February 15th 2023

Chapter 46
We Wonder How To Be

He had no recollection of their trip from the ranch to the hospital. They had been one place, and across the void that was his mind, they had reached the other. Once they stopped there, the silence was somehow the thing that brought him back to something like awareness. It pieced together a single thought in his mind.

"I need you to do something," he spoke with an evenness that felt false in his ear.

"Sure," Maya replied, no hesitation.

"Will you go see Michael, let him know…" His voice faltered. He bowed his head, tried, and took a breath. "Let him know about what happened?"

"I… Yeah, okay. What are you going to do?" she asked, and he could at least grasp that she needed to know that he would be alright, that she hesitated to leave his side. He turned to look at her, and seeing her own sadness etched across her face nearly made him lose what little balance he was able to maintain. He took hold of her hand, and she instantly turned the tables, bringing his hand together with hers, up to her lips. She kept their joined hands close to herself, stroked the back of his hand with her thumb.

"Go find my father… I don't even know how he's doing but…" Lucas shook his head. He didn't have to clarify. In this, he and his father would be very much alike, wouldn't they? Not two years ago, Lucas had nearly lost the love of his life, and it had felt as though his heart was very literally tearing itself apart in his chest. Thomas hadn't just nearly lost Melinda. She was gone, and he was here, so what would that do to his odds for recovery if they were at stake… without her…

Reluctantly though she did, Maya dropped him off and drove on to locate Michael Sullivan and deliver the news. Lucas approached the hospital and felt the ghost hands of dread trying to grab hold of him, weigh him down, stop him from going any further. But he went inside. He went, and he asked after his father… after both of his parents. She had to be here, too, her… her body… The ghost hands nearly won out, but then he was told where he might find them both, and for a fleeting minute or so, he just about had himself convinced that there had been a mistake, that his mother was still alive. Of course, his father would not leave her side at a time like this. He'd be by her side, any chance he got.

Then he found the room, found them… and the hope dissipated like so much smoke. His father sat hunched in a chair, across from where his mother had been laid in rest, he would soon learn, to allow for what goodbyes had not been allowed to happen in life. There was a sheet pulled up over her, though her face remained uncovered. The whole scene struck him with so much force, he didn't know how he managed to keep to his feet. He didn't know if it was the blood he could see, on both of them, the breathless silence of the room, or the way she still looked like she could have slept but at the same time… Melinda Friar had always shone with so much life, and the woman who lay in that bed had none of that light, so how could it possibly be her?

He didn't want to go in that room. The ghost hands had redoubled their efforts. But his father… His father was right there. His father was crying. His sudden sobs rent the silence and chased the ghost hands away until Lucas could reach his father and put his arms around him. Thomas couldn't see his face, but it didn't matter. He knew his son, and he held on to him for support as his grief just about brought him slipping from his seat and on to his knees. They had to be hearing him all across this floor of the hospital, had to feel the impossible emotions in him as he surrendered to the reality of his loss. Lucas felt it as deeply as he would, feeling all this out of his father even as he could see his mother up on that bed, unmoved by any of it. She was really gone, and all they could do was hold to one another.

A nurse came and helped Lucas so they might bring Thomas out of that room, to sit with him somewhere he might collect himself… as much as he could. Lucas didn't know that either of them were ready to head down this road, but he didn't know how else to help him through this, so he asked the question he both wanted to ask and never wanted answered: What had happened? The accident… the aftermath…

It was a rare day where neither of them had any other obligations. He wasn't working, and someone else was seeing to the youngest Friar granddaughters, so they'd gone out together to look into a few things for the house. Spring was right around the corner, or so she'd say, midway through February, so it had to be done.

One moment they'd been driving along, talking, laughing… Thomas remembered her laughter. It was the very last he'd heard from her. He didn't remember the crash, just laughter and in the next second… chaos, and Melinda… Melinda was silent. There'd be no telling, no matter what anyone would say, the more they examined everything, what the very last thing she would have felt… Was it amusement, and a split second of… something… and then no more? Or had she had time to know, to… to… It would be the kind of thought they'd never manage to escape, no matter how hard they tried. Just one lifelong nightmare of not knowing, of hope, so much hope, that she had never known fear, but no certainty to keep the door closed and secured.

X

After leaving Lucas and watching him walk into the hospital, Maya had started off toward the Sullivan-Reyes home. Barring any unforeseen outings, that was where Michael would be at this time of the day. What would she do if she arrived there, and he wasn't home? She still wasn't sure what she'd do if he was home, but that was another matter. If he wasn't home… she'd just have to track him down somehow. When she pulled up to the house and spotted his car, her stomach found new knots to twist into. She didn't get out of her seat for what felt like several minutes.

He knew the moment he opened the door and saw her standing there. She wasn't sure how at first, but then it made sense, didn't it? Why would she be there, at his house, with that look on her face? The realization hit him, and he stumbled where he stood, breath escaping him even as his hand raised to his mouth and his eyes grew wide and terrified. He shook his head, denying what his mind had forced him to deduce. Except Maya was there, and her face told him he wasn't wrong. First, he'd lost his father, then his mother, and now his sister was gone, too. Of their little family, he was all that was left, and he was… alone.

He needed to know what had happened, and Maya didn't have much to tell him, but what she did have she gave him. An accident, a car crash… Thomas was in the hospital, and Lucas was there right now, with him. That was all she had, that and the fact that… that Melinda…

As different as the siblings were, they were alike in some ways, enough of them that Maya couldn't help but feel a bit pulled to this essence of Melinda qualities in her husband's uncle. She could feel it in him as they hugged, and she hated to think that maybe he couldn't feel that quality in himself, that he couldn't access that bit of his sister that lived within him. It felt so selfish to appeal to it, but just now, maybe she felt that Melinda would not only not mind but she would encourage this.

"I don't know what I'm going to tell the girls…" she breathed, brushed at a couple of errant tears sitting on her cheek.

She couldn't even say that she knew what it was like, to grow up this close to either one of her grandmothers. She hadn't known them until she was fairly grown, but her daughters… Her daughters had known and been cherished by their grandmothers since before they'd been born, each in their own way, and when it came to Granny Mel… Oh, she was a legend. And now they had to be told that she was gone, that they would never see her again? It didn't matter how big or little they were, did it? None of them would be spared.

"There's no getting it right," Michael told her, and the words sat with him for a moment, bringing a new rush of emotion in him. "That was what she said, when… when we knew Mama wasn't going to recover, when they had to tell Lucas…"

The anecdote knocked the breath from her again, just for a moment, as she contemplated her husband as a boy, looking at once like any one of their girls at the same time. There'd be no doubt whatsoever that he had loved Marianne Sullivan just the way Marianne, Kacey, Remy, Lucy, Mackenzie, and Aubrey Friar had loved Melinda Friar… for as long as they'd lived and shared the world with her. The difference of course was that, difficult as it would have been, Lucas had had time to cope with the eventuality before it came. There was nothing there for his daughters today to think that their Granny Mel was anywhere but right where she was supposed to be, alive and well, probably stirring up a storm.

Lucas: My father's injuries were minor. He's in shock.

Lucas: I saw her.

"Is that Lucas?" Michael asked when he noticed her looking at her phone. His voice made her jump, startled. "Sorry…"

"It's okay, I… Yeah… Yeah… He's with Thomas," she explained, and she could see he was thinking of his brother-in-law now, considering the day from his perspective where he'd yet to do so. No one would blame him for being caught up, all of his thoughts on his sister. "He's not going to be admitted, I don't think."

"We'll bring him here, for tonight at least, and tomorrow…" Michael decided at once. His eyes said it all: It was what Melinda would want. And tomorrow… A new day felt impossible right now, what with all that still needed to happen before this one ended. As for Michael's decision, she wouldn't stand in his way, and she didn't imagine Lucas would either. He might want to look after his father just now, but they had to look at the big picture, and front and center was a house that would already be thrown to madness once they had to sit those little blondes down, and Thomas needed rest… if he could get it… and he needed peace… if he could get that, too.

"Are you ready to go? I'll drive you," Maya told Lucas' uncle. When their eyes met, they were as good as telling each other that they were as terrified as the other, but also that if they went together then… then they could be strong together. They had to go and allow their grief to expand by being with Thomas, with Lucas, and with Melinda, too, as they'd find.

"She'd be so upset…" Michael spoke, lost in thought, as he moved to follow his nephew's wife. Maya didn't know what he meant. "Mel… She could never stand to see any of us crying."

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners