"What? How do they know it's a stroke?" Brad rushes down the stairs to commiserate with his brothers.
"I don't know, Aunt Beverley just called dad like five or ten minutes ago bawling her eyes out. She basically just told him what the paramedics told her." Tim explains. "At this point, we really don't know what the hell it was."
"Well, we'd better get down to the hospital. Tim, you're staying here." Brad starts directing the action.
"Why am I staying here?" Tim protests. "I'm just as much a part of the family as you are."
"I know you are but someone's got to stay here and take care of Harry and Hannah. I'd tell Jack to stay here but I'm pretty sure that Harry has blackmail material on Jack, so there's no way he'd take any of Jack's orders seriously." Brad jokes but Jack nods seriously. "Second, we need Jack's car because there are three of us headed to the hospital and only two people can fit on my motorcycle at one time."
"Fine, I'll stay home." Tim resigns. "Just who put you in charge, anyway?"
"I'm the oldest, it's a natural instinct." Brad trots back up the stairs toward my side.
"You're the oldest by thirty-four minutes; it's nothing to call the press about." Jack comments.
"You get the car ready." Brad sternly looks at Jack. "And you keep a close eye on Harry and Hannah, don't tell them a damned thing, that's mom and dad's job." Brad turns his attention on Tim. Tim nods and heads toward the house. "You can change if you want, I took the liberty of cleaning your shirt, there was a little……excess on it."
"Brad, you can say 'vomit' with me, especially if it's mine." I tell him and he shakes his head. "Wait, you do laundry?"
"Yeah, something my billets taught me when I was living in Kitchener." He trots back down the stairs and returns a few seconds later with my t-shirt. It's really clean. I may have hit the jackpot here; he's nice, he's funny, he's athletic and he knows how to do laundry without me telling him to.
I take off his USA Hockey t-shirt and pull on my favourite t-shirt which I wore to the party earlier tonight. It's a black t-shirt with The Pretenders written across the front and an image of Chrissie Hynde with a guitar around the front. "What about my shorts I tell him?"
"It's kind of chilly out tonight." He tells me and tosses me a pair of Kitchener Rangers sweatpants. "Don't worry; they're from last year when I was a complete bean-pole. They might still slip right off you but they've shrunk a few times in the washing machine, so you never know."
"Thanks." I pull them on. He's right, they're a little loose but otherwise they're comfortable and well broken in. I get the feeling that this is the point where I start slowly taking parts of his closet and making them my own. "You ready to go?"
"Yeah, come on." The two of us head downstairs, both trying to hide our concern for the man we both know lovingly as 'Uncle AJ'. I close the door to the garage behind us and we hop into the backseat of Jack's car. Jack hits the gas and bolts out of the driveway on to the street. Now, I'm used to driving with Jack and he does drive like a maniac but on this particular night he seemed to completely disregard all notion of the speed limit.
He stopped in a parking lot about a block from the hospital and the three of us sprinted the last block. The doors to the hospital slide open and we rush into the waiting room for intensive care. Sitting there are my parents, the boys' parents, the Roberts' and of course Beverley and Arleigh Chegwidden. My parents rush over and my mom wraps me in a big hug. I look over and see the boys speaking with their parents.
"Where's Tim?" I hear Mr. Ross ask Brad.
"Someone had to stay home with Harry and Hannah; I designated Tim for that task." Brad tells his parents. "What do we know?"
"All we know is what the doctor told Beverley about fifteen minutes ago. It's an intracranial haemorrhage, which is a kind of stroke. Beverley said that A.J. had been experiencing headaches for the last few days but said they were periodic. They were doing some preliminary treatment for him but the doctor seemed sure that they would need to perform surgery." My dad leans in and explains to me and the Ross boys.
"But they've got him stabilized?" I question.
"They wouldn't or didn't say, either way we're not sure." My dad answers and we all nod. I watch as Brad goes over and slumps down on the wall next to Arleigh. It's amazing that the two of them can spend months apart and still act like brothers when they're together. Moments later, Jimmy Roberts comes running in to the ICU and my dad briefed him on the situation. My mother and I wandered off to the kitchen to grab a couple of cups of good old Marine coffee.
"So, I bet there's a reason you're wearing your boyfriend's sweatpants?" My mother mutters knowingly. "You're lucky your father didn't notice."
"How did you?" I question.
"The word 'Rangers' down the side was a bit of a giveaway." My mom smiles. "Don't worry; most of your father's sweatshirts were in my closet before we even started dating." My mother and I share a fond smile when Brad comes trotting into the cafeteria.
"The doctor's coming out into the waiting room." He tells us, pointing back to the ICU waiting room. The three of us head back out into the waiting room of the ICU. I can hear my heart beating in my chest. It's thundering incredibly loudly, it feels like the blood is rushing to my ears. Brad has his arms wrapped around my shoulders as we wait for the doctor to give us the news.
"Secretary Chegwidden experienced what is known as a subarachnoid haemorrhage which is a severe kind of intracranial stroke. In the simplest terms, it's a severe bleeding into subarachnoid space around the brain which is a small cavity on the surface of the hemispheres of the brain. Now, contained in this cavity is cerebrospinal fluid and it is active in the blood drain barrier in the brain. This kind of haemorrhage is incredibly tough to contain in even the best of circumstances. I'm afraid to say that we are not going to be able to save him." You can see the young doctor swallow the lump in his throat. "He is still alive in a medical sense for the time being, but I can't say with a medical certainty for how long that will be the case. I would suggest that those of you who wish to say your goodbyes do so now." He blinks hard. "I am truly sorry for this, I hate that I couldn't do more."
The collective mood of the people in this room has just plummeted through the floor. I feel the tears coming to my eyes and Brad pulls me into his chest. I can hear his heart race in his chest but he's trying to make sure I'm okay. I've got my arms wrapped around his waist and we sink against the wall of the room. Mr. and Mrs. Ross along with Jack and Arleigh are trying to comfort an absolutely distraught Beverley Chegwidden. Arleigh and Mrs. Chegwidden are the first people in to say their goodbyes. After a few moments, my parents who worked with the Admiral all those years ago at JAG, follow them in. After them, the Roberts disappear down the hallway to the room and return a few moments later. Then Brad takes me by the hand and tries to lead me toward the room but I shake my head.
"No, no, I can't." I tell him. He nods and disappears with his brother, mother and father down the hallway. I go off in search of the doctor who delivered the news. I find him sitting in a hallway a few corridors over with his scrub cap in hand and his head between his legs. "Thank you…for what you did." I tell him and he looks up.
"I didn't do much." He tells me. "I tried, but none of it seemed to matter, the damage was just too extensive."
"How do you deal with that kind of helplessness?" I ask him. "I want to be a doctor, but I just don't know that I can deal with that."
"In medical school, I had a teacher, a Doctor Hunnicutt, back in medical school who told me that there are only two absolutes in medicine. The first is that people die and the second is that doctors change number one." He tells me simply. "You can tell yourself that over and over again but it all changes when you have to look in the faces of people whose loved one is about to die or has just died and tell them that there was nothing you could do. Those people have placed their trust in you and you feel like you let them down."
"So, why be a doctor at all?" I don't like the bleakness of the picture he just painted.
"Because the times when you can do something, the times when you save a life normally end up outnumbering the times you lose someone. That makes you an overall positive force in the universe as far as your working life goes. Really, the happiness you see when you save someone's life is a more permanent emotion than grief." He tells me. "But you should be getting back to your family, they need you now."
"Thanks, doctor." I tell him as I walk away.
"Not a problem." He replies. I walk back down the hall and I see the Ross family and the Chegwiddens re-entering the waiting room of the ICU.
"Bev, Arleigh, you guys are welcome to stay at our home for a while if you feel the need to be around family." Mr. Ross offers.
"Thank you, Nathan." Mrs. Chegwidden nods her head slowly. Jack's standing next to Arleigh with a supportive hand on his shoulder. Together, the whole group of us walk through the hospital and out the doors toward the parking lot. Before we can get in the cars to head back home the whole group of us exchange hugs. This is going to be a very rough few days but looking around, I'm glad that I've got such a great group of people around me.
FOUR DAYS LATER…
Beverley Chegwidden, my father and Mr. Ross have spent the better part of the last four days together planning every last detail of today. Mr. Ross, using the clout extended only by former Presidents was able to organize a Navy colour guard. My father helped Mrs. Chegwidden run every errand she needed to run in order to prepare the funeral and the burial. Right now, we're all sitting in the church as a close friend of Reverend Chegwidden's conducts the service. I'm sitting next to Brad in the pew. In front of us is sitting Brad's parents and across the aisle from us are my parents. The Reverend has gotten to the recitation of Genesis 3:19 and grant eternal rest unto thy servant.
After a few more moments of the service, it is about to be at an end and the pallbearers rise out of their pews. It's a group of six. There's Arleigh Chegwidden, the three oldest Ross boys, my father and Bud Roberts. Normally, one of the Ross boys would make a joke about Bud's height and the casket being lopsided but no one has said anything, not a sound has been made since the Reverend started speaking. The men hoist the casket up and being the walk up the middle aisle of the church. I look around the church as I follow the precession with my eyes and I realize the magnitude of people here. Vice President Turner is here, the Secretary of State is here, Uncle A.J's daughter Francesca and her mother are here and a large amount of military uniforms are in attendance. Eventually, the crowd follows the precession out of the church and the casket is placed in the hearse.
The pallbearers then re-climb the steps of the church to re-join their families. Only a small group will be going to Arlington for the burial. It'll be his immediate family, the group of his closest friends from JAG and few others. Brad and Tim are heading back to the Chegwidden house to make sure that everything is all prepared for the wake after the burial service. I will be heading back to the Chegwidden house with the boys. It's not that we didn't love our Uncle A.J., God knows we all did, but our parents knew him well and knew him for a much longer time and were much closer to him. This was their time to truly say their final goodbye and it seemed like a good idea to let them have their final goodbye without having to concern themselves for two hours about whether or not they're good hosts.
I give my parents a hug and then join the boys over at the car. Jack and Tim climb in the front seat and Brad climbs in the backseat with me. The whole car ride is taken in complete silence, which is eerie since these boys have never been silent about anything in their entire life. We pull into the Ross' driveway and walk down the block to the Chegwidden house. In their identical black suits, it's exceedingly tough to tell Jack and Brad apart. But having been latched on to Brad's arm for most of the day, and having known the boys since they were really young, it's kind of easy for me.
Arleigh entrusted Brad with his key to the Chegwidden house. Brad unlocks the door and we step in. "Alright, let's set everything up, people should be arriving here very soon. Honey, why don't you greet people as they come in?"
"I can help with the other stuff you know?" I ask him.
"I know, hun, but you seem to be the cheeriest person in this group today and not to mention the easiest on the eyes. It just seems logical for you to be the one to greet people." He puts his hands on my shoulders and kisses my forehead. "Just until my dad gets here, he can take over at that task."
"I love you." I tell him.
"I love you too, baby." He wraps me in a quick hug. The boys set up what needs to be set up for the wake and then they stand around uncomfortably playing host for the early arriving guests. Among the first people to arrive are some of Uncle A.J's colleagues from his days as a SEAL and as a surface warfare officer. As the house begins to fill up, I catch Brad casting glances out the window waiting for our parents to pull up the driveway.
Eventually, they do arrive and the parents take over the hosting duties. Aunt Beverley is offered condolences by everyone in attendance.
Harm's POV
The burial service at Arlington was incredibly well done. The last few days have been a lot tougher on me than I ever thought they would be. It may be that you never realize how much of an impact someone has on your life until they die. A.J. was really a mentor for me as I made the tough transition from carrier life to JAG. I'm sure that he let me get away with things that no other commanding officer would have ever let me get away with.
Right now, I'm standing in the Admiral's old living room – yes, he'll always be the Admiral to me – with Bud and Sturgis talking about our time at JAG under Admiral Chegwidden. I look around the room and I'm overcome with a sense of deep understanding, it amazes me that one man's life could touch the lives of all the people in this room and God knows how many more. Bud goes over to comfort Harriet who, for the umpteenth time in the last few days, has broken down into tears again. It's not that Harriet's the only one. Mac has spent the better part of the last few days fighting back her own set of tears.
My eyes move across the room as I take stock of all the people here. I look across the room to see my little girl standing with her boyfriend speaking with Francesca. I guess all this contemplation of mortality has me looking on with amazement at how fast my daughter has grown up. I never would have thought when I first walked into A.J. Chegwidden's office more than twenty-six years ago that I'd be standing here all these years later as a Senator from Virginia, with a seventeen year-old daughter who's dating the son of a former President.
"You know, Harm, you might have been able to take the kid ten years ago." Sturgis goads me.
"To be honest, I'm not experiencing the kind of paternal protectionism I thought I would be when Sasha brought her first boyfriend home." I chortle to myself a bit. "I guess I'm just encouraged by the fact that she made such a good choice her first time out. God knows it's not a claim Mac or I can make."
"Yeah, well that's definitely true." Sturgis jokes and I shoot an annoyed glare at him.
"Really, Sturgis, you sure you don't want to think about that opinion first?" The two of us laugh lightly.
"What was it Admiral Chegwidden used to say about your choice in women?" Sturgis keeps going. "More able to fill out their bra than their skull."
"Are you quite finished?" I shake my head.
"Nah, I can call over Bax and Keeter and we can make fun of your ex-girlfriends properly." Sturgis jokingly offers. Just then, a junior officer comes walking over to me and salutes me. This kid's too young to have ever served with the Admiral, why's he here.
"Admiral Rabb, sir." He says.
"Senator Rabb now, Lieutenant." I tell him. "At ease." I know I've seen his face before but I can't quite place it. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name, Lieutenant…"
"Don't you recognize me, sir?" The young man questions with a wide smile. "Josh Pendry, sir. Well, Lieutenant Josh Pendry now, I suppose." I smile and pull Josh in for a hug.
"Josh, it's nice to see you again. But what are you doing here?" I question.
"Well, sir, about ten years back, the Admiral made good on a promise from when I was a kid when he offered to write me a letter of recommendation to the Naval Academy. I figured it was appropriate for me to pay my respects." Josh explains. "But I've got to be heading back to Norfolk, sir. So, I figured I'd just touch base with you before heading out."
"Well, I'm glad you did. Thanks, Josh." I smile and pat him on the shoulder.
"Thank you, sir." Josh nods at me and heads for the door.
"Who was that?" Mac questions as she joins me and Sturgis.
"Believe it or not, Josh Pendry." I tell her. "He joined the Navy after all."
"Good for him." Mac smiles and settles in against my shoulder. "What were you two talking about before Josh walked over?"
"Harm's lousy choice of girlfriends before he married you." Sturgis answers before I have the chance to stop him. "More specifically what the Admiral used to say about them."
"I was privy to more than one of those conversations." Bud Roberts comes walking over.
"Me too, sir." Harriet adds as she dabs under her eyes. "He was a really good man."
"He certainly was." I nod slowly. For a second, there's silence in our little group. "I don't think I'll ever forget him telling me that there was no crying in JAG ops!" Harriet laughs a little.
"Or that look on his face when he realized he was going to have to deliver little A.J. on the floor of his office." Mac adds and the laughter spreads a bit.
"That time we all got arrested at Bud's bachelor party." I chime in and the volume of the laughter goes up. "That man put up with so much crap from us."
"US?" Sturgis jumps in. "It was mostly you two." He indicates Mac and myself.
"Like when he busted Webb's nose after we flew off to Russia half-cocked." Mac says. "He did seem to enjoy that though."
"Well, at least that part of it." Bud adds and I see a round of genuine smiles begin to sprout. And then another voice joins our chorus.
"And then there was the time that he ordered Rabb and I to strip blouses and go at it in order to settle our differences. I don't believe I've ever been that sore for a court appearance before or since." Mic Brumby joins in.
"Brumby, I didn't realize you were here." I try not to sound too annoyed.
"Well, I'm the military legal attaché to the Australian Embassy and when I read the notice in the paper, I figured I should come pay my respects. Admiral Chegwidden was a very good commanding officer. Blokes like that certainly aren't everyday men." Mic explains. I notice that Bud, Harriet and Sturgis have all slowly backed away from us. "So, you two finally got things together, eh?"
"Yeah, and like everyone says, we know it took us long enough." Mac wraps her arm around mine. "So, you're back in D.C."
"Nice little assignment I've worked out here." Mic grins. "So, how many kids?"
"Three." I tell him with a smile. "Tommy and Matt are around here somewhere but our daughter Sasha is over there." I point over by the fireplace where Sasha is standing with Brad Ross and Jimmy Roberts.
"She looks just like you, Mac." Mic tells my wife.
"She hates hearing that." Mac tells him. "She really wants to be her own person."
"Seems to have found herself a chap she's quite keen on." Mic indicates how Sasha's pretty attached to Brad.
"Yeah, it took the two of them awhile too." I chuckle a little bit. "He's a good kid."
"Looks like a bit of an athlete." Mic comments. "Let me guess, she was the high school cheerleader and he was the All-American?"
"She was the valedictorian." Mac tells him proudly. "He'll be playing professional hockey next fall."
"And a bloody nice pair they make too." Mic smiles fondly. "Well, I just figured I should pop in for a moment after the service. Nice to see you're both doing well. Congratulations, Rabb."
"Thanks, Mic." I nod and shake his hand firmly. The Aussie takes a few strides and exits the house. The kids come walking over and look curiously at the door.
"Who was that?" Sasha inquires.
"Mic Brumby." Mac answers.
"The Mic Brumby, famed in song and story?" Sasha jokes. "I would have liked to have met him just to see if all the stories were true."
"Wouldn't have done you any good, Sash." I tell my daughter. "He wasn't the same Bugme I remembered." Me and Mac share and knowing laugh for a few seconds before Beverley Chegwidden makes her way over.
"Has anyone seen my son?" She asks, the concern evident in her voice. Me and Mac shake our heads.
"I haven't seen him, Aunt Bev." Brad states.
Sasha's POV
"Oh dear, I haven't seen him since we returned from Arlington, I'm rather worried about him." She sniffles lightly.
"We'll organize a few people to go look for him." I tell Mrs. Chegwidden. Brad and I head across the room to gather up Tim, Jack, Jimmy and A.J. to go look for Arleigh. Jack and A.J. are going to hop in Jack's car and head for the school. Tim and Jimmy are going to check out some of Arleigh's favourite hangouts in Arlington. Brad and I are just going to search the neighbourhood on foot.
We all head out of the house and to our respective tasks. Brad and I walk down through the neighbourhood arm-in-arm checking out places in the neighbourhood that we think Arleigh might be. We check the ravine behind the Chegwidden house, the local park and even a few of the nearby sports bars. On our way back up toward the Chegwidden house, Brad gets a brainstorm and we head up the driveway of his house. Brad sees the garage door open and heads for the stairs while telling me to get on my phone and call the boys into the house. After a few seconds, I've got the troops rallied and headed for the Ross house and I hesitantly walk up the stairs. As I near the top I sit on the stairs and watch Brad go to work.
"Hey, buddy." I hear Brad say tentatively to Arleigh who's slumped down against a wall. Arleigh just grunts at him. "What's going on?"
"Stupid question." Arleigh mutters at him.
"You know what I mean, you've never hidden from anything in your life. Even when we were kids and watched horror movies." Brad slumps down next to him. "You finding it a little hard to hide from the grief?"
"No, you idiot, I'm trying to understand why my father had to die!" Arleigh rebukes his cousin as he rises to his feet. "See, you don't understand, you get to live the charmed life. When you get drafted next week, your old man is going to be with you. When you play your first game in the pros, your old man will be watching. Well, when I play my first football game for Navy, my dad won't be with me. He won't get to see me graduate from Annapolis. Those are things I know he would have enjoyed but he's not going to get to see them!" Arleigh's voice is nearing a full shout.
"You're right, he would have." Brad adds, I can tell that he doesn't know quite what to say. "Man, I know what you're going through…"
"Do you? Do you really?" Arleigh charges. "You spend your whole life running away from the people you care about. Can't hold down a steady girlfriend, have to run off to Canada to play hockey, globetrot with USA Hockey at Christmas. You have no idea what it's like to loose someone close to you because you don't let anyone get close to you. So, excuse me if I don't quite believe that you know how I feel!" Arleigh puts his hands in the middle of Brad's chest and shoves him to the floor. "My dad was a great man, Brad. You wanna be useful? Tell me why he had to die!"
Brad gets up off the ground and gets in Arleigh's face. "Listen to me, damn it. I don't know why your father had to die, nobody in this world does. Perhaps we'll never know why some people have to die and some people get to live. But if that's all you can focus on, then you're sure as fuck missing the point. In the end, the hows, wheres, whens and whys of death just aren't important. It's in the living that we find our knowledge and it's in the life that we take our solace. There is no solace, no closure in death, only emptiness. Now, you can spend the rest of your life wondering why or you can remember the kind of man your father was, and you can take the lessons of his life to shape the kind of man you want to be. And let me say, as role models go, they don't get much better than your dad." Brad's trying to match Arleigh's level of intensity and he's doing a pretty good job of it. "Grief is important, when someone we love dies we have to grieve for that kind of loss but we can't let that emotion define who we are."
Something in Arleigh breaks. You can see the tears well up in his eyes and he lurches forward and grabs Brad in a big bear hug. "I'm sorry, man. I just miss him so damn much!"
Brad gives Arleigh a few hard pats on the back. "I know, man, we miss him too." Brad tells his cousin. I walk over from the stairs and put my hand on Arleigh's back. He breaks the hug with Brad and he leans down and gives me a big hug. The boys arrive in the garage and climb the stairs up to the loft. Arleigh smiles when he sees the rest of the guys come up the stairs and they each take a turn at giving him a bear hug and a pat on the back. "I was saving this for when the lot of us where together and out of earshot of our parents. I picked it up when I crossed the border from Canada a few days ago. It's a kind of Newfie Rum called Screech." Brad comes out with the bottle and a few plastic glasses.
He hands the glasses out to everyone. He pours about a little bit for everyone and then puts the cap back on the bottle. "Arleigh, you want to take this one?" Brad asks his cousin.
"To my dad, a great influence on my life and a great human being in general. The world could use a hell of a lot more like him." Arleigh raises his glass.
"Amen." Jack adds and we all take a drink.
We all walked Arleigh back to the wake and spent a few more hours with him before the crowd broke up around 10pm. Brad and I walked back to the loft together. We're sitting in the living room watching a movie on the television and curled up under a blanket on the couch. At about 11pm, I can tell that Brad's feeling a little restless and I want to help him feel at ease. "What is it, hun?" I look up at him.
"It's just, I wanted to give you something but I was worried that…with everything that's happened you'd think it was because I'm thinking about death and mortality and all that." He gets up from the couch and heads off to his bedroom. He comes back with something in his hands and I'm staring at him with a torrent of emotions going through me. "I wanted to give you something that really meant something to me in order to show you how I feel. I know it's not going to seem like much but it really does come from the heart." He opens that big right hand of his and inside is a delicate gold chain with some kind of thing hanging from the middle of it. "It's my Memorial Cup ring. I figured it would look kind of big and gawdy on my finger and even worse on yours but on this little chain, it looks smaller and much more understated."
I honestly don't know what to think. If you've ever seen a sports championship ring, it's not exactly the most beautiful piece of jewellery in the world. He's right, they tend to look big and they have all the subtlety of a pink elephant. So, he's right in that it's not a piece of jewellery I would ever buy for myself but at the same time, it does mean an awful to him considering what he went through to win that championship and get these damn rings. He places the chain around my neck and look down at the little ring dangling from my neck. I can see something on the inside of the ring and I bring the ring up to my eyes. There's an inscription. It says: "I couldn't have done it without you" I smile and kiss his lips. "I love it, thank you." I tell him and he smiles.
"Good, because I've got a bit of a question to ask." He keeps going. "Do you want to come out to Anaheim for the draft next week?"
"Are you kidding? My boyfriend taking me out to Southern California? I'm there." I say enthusiastically and we curl up on the couch again. We fall asleep together in the soft glow of the television screen.