hallesComet97: YAY. Thank you for reading and taking the time to review.
Precious- passenger: Oh, well… I can't be on top all the time can I? And I chose not to have too much about how drinking does bad because I don't know too much about it and I didn't want to get things wrong… I might know after graduation week though… I didn't mention about how Blaine showed up because Carole kind of found him outside the grocery store. I'm glad you liked it anyway though, and I'll try to get in them more. Yep- I can tell you like sad Klaine stories ;)
Graduation week is now over- I still don't know much about what alcohol does to you.
Gleekforever12345: Agreed, poor Blainers. Yep. Carole and Burt really are the greatest parents.
Finchel4ever1: I'm so happy you do and I will as soon as I have the chapter done.
If you don't remember who Jackie is then I suggest reading the chapter "hospital" again as that's when he's first mentioned.
J is for Jackie
Jackie Zachariah- or Jack as we usually called him for short sat on his dad's lap laughing so he almost choke at his dad playing Peek-a- boo with him. Peter- as he'd probably do several hours a day sat with his hands covering in his face and then lowered them and made a face while he said "Peek- a- Boo" and Jack's body wrenched with another laughing fit.
Peter chuckled and lifted Jack over his head and then over to me. "Here can you take him for a little while so I maybe will get to finish my lunch." I smiled and laid my book down on the table while I reached out my hands to take the little guy who turned one year old today. "Go to Momma Jack." Peter said. "Can you say that? Mo- ma?" Jack stopped laughing and looked to me.
"Momma." He said almost all clearly, just as I took him and then lifted him over my head praising him for saying momma. When I sat him down on my lap again he stopped laughing, pointed to Peter and exclaimed. "Dada" Peter almost choked on his food when he heard Jackie call out for him and then put his knife and fork down to turn to his son.
"Yay" He said in his cutest voice. "You're such a good and big boy aren't you?" Jack just laughed and didn't seem to take much notice about what Peter said as he just laughed and laughed. "Yeah you're growing up to be a real gentleman aren't you going to? Oh yes you are." Peter turned back to his food and continued eating while I tickled Jack and listened to him laughing as if there was no tomorrow.
And little did we know- that actually- for Jack there would be no tomorrow. And for the year ahead- tomorrow would be so hard to think about we would just try to take every moment as it came- second by second- because thinking about the past or what to was to come would hurt too much.
"I need to go fix something upstairs honey." Peter stood up and leaving the dishes at the table he walked past me and jogged up the stairs. I sighed and shook my head at him leaving the dishes and then stood up with Jack still in my arms. He had stopped laughing and was sleepily resting his head towards the side on my arm while I carried him over to his crib and laid him down.
And there was nothing that would give me any idea of that this was the last time.
But if I had known, oh if I had known that this would be the very last time.
If I had known that this would be the very last time Jackie held his big blue eyes opened and looked to me- then I would have never looked up to see so I could fold the blankets so I could put Jackie in his crib. If I had known it would be the very last time I carefully laid him down onto the mattress for him to sleep, then I would have never let him go.
And if I had known this would be the very last time of everything before my heart would break. If I would only have known… then I would have cradled my little boy in my arms, singing on over the rainbow- which was his favorite lullaby I could tell and I would have been singing it over and over and over again and never let him go.
If I had known it would be the very last time
I laid Jackie down, he seemed to be half asleep already and as I pulled Mr. Bear closer to him he gripped around the teddy's head, rolled over on his side and fell asleep. I walked over to the table and grabbed the dishes that Peter had left on the table to bring them into the kitchen. I washed off them and placed them to dry on the bench while I walked back into the living room and sat down in the couch again after checking on Jack whom still laid peacefully sleeping with Mr. B tucked towards his cheek and thumb in his mouth.
And if I had only known this would the last time I would see him like this I would have stayed, looked him over and made sure I would have remembered every detail about what I saw. Remembered the short, blonde hair- so much like his father's standing right up on his forehead. I'd remember the way a wet spot was forming on Mr. B's own cheek from Jack drooling on him. I would remember the way he held his arm pulled up towards his chest sucking his thumb, and the way he had one knee pulled up while the other leg laid flat.
If I had known this would be the very last time I saw it all I would remember the little toes, the little fingers, the short blonde hair, the tiny little wrinkle he had in between his eyes from grimacing in his sleep.
I would remember it all
If I had known it would be the very last time
But I didn't
I didn't know
This was just another day like any other
I smiled and pulled the blanket that Jack had kicked off over him again. Then I walked over to sit down in the sofa again. I lifted up the paper I had been reading earlier and read the knitting patterns for a shirt that might suit Jack. I noted the yarn I'd need for it on a paper where I had written up everything we needed to buy later today or tomorrow, but as I continued riffling in the paper I yawned and it got harder and harder to keep my eyes open.
And so the paper fell to the floor when I fell asleep.
"NO" Peter's voice woke me up with a start, but yet I slowly pulled myself back to reality from sleeping. "NO, NO, NO, NO" What did he do? Were we too late for church and Jackie's baptize? "JACK, JACK, JACKIE WAKE UP HONEY." With the words that I slowly took in, and all the panic that seemed to be shining through in Peter's voice suddenly reached through and my eyes shot open.
"Millie, Millie call an ambulance. Jack's not breathing." I stood up, and for a moment didn't know what to do more as I watched Peter lift up our son from his crib and used his fingers to get Jack's mouth open and see if he could see anything blocking his airways. "Come on Jackie, come on little guy. Millie call an ambulance, the phone is in the kitchen."
When Peter told me where the phone was I seemed to wake up and I blinked, shook my head and ran out in the kitchen and grabbed the phone from the charger standing in the window seal. With fingers shaking so bad I almost dropped the phone as I pressed in 911 and put the phone to my ear while- on legs that felt like they would give up and buckle under me any second- walked back to the living room.
"He's got to be okay. He's got to be okay." Peter mumbled to himself while he walked back and forth over the floor in the waiting hall at the hospital. He must have walked back and forth a hundred times already because the ten, fifteen minutes that had passed since we arrived felt like a hundred years without knowing if my little boy would ever be alright again.
Peter POV
"He's got to be okay," I mumbled while I kept on walking back and forth. I just couldn't keep still or keep quiet. "He's got to be okay, he's got to be okay, he's got to be okay, he's got to be okay, he's got to be okay, he's got to be okay, he's got to be okay, he's got to be okay, he's got to be okay, he's got to be okay."
My little boy just had to be okay
"Jackie Rose?" I stopped and almost stopped breathing as I looked towards the doctor that had just come into the waiting room and slowly walked towards Millie as she stood up and the doctor saw us and came walking our way. I laid a hand on Millie's shoulder as the doctor signed to us to sit down, but neither of us would be able to sit down before we knew what was happening to our little baby.
"Okay…" The doctor pressed his lips together and took the paper he held in both of his hands. He looked distressed in a way that I just knew what it meant- but I couldn't believe it- not face it- not yet. "When Jackie came in here he wasn't breathing. What had occurred we believe was something we call SIDS which stands for Sudden infant death syndrome."
"No…" Millie whispered. I knew it- we both knew- but none of us would face it yet- these things happened to others- not to us- not to our little boy.
"We did our very best to try and start his breathing again but there was nothing we could do." Millie shook her head and whimpered another no. "There was nothing more that either we, the paramedics or you could have done to save him. And Jackie died. I'm sorry." I pulled my arm around Millie's shoulders and stroke her arm. "Do you want to see him?" I turned my head and looked to Millie.
Millie was gripping hard around my fingers. I squeezed her hand silently because I didn't know what else to do. But I knew that if it would mean for Millie not to hurt I would have taken it all from her and felt it myself. "Do you want to go see him honey?" I asked, she closed her eyes for a moment and nodded as she took a deep, shaky breath and sunk down on the chair behind her while nodding.
"Come on then honey." I gently helped her to stand up again and then we slowly walked after the doctor, the doctor was explaining what we were going to see about the tube that was in Jack's throat after an attempt to make him breathe again, that his body was attached to hoses and cords to machines that were turned off, but still nothing could have prepared me to come into the trauma room and see Jack's- my dearest and only son's fragile and so small body lying on a stretcher that seemed huge compared to his body.
"I'll leave you alone for a bit." The doctor said. "Just press that red button on the wall if you need anything and someone will be with you as soon as possible." I walked slowly after Millie towards Jack while the doctor pulled off the hoses and cords that were attached to our baby boy. "Sorry they should have been taken off earlier." The doctor left and Millie who had been taken small, slow steps towards the bunk now laid a hand on her son's forehead.
"He's still warm." She whispered. "P- Peter. Can you- ou get the b-blanket?" I nodded even though I didn't want to leave either my wife or my son in this- and she couldn't see me. But backed out of the room and then turned around to walk towards the parking lot, and the car I'd have to drive here in while Millie had gone in the ambulance with Jack.
I unlocked it and leaned into the back seat to grab the blanket from children's seat and then got back outside and locked the car again. Walking back towards the ER and the trauma room I wrapped the teddy blanket patterned in pink, brown, beige and white around my hands and held it up towards my chin, held it close to my chest with one hand and with the other towards my face hard as if I was afraid it was going to disappear if I didn't hold tight enough.
The blanket- oh that blanket! When Millie was pregnant we had been like any other soon to be parents walking around store after store to buy clothes, diapers and everything else we would need for the big change that was happening in our life. There was just one thing we couldn't find- the blanket.
Millie had some idea of that one blanket would be the exactly right one for us, and that when she saw it she'd just know. I only laughed and shook my head as I walked after her or stood by some other shelf with my hands shoved in my pockets and biting my lip wondering if this was where we were going to find what Millie referred to as the perfect blanket.
And then it was that day when we were just walking down the street, I had been walking in my own thoughts looking straight ahead so I didn't notice Millie had stopped until I came to the corner of the road. Then I noticed, looked around and saw her standing by a store looking through the window as if paralyzed.
And when I came over there I saw that what she was staring at was this blanket, with a zigzag pattern in white, pink, brown and beige and Millie had just fallen in love with it and knew it was the right- even though we already knew it was a boy- and even though it would cost a bit more than what we had in mind for a blanket.
But God was it hard telling my Millie no when she really wanted something?
And the day after that our own little baby boy was born.
I pushed the door to the trauma room open not to have to let go of the blanket for just a few seconds longer. And then carefully handed the blanket over to Millie as careful as if I was handing her treasure gold. Millie carefully took it and wrapped it around Jackie's tiny, fragile body just like she had always done it. Before she carefully lifted him up and held him close to his chest.
It was just like Millie had done since Jackie was little- even smaller than he seemed right now. It was all the same, it was all the same as she cradled him and hummed on hush little baby. And yet nothing was the same, and nothing would ever be the same again.
Millie's voice was breaking more and more as she continued humming on the children's song with tears faster and faster rolling down her cheeks. I laid my hands on her arms and stroke them up and down to try and give the comfort I could. While I was fighting the lump that was rising in my throat-I couldn't cry- not yet- I had to be there for Millie now.
And maybe, if I didn't cry- maybe if I didn't prove to myself that this was real. Maybe if I just keep on fighting maybe it would prove not to be real. Maybe if I never let go and allowed myself to show that I was sad over it then maybe I would soon wake up from this nightmare about something that could never happen to us.
Because this couldn't be real!
Could it?
I am so happy with that ending… just to let everyone know I am. What did you think of this chapter?
Anyways, I'm planning for some chapters, and I've decided- even though nothing is set in stone yet, K and M will be Barole- chapters, L will be Ryley and Y will be Klaine. But as I said nothing is set in stone.