24. THE SECRET TO LIVING
MALACHI
I felt a familiar darkness creep up on me again and my vision tunneled once more when all of sudden someone shook me.
“Let her go! SIR! YOU NEED TO LET HER GO!”
Blinking I didn’t realize who was speaking until two paramedics were taking her out of my arms and placing her onto a stretcher. David pulled me back as they cut open her clothes and prepared the defibrillator and I watched as they sent a jolt of electricity.
“Ahh.” I hunched over and grabbed my chest as if the electricity had gone through me instead. But I welcomed it. It was better than the darkness, than the nothingness.
“One more…” I whispered so softly I wasn’t sure if they could hear me begging them but they did it again.
And when they did, they said, “We’ve got a pulse!”
I could breathe again.
A pulse meant that she was alive. And I could do alive.
We can do alive, can’t we beloved?
DAY ONE
It felt like everything was sped up. Time was going and things were happening, but I couldn’t look away.
One moment we were in the ambulance and they were giving us warm fluids through an IV. The next, we were in the hospital. I had no recollection of our movements, my eyes stayed only on her.
I was alive but I felt numb inside. Everyone was moving and talking and living, but I was just sitting and waiting.
Before I knew it, we were in a room. She was laying on a bed and I was sitting beside her.
“Mr. Lord? Mr. Lord?” The woman snapped her fingers in front of my face, but I didn’t move or speak. “Mr. Lord, do you want to help her?”
At that, I looked over to the black woman with large-framed glasses and white hair. I tried to speak but my throat, I noticed, ached.
“H…how?” I asked her.
She lifted a change of clothes for me. “Change, eat, and I’ll—”
“When does she wake up? She should’ve been awake by now.” I turned back to Esther and watched her heart rate monitor.
“If I have to worry about you, I worry less about her.” She put the clothes in front of me again and this time I took them.
“Her heart stopped,” I told her even though I was sure she already knew. “Severe accidental hypothermia with cardiac arrest. You gave her warmed intraosseous fluids, warm humidified oxygen, but …”
“Are you a doctor, Mr. Lord?”
“Once upon a time ago,” I whispered.
“Then you should know that you’re putting yourself at risk like this. You need to eat—”
“I can’t leave her.” Who knew what happen if I left her again.
She sighed. “I’ll step outside and come back in and we can talk about her all you want but you need to get changed first.”
I didn’t have anything to say and when she left, I sat there for a while before finally rising and stripping off hospital scrubs they’d forced me to wear the first day we’d come in. They’d told me to layer up but I grabbed whatever I could and didn’t honestly care if I wore thicker clothes or not. Sweats didn’t make me warm, she did…Esther did.
Nevertheless, I changed quickly into the new clothing before sitting back down. I lifted Esther’s hands to kiss the back of them. She was warmer, much warmer, but she still felt so cold to me, like she wasn’t…
She’s alive. She’s here. That was all that mattered.
Tick-Tic.
Tick-Tic.
Tick-Tic.
Tick-Tic.
Tick-Tic.
Tick-Tic.
The clock behind me went on. I could hear it now. I could hear everything now. The doctors talking outside.
“Have her scans come back?”
“Yes, her brain is lighting up like a fireworks show.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It’s been almost seven hours. Shouldn’t she be waking up by now?”
“Run more tests. Maybe we’re missing something. Her brain wouldn’t be like this if it was hypoxia.”
“What are you going to tell him?”
“I’m not sure if he’s in the right frame of mind to hear anything. Make sure he eats.”
Knock.
Knock.
“Mr. Lord?”
I was starting to hate hearing my name on her lips. I hated the fact that I now felt time passing instead of myself passing with time. I was aware now and I didn’t want to be, not while she was like this.
Someone placed a tray in front of me and just to enjoy the silence, I grabbed the bowl and drank the soup like water before I put it back down.
I didn’t need them focusing on me. I wasn’t important here, she was. They just needed to worry about her.
DAY EIGHT
“Mr. Lord?” Go away, please. “You both have guests.”
“Malachi?”
Hearing her voice, I turned around and sure enough it was Mrs. Yamauchi. Standing beside her was a tall slender woman with long black hair. She looked like Mr. Yamachi…who wasn’t with either of them. I rose from my chair and bowed to them both without letting go of Esther’s hand. I wasn’t sure what to say or why they were here.
When Kikuko looked to the bed, I saw that she was fighting back tears. “Oshaberi.”
For some reasoning hearing that name, having gone over a week without hearing the chatterbox herself, gutted me deeply and I held in my sob.
Though I was shaking I tried my best to remain calm as Mrs. Yamauchi let go of her daughter and walked over to me. She looked me dead in the eyes before she patted both my shoulders and rubbed them like she was trying to warm me up.
“Don’t worry, if he sees her on the other side he’ll kick her right back to you,” she said with a graceful smile, and it took far too long for her words to sink in. I looked back at their daughter, who hung her head and then back to her as I shook mine.
“Mr. Yamauchi?” I asked her, and here she was trying to comfort me of all people. “No…”
“I’m sure she’s the reason why he went ahead. He wanted to make sure she couldn’t leave you.” As she spoke the tears fell out of her eyes even though she kept the smile on her face.
I completely broke down in front of her and I could feel the tears roll down my cheeks and over my mouth. The pain—this pain, her pain, all of it—battered me at once. “I’m sorry.”
“No. I’m sorry.” She hugged me.
“How? I don’t…We were supposed to have dinner on Thanksgiving?”
“He was old. We are old, Malachi. The day trips, keeping his memories, he fought for a long time, and we knew it was coming, which is why I wanted one last Thanksgiving. He loved you both especially. It happened seven days ago, the day after Thanksgiving. I didn’t want to add to your worries. And I couldn’t… I wasn’t ready to see anyone. But now that I know, I’m glad. We won’t have to worry about Esther. When old people die it’s bittersweet, when young people die it’s a tragedy. And if there is anything Kosuke Yamauchi hated, it was tragedy.”
Wiping my cheeks, I inhaled deeply and, as I looked back at her, I tried to stand tall even though I felt so weak and small. Releasing Esther’s hand, for I knew if she were awake she’d strangle me if I didn’t, I turned to Kikuko and bowed again as I gave my condolences. “Goshusho-sama desu.”
“Remember, Malachi, the secret to a long life is loving to live, knowing suffering for the sake of love isn’t suffering, and finding joy in that. She’ll come back.” She turned from me and moved to Esther. Placing her hand over Esther’s forehead she said, “Oshaberi, I’m still waiting for my book.”
The corner of my mouth turned up at that. “She finished it—”
“I’m not reading it until she wakes up,” she said sternly.
I nodded and moved the chair for her to sit down. When I looked up, I found that her daughter was already gone and in her place a lunch basket sat on the chair by the door.
“Maya’s shy and heartbroken. She’ll come around, I’ll make sure of it. She’s brought you food,” Kikuko said cheerfully lifting a basket. “Let’s eat. Maybe that will get her up.”
Nodding, I walked over and picked up the basket and was shocked at how heavy it was. When I brought over to her, she unpacked it and displayed everything in front of Esther. Then she paused, waiting to see if it would actually wake her up. For the second time in over a week I felt like smiling. She reminded me of Esther…
She’s right here.
I looked at her again.
“Have the doctors said anything?” she asked gently as she handed me a pair of chopsticks.
“They don’t know why she’s like this.” I had a feeling her body was ill. Since she’d fallen through the ice, I hadn’t gotten a single memory again and my headache was gone. It was just like those moments when she’d died before me. How nothing hurt anymore, how there was just numbness, and then darkness, and then I’d recall that moment from a new life, in a new place, with a new name.
“Don’t lose hope,” she whispered as she placed her hand over mine.
“Thank you for—”
“I hope you aren’t about to thank me for coming.” She frowned at me and I didn’t say anything in response. “Do you know she sent gifts and cards to everyone last Christmas? Her grandfather had died a little over a month before and she still took the time to show everyone she cared. She called on birthdays, she remembers everyone’s names. She’s family to a lot of people. You can tell that just by looking around the room.”
I hadn’t done that before. I hadn’t looked around the hospital room we’d been staying in until she’d said so. It was only then that I noticed the numerous flowers, cards, bears and balloons that were occupying the space around us.
“You don’t thank family for support. That’s what they do,” she reminded me.
She was right. Esther and I considered each other family, but the truth was we’d met so many people—well, I’d met so many people through her—they had become a part of our lives. Throughout all our lives people seemed to almost always get in the way of us. They made it harder for us. Which was one of the reasons I tried to not get involved, to not bother myself with others, and Esther, even now, even knowing the fate that hung over our heads, still dove right in to help someone else. I wanted to be angry, but I kept hearing her begging for forgiveness in the back of my mind. She shouldn’t have. Maybe she was a little mad at herself for doing it too, but that was her nature. That was who she was and it was why I’ve always loved her.
“Then thank you for the food,” I whispered to Kikuko before stuffing my mouth full of rice, not really chewing but hoping at least for one moment that I could stuff the pain back down.
“Careful!” She poured me water and I coughed and wept and ate anyway.