She sat at the kitchen table, sipping coffee, holding Eli and stewing. At some point he'd managed to slip out of the house, spending another night at the hospital or at his office or one of the local ERs, any place that allowed him to avoid making an earnest effort to rebuild his family. She heard the front door open and looked at the clock. It was 9:30 AM. He entered the room, saw her face and walked past her, not in the mood to fight.
"You were supposed to get up with the baby this morning Jack." Kate reminded him.
"Sorry, I'll take the next two mornings." Jack mumbled.
"No you won't, you'll come up with some excuse not to be able to deal with your son when he needs to be cuddled and hugged and loved." Kate accused.
"Kate, that's not……" He tried to defend himself, but was cut off by her.
"That's not what Jack? The truth? Just stop it! Where were you and when did you leave?" She asked.
"I was at St. Sebastian's. Hannah took a bad turn about three o'clock this morning." Jack said.
"Is she okay?" Kate asked.
"No, she died about an hour ago. That's where I was Kate. I told them to call me when it was time because I didn't think an eight year old little girl should have to die alone." Jack told her.
"Jack, why didn't you tell me?" Kate asked.
"Because you're dealing with enough trying to hold this family together." He sighed.
"Was she scared?" Kate asked.
"No, she didn't know what was happening to her, not really. She never should've been that sick Kate, but because nobody gave a damn about her she never got the proper medical treatment and a curable illness ended up dragging on until it finally got so bad it killed her." Jack spat angrily.
She stood, put Eli down and approached him. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him.
"I'm sorry Jack. I know she was kind of special to you." Kate said.
"She was just another kid that society threw away Kate and there are entirely too many of them." He said sadly.
"I'm sorry I misjudged you this morning." She said.
"It's okay, I would've misjudged me too. I should've left a note or something. I'm sor……." He tried to apologize but was cut off by Eli's blood curdling screams coming from the living room.
They both ran toward the screams, finding the baby lying on the floor in front of the fireplace his entire face covered with blood. Jack picked the baby up and began looking for the source of the blood, finding a large, bleeding, gaping wound on his forehead and then holding him close to his chest.
"Kate, get me some towels and hurry." Jack ordered as he tried to comfort the baby.
He could tell he had fallen hard into the bricks on the fireplace, the wound on his head so deep bone was showing. Kate resurfaced and handed him a stack of clean dishtowels. Jack pulled Eli back away from his chest and in the short time it had taken her to retrieve the towels, the injury had soaked the front of Jack's shirt with blood. Jack took one of the towels and applied direct pressure to the wound making Eli cry louder and shake against the pain.
"We need to go the hospital, you're going to have to drive. Are you okay to drive?" He asked seeing that she was starting to fade out on him.
She didn't answer, momentarily paralyzed by fear and helplessness.
"Kate!" Jack said loudly snapping her out of it.
"Yes, yes, I can drive. Let's go." She said.
They drove home in silence, Kate sitting in the backseat holding Eli, the large bandage on his head already showing a fresh blood stain, his small body still groggy and out of it from the sedation they'd given him in order to close the wound. It was after 7 PM and Jack had been a rock through it all, holding Eli the entire time, talking to him, offering as much comfort as the situation would allow without getting in the way, refusing to leave his side and carefully monitoring every injection and every stitch put into his head. It was a gruesome cut that required over 30 sutures inside and out to fully close it, but there was no damage to his skull and no signs of any type of brain injury.
The emergency was over now though and it was starting to sink in. He was starting to feel it and she could tell he was ticking. They entered the house and he watched her put Eli to bed before turning away and toward the living room. He stopped and stared at the blood stained bricks, his palms sweaty, beads of sweat on his forehead, his body shaking.
"Jack, what's wrong?" She asked, the far away look in his eyes and the shaking scaring her.
"I'm……nothing…..it's….I'm going to get something to clean this off the bricks." He mumbled and walked out the back door.
Ten minutes passed and he hadn't come back inside. She stepped out the back door to check on him and that's when she heard the commotion. She ran to the building and pulled on the door, but it was locked. She could hear him inside, could hear him screaming and cussing and breaking things, but couldn't get him to open the door. She ran next door, beating desperately on their back door until Rick opened it.
"Kate what's wrong?" Rick asked.
"It's Jack. He's locked himself in that building and I'm afraid he's going to hurt himself." She said, her tone frantic.
Rick ran back to the house with her, listened to the noises for a moment and tried to get Jack to open the door. When he got no response he began kicking at the door and continued to kick at it until it flew open. The building that at one time held an impressive model train layout was now a mess. Jack was breaking every piece of the model he could get his hands on with his bare hands and they were cut and bloodied and he was showing no signs of stopping, continuing to batter and break and throw, cussing and screaming and wanting to know why his child had to suffer and why he had to die, 18 months of rage and grief coming out of him all at once.
"He's hurting himself Rick." Kate said desperately.
"It's okay Kate, let him go." Rick said.
"No, we have to help him." Kate pleaded with him.
"We are helping him Kate. He needs to let go of this." Rick said.
Jack finally slid down the wall. He was an exhausted, crumpled mess. Kate went to him, kneeling in front of him, trying to take hold of his bloodied hands only to have him push her away.
"Jack you're bleeding, let me take care of you." Kate insisted.
"I want him back Kate." Jack mumbled sadly, tears streaming down his face, his entire body trembling.
"I know you do baby, we all do." Kate said and placed a comforting hand on the side of his face.
"I held Hannah's hand while she took her last breaths. I held Eli and talked to him and promised to protect him and did everything I could to make him feel safe. I didn't do that for Sam. He was so scared and he needed me and I wasn't there Kate and I can't stand it. It hurts so much I feel like I might go crazy if I allow myself to feel it for very long." Jack continued, his voice cracking, his emotions as raw as she'd ever seen from him and while it scared her a little, it broke her heart more.
"Jack he knew how much you loved him. You have to try to hold onto that. I know he was scared, but I also believe that he believed you would do everything you could to come and get him." Kate tried to console him.
"Why did this happen Kate? Why did I get to fall in love with that little boy only to have him taken away? Why did he have to suffer so much and die too soon? Why are there so many children suffering and dying too soon?" He continued to sob.
"If you could do it over Jack, would you rather Sam never came into your life?" Kate asked.
"What?" Jack asked starting to calm down.
"Would you trade the time you had with Sam for peace of mind?" Kate asked.
"No of course not, I just don't understand why I am still here and that sweet little boy isn't? What is the fucking point? How do I make sure Sam mattered Kate?" Jack asked.
"He mattered Jack and I understand what you're struggling with, I do, because I still struggle with the "why" and how unfair it all seems. Maybe Sam had to come into your life so that Eli would have this really wonderful father, so that Hannah wouldn't die alone, so that I would want to enjoy life again and maybe there's more Jack that we just haven't figured out yet." Kate told him.
Rick approached them, having known Jack for many years and the sight of him sitting in a corner completely broken and lost almost more than he could handle, but he also felt a great sense of relief because Jack had finally let go of the anger and the grief and there was no where for him to go but forward now. He moved to the side, grabbed an arm and signaled for Kate to grab the other. Together they helped him to his feet and slowly walked him into house. They stood him in front of the kitchen sink and washed the blood away from his hands, wrapped them in a towel and sat him down at the kitchen table.
"Do you have some antiseptic and gauze?" Rick asked.
"There's a first aid kit in the laundry room." Jack mumbled, watching them take care of him, but feeling like he was standing outside of his body watching it.
Kate brought the first aid to Rick, watching Jack carefully and wondering if he was going to be okay.
"Is he okay Rick?" Kate asked.
"Yeah, he just needs to rest. Would you like to run next door and ask Christy for the bottle of pills I keep on the top shelf in the bathroom?" Rick asked.
Kate slipped out the front door while Rick began the task of bandaging Jack's cut and bruised hands.
"I don't want any drugs Rick." Jack said softly as he watched Rick clean the really deep cuts and then cover them.
"It's just a mild sedative Jack. You just had a pretty significant breakdown, don't you think you're mind has had enough for one day?" Rick asked.
"I'm okay, I just need a beer." Jack argued his mind still feeling somewhat foggy and detached from his body.
"You're not okay Jack, but you made excellent progress this evening and now you need to sleep." Rick said.
Jack was feeling less and less disconnected and finally pulled his hands away from Rick.
"Stop man. They're fine. I'm fine." Jack snapped.
"Welcome back." Rick said with a smile.
"I appreciate what you're doing, but I'm okay." Jack said.
Kate entered the room with the bottle of pills and Christy right behind her. Both women descended upon him, hovering, checking his cuts and hugging on him. Jack immediately became agitated and stood up, backing away from all of them.
"Would everyone please just stop!" He snapped.
"You stop! They're your friends and they care." Kate scolded him.
"I appreciate it, really I do, but please, I just need everyone to stop hovering over me." Jack said.
"Jack this is what I was talking about. You're edgy and you need to try to relax. Take a couple of these and sleep." Rick told him shoving the bottle of pills into his hand.
Jack calmly set the bottle of pills on the breakfast bar and looked at all of them. He approached Christy, hugged her and kissed her on the cheek and then shook Rick's hand.
"Thank you, both of you, for everything. I don't need to sleep, I'm okay. Eli has a pretty significant injury to his head and is going to have a rough night and Kate doesn't need to deal with that alone. I'm sorry about the………whatever that was in the backyard, but I'm fine now." Jack said.
Jack excused himself so he could change the bloody shirt he was wearing. When he returned Rick and Christy were gone and Kate was puttering around the kitchen. He came up behind her and she turned to face him.
"Are you hungry? Want me to make you a sandwich?" Kate asked.
"No, I'm fine. I'm sorry Kate. I didn't mean to scare you. I don't know what happened, I just…….when I was with Eli today.....god I just felt so bad for him and wished I could trade places with him, but I couldn't, all I could do was try to comfort him. I know you don't think I do, but I love him Kate and all I could think of was that I had to protect him and keep him safe and make sure they did everything they could to help him without hurting him." Jack explained his voice starting to crack again.
"I know you love him Jack." Kate interrupted.
"Let me finish. While we were waiting for them to suture his wound, I looked down and he had his thumb in his mouth and a handful of my shirt in the other hand. He was holding onto me, finding comfort in my arms and trusting that I wouldn't let anything bad happen to him and it's so easy Kate, it's so easy to love and comfort a child, but I didn't for the longest time. I wasted so much of the time I had with Sam and when he needed me the most I wasn't there and I don't know how to allow myself to feel that without forgetting to breathe." He said sadly, a single tear slipping down his cheek.
She couldn't contain her own tears. She could relate to what he was feeling or trying hard not to feel, the relentless guilt over what he should've done coupled with the emptiness and sadness of the loss because she'd experienced that when Jeffrey died and then again when Sam died. She'd just chosen a healthier grief path this time than Jack had, because she had to. She had a baby that needed one of his parents to remain sane.
"If you forget to breathe, I'll be here to remind you." She offered, wrapping her arms around his waist and letting him pull her closer.
They stood in the kitchen holding one another and crying and when they felt like they had cried enough they went into the living room and Kate showed Jack the scrapbooks she'd made while he was gone, every moment of Eli's life caught in photographs and pasted onto the pages. When they reached the final scrapbook in the pile, Jack looked at the cover and took a deep breath. He recognized the photo. He and Kate had taken Sam to the beach and had been sitting on the pier allowing Sam to shovel bright blue cotton candy into their mouths. An older woman had noticed the laughter and stopped to watch them, finally offering to take a picture because she felt they were such an adorable family. Kate handed the woman her camera and the large picture that was plastered to the cover of the scrapbook was the snapshot. Sam was in the middle and Jack and Kate were on either side, their heads together and the blue dye from the cotton candy staining all of their mouths as they all smiled for the camera.
"I don't guess I ever saw the picture from that day. It's great." Jack said and laughed lightly.
"I thought it captured how happy we all were and Sam was happy Jack. Even if it was only for a brief amount of time, it was probably the happiest and most secure time in that little boy's life and that matters Jack. I had the picture blown up and framed. I've just been waiting for you to be ready so we could decide where we want to hang it." Kate said.
Jack was quiet as they looked through the photos in the scrapbook titled "SAM", carefully studying each photo and the more he studied the deeper in thought he seemed to be. When they closed the scrapbook she looked up at him. His face was calm and thoughtful, his eyes clear and the gears in his head grinding.
"What?" She finally asked.
"I think I know the perfect place to hang the picture." He said, smiling at her and kissing her.