I grew up with a standoffish, strict father and a regularly-absent mother who later became an addict. Thus my history with love and affection was elusive, and living with my parents had left me self-doubting about my ability to love or be loved.
There was a huge hole that I never really paid attention to. It wasn't hard, when it was normal for me not to get caught up in love matters. Sex didn't bring me to feeling any closer to knowing what love was.
Then along came Haley and she was the person I needed the most. I had found something enduring with her, and I wasn't stupid enough to let it pass me by.
She became my world. She gave me a family and bore me a son that I loved to incomprehensible planes. When I learned that she died, it's as if several devastating natural disasters tore through my world, demolishing it. I held on while I could, Jamie making a difference to my broken outlook.
Just existing with the knowledge of her being gone was like being at war with my own mortality, fighting desperation, agony, fear and pain. Every day, I had to force myself to get out of bed. I had to keep going despite the suffering I carried with me.
At this very moment, that hollowness has been replaced by something warmer, a feeling of glowing brightness and clarity. It's bewildering and electrifying to look at someone I thought I'd lost forever. I never thought I'd be this happy again.
"I have missed you like crazy," Haley says, her voice thick as we kiss for the hundredth time.
Her fingers are clawing through my hair, clutching fistfuls of it like it's her lifeline. She has a habit of holding onto my hair when we kiss. Her lips are soft and warm, just like I remember.
"I've missed you, too," I respond, my throat tight.
I run my fingers down the side of her face. I can't keep my hands off her. "I can't believe you're really here. I thought you were dead. I believed you were dead."
I can't. It's like I've been resurrected. The me I was three days ago is a hazy memory, a distorted dream.
"I'm here," she whispers brokenly.
She buries her head in my chest, Jamie between us kicking his legs up in the air. "I-I love you," she cries out breathlessly. "Both of you. I love you so much…"
I hold her tighter, rubbing her arm up and down as she starts to sob. My heart is breaking as I comfort her, but it's also restoring. I felt so defeated when she died, absolutely broken and beyond repair. Not anymore.
We talk about nothings and somethings, we laugh, we whisper, we kiss a lot, laugh some more at Jamie's antics. Just like we used to.
Later, I drop my feet off the bed. I don't want to tear myself away from her but I have to. Lucas should be here.
"Where are you going?"
There is that pout I've missed so much. I love this woman so much.
"I'll be right back," I tell her with a kiss. I don't want to go but I have to.
"But—"
"It's nothing bad, I promise."
She holds my face in her hands for another kiss. Her fingers and wrists feel so delicate, and I'm afraid to put pressure on any part of her should I break her.
"Don't stay away too long."
"I won't."
I'm not calm enough yet, the element of shock still hijacking my system. Luke is reading a magazine at the reception and when he spots me, he gets up immediately.
"How is she? Is she okay? Is it her? What's wrong?"
I just can't stop smiling as I take the bags from him. This has put me into a mood I have no word for.
"She's fine. I haven't told her you came with me but she'll be really happy to see you, Luke."
He's probably wondering how she'll react to seeing him. He turns back to look at me as he stands outside the door. I nod and give him an encouraging smile. Before long, he'll be as light-headed as I am right now. He smiles in return, taking a deep breath before opening the door.
I'm gone for a while, giving them time to reunite like he did for me. It's been two long months, a series of dark days, but today…this is a good day.
With her big smile and affectionate nature, she's the same Haley I knew. But her ill-health is downright new to me; she's close to being as whip-thin as Peyton. Birdlike.
Fifteen minutes later, after a too-strong cup of coffee and a scone from the cafeteria, I go back up. Their eyes are puffy and red-rimmed when I walk back into the room. I expect more of such faces when we return home, considering we've all been dealing with her absence in the harshest way.
"Good one, baby," Haley sniffles.
"I'm glad you liked it," I tell her, giving her a kiss.
"It? I'm here, you know," Luke says.
"I know."
Dropping the bags to the floor, I pat his shoulder. I hold out the bottle of formula that I had asked to be warmed for in the cafeteria. "You want to feed him?"
A breath like a stuttered sigh flows past her lips. She stares in astonishment at the bottle, as though the idea of feeding Jamie had never crossed her mind. As she takes it from me, she just nods and blinks those big, almond-shaped eyes like she's trying not to cry. I wouldn't mind if she took over raising him for the next year just as long as she's there to baby him.
I'd weaned Jamie into soft baby food and formula after Haley's 'death,' so he doesn't seem all that interested in reaching for her boobs. She settles him in the crook of her elbow and waves the bottle.
"Look at what your dad brought you. Isn't he the sweetest? Are you hungry?"
He pulls at the neckline of her gown and she leans down to kiss his nose, both of them giggling.
"You are? Let's get you fed before you get crabby, then."
Do you find it odd that we talk to Jamie? I don't think it is. Hales and I just like talking to Jamie, even when she was pregnant. Sometimes late at night, when I was sure she was dead to the world, I'd wake up and talk to him. With my hand protectively over her stomach, I would whisper quietly, feeling light taps and kicks now and then, telling him about my day, about his mom, about what was waiting for him. Even though we hadn't planned for him so early, I loved that kid before he was born.
As she feeds him, she coos and talks to him, and gives him kisses throughout, singing him to sleep after he's done. I think he'd missed that. I know I had.
"Are you hungry?" I ask her, pulling out the cup of warm chicken noodle soup from the bag. I figured she would be and since hospital food leaves a lot to be desired, I found a diner that served soup.
"Starving. The food here is not that scrumptious."
"I think the word you're looking for is horrible," I say in a flat tone.
She laughs. I've missed that sound.
"The Jell-O is not too bad, though. Beats my homemade one by far."
Once again, I am overcome by a need to touch her, to certify that she's real and not a creation of grief-induced dementia. She clutches my hand in such a desperate hold that her knuckles lose colour. We're both still making sense of this turnaround.
We spend the day in her room talking, laughing and revisiting memories. Even after multiple warnings from the nurse about visiting hours being over, we don't leave. They don't kick us out, though; I think Dr. Thomas told them to let us be considering the circumstances. I also think he's concerned we might slap them with a lawsuit.
When night rolls around, I seek out the doctor about allowing Jamie and I to stay the night. It's not that hard of a task because he readily agrees. I didn't get to use any of the threats I had prepared had he fought me on it, one of them including 'litigation'.
Luke heads out alone to the motel to call home with news. Just between you and me, I'm feeling too selfish with my wife to call anyone. I just want her to myself before everyone else swarms in.
"You've changed," she says quietly.
The three of us are squeezed together in the bed, Jamie having already fallen asleep between us. Like the old times. It doesn't get any better than this. I'm the luckiest man alive.
I tip my head back slightly. "What do you mean?"
She raises her head from my shoulder and props her chin in her hand, her eyes filled with worry as they cruise my face. "Like you're somehow…broken."
When she says that, my chest constricts painfully. "You died, Hales."
She watches me, in that intense way like she can see right through me. Then she lifts her hand and touches her palm to my cheek. "We'll put you back together again, Humpty Dumpty."
I suppress a grin, my lips brushing across her forehead. When your heart is broken, buried somewhere deep inside you is an inarticulate sense of loss. It takes over your life and your rational mind, and you wither from the effects of something you never thought was possible. That dark cloud that was hanging over my head has scattered, and relief flashes through me nearly every minute from the moment I saw her.
She fires off questions about everyone at home before asking me how I've been the last two months. This is my best friend, the one person I can tell anything without reservation. I've never been ashamed to be at my most vulnerable in front of her, ever since that night I went to her house after collapsing on the court from taking steroids.
She did not judge me for the tears or for the stupid decision I'd made to take the drugs. That was the moment. That was the moment I knew I loved her, her eyes looking at me intently with pure worry, instead of condemnation.
"I missed this," I answer simply.
She kisses me softly on the lips. "Me, too."
There's little conversation after that. I want to ask her about the accident but it's been an emotionally tiring day. Tomorrow. Tonight, I just want to hold her, and hear her talk and laugh. See the smile that always gives me strength and assurance.
Pretty soon, she's exhausted. A goofy smile spreads across my face as I look at her. Jamie stirs in his sleep and I rub his hair until he relaxes.
This is my destiny. This is how it's supposed to be, Haley, Jamie and me. It feels so easy, so light, so natural. I've wanted this badly for months, being with the two people I love the most. I've spent a great deal of time pleading and bargaining with God to rewind time in exchange for reaching out to my dad. I was willing to do anything to get her back.
On that thought, she tilts her head down that her nose is near to Jamie's forehead. I feel like I have been punished enough, adequately paid for my past transgressions by being led to believe that my wife had died.
As my exhaustion catches up with me, the saddest revelation about today emerges and strikes me cold: Your wife will not be able to have any more children.
My gaze whips to her, and for a moment I simply stare at her makeup-free face. She must be carrying a brutal, unfathomable horror from learning about something so profound.
It mattered little to me how many children we'd have, just as long as we'd have at least one. When she spoke about us having a brood of kids a few weeks after we were married, to my genuine surprise she confidently said, "Three or four." I had reckoned that with her coming from a large family, she would have wanted fewer. One, even. By that supposition, I who grew up an only child should have craved a large family. It triggers icy shock in my soul that the promise of those children has been broken.
I'm pushing close to the edge of the bed, a hospital bed too small for two adults and a baby. There's no cot as an alternative for me to fall into, and I don't want to jam myself in here and make Jamie and Haley uncomfortable in their sleep. The two padded visitors' chairs, however, will make do as a makeshift bunk.
Carefully, I climb out of the bed and rearrange the covers over them. The dimmed lamp on the bed stand allows me to navigate. I move the chair on the other side of the bed to join its mate, facing each other, at least a foot separating them. The long sleeves of my shirt defend my arms against any coldness. It may be early spring outside but the room is warm, and I wouldn't want to deprive Jamie and Haley of one of the two blankets they're cuddled underneath.
With my six-foot-two frame folded in one chair and my legs stretched across another, the unavoidable dark blow settles over me again. From my perspective, it is devastating that she doesn't get everything she wants. I can't possibly imagine what it's like from hers.
I fold my arms across my chest and tilt my head back, my eyes not entirely closed as I observe my family on the bed. We may not be able to have any more children but that doesn't mean it's over for us. She's with me and nothing else matters. As long as we have each other, as long as we have Jamie, that's enough for me. But is it enough for her?