Chase Me (25 page)

I pulled myself together and we all walked into the room. I saw my mom hooked up to machines, and tubes. You could tell she was barely holding on, but fighting to live. I could feel her energy around me.

We all took a seat while I tried to think of all the things I wanted to say. Brooklyn opened her folder and looked over somethings and then smiled. She walked over and leaned down and whispered in my mom’s ear.

“
You know that favor you asked of me, Karen. I think you will love the outcome,” Brooklyn spoke sweetly and then she began reading some form. I ignored it for a bit and then I had to do a double take, and make her repeat a part. “According to the DNA provided by Henry Huntington he cannot be Kate’s biological father. Michael Andrew Kesley congratulations you are a dad. She is 99.9% yours.”

I watched as Mike sobbed tears of joy and I read the paper.

“
Why?” I asked and Brooklyn smiled.

“
Your mom didn’t want to leave you with a tyrant. She had hoped you were Mike’s because of all the things you had alike, but even more so the way you cliqued. You came out six weeks early which is why she thought you belonged to Henry.”

I turned in my chair and wrapped my arms around Mike. He really was the dad I had wanted all along, and this was the best thing my mom could have ever given to me.

I stepped out of the room and went to the bathroom to blow my nose when Nurse Kelly came in.

“
Kate,” she whispered. “I’m not supposed to give you time lines because we don’t always know everything, but if you have any family that needs to come and say goodbye you need to call them now.”

“
Why?” I asked as my new elation exited my soul and despair moved in.

“
The death rattle,” she answered, but I didn’t know what she meant. “You will hear it when you walk back in there. It is how we know they are down to hours. I’m so sorry.”

Nurse Kelly pulled me into a hug as a new type of grief flooded me. When she walked away I picked up the phone and I called Eddie at work.

“Mr. Wellington’s office, this is Daisy, how can I help you?”

“Daisy?” I questioned. This was the woman who kept calling Eddie and demanded to be put through to him. Who the hell was she? Was I allowed to ask?

“This is Kate Huntington, and I need to speak with him it is an emergency,” I replied and she blew a bubble gum bubble and popped it in the ear piece.

“Unlike some people I will follow procedure and put you through.”

“Hello Miss Huntington,” he spoke formally as if I meant nothing to him at all.

“I need you at the hospital, a lot has happened and -,”

“Kate,” he cut me off with a sigh. “I am getting ready to head out for drinks with the guys although I don’t know why I am telling you since you share nothing with me. If you still need me come midnight you know how to make a booty call right?”

“Eddie she’s dying,” I shouted, and he let out a rush of air.

“I’m sorry Kate, I really am, but you chose not to make me part of your life. I can’t be that stuffed animal you hug every time you need something to hold.”

“Eddie, please, I need you,” I cried into the phone and he stayed silent on the line and then with an exasperated groan he hung up.”

I cried onto the floor as all my lifelines left me one by one. I thought this was it, the end of me, but my mom would have been so disappointed if I had given up so easily.

I picked myself up, and pulled my hair into a ponytail holding it up with a pen that Nurse Kelly had dropped. I fixed the white button down long sleeve shirt that I had stolen from Eddie and looked like I had slept in, and brushed the dirt off my jeans.

Then I grabbed some tissues and stuffed them in my pockets, just in case, and headed for my mom’s room.

I was going to say goodbye.

Chapter 22

“Do you remember when I was little and I swung the swing too high and you told me to stop, but I didn’t listen. I lost my grip and flew right into that tree. That was the moment I learned I should always listen to you.”

I was leaned over holding my mom’s hand drowning out the sound of her rattled breaths that screamed of darkness with memories that would make her smile.

“How about when I was seven and I was in the beauty pageant. I didn’t want to wear a bathing suit in front of the boys in the audience so you put on a two piece to match mine and walked out with me. That was the moment I knew was courage was.”

Mike ran his hand across my back in comfort. Mark had said his goodbyes, and left him with a guard at the door because the police chief forced him to head upstate and help them find the body.

“Do you remember when I got sick and threw up all over the car we were test driving? I look back and laugh at it now that you got him to come down seven thousand dollars on the car and then chose one in a different color I hadn’t thrown up in. That was the moment I learned how to finagle, and have been doing it ever since.”

Brooklyn walked in with a cup of coffee for me and Mike as we all gathered round my mom for her last moments with us.

“I won’t remember you like this, mom, I will remember you healthy and wholesome. I will remember the laughter and tears. I will remember Brooklyn and I running from you when it was time for a spanking, or helping at the diner when you were just too beat to do it alone. As long as I live I will remember everything you gave up for me, and everything you gained from me. I am thankful for the time we got together and the lessons that I learned. I am elated to know that the man I wanted to be my dad, was him all along, so I am even grateful you got knocked up and kept me, but most of all I am so proud that you were my mom. I was blessed with the best, and nothing will ever change that.”

My mom started taking long deep breaths and holding it as Nurse Kelly came in and looked at her monitor. She nodded her head and I held my mom’s hand. This was it, my mom was dying. I thought I would be overwhelmed with grief, and I was, but I was able to keep it back to say goodbye.

“I love you, Karen,” Brooklyn cried as she held her other hand. Mike leaned over and placed a kiss on my forehead.

“Your mom and I have already said our goodbyes. This is between you and her now,” he whispered as he stepped out to go use the bathroom down the hall.

She took another deep breath and held it and I looked at the Nurse who gave a look telling me it was time to say goodbye. How the hell do you say goodbye forever? What do you use as the last words they ever hear?

Then I knew, I leaned up and placed a kiss on my mom’s head and sang softly into her ear.

“I’ll be cherry and you be coke, cause no one needs a root beer float. As long as I have you and you have me together we will be sweet as iced tea. Sing out loud and give it a whirl, no one can defeat a soda pop girl.”

My mom let out her breath she had been holding and didn’t take another. Nurse Kelly muted the screen as I stood over my mom and said goodbye.

“I love you. You will always and forever be the cherry to my coke. Go to Heaven and wait for me at the pearly gates. Go boss God around about a having son and daughter in laws for a while.”

Then she was gone.

There was a huge commotion that broke that moment of loss and turned my attention to the door. Brooklyn stood up and walked to it and pulled the door back and I walked up behind her to see the staff working on Mike on the floor.

I ran and slid on my knees to get to him as they put a mask over his face. I screamed ‘save him’ and heard them tell me to move. The orderlies brought up a gurney and they counted to lift him up off the floor and get him into a room where they could try to revive him I sat up against the nurses’ desk and cried.

Brooklyn came to me and held me while they all shouted orders around us. Two lifelines in the span of five minutes left me debilitated and alone. Everything suddenly went numb and I couldn’t feel the pain anymore, or the shouting. I merely heard the sound of something plastic hitting the floor.

I looked and a pill bottle had fallen from Mike’s hand and clattered on the floor near us. I leaned forward and grabbed it feeling like everything was happening in slow motion. I looked at the prescription label that had been torn off and instead in pen was written ‘for my daughter.’

I opened it to see a thick piece of paper folded inside. With shaky hands I opened it as everything around me faded. I had tunnel vision and it was only focused in on the letter

I know I should have left you more than a note, or an explanation of why I felt like now was an okay time to join your mother. You see when she got sick I knew I couldn’t leave you alone, and then I met Eddie one night and knew he was the one for you.

Arrogant and cocky, but full of laughter and wanting to help people. He was the black to your white. The rainbow to your pot of gold. You would have never let your mother and I set you up so we did what we had to do.

I wiped out my 401K with the company which is why Henry firing me didn’t matter. You see we had already discussed it prior when I emptied my retirement. I bought the cars and placed them out at Eddie’s grandpa’s garage. I knew Eddie would find them when he was ready to say goodbye to his family I just had to wait.

I picked your three favorites so that you would always have a piece of me with you. You will find the titles signed over to you taped under the coffee table in your apartment. Then when the time came and I saw you with Eddie at the hospital the sparks flew between the two of you.

I never asked him to come and stay with us while your mom had surgery. He did that because he had already found his soul mate. He just didn’t know it yet.

Your life was headed into a chaotic long and lonely life like your mother had and she didn’t want that for you. So we might have brought you two into each other’s lives, but look at what you have become since you met him. You don’t drink. I don’t have to wonder where you are at 4am. You can go grocery shopping without worrying you will run into a one-night stand because you don’t notice them anymore.

You have more sass in your little finger than your mother had her whole life and I blame Brooklyn and thank her for making you that way. So the only things that changed were the things you were already unhappy with, but didn’t know how to stop.

I gave you Eddie and he gave me back my daughter. When your mother took a turn for the worse we had a conversation about the end of times, and made an agreement that if you were happy and safe. When you could laugh again, I would join your mom. I did that, Kate.

I couldn’t save Liza, but I could save you. I kept you safe and Eddie made you happy. When he walked into a room you lit up like a beacon for him to see. I often wonder if you saw your mother and I that way.

I don’t want tears, or sappy goodbyes. Save those for your mom because she deserves them. I want you to celebrate my life. Go get a drink, just one, with Brooklyn and start your new life with a clean slate.

I have always been and forever be your dad, and I love you more than life itself, but we made you strong enough to survive on your own without us. This is our time now to be together. I’m sorry this hurts, but know that I am so happy because wherever you go when you die I’m headed there with your mother.”