All the tissues, my friends. Be well.
Turn your weary body to the wind. – "With the Wind" by David Nevory
Quil
I come through the Call family's front door in March, too loud, too late, already apologizing.
"Sorry, sorry!" Blue, their almost-one-year-old border collie, spins and yaps until I scratch that one spot behind his ear that works like a hush button. "Work was a—" I pause to listen for little mouths and find none; Sadie must be across the street at Asher's— "bitch, but I'm here, and in desperate need of alcohol."
Shifts can either fly or drag, but this shift did both. We ended up on a call fifteen minutes before shift change, and although we were able to get Mr. Hanson's dog Shredder free from the drainpipe, I had to stay over and finish the write-up. I'm now two hours late for dinner.
Searching for the nearest drink, I spot Bethany on the couch with a short tumbler of, if I'm guessing correctly, gin and tonic. Not my first choice, but it will have to do. Desperate times. Without thinking twice, I twist it from her grasp and take it back like a shot.
She shares a look with Embry but says nothing, her mouth pinching at the corners like she's trying not to laugh.
I swallow again, waiting for a burn that doesn't come. "Was there even alcohol in that?"
Bethany shakes her head. "Nope."
"Why the hell not?" I grimace, smelling the glass still in my grip. "Is this… Is this ginger ale?"
"Yep," she says, just as flatly.
I should realize that not everyone had as long of a day as I did. But I know Bethany, and her lack of alcohol is just not computing right now for me. "Why?" If I sound disgusted, it has everything to do with the bureaucracy of small-town fire stations.
She glances to Embry again, and when he shrugs and throws her a wink, she turns back to me with ferocity, eyes blazing.
Then it clicks, the realization coming to me seconds before the words spill from her lips.
"I'm pregnant." She hesitates before putting a hand on her stomach, and my face goes slack as she smiles down at it. "Trust me, this is much better."
"Bethany," I breathe, my heart in my throat and stomach all at once, and then I'm picking her up to swing her around in an embrace. "I'm so happy for you guys."
Everybody knows I've been Team Embry and Bethany Should Have a Baby since they got married. I've lost hundreds of dollars putting wagers on it. In the last two years, every time I noticed she went for water instead of alcohol I doubled down. A month or so ago, Embry refused a beer and I almost had a heart attack. Look at me, predicting shit.
"Easy, partner," she groans into my ear, and I slow our revolutions. "Sick as a dog right now."
I gently return her to a normal standing position, because to the best of my knowledge pregnant women are as fragile as a carton of eggs. She plops back down in the same slouch as she was before. She does look a little green.
A chuckle floats to me. When I spot my brother's silly, unconfined grin, I find myself matching it, and then we're meeting in the middle of the room for a big ole' hug. We missed out on years of connecting on this level; I'm not going to hold back now. Not for something as huge as this.
"How did this happen?" I say, clapping Embry on the shoulder. At his smirk, I wince. "I meant like, how did you find out?"
As if answering my question, Blue hops up on the couch and settles his head in Bethany's lap, the back of his head smushed into her stomach.
Bethany points down at him. "This is how Embry figured it out. They used their dog-wolf telepathy."
Embry laughs, grabbing Bethany's empty glass from my hand and moving to the kitchen. "Like I said, dogs just know. And Bethany was sleeping and eating chocolate."
Bethany's a health nut. The "salad for work and running marathons" kind. It's only slightly less disgusting now than when I first met her.
I widen my eyes in mock horror. "How dare she."
"Both of you can kiss my ass, thank you very much." As I settle down into an armchair, she drops her head to the back of the couch and lets off a little moan.
"Coming, honey," Embry says, closing the fridge with his hip.
As I watch him brush back the hair from her face, present her with a fresh drink and drop his eyes to her stomach, something warm unfolds itself in my ribcage. I meant what I said—I'm unbelievably happy for them. As cheesy as it is, this is a beacon of hope in the dark cloud that is my life, Claire's life.
She told me about her fight with Callie, how she still felt guilty for applying to colleges and doing normal teenage things. I hadn't gotten it until now, until I feel a sharp pang of guilt for being so thrilled about this new life while another is in the process of ending.
With a steadying breath, I push the thoughts aside. This is, inarguably, good news. Plus, I have a feeling I'm going to get to make a whip-crack noise at Embry's every move for the next—
"How far along are you?" I ask.
"Thirteen weeks," Bethany mumbles.
—twenty-seven weeks. I get to watch him be extra especially pussy-whipped for twenty-seven weeks, give or take. Not that I can blame him.
"Damn. So we're having a baby, huh?" I say, grinning wildly at my brother as I move to the kitchen to find something that contains alcohol for myself.
I hear the eye-roll in Bethany's voice. "We aren't having a baby. I am the one who has to push it out of my vagina."
A cold chill runs down my spine, my hand frozen on a fifth of whiskey. "You don't have a vagina, Bethany."
"I promise she does," Embry says. I don't even have to turn around to see his cheeky smile, it's so evident in his voice.
"A nice one, so I've been told," Bethany adds.
Sure, I know Embry and Bethany have sex. Except for Claire and I, all the wolves and their imprints have sex. Vigorous, frequent, enthusiastic sex. Fuck, Nessie and Jacob's sex all but forced her into labor. But I just don't want to think about—can't think about—Bethany and Embry physically doing it. It's like thinking about my mom.
"Is morning sickness contagious?" I say, settling into my seat. "I'm going to barf."
Bethany's green eyes go wide as her fingers close in around her glass. "Oh God, please don't."
I chuck a thumb over my shoulder toward the front of the house. "So, that's what that shiny new SUV is doing in the driveway." It is those things, shiny and new, but I'm also pretty sure it's the kind she had before, just the next size up and several years newer.
"We need three rows," Bethany says. Her eyes turn softer. "How's Hannah?"
This time, the drink burns properly on its way down my throat, and I immediately stand to top off. "Need anything while I'm up?"
"Not unless you have McDonald's fries and Sprite," Embry says, going along with my horrible subject change. "It's all she can stomach."
Bethany groans a noise I categorize as pure desire. It's one I never wanted to hear from her, not in a million fucking years. "Will you go, Quil?"
I snort. "To McDonald's? Yeah, right. The closest one's in Port Angeles."
"Embry went for me yesterday," she challenges. "Twice."
I pour a generous three fingers of whiskey. "There's no way the fries were still good by the time he got back. It's an hour."
"Driving, maybe. But he ran."
I look at Embry, hoping she's bullshitting me. But he gives me an exasperated look, and I know she's being serious. He phased, ran to Port Angeles, phased again, ordered McDonald's, phased back, and ran home.
Twice.
"It only takes twenty minutes," she adds. She rests her hand on her stomach and gives me a goddamn pout. "Your niece or nephew would greatly appreciate it."
Whoa. That's… different. And very persuasive.
I eye my drink again, deciding whether I'll make it there and back before it kicks in. Wistfully, I leave it untouched on the counter. "Just fries and a Sprite?"
Bethany nods but maneuvers it into a side-to-side shake. "And a cheeseburger. Actually, make it two. No, one."
She seems settled there, so I dip my chin in a nod. "Just the one, then."
She nods fervently, then stops abruptly, springs to her feet, and bolts for the bathroom.
"Get three," Embry says as he heads after her. "And a chocolate shake."
Things get much worse, much faster than anyone expected.
According to Hannah's last scans, the chemo isn't working anymore. It, apparently, hasn't been working for a month or two now. Long enough for new tumors to pop up in Hannah's right breast and on her liver. The doctors' words float through my head and into outer space.
Stage four…
Nothing they can do…
Weeks, maybe…
Make her comfortable…
Get affairs in order…
The girls are pulled from school, a mere week away from Claire's graduation, and Jonathan and I both take leaves of absence from work.
Hannah requests a celebration of life she can attend while she's still alive—even if it is a half-life, she'd said. Which is why, today, there is a house so full of people it's bursting at the seams.
We thought about making visitors wear masks, but it seemed scary and a little pointless this late in the game. Hannah saw the box of them Jonathan carried in the other day and almost, almost, was able to lift herself out of bed to come smack him in the head.
But then her arms gave out, and she moaned this thing from a deep part of her soul, and I refused to call it a death rattle because she wasn't dying yet, not that day, not before everyone could say their goodbyes.
Hannah instructed everyone to wear the brightest colors they owned, asked Claire to wear the dress for the prom she didn't attend. Claire could only wear the turquoise floor-length gown for a few minutes, just long enough for her mom to see it and every eye in the room to go misty, before she ran to her room to change.
Sam and Emily are in here now, at Hannah's vigil, their boys playing in the other room. Emily is telling stories from when they were little kids, like the time Hannah got in trouble for stealing bubble gum from the corner store.
"I snuck it in your pocket," Emily says, laughing even though her eyes are watering, and her mouth is twisting from the force of holding back her real feelings.
"I knew it," Hannah says as loud as she can, which isn't much louder than a whisper. Still smiling. Always smiling.
After Sam and Emily, Nessie and Jacob stop by with the new baby, William Edward.
"Will for short, we think," Jake says, his jaw tight as he watches Hannah hold his son.
A stab of white-hot rage bolts through my stomach. That will never be my memory. Hannah will not get to meet her own grandchildren.
Jake catches my eye, and his chin falls to his chest, an acknowledgement of my feelings and an apology for having this be our truth.
The same thing happens later when Katie and Seth come by with their daughter Sienna, who beat Will out of the womb by eight days. I can't watch it again, so I move to the kitchen where other guests are milling around, picking at food mystery hands prepared. I remember the same thing happened after my dad died. I ate so much baked spaghetti one time, because it felt rude not to, that I threw up. To this day, I still can't eat it with olives.
I wonder if this is how it will be for Claire. If she will smell bread from the bakery in town and have her heart weep inside her chest.
The rest of the Pack comes. Hannah and Jonathan's old work friends stop by. Then my mother arrives, bags hooked on her arms. Fuck's sake, not more food.
Seeing her walk through the door when I haven't spoken to her in I don't know how long… I don't know whether to scream or cry or both, and at who? Her? My Ancestors? God?
Mom goes in to see Hannah and shuts the door quietly behind her. But I can still hear. Hear Hannah tell my mother how good of a job she did with me. Hear my mom say the same about Claire.
Blood rushes in my ears, and I'm not sure how I'm still standing.
Strong hands—my brother, I know somewhere in the deep-down parts of my brain—push me toward a seat at the table, and I listen to the rest of their conversation from there.
Mom: He'll take care of her, you know. You don't need to worry.
Hannah: Joy. You as a mother should know better than that.
Mom: I know, I know. You're right. I just… I know that if it were me… I'd want to know he's taken care of.
Hannah: She'll take care of him, too. They're good for each other.
Mom: They're lucky to have found each other so young.
Hannah: We're lucky to have raised them.
Someone starts crying then, and I tune out. Across the kitchen, Claire and Callie bump shoulders, and it's more aggressive than passive. I wish they'd stop fighting, although I know why they are. Grief isn't rational on a good day; trying to grieve for someone who's still living is even less so.
People come and go, and I can't figure out what I'm supposed to be doing. Eventually, my mother emerges from the bedroom and starts washing the dishes that have piled up.
When those are clean and put away, she rifles in her bag, bringing out paper plates and plastic cups. Tossable silverware. She catches me watching her and gives me a soft smile.
"I'm heading home," my mother says after a few more minutes, or maybe an hour, it's hard to tell time in limbo. She's done things I never would have thought to: schedule the coffee for the morning and fill the water reservoir. Slide two casseroles from the fridge to the freezer after writing the date on them with Sharpie. Go through the steadily growing pile of mail and toss the junk. Make a grocery list and tell Sam to run to the store. Fold a load of towels that have sat in the dryer for four days and restart the clothes that have begun to stink in the washer.
"Okay," I say. My throat is raw. I swallow, but it doesn't help. "Okay, yeah. Thanks, for uh—just thanks, Mom."
She nods, then before I have a chance to refuse, she pulls me against her chest. The scent of her is the scent of home: pine, soft linen, and incense.
"Here if you need me," she whispers, starting to pull away.
"I don't know how to do this," I whisper into her hair, hanging on tighter.
She strengthens her hold and tilts her mouth toward my ear. "Nobody ever does, son. We all just go along the best we can and figure it out on the way."
With one more quick squeeze, she pulls back, pats my face, and heads for home.
"Quil," Hannah whispers from her bedroom, but I hear it anyway.
I enter Hannah and Jonathan's bedroom. Mostly Hannah's these days, though. Jon hasn't slept in here for over two months, giving Hannah as much space as he can for her rest in whatever position is comfortable. Nothing is comfortable, she'd told us a few days ago.
As I shut the door behind me, Hannah reaches for her water on the nightstand. I'm faster, rushing over to grab it so she doesn't have to move. I lift the tumbler, one with a handle and lid and straw like a sippy cup, to her mouth, and she takes a gentle but greedy sip.
"Claire will need a dress for the funeral," she says as she settles back down.
My stomach ties itself in a knot. "Hannah, we don't have to—"
"Yes, we do." She gives me a look so fierce I forget why I'm in here. For a flash, an instant, she's her old self again, telling me Claire is under no circumstances allowed to cliff jump before she's ten or stay out past eleven or drive my truck unless she has her permit and wears not only a seatbelt but a helmet.
"Now," she says again, doing a shift I think is supposed to prop her up but really just makes her look smaller against the surrounding mass of quilts and pillows. What's left of her hair is shrouded by a purple scarf—someone must've retied the bow for her, because she can't hold her arms up that long. It's a pretty bow. "Like I said, Claire will need a new dress. Let me give you some cash for it. Hand me my wallet. Right in my purse."
I hand it over, and between the two of us and our unsteady hands, it falls with a thud to the mattress.
"Sorry," I croak, my voice crackling as I collapse into the chair nearest the head of the bed.
"No big deal," she murmurs, but it is.
I'm apologizing for so much more than dropping her fucking wallet. I'm apologizing that I have to hand it to her at all, that she has to remind her family to have proper clothes for a funeral in her honor, because she is the glue and we will fall apart without her.
That she only got to see Claire in her prom dress for five minutes. That Claire felt too guilty to go to prom at all. That Claire won't want to ever look at it again, and it wasn't a cheap dress.
I'm apologizing for being mad at my mom even though she washed Jon's coffee-stained mugs. For not knowing you're supposed to use paper plates when someone's sick because it's apparently easier to take out the garbage than it is to unload a dishwasher, even though none of it seems easy because there will always, from now on, be one less plate and fork and cup and person.
I fold over, head between knees, and try to hold myself together. This family needs me to be strong. I am not entitled to this much grief. I feel selfish and guilty and so many other things that don't have names because it hurts too much to even think, much less define. "Sorry," I say again.
"Quil," she says, and it's so severe I sit up, my eyes drying instantly. You can't be anything but terrified when a mom speaks to you that way. "The dress. Here. Make sure she has shoes that go with it, okay? And please, for the love of our Ancestors, don't let Callie wear those brown boots with the heels falling off. Those need to go in the garbage."
I chuckle, but it is garbled and painful. "Okay, yeah. Those are pretty ugly."
Her brown eyes go softer, the same ones Claire has. "And they need to make up, the two of them. I don't want to know what it's about, but if it's about me I'm going to haunt them until they're fifty and fifty-two."
"That's very specific," I say.
She nods. "I know. I have my reasons."
It's the blunt delivery that eases something off my chest, makes it easier to breathe than it has been in days. The feeling is so foreign it takes me a second to remember the name. A laugh.
I just laughed.
God, it almost feels wrong.
Hannah lets off a soft laugh of her own. "Now, there are letters."
"Letters," I repeat.
"Yes," Hannah says. "For each of you. Jon has them for now, but I don't trust him to remember after."
After.
Such a small word for such a big unknown.
There are five people on this bed. Hannah's in the middle, her breath raspy and uneven. Claire and Callie lay on either side of their mother, tucked into her sides as tight as Hannah's frail body, all sagging yellow skin and bird bones, will allow.
The girls had one final, quiet moment alone with their mother, just the three of them. I wonder if she gave them instructions like she gave me. Probably.
Claire was supposed to graduate today. Instead, she is here.
After Hannah called for us, I tucked myself in behind Claire, and Jonathan did the same behind Callie. Two sets of parentheses bracketing an equation of a woman. Hannah's love for life has added up in this house in rainbows of color; her love for her husband multiplied to two beautiful and funny and bright daughters. The subtraction of her from this world will leave a divide nothing can fill.
Hannah has a way of giving you power while making you feel like you earned it yourself. Hannah can figure out your lying tell within ten minutes of meeting you and has never hesitated to call you on it. Hannah has a laugh that makes even the darkest of days fill with sunshine.
Hannah is love incarnate, and Hannah is dying today.
I fight my tears at the expense of Claire's. She is trembling against me, and I can do nothing but hold on. No words will fix this, no touches will hold her together, and no amount of time will prepare her for what is coming.
Over their heads, I catch the eyes of Claire's dad. Jonathan is bleary-eyed, one arm looped under Callie's shoulder, hand on Hannah's hair. His other hand holds Hannah's, Callie between them as she sobs quietly on her mother's shoulder. When he sees me watching, he gives me the saddest grimace I have ever seen as tears breach his eyes.
Each one says I'm not ready, Quil. Louder and louder as they fall faster and faster. They are screaming at me.
It is this image that makes my nose burn, my eyes sting and itch and blur. No one is ever ready for death, but it comes anyway.
Swiftly and slowly. Quietly and loudly. Here and gone.
Hannah Isla Young wins her fight against cancer on Saturday, April 18th, 2020, surrounded by those who love her most in the world. She is a winner, even in death, because she had the courage to fight at all.