20

“He’s on the strongest antibiotic available.” Dr. Bejar was updating both families about Mark’s condition. “I’ve ordered a morphine infusion pump too. This way, whenever he’s in pain, he can administer a small dose himself.”

“But he will get better,” April blurted out. “I mean, with this antibiotic, he will get over his pneumonia.”

Mark’s mother added, “You’ve always been honest with us, Dr. Bejar. Please don’t hold anything back now. We want to know the truth.”

The doctor looked serious. “Rosa, his lungs have been badly scarred by years of living with CF. I can’t make any predictions at this time. Let’s just take it day by day.”

April felt sick to her stomach and didn’t dare look at Mark’s parents. If she did, she was certain she would crumble. She felt weary, like a swimmer treading water. Her life had been put on hold, and she’d become so caught up in Mark’s situation that she felt as if her whole existence revolved around the routine of the hospital. She had dropped her classes at NYU, telling her parents, “I can’t concentrate on college.”

“How are you feeling?” her mother had asked. “Perhaps you should see Dr. Sorenson. All this stress—”

April had glared at her. “This isn’t about me. I’m fine and I don’t want Mark thinking about anything except getting well. I’m not leaving this hospital until he does.”

After Dr. Bejar left them, April found a quiet corner, took her father’s cell phone, and with trembling fingers dialed Kelli’s dorm room in Oregon. She’d talked to Kelli twice since Mark’s accident, but now more than ever, she wanted to hear her friend’s voice. With a three-hour time difference, it wasn’t always easy to catch her in but, miraculously, Kelli answered on the second ring. April poured out her story through tears. “He’s so sick, Kelli. He’s really bad.”

“Hey, I have faith in medical science. And besides, I want to be your maid of honor.”

She knew Kelli was trying to cheer her up by focusing on the wedding, but it wasn’t working. “There isn’t going to be any wedding if Mark …” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

“Listen,” Kelli said, quickly covering the awkwardness. “I bought myself a beeper. That way you can reach me anytime.” She gave April her number.

“I miss you, Kelli. I wish you were here.”

“Me too, April. I’d be there in an instant, if I could.” April heard tears of regret in her friend’s voice. There was nothing Kelli could do, nothing any of them could do except wait. April hung up and returned to the ICU.

The hospital kept several guest rooms for family members of patients in the ICU. April and Rosa moved into one, a cubicle with twin cots, a single dresser, and a bathroom. April’s parents kept their hotel suite. Mark’s father and sisters stayed at the family house. That way they could be near the hospital.

Mark’s breathing became so labored that it hurt April physically to hear him struggle to breathe. Forming words, saying sentences was nearly a superhuman feat, and she tried as much as possible to keep him from speaking. But he struggled valiantly to talk to her, to his family. Every time he saw her, he rasped, “Love … you.”

After four, days on antibiotics, he was no better. April longed to make time stand still, but realized that even if she had the power to make it happen, she didn’t have the heart to watch Mark continue to suffer. She took his hand, and when he urged her closer, she bent over his bed, placing her ear near his mouth. “I’m sorry … I … tried … but … I can’t …,” he rasped.

Tears blurred her eyes. “What can I do for you?”

“Live … for us. I … wish I … could have seen you … as my bride.”

Mark’s parents came in his room to be with him, and April went to her father. “Daddy, I need your and Mom’s help.”

“Anything.”

“Please, go get my wedding dress. I know it’s not ready yet, but I don’t care. Just bring it to me.”

April heard the serious tone of her own quavering voice. Her father hugged her quickly and left immediately. Her mother asked, “What can I do?”

“Nothing just now,” April told her.

April brooded and paced the floor, overcome with a sense of urgency. Rosa found her and said, “I’m calling our priest, April. I want Mark to have last rites.”

April felt icy cold and numb with pain. “I understand,” she said.

When her parents returned with a huge box, April took her mother into the tiny room she shared with Mark’s mother, and there, she tugged on crinolines, slip, and the gorgeous ivory satin gown. Working hurriedly, her mother tucked and pinned, fitting the dress to April’s slim body as best she could. “I have no veil,” April moaned as she looked in the mirror.

Her mother left but soon returned with a makeshift wreath of baby’s breath and a hastily tied-together bouquet. “I swiped these from every floral arrangement I could get my hands on.” She handed April the bouquet and settled the wreath into her mane of thick red hair, pinning it securely.

April’s hands shook, and she bit her lip hard to keep tears back. “I can’t go into that room crying,” she explained.

Her mother fluffed April’s long dress and through her own tears said, “You look beautiful.”

April left the small room. Nurses, lab technicians, and even office personnel had formed a line down the corridor. She questioned her father with her eyes and he shrugged, saying, “I don’t know how word spread, but it did.”

She walked toward Mark’s cubicle, the exquisite train of the gown sweeping the floor behind her while the onlookers quietly watched. “You are perfectly beautiful,” said one of Mark’s favorite nurses. “And what you’re doing is wonderful.”

At the door, April saw the priest leaning over Mark, his prayer book open. Her knees almost buckled. She felt her father take her arm. “I think it’s customary for a bride to be given away by her father,” he said.

Together they entered the room. Startled, the priest and Mark’s parents looked up, and upon seeing April, Rosa’s expression passed from grief to gratitude. They stepped aside, and April moved to the bed. Softly she called Mark’s name. She was dry-eyed now, and calm.

She saw his eyelids flutter open, his brown eyes widen, and his mouth turn up in a smile. “Beautiful …”

She smiled back, laid aside her bouquet, and took his unbandaged hand. “ ‘Until death do us part,’ ” she whispered.

“Until … paradise,” he answered.

“I love you.”

But Mark was beyond hearing.

April passed trancelike through the next few days. At the funeral home viewing, her parents stood on either side of her, supporting her while she stood over Mark’s satin-lined casket and looked down at his body. Not Mark, she told herself. Only a waxen shell. He wore his racing suit, and April realized how much strength it had taken for Rosa to allow it. Rosary beads were wrapped around his hand, and dangling from a chain around his neck was the half heart he’d carried on his key chain since the day he’d given April hers. She unfastened from her neck the chain that held her matching half of the heart and dropped it into the casket.

The day of the funeral was cold, and the sun played hide-and-seek with the clouds, casting dappled shadows over the cemetery. After the mass at Mark’s church, April rode with Mark’s family in a black limousine to the graveside, telling herself that it would all be over soon. That she only had to make it one more minute, then the next minute, and then the one after that. Exactly how Mark had taught her to live her life.

Afterward she went to Mark’s parents’ home, where family and friends gathered to eat and reminisce about Mark. She thought about the first time Mark had brought her here to meet his family. And about the last time for his birthday party.

She returned home with her parents and, once in her room, stripped and crept beneath the covers. There, in the quiet darkness, she called Kelli out in Oregon. “It’s over,” April said.

“I wanted to be with you so bad.”

April could hear that Kelli had been crying. “It’s okay, Kelli. You’ll be home for Christmas and maybe I’ll be better company by then.”

“I just want you to be all right.”

“I don’t know how to be ‘all right,’ Kelli. Mark was everything to me. And now he’s gone. Now, I’m alone. All alone.”

Darkness as heavy as New York’s winter snow settled over April. All around her the city dressed up for the holidays. Store windows bloomed with festive Christmas scenes. Lights, glittery trees, and bell-ringing Santas were everywhere. But April found no joy or peace or comfort in any of it. Wherever she went, wherever she looked, she was bombarded with memories of Mark.

When she went for her checkup with Dr. Sorenson, it took every ounce of strength and courage to walk back inside the hospital. He took X rays and told her, “You’re holding your own. The tumor’s dormant. If you continue to feel good, I’ll see you in three months.”

The good news didn’t mean anything to her. Her head was all right, but her heart was broken. It wasn’t fair.

She went to her father one December afternoon and spread out travel brochures on the desk in front of him. “Daddy, remember these?”

“Yes, from when you graduated.”

“Well, now I want to go away. I want us to take that trip you promised.”

“Where would you like to go?”

She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Someplace where it isn’t winter.”

He pondered her request. “It will take a little time for your mother and me to get things organized here.”

“That’s fine.”

“Are you sure you don’t have a destination in mind?”

She shook her head. “You and Mom pick. Just make sure it’s warm. I miss the summer, Daddy. I’m so tired of being cold.”