21. Fourteen Years Ago
GAVIN
You can’t feel anything but helpless when you see someone you love suffer such a momentous loss. What could I do?
Penny stayed in the hospital room, sobbing into her lap until they finally came in to wheel away Liam’s body. No one else was there; Penny was the only one who wouldn’t leave his side.
“What are you doing with him?” she asked the orderlies.
“We have to take him now,” one of the men said. At the same moment, a grief counselor and a priest came into the room.
“You can bless him,” Penny said, “but he wasn’t religious. I don’t even know if he believed in God.” She looked up at me as more tears fell from her eyes. “There was still so much I didn’t know about him, and I’ll never get to ask.” She broke down again. The priest said a prayer and knelt beside Penny’s chair. He tried to comfort her.
“Your father is at peace, my child. He’s not in pain.”
Penny continued sobbing.
I lifted her out of her wheelchair, her knee brace clinking against the side of a small couch. She didn’t flinch. I sat down, holding her on my lap. Her arms were around my shoulders, her face in my neck. Tears and snot were soaking the collar of my T-shirt. She was hyperventilating.
Rubbing her back up and down, I repeated, “Breathe. Take a breath. Breathe, Penny.”
She cried and cried until I finally felt her body resign. The tension was gone and it was like I had a sleeping child in my arms. “You need water, baby.”
Nodding into my shoulder, she said, “I want to see my mom.”
I put her back in her wheelchair and rolled her into the ICU waiting room, which had cleared out significantly since we had gotten there. The only people left were Penny’s mom, Kiki, her aunt, and her grandmother.
Anne stood on shaking legs and walked toward Penny’s chair. She knelt next to it. I had never seen Penny’s mom be affectionate toward her, but deep down I knew she cared about her because of how loving Penny was. Maybe once Kiki was born, Anne had transferred all her energy to her youngest. But now Penny was like a baby, mourning her dad like no one else.
Penny rested her head on her mother’s shoulder. “Mama,” she cried.
“I know, Penny, I know.”
Kiki was crying quietly in the corner. I suddenly felt out of place. Still rubbing her back, I bent near Penny’s ear and whispered, “I’m so sorry. Should I go and leave you with your family?”
“Don’t leave, Gavin.”
ANNE WAS STRONG that day. She held Liam’s mother up, comforted Penny and Kiki, and held both their hands as we walked to the parking lot.
I asked quietly, “Anne, why don’t you let me drive you all home? I can come back and get my car later.” Liam’s sister, Penny’s aunt Jane, had finally arrived from Boulder. She and her husband both looked wrecked. They took Penny’s grandma in their car, and Anne told everyone to meet back at the house.
I drove the station wagon with Penny in front because she still couldn’t bend her knee. In the rearview mirror I could see Kiki’s and Anne’s stunned faces. Penny was making quiet mewling sounds, as if her body was so depleted she could no longer cry properly. I hadn’t known that kind of grief before.
Inside the house, everyone sat in the living room in silence. I offered to pick up food for them, but no one was hungry. At four in the afternoon, there was a knock on the door. I answered. It was Lance.
“Penny texted Ling,” he said from the other side of the threshold. “I didn’t know if it was too early . . . but you’re here.”
“Penny’s my best friend.”
He shook his head and looked away down the street.
“Can I talk to her?”
“She just lost her dad. I don’t think she feels like talking.”
Penny hobbled into the hallway on her crutches. Standing behind me, she said, “Lance, I’ll call you later, okay? Right now I need to be with my family.”
Lance looked from Penny to me and back again as if to say, Is this guy family? But to his credit, he caught himself. “I’m so sorry, Penny,” he said. “I’ll call you tomorrow and check in.”
That rest of the night was surreal. Anne asked me to stay with Penny in her room, while she and Kiki slept in Kiki’s room. I don’t think anyone could bear to go into the master bedroom yet.
The rest of the family members left. Lottie was blowing up my phone while I was peeling Penny’s clothes off. I had plied Penny, Kiki, and Anne with water and crackers for hours, until they were finally so exhausted they crawled into bed.
Penny was shivering, her body still shuddering every thirty seconds from hyperventilating for so long. I curled up behind her and tried to soothe her. “How’s your knee, Penny?”
“What knee?” She fell asleep a moment later. Her body still spasmed periodically throughout the night. It was hard for me to sleep, knowing that she was so physically strung out.
Around two a.m., I heard Anne crying in the bathroom. I went into the hallway and knocked on the door. “Are you okay, Anne?”
She opened the door, her face red and puffy, no makeup on, her hair a mess. There’s no vanity in that kind of grief. “I wish I had been a better wife,” she said.
I rubbed her back as we stood there in the doorway. “He loved you. You loved him. That’s all that matters.”
“I neglected him,” she said. “He took care of us . . . and I neglected him.”
“It’s just life. I think it happens when you’ve been married for so long. But I saw the way he looked at you. He adored you, Anne.” She fell into my arms and cried.
“Penny loves you,” she said when she was finally able to catch her breath. “Penny’s afraid she loves you too much. She’d never loved anything as much as her father and dancing until you came along. She can’t dance anymore . . . and now her dad’s gone. She’s lost so much, all at once. You’re all she has left, Gavin.”
“She has you and Kiki and Ling . . . and Lance.” I hated saying his name.
“Pfft, Lance, please. Lance is a distraction. She loves you. Oh Gavin, what am I going to do? How am I going to take care of these girls?”
“You just will. You have to.”
She wiped the tears from her eyes and squared her shoulders. “I just have to. You’re right. I need to give Penny more. I’ve neglected her, too. I’ve poured everything into Kiki.”
“Stop beating yourself up, Anne. No one could have predicted this. He was so young.”
“He was our rock.”
“You’ll be the rock now.”
She nodded, and I could sense her resolve.
THE NEXT MORNING I took a cab to get my car and bring back chicken soup from a deli near Penny’s house. Penny, Anne, and Kiki thanked me endlessly. I told them I had to get home and feed Jackie Chan, but I promised to come back later.
The truth was that I hadn’t spoken to Lottie since I’d dropped her off at her apartment. I had thirteen voicemails from her. I did text her to tell her I was okay, and that I had a family emergency, but I waited until I was in my apartment to call her back.
“What the fuck, Gavin?” she said the minute she answered the phone.
“I’m sorry, Lottie. Penny’s dad died right after commencement.”
The phone went quiet for several moments. “You said family emergency.” She didn’t bother asking what happened. That should have been a red flag, but in the moment, I was too exhausted to notice.
“They’re like family,” I told her.
“Hmm, well, okay . . . Tell her I’m very sorry.” She huffed into the phone. “But I need you too, Gavin. Can I come over?”
Maybe she’s going to break up with me.
“Okay.”
I rushed around, making sure there was no evidence of Penny. When the doorbell rang, I opened it and said, “If you’re going to start a fight with me, can you let me shower first? I’ve been running around the whole day.”
She started untying her long black coat to reveal nothing but a matching lace bra and panty set underneath. “Why don’t we shower together?”
She walked past me into the living room. I closed the door and followed her toward the bathroom.