Chapter 5
Five More Minutes
Amberly
November 29th……
I was losing control.
Five days.
Five days from the one-year anniversary of Haylie’s death. With Cricket out of town, I spent my Sunday afternoon shopping her cabinets for liquor. For a while, she had stopped bringing it into the apartment, worried I might have a relapse. I wasn’t an alcoholic anymore, though I did rely entirely too much on alcohol to curb my sadness when Cricket wasn't around. It helped me forget. It numbed me to the point where my heart stopped hurting for a few hours.
I tilted my head back, letting the vodka cleanse my soul of the impending memories that wanted to erupt and remind me that I was no longer a mother. The liquid burned my throat as it traveled into the pit of my stomach. My face scrunched in disgust, remembering just how strong ‘courage’ in a bottle was. A cigarette burned in my left hand and I brought it up to my lips. I wasn’t supposed to be smoking, not just because of my promise to Cricket, but because of the surgery I would be having right after Christmas. The surgeon had instructed me to continue my path of quitting smoking, instead I was breathing in its toxic fumes. It felt damn good. These moments made me feel a little less broken.
My body shivered against the cold. I wrapped my blanket tighter around me. I was sitting on the balcony, staring out into the clouded sky. I would have to toss my clothes in the washer and rid the balcony of any evidence that I’d been smoking before Cricket got home, but the vodka was bringing me to the point of not caring. So, what if she caught me? She wasn’t my mother.
If she was my mother, I wouldn’t be living with or talking to her right now. It seemed I became the enemy once the divorce was in motion. My family stopped talking to me, believing every word that trickled out of Eric’s mouth. He put on the perfect show of a husband in pain. He gave the sad story of how I hadn’t had sex with him in months and he had no longer felt connected to me. In his mind I was the reason he cheated. Instead of having sex with my husband, I was at the hospital keeping my daughter company. In my heart I had known from the moment she was airlifted to the city, she wasn’t going to make it. That didn't stop me from asking God for five more minutes. By the time I had hit the five-minute mark, I would ask for another five. I waited. And watched. And prayed. I wanted to spend as much time as I could with her, knowing every moment could be my last. Maybe I should have balanced it better. Either way I would have handled my last moments with her, would have been regretted. I’d rather regret Eric than regret not being by my daughter’s side as she fought for her life.
The car wreck hadn’t been my fault. Seatbelts were buckled, both hands on the steering wheel, full attention on the road in front of me, randomly checking all mirrors so I was aware of everything, radio down low so there wasn’t a distraction, and speed limit abided by. I couldn’t have done anything different. Haylie was asleep in her seat and my mind was on the road. I’d had seconds to react to the headlights in our lane. First the car was in their own lane and then it wasn’t. My car flipped several times, landing on an embankment of impacted soil. Haylie had been in the backseat, passenger side. She’d suffered a fractured skull and a clean break in both legs. She was coherent up until we’d gotten to the hospital. Her brain started swelling and she fell into a coma. Slowly, her brain function diminished. Still, I had refused to let her go. Even when her doctor told me she was officially brain dead, I still held on.
Anger spread through me like an unconfined fire. I downed another fraction of vodka and wiped the excess from my lips. I took another drag from the cigarette, letting the smoke fill my lungs until the nicotine calmed my nerves.
I stumbled inside and sat down on my bed, opening my laptop. I typed in the date and the name of the town where the crash had occurred. It was easy to find the news article. My name and Haylie's name was included in the article. The driver of the other car had never been mentioned. Not once. That didn't stop me from searching. I opened a new tab and logged into Facebook. I typed in my name, Haylie's name, the date it had happened, and other random words to try to find out anything I could. I checked the group I had made the day I took Haylie off life support. For months I had pleaded for anyone who had any information to contact me through a private message. A few people had messaged me but not with anything substantial. To say it was infuriating was an understatement. It was downright bullshit.
My phone went off beside me and I glanced at the screen. No name, just a number flashed across. I opened the text message and nearly choked.
It’s Bryant. Adam gave me your number, I hope that’s okay. I wanted to see if you would go to lunch with me tomorrow to catch up.
I took a calming breath before getting up to empty the rest of the bottle into the sink.
No. It wasn’t okay. Of course, it wasn’t okay. I was going to lecture Cricket when she got home. She had to have warned Adam about my lack of interest in Bryant, or anyone with a penis for that matter. Wait, am I lesbian? No, definitely not a lesbian. God that sounded like such a dirty word. Lesbians should be called angels of dating or some shit. Because they probably rock at it. Guys are stupid. They don’t consider your feelings and do stupid things in a relationship. Girls don’t. I bet lesbians have it made. They probably never argue. Wait, am I being judgmental? Can a compliment be judgmental? What did I know about lesbians? I had never had a friend who was. I should find a lesbian friend. What if she hits on me? What if I like it? Oh, dear God, I’m drunk. I’m beyond drunk.
I looked down at my phone again and the words seemed to blur together.
Yep, I am white trash wasted. What is with that saying anyway? Do they say white trash because you throw caution to the wind and start acting like someone who has never even picked up a book? Now, THAT’S judgmental.
Before I could stop myself and against my better judgment, I answered Bryant’s text.
Did you know that male alligators spend their entire lives with an erection and it’s like a rubber band?
I read the text over again and started laughing.
What in the actual fuck? What was I doing? I mean, was I okay with Bryant knowing how insanely awkward I was? Wait, have I always spouted off random sex facts about animals? No. I don’t think so.
B: Is that a no?
His response made me laugh so hard that I ended up falling onto the couch.
Leopard slugs mate on slime and if their sexual organs get stuck, the female chomps off the male’s penis. It’s called apophallation.
I didn’t give him time to respond before sending another.
Kangaroos have three vaginas-two to carry the sperm from the two-pronged penis of their mate to the uterus and one to give birth.
I closed my eyes and the room started spinning. Why was I sending him these texts? Deep down, I knew why. To avoid answering his question and admitting that yes, I did want to talk to him. I wanted to tell him about Haylie. For no other reason than for him to know.
He had tried last week reminiscing about her. I had told him I was busy and that shut him up almost too quick. I could tell when he had asked how she was that he had no clue what had happened.
B: That’s interesting. I had no idea.
Before I could send another one, Cricket came barging through the door. Saving me from myself. Again. Several bags hung in her arms, dropping one by one to the floor when her eyes landed on me. They shifted from my phone and back to me several times.
I pressed my lips together and averted my eyes from her.
“What are you doing? And why does it smell like smoke in here?” She stepped over her luggage and shut the door to the balcony before parking herself onto the coffee table in front of me. “Have you been drinking?”
I avoided her stare. A simple ‘yes’ escaped from my lips.
She grabbed my phone and read through the texts I’d been sending. She started laughing. “What is this?”
I shrugged.
“Are you deliberately trying to push him away?”
Another shrug of my shoulders.
Now her voice connected to seriousness. “Amby, what is going on?”
A simple question needing only a few words response. Instead, I broke down into tears, letting the motions shake my body.
She put my phone down and covered me in a hug. “Talk to me.”
I shook out of the confinements of her hug. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not fine. What can I do?”
This brought my eyes to hers. Nothing. Unless she could bring Haylie back, she couldn’t do anything. I didn’t tell her that though. “I don’t know. I want to be fine. I want to get over it but I can’t. I can’t live my life when she no longer has hers. It’s not fair.” The tears spilled out of me like an unleashed waterfall.
She brought her hands to rest on the sides of my arms and jolted me once. “You’re hurting. I get that. Haylie was your world and it’s hard to live when your world isn’t with you anymore. It doesn’t mean you have to give up your entire life. What if you are someone else’s world?”
The tears rested on my lower lashes, blurring my vision. “I was someone else’s world. Two people’s worlds. One died and the other decided I wasn’t enough anymore.”
She picked up my phone again and started typing.
I tried to take it from her but she stood up and continued typing. “What are you doing?” I asked in a firm tone.
When she finished, she handed back my phone and sat down in front of me again, her expression genuine. Worry etched within her eyes. “Amby, you’re hollow. A huge part of you is missing. I can see you. Okay? I see you. This isn’t who you are. You’re stronger than this. It’s time to pick up the pieces and become whole again. Also, you need to become another person’s world.” Without another word she shut the front door and gathered her bags, taking them to her room.
I unlocked the screen on my phone and her message back to Bryant gutted me.
I’ll go to lunch with you.
Did she truly believe Bryant was going to deliver my missing pieces? That he could unbreak me?