There was a time in my life when I questioned why I was so lucky. I had two parents who beat the age-old odds of divorce, good grades were just something that happened for me, money was never an issue thanks to Dad and his successful business, and then in the girlfriend department—getting the girl was never an issue because I always had one. I sometimes sat down at the edge of my bed and asked God, “Why me?” It wasn’t that I ever expected things to come easily, or for the luck to ever continue, but I was always grateful enough to fear the day when my luck might change. Maybe part of me always knew it would.
Until the moment I saw Ellie lying on the hospital bed, dead, I didn’t realize that she was my luck—all of my good fortune clumped together into one being. Those other things in my life: happy parents, money, intelligence—that wasn’t luck. I thought I was good at appreciating what I had, but I came to find out that I never truly appreciated it the way I should have. I appreciated the wrong parts of life. Now I appreciate time—the time I had with Ellie, the time I take to be a dad and raise Olive, and the time Olive is awake and home from school. Time is what I’m grateful for, because without time, nothing else matters.
I bust through the front office doors and into the nurse’s office, searching around the room until I see the school nurse, principal, and receptionist hovering over Olive. “What happened?” I snap. They already told me over the phone, but I need to hear it again. I need every single detail.
The EMTs are on my tail and I’m forced to back away so they can take care of her. One of them is pulling up her eyelids checking her pupils with a flashlight while another checks her limbs. I hold my gaze on the EMTs as the nurse describes in detail about this “misfortunate accident” on the playground.
“She climbed up to the top of the play gym and stood on the monkey bars while reaching for the sky. By the time her teacher saw, it was too late…Olive’s foot had slipped through one of the openings and she fell off the side. The drop was about seven or eight feet, and she fell directly onto her head.”
This was one of my biggest concerns during open house. I asked them how carefully they watch the children on the playground. They explained how great their teacher/student ratio was, and that each child would be carefully supervised. Don’t they know it only takes one second?
“Looks like a grade three concussion,” one of the EMTs says, matter-of-factly, without a hint of emotion in his voice. As another EMT rushes past me with a stretcher, they place a brace around Olive’s neck, and it nearly covers her face. I can’t even touch her because they have closed in around her, keeping me away. I can only see through the cracks of their bodies, allowing me a view of the dirt staining her pink leggings.
Again, for the second time in my life, my heart physically aches. It’s beating the shit out of me from the inside out, and I’m having trouble catching my breath. Whoever the hell said, “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger...” can kiss my ass.
“Olive!” I shout, worthlessly. “Olive, sweetie, wake up!” A warm hand clenches around my shoulder, and a chest presses against my back, but I don’t turn around. I don’t care who is behind me—who is trying to show me sympathy or comfort. My little girl is lying in front of me unconscious, from a goddamn seven-foot tall fall. “Is she going to be okay? I need to know. Is she?” No one responds, so I grab one of the EMTs by the shoulder, the one who doesn’t have his hands on Olive. I yank at him until he turns around. “Is she going to be okay?”
“I’m not a doctor,” he says. “I’m not able to give you any definite answers.”
The hand that was on my shoulder is lowered to my bicep and another hand rests over my other bicep. The hands squeeze harder, but I still don’t turn around. I will not take my eyes off of Olive. As the EMT I was just speaking to moves to the side, I see that Olive is missing her shoe. She looks uncared for; she doesn’t look like my daughter.
The two minutes it takes to have her strapped down on the gurney feel like an hour—an hour of impatiently waiting for her to blink or say the word, “Daddy”.
“Sir, you can ride along with us.”
The hands around my arms release and a voice echoes in my ears. “I’ll meet you there,” she says.
As the EMTs rush by me, the wind of their speed knocks into me. I run, unable to feel the soles of my shoes hitting the ground, or hear the panic in everyone’s voices, or focus on the dozens of children lining the hall with fear in their eyes. I know it’s all there, but I feel locked inside of a tunnel with only darkness at the other end.
I climb into the back of the ambulance, still forced to sit far enough away from Olive that I can’t touch her. Maybe if she knew I was here, she’d wake up. “Olive,” I call softly. “Can you hear me?”
The EMT I’m sitting beside looks over at me and shakes his head slightly as if to tell me not to bother. Why wouldn’t I bother? “She’s alive, isn’t she?” I spew angrily.
“Yes, she is,” he says. “I’m just afraid she can’t hear you.”
“You don’t know that,” I grit. “You’re not a doctor, remember?”
“Take it easy, sir,” he says, remaining calm. Unlike me.
“Take it easy? Take it easy?” I shout. “My wife died giving birth to this little girl. She is my entire fucking world. I wanted to homeschool her just so I knew she’d be safe. So don’t you tell me to take it easy—you understand?”
“That’s irrational,” he says, looking away from me. Cocky, arrogant, doctor wannabe.
I want to hit him. I want to punch him square in the goddamn jaw right now, but I know they’d kick me out of this claustrophobic vehicle, so I shut my mouth and clench my jaw.
We arrive at the hospital. This hospital—this horrible place of death that I promised myself I would never to walk into again, and yet here I am. It already stole Ellie and now it’s threatening to take my sweet, little Olive.
As I walk down the endless hall of white, an image flashes through my blurry mind—Olive at two days old in the car seat I spent hours learning how to take apart and put back together, just to make sure I knew exactly how to operate it when it came time. She was buckled in snuggly, looking up at me as I held the seat firmly within my embrace. I remember thinking it’s just you and me now as I wondered how I was going to do this—be this little girl’s sole provider for every single thing she needs. Then I wondered how I got to that point, and why? How could I ever imagine leaving this hospital without Ellie? That wasn’t the plan.
The sight of the EMTs rushing Olive into one of the triage areas pulls me from my thoughts. A nurse greets us just as Olive is transferred from the gurney to a bed. “Sir, you’re quite pale,” she says as she pulls up a chair and taps the armrest. “Have a seat.” I do as she asks because I don’t think my legs are strong enough to support the weight of my heart any longer. “A doctor will be here momentarily.” She places her hand on my shoulder and I look up at her.
A familiar face stares back at me, but I don’t say much to confirm the similar question swimming through her eyes. Yes, I do look familiar. Yes, you were the one who handed Olive to me just as she was born and just as my wife died. I’m guessing I only look familiar to her. This hospital sees hundreds of people a day, I’m sure. “Thank you,” I say.
“Mr. Cole,” she sighs. “It has been a while.” Her bottom lip quivers and her eyes fill with tears. “We’ll give your little girl the best care possible. I promise.”
“You remember me?” I ask, shock lacing my hoarse voice.
“I have never forgotten you. I could never forget you. You and Olive have weighed heavily on my mind for years. I think of you often, wondering how you are doing.” She breaks her stare from my eyes and focuses on Olive. “She looks just like her. She’s beautiful.” The nurse squeezes her hand around my shoulder and croaks, “I’ll be right back.”
As promised, a doctor comes jogging around the corner and up to Olive’s bedside. He introduces himself and then checks Olive over from head to toe, inspecting her pupils and neck first. He turns to me, saying, “We need to send her for a CT scan right away.” He lifts the phone and puts in the order to whoever is on the other end of the line. In less than two minutes Olive’s bed is being rolled out of the room and down the hall. When we enter the new area, I’m asked to remain in the waiting room because I can’t go in with her for the CT scan. Once again, I’m forced to sit in a waiting room, waiting to hear the destiny of the one living person I love.
“Can I get you some tea or coffee?” the nurse asks—the same nurse who remembers me. The same nurse who was able to communicate that Ellie wasn’t going to make it with only a look in her eyes. She doesn’t have that look now, but maybe she’s gotten more experienced at hiding her emotions.
I shake my head and drop my face into my hands. “My name is Caroline,” the nurse says quietly as she takes the seat next to me. “You’re doing a wonderful job with Olive.”
I lift my face from my hands and look at her with nothing but question. How in the world could anyone sit here and tell me I’m doing a wonderful job? My daughter is lying unconscious in a hospital bed. I’m thinking that’s qualification to have someone second guess my ability to care for a child, never mind doing anything less than an okay job. “I beg to differ,” I reply, sounding less cynical than I truly feel.
“Oh, honey, her clothes match, her hair had two barrettes evenly placed on both sides of a straight part down the center of her head. Her socks match. Her teeth are clean. Her belly is full. These are only the few things I noticed within the minute she arrived here. I know it isn’t much, but I could immediately tell she is a cared-for child.” Caroline takes my left hand from my lap and points to my ring finger. “And you’re caring for her yourself, aren’t you?” She knows about Ellie, which means she’s questioning if I moved on.
“Yes,” I respond, looking at my empty finger along with her. I struggled with the decision to take my ring off. I finally did last year and placed it in a box with Ellie’s ring.
“Olive is going to be okay,” Caroline tells me.
I remember asking Caroline if Ellie was going to be okay, and she wouldn’t answer me. But here she is, offering this information unprompted by me. “She is?” I need hope. Please give me an ounce of hope to hold on to.
“Hunter!” a voice cries from the door. “Hunter.” Charlotte runs in and throws her arms around my neck as if we do this sort of thing—hug when in need of a hug.
I’m still looking at Caroline, though, as well as the small smile unraveling across her lips. As the wrinkles on her cheeks smooth out, a happy gleam encompasses her face. She places her hand on my back and stands up. “I’ll give you two a moment, and I’ll check on Olive.”
“Thank you,” I tell her, then turning to Charlotte with what I’m sure is a puzzled look, I ask, “How did you know I was here?”
“When you left my house so quickly after you got that phone call, without even saying goodbye, I suspected it might have been the school calling about Olive, so I called them. I was with you at the school but… Anyway, I heard what happened and I followed you here because I thought you might need me. And I didn’t want you to be alone. I would have gotten here sooner but I was looking all over for you,” Charlotte says, breathlessly. It was her hands trying to embrace me at the school. It’s Charlotte who is always here for me lately. And yet, I get scared when she tells me I’m a desirable man. What the hell is wrong with me? “The administration desk wasn’t entirely sure where you might be and I called your phone a dozen times. As I was running through the halls, I thought security was going to escort me out, but instead, they helped me find you. How is she? Is she okay? Are you okay? Do you need something? I was so worried about her.” Charlotte sounds wild and out of control. The worry in her voice is pure and full of honest compassion for Olive—for me. It’s something I haven’t heard in a while since I’ve pushed everyone away—everyone including my own parents. I wouldn’t allow the presence of compassion in my life because it made everything worse. AJ is the only one who I haven’t burned, because he isn’t compassionate. He’s an asshole like me, just in a different way—a way I can tolerate most of the time.
“Thank you for coming,” I tell her, honestly. “She’s getting a CT scan, but she is still unconscious.” Charlotte’s arms remain around my neck as she whimpers into my ear. The sympathy-coated knife I usually feel stabbing into my chest when someone is trying to “make me feel better” is more like a senseless dull puncture this time and I have no energy to put up my protective wall. Instead, I close my eyes and try to ignore everything around me but the sensation of Charlotte’s arms encircling my neck, and for the first time, I don’t force myself to imagine Ellie on the other side of this embrace. For the first time, I feel a comfort I haven’t imagined ever feeling again. But it’s uncontrollable, and leaning into Charlotte, I allow it. I allow it because I am in such desperate need of consolation that I suddenly feel dehydrated from the drought of affection that I now realize I desire. I think I need Charlotte to quench my thirst for closeness.
Surrendering all restraint, my arms find their way around Charlotte’s slim waist and I pull her down to my lap, burying my head into her shoulder. “Why?” I groan.
“She won’t let anything happen to her,” Charlotte whispers into my ear.
“Who?” I reply, knowing what I want to hear, but also understanding that no one thinks the way I do.
“What is your wife’s name? You haven’t told me.”
You haven’t asked. “Eleanor. Ellie.”
“Eleanor Cole,” she repeats her name in only a breath of a whisper, one that makes Ellie’s name sound as if it, too, were nothing more than a ghost. Following a sharp breath and a shaky exhale, Charlotte softly utters, “Ellie is yours and Olive’s angel. She won’t let anything happen to either of you. I believe that.”
My arms tighten around her as her scent infiltrates my senses. The scent I have refused to inhale in fear of loving it—seeps through the sealed cracks of my cold heart. The fight I have fought to keep an emotional distance from Charlotte has been lost. Flowers. She smells like the vanilla from a Clematis. I inhale as much as my lungs will allow, surprised at how much I’m able to breathe in at once. For years, my lungs have felt deflated, as if I were unable to fill myself with enough oxygen, but right now, I can breath freely.
The momentary relief in my chest is quickly clouded over as the doctor comes through the door. He doesn’t draw out his words or thoughts, or even look at me with any type of concerned grimace as he likely conjures up the appropriate words needed to reach down into a person’s throat and rip a heart out of its chest cavity. Again. Charlotte moves from my lap over to the chair, as if she senses the space I desperately need.
“Charlotte Drake,” the doctor says, interrupting the information he needs to give me right this second. “How unusual to see you around here again. It’s been a couple of years, has it not?”
“How is Olive?” Charlotte yields the focus back to where it should be.
The doctor breaks his momentary shift of attention from Charlotte back to me. “It’s a moderate concussion, but she woke up right in the middle of the CT scan,” he says with a soft chuckle. “She’s quite a spitfire, huh?” The release of agony, fear, and all other emotions pulls me from my seat and over to the doctor where I restrain myself from lunging at him with open arms.
“Is—is she going to be okay?” I stammer.
“She’s going to be just fine, Mr. Cole.” He looks down at his chart and back up at me. “I want to keep her overnight for more observation, however. We’re still waiting for a couple more test results, but I’m sure everything will come back as I expect.”
“I’m staying with her,” I tell him, demandingly.
“And that’s completely fine.” The doctor turns back for the door. “We’ll have her settled in a room within the next few minutes and you can go be with her. It was nice to see you again, Charlotte.” He waves from over his head, disappearing into the haze I’m staring toward.
When the door closes, I turn back to Charlotte, who appears to be sending someone a message on her phone. “Just asking Rosy—” one of the bus stop moms, “—to grab Lana from the bus.”
“You don’t have to stay,” I tell her. I’m used to being alone and internalizing my fears and pains, relying on no one but myself to move forward from one moment to the next.
“I know I don’t.” She holds her phone up, watching the screen for a few seconds before placing it back down onto her lap. “Lana will be picked up, so I’m all yours if you want, but I can go, too. Whichever you need right now.”
I don’t get it. I don’t understand what this is. “Why? Why do you continuously want to be around me? I hardly know how to form a smile, let alone release a joke worthy of laughing over. I push you away. I’m not a very good friend, and quite frankly, I’m an asshole to you more often than not. So why, Charlotte?” There has to be a logical reason for this outpouring of undeserved kindness.
She lifts her chin and narrows her eyes as a faint smile takes form over her lips. “This may sound a little cocky, but I’m an excellent judge of character. I like to think I have an ability to look into a person’s eyes and know exactly who they are inside. Everything you portray on the outside is a mask so no one knows who you truly are or what you’re feeling.”
I feel like laughing, not because it’s funny, but because I want to tell her what she sees is what she gets. There is no difference from the coldness I show on my face to the chill that has permanently frozen my heart into stone. “Inside, there is a hopeless, lost soul with no direction. That’s what is inside. So if that is what you’re seeing, it still doesn’t answer my question as to why you would want to be friends with someone like me.” I’m not sure I want to hear her answer. I’m not sure I know how to pry open the lid of my lonely world to make room for someone who cares about me.
“I’m aware,” she says. “I don’t want to fix you, and I don’t want you to change,” she says, looking away from me and down to her candy-red chucks. “So don’t go thinking that either.” She only breaks eye contact when something is stirring inside of her or when she’s uncomfortable saying what she’s trying to say. “You are this incredibly strong person who takes weeds and turns them into beautiful flowers—literally.” She laughs and looks back up at me, her cheeks now a little pink. “Look, Hunter, I don’t have an honest answer, but there’s a pull I feel toward you and I’ve followed my gut. Like I said, I don’t wish for you to change every time I see you. I only wish for you to gain the ability to heal. I know I won’t be any help in that department, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be around you as it happens. Because, whether you want to or not, you are going to heal.” With a smirk, she goes on to say, “We’re also neighbors so we’re sort of stuck with each other. We might as well make the best of it.”
Normally, I’d feel anger when someone tells me this pain won’t last forever. I think I might actually be a glutton for the pain I won’t let fade. I hold onto it like a lifeline, but as Olive grows older and more aware of who I am, I think I might have to allow some of my pain to ease, even if only for her sake.
“Okay,” I tell her. “Fair enough.” I guess. I’m not sure what I just agreed to, though.
Nurse Caroline comes back out and nods her head for me to follow. I walk past Charlotte, who is looking at me and waiting for a decision I’m supposed to make on whether or not I want her to stay. The person who I’ve been—who I might still be—would tell her goodbye and thank you. However, I might be sick of being that person. I reach my hand out to her, close my eyes, and take another deep breath. This is the right thing to do. For me.
Charlotte swallows hard and loud enough for me to hear then takes my hand and stands up to join me. Her hand is warm, soft, small—perfect, compelling me to interlace my fingers with hers and squeeze a little tighter, all while fighting the stabbing pain running through my nerves. On second thought, maybe it’s not pain; maybe it’s that comfort thing again. How could a person be so lost that a feeling of pain and comfort could be confused with one other?
As we walk down the hall, Charlotte’s free hand wraps around my arm, her body pressed against the side of mine, and the closer we get to Olive’s room, the less my chest aches. I consider releasing Charlotte’s hand before walking into Olive’s room, but I don’t.
“Daddy! Charlotte!” Olive squeaks. She immediately does what I knew she would do and peers down to our interlocked fingers and smiles—that smile, the one that takes over her entire face. Just like Ellie’s.
Our hands separate as I run to Olive’s side, kneeling so I can bring myself as close to her little face as possible. “You scared me so much, Olive. I was so worried about you.” I wrap my arm around her and hold her tightly until she groans and squirms from my grip.
“I’m okay,” she says, as assuring as ever. She’s always “okay.”
“What were you doing up on top of the play set?” I ask, looking into her apologetic eyes.
She doesn’t blink as she stalls on a response, and her look has me questioning whether she doesn’t remember or just doesn’t want to tell me. After a long minute, a soft sigh expels from her lips as she says, “Someone asked me where mom was and the top of the playset was the closest I could get to her.” Just as I think I’m going to be okay, her explanation devastates me.
When Olive asks me where heaven is, I have always told her heaven is in the clouds because for now at five, it’s easy to understand. When I first told her this, she responded with confusion, telling me she can’t touch the clouds; therefore, she couldn’t touch Ellie. I told her if she reached high enough and closed her eyes, she could feel the clouds, as well as Ellie. This is my fault. “You told me if I reached high enough—”
“I know what I told you, sweetie, but I was wrong. I—”
Charlotte steps beside me and kneels down too. “Olive,” she says, her voice soothing and warm. “If you close your eyes, no matter where you are standing, you can feel your mom—in heaven. You don’t need to climb up high in order to reach her—” Charlotte pauses as the sound of breath hiccups in her throat, proving a difficulty in offering Olive this sound advice. Her breaths even out and a smile returns to her lips as she continues, “because your mom is right here.” Charlotte presses on Olive’s chest, over her heart. “Close your eyes, honey.”
Olive closes her eyes but opens one slightly to look at us both, skeptically. “Now what?” she giggles.
“You have to keep your eyes closed and imagine what your mom looks like, what her skin might feel like, and what her voice sounds like.” Charlotte’s words morph from sweet to soothing, serious, and believable, a combination that makes Olive relax into the bed and close both eyes.
I watch as Charlotte continues to talk about Ellie as if she knew her, and I watch as a smile tugs at Olive’s lips in response. The connection between the two of them right now is almost too overwhelming to take in. I haven’t seen Olive this calm and peaceful, no matter what the occasion.
“I think I can feel her,” Olive says in a whisper. “Mom’s voice sounds like a pretty song, and her skin feels like a flower’s petal. She looks like me, but bigger I guess.” Olive’s smile grows wider and her cheeks turn a little rosier. “She really loves me, doesn’t she?”
“More than you could ever imagine,” I tell her, feeling my throat swell into its familiar knot.
“She loves you too, Daddy.”