It was supposed to be just a concussion. I should have checked upon on him again and I hadn't.
And another one. Martin Sterling. He had been a twelve year old boy. A twelve year old boy who had just forgotten his key and tried to get into his own house? How many times had I forgotten my key grown up? How many times would Harriet? I lived in a nice area of town, Jackson lived in an even nicer one. So had Martin and his family. Why had Jackson never told me that he had been through something like that? We were supposed to have a son together. We had a daughter together. We were supposed to be parenting together but things certainly didn't feel that way since I had moved out. I had barely seen the new apartment that he had moved into since the inheritance had hit him and he'd only been in the entryway of mine. Was I really raising a daughter with someone that I wasn't going to know any more? What else was there that he hadn't told me?
Would this happen to Harriet?
The second that the freshly filled glass of ice and tequila is passed my way, I pick it up and take a large gulp. It was my third. It didn't burn in the way that it had and even if it did, I wasn't sure that I was capable of noticing it. I was trapped inside my head. I had tried my best and everything had failed. Losses in the emergency room happened every day but they had never been like this. Every time I tried my best, things fell apart and I was punished for it, over and over again. It went beyond just work. This was my entire life.
Faith was supposed to offer some kind of comfort during times like these and yet I'd never felt more alone in my life than I did at this moment. God was nowhere to be found. I couldn't see or feel him in anything that I had suffered through today.
"Hey." A soft, familiar male voice greeted me.
It took me a long moment to look over to see that Jackson had sat down next to me, waving Joe over to order a beer for himself. I stared at him. He looked… the same. Stoic. Unaffected. What I wanted to be.
"You're supposed to be with Harriet." Both hands stayed tight around my glass.
"My mom took her for the night," Jackson explained, thanking Joe once he had the half pint. "It was a hard day."
"You don't seem bothered by it," I remarked, lips tightening together.
"Hey," he repeated the same syllable as before but this time it was more serious than before, leaning forward so that I can see him out of the corner of my eye. "What's going on?" Oh, now he wanted to pay attention to how I was going. I scoffed, picking up my glass and taking another sip from it. It was making my head spin, but that felt like a good thing. "April…"
"Don't," I warned him sharply, voice louder than expected.
His hand settled on my forearm and I pulled away, even if his touch is warm and familiar. "What's going on?"
"She's on her third," Joe interrupted and my gaze snapped up to glare at him, nearly feeling myself vibrate with anger anymore. He wasn't my husband! Who gave him the right to share that with him? "If you don't take her home, I'm going to arrange a cab for her. I already took her keys." Yeah, I had tossed those down on the bar when I sat down. There was no way that I was going to be able to drive home tonight and I had known that when I sat down.
"Okay," Jackson nodded at him, turning his upper body so it was facing me. "You know you can talk to me, right?"
"Since when?" I snapped out. I had wanted to talk to him about Montana for weeks and it had been nothing but absolute radio silence from him. I had questioned and wondered and suffered, all of it for nothing. Why would I willingly put myself through that with him again? I couldn't fall into the same trap.
"Just because you've moved out doesn't mean that we're not friends anymore." He said.
I stiffened reflexively at the mention though it had been my idea. I had to do what was best for me. Everything else in the world, everyone else – they weren't looking out for me or my wellbeing and that had been made abundantly clear. I was going to have to look out for myself going forward. Right now, I just needed something that felt good, something that could possibly clear all of the other pain inside of my head and make me forget for even a few minutes. The warm fuzz that tequila produced in my mind helped.
"I don't want to talk about it. I want to unwind." Wetting my lips, I allowed myself to turn to face him again. "Drink your beer, Jackson."
He stared at me before obeying. "Why don't you say with me tonight?" He suggested.
"Okay." I agreed quickly. He looked surprised. But truthfully, I think that I had it in me to say yes to anyone who would have been bold enough to ask that question tonight. Going home alone would have been too much tonight.
Draining the rest of my glass, I swished the tequila in my mouth before tilting my head back and swallowing it. There's just enough unsteadiness in my stomach that I know I shouldn't go forward with more quite so quickly, but my brain is just a little bit happier with it in my system. The tension began to melt away from my shoulders. I don't feel good, but it doesn't quite hurt as much. My head tilted back, dropping hair behind my shoulders.
"Okay, you look like you're ready to go home," Jackson commented, leaving a third of his beer left in the bottle as he placed down some cash on the counter. His gaze didn't seem to move away from me.
His hand settled on the small of my back like there was nothing weird between the two of us, helping me slide off the bar stool and making sure that I stayed steady as we walked out of Joe's and to his car. I didn't question whether he was fine to drive. He hadn't even finished off one beer and he had always been much better at handling his alcohol than I was – taller, more muscular, male. He had every reason to be good at handling it. Now, I was grateful to be a lightweight. I hadn't drunk like this since I had Harriet and that just made it affect me more.
"I don't think I've ever seen you drink like this," Jackson remarked.
"Haven't had a reason to," I mumbled under my breath.
It's a relief that he doesn't push further at that particular comment in the short drive from Joe's to his house. He was still close to the hospital, living in a downtown high rise now. It was still mostly on the north side of the city, far nicer than what I would have ever picked out for myself or for us together. Apparently rich and unnecessary was his taste now. It explained the car and boat that I had yet to see for myself.
There was a basement parking garage that he pulled into with an elevator that led up to one of the top floors. The elevator was glass, looking out into the city. A few moments, I tried watching the world move around us, but the glass elevator made my head spin too much and I shut my eyes.
"You've got to sober up or you're going to hate yourself in the morning," Jackson suggested, letting me into his apartment.
Everything was clean and organized. It seemed like he had finally gotten that maid that he had mentioned a few times when we were married because I knew there was no way he was maintaining this on his own. There wasn't a trace of the child that we shared outside of a few photographs on the table, just of her. Not of us together as a family. It seemed like he didn't have a problem eliminating me from his life.
"I'm fine as I am." I kicked off my shoes by the door, dropping my purse.
"I'm going to get some water," he said and I followed him to the kitchen. "Do you want an aspirin?" I rolled my eyes at him openly. "I'm just trying to help you, April. I don't get what's going on."
"You want to help?" I questioned him.
"Of course," Jackson answered.
So I went for the one thing between us that I knew always worked.
Stepping forward to close the gap between us, I stretched up on my toes and wrapped one arm around his neck to steady myself, lips pressing into his familiar ones. Part of it almost felt like coming home but now, I was just horny. An orgasm that only he could give me would be enough to make me forget about everything else going on in the world. I could feel him stiffen slightly in surprise, but not pull away. My mouth moved against his and I could feel him loosen up for just a brief moment before his hands were on my shoulders and he was pushing me away.
"What are you doing?" Jackson asked, his eyebrows furrowed and eyes widened wildly.
"You said you wanted to help." I reminded him, backing up till my rear hits the edge of the counter.
"That's not what I meant," he clarified quickly. "It's been a while since we've talked, okay, and that's my fault? I've–I've been going through something weird. A midlife crisis or something, I don't know. But I know that it's been harder because I didn't have you. Now it seems like you're going through something too. I do want to help you, April. But you know that's not going to help."
"We never learned how to communicate, Jackson, why would that change now?" That had been the flaw in our marriage, hadn't it? One of them. After Samuel, we hadn't been able to talk to each other honestly without hurting each other. "We were always good at sex."
"I'm… I'm not arguing that. But we have a daughter together. We have to be able to communicate with each other." He reminded me.
"I know that. I'm not the one who tossed her to my mom for the night and lives in some fancy apartment that doesn't even look like it's child-proofed all the way." I snapped at him. That seemed like the perfect example of our inability to communicate without lunging for each other's throat. Maybe it was my fault.
I could feel that happy buzz disappearing far too quickly.
"I'll let that pass because you're drunk," Jackson stated diplomatically. "You know I'm right. You're lashing out." He was right.
"You're right, we have to raise a child together." My words slurred together slightly. "A beautiful, biracial baby girl who should have her big brother but God decided that he didn't care for me or Samuel any more than he cared about Martin Sterling and his family and their pain. Because he's nowhere to be found in the middle of all the pain and injustice and misery in the world."
Painfully honest words were enough for him to fall quiet briefly. I watched him look down at the small space between us and take a deep breath. He didn't believe. Maybe he was right not to. What good had it brought me? Expectations that hadn't been met, more misery that had slapped me in the face, decisions that had only been made more difficult because of His presence in my life. He had made Samuel and what we had to do harder for me. He didn't answer my prayers, he didn't change or stop the suffering in the world. He just sat back and passively let everything agonizing continue, time after time, death after death.
Where was He?
"So it's about him," Jackson breathed out. It was a simplification, but still the bulk of my obsessive thoughts.
"Why did you never tell me that you were harassed like that? It's– it's racist." I blurted out.
"I wanted to, when you were pregnant with Samuel," he started slowly. "But… after we found out about his condition, it didn't matter anymore because I knew that wasn't going to happen to him. Then we were divorced and you were already so stressed that I didn't want to make it worse. I would have told you eventually, I just… I know that you're a worrier. I didn't want to make it worse or confusing for you." He explained.
"You should have told me," I accused him, a lazy finger pointing at him and hitting his pectoral.
"You're right, I should have." He agreed without putting up any more of a fight. "There are a lot of things that both of us should have done differently. But we've got time to talk about a lot of things with Harriet."
I stared at Jackson for a long, still moment. Part of me wanted to kiss him again and let him take me right there in the middle of his fancy kitchen that had no stain of me anywhere, leave some bit of my presence there, forget about everything heavy in their between us – everything that had been there emotionally since Montana, since I had moved out of the house, multiplied by the stress from today just enough to finally make me bend and break. But I can't move from the spot I'm in.
"They lost a son and we lost a son…" I started slowly, gaze falling to my bare feet against the tile. "Do you think it's going to make the Sterlings fall apart? Or will they be able to keep it together for themselves and for their daughter?" I questioned.
"I don't know," Jackson answered earnestly. "But they'll try. Here," he opened and handed me a bottle of water.
I swallowed a mouthful and shut my eyes.
"Do you know what Jesus said on that cross?" I asked. Silence met me as an answer. "Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani… My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The story of Job is about the same thing. He kept the faith and it didn't matter. He got… replacement children. PTSD. He didn't get what he deserved. Why do I keep holding on? All the unfairness in the world and he nowhere to be found."
"I don't know." It's the same answer and I don't know why I expected anything different from him. He wasn't religious. He had always been a proud atheist. It seemed like he was right not to be. I felt wrong.
"He's gone. Samuel's gone. You're gone." The words leave my mouth so pathetically I could cry.
"That's not true," he shook his head. "I'm here. I'm right here."
Tears glistened in my eyes as I looked up at him, brows dropping to squint slightly to try and keep them from spilling over. It hadn't felt like he was here and yet there's some instinct as he stood there, staring down at me, to believe him, To listen. It was the same pull toward him that I had felt since that first time we had been together, something electric that I couldn't explain. My hands grip onto the counter to try and balance me and I took a deep breath. I had no proof of God. Samuel was nothing more than a headstone. But Jackson, he was right there, standing in front of me. Real. Tangible. Solid.
Was I a fool to want to trust him again?
Probably.
"I'm right here, April," he repeated as he stepped toward me and placed his hand on my upper arm, squeezing it firmly. "Let me be here for you."
My head popped down, chin hitting my chest and shutting my eyes. His hand was no longer on my arm and he pulled me against his front, engulfing me in a hug that was tight enough to nearly piece me back together. For a few seconds, I could convince myself that it felt like that. That things were normal and it had just been a hard day at work. But the reality was still there, lingering around the corner with that painful realization that there was no simple or easy fix.
"Okay." That was all that I could manage to say. "Okay."
For a moment longer, Jackson held me there and rested his chin on top of my head. A few tears slipped from my eyes and I tried to keep more from falling. Maybe tonight I would have to be okay with the fact that God was nowhere to be seen, but at least Jackson was here.
"Can I take a shower and sleep with you?" I requested when he finally began to pull away, looking up at him. "Not– not like that. Just in the same bed as you, please. I don't want to be alone."
"Of course," Jackson answered with a nod of his head, cupping my face for a brief moment. His thumb swiped across my cheekbone and caught a few of the tears that had managed to fall. "I can't change what's happened in the past between us but I can be here for you in the future. I promise. I'm going to go better for you and for Harriet. And what happened today? Nothing like that is going to happen to the future. Not to our family. I will make sure of that. We've been through enough." There was no way to make sure of it. But I'm too tired to fight him on it. I just want to sleep and find some kind of peace of mind.
"Thank you," I sobbed out. And I meant it.