Finding Cait (16 page)

Chapter 43

Matt

    
Court is gone and I am alone.  I don’t even remember calling Candy but I
guess going through the motions is something I have been programmed to
do.  She never made it to two weeks and I am so angry that they promised
her time she could never have.  My stomach turns and I run to the bathroom
and vomit until there is nothing left but even then my body still wretches and
I want to die with her. 

    
My little sister is dead and I could do nothing to stop it.  Fate is
fickle and I feel as though it has let me escape my own death many times but
now it has settled the score.  I have spent my life avoiding attachment at
all cost knowing that death cares not about
who
a
person is when he takes them.  My parents were taken from me at a very
young age and I learned that not loving others is the only way to survive when
Death swoops in and takes what he wants. 

    
Now I sit on the bathroom floor listening through the wall to Cait say goodbye
to my sister and I would give anything to be young again, eves dropping on them
from my room, waiting for Cait to leave so I can watch her go.  Cait has
learned to be strong, she is the only other person who has lost more than me
and this might be the death she can’t get past.  I don’t know how I will
ever help her to recover when I will never be whole again myself.

    
The world is standing still at this moment as I sit here on the floor.  I
can here Cait talking and the doctor digging in his bag but every minute feels
painfully slow.  Watching them take Court is going to kill me, I am not
sure I can handle a stranger taking her out of her house.  The thought of
her body lying somewhere tonight makes me sick again and I throw myself towards
the toilet as the vomiting takes over.

Chapter 44

Cait
 

    
I am sitting on the chair again when the doctor informs me that the coroner is
on his way and I might not want to be in here when he does his job.  The
doctor gathers up all of Court’s medication and takes it out of the room. 
This is going to be the last time that I can be with her physically and I don’t
want to let them take her yet.

    
“I love you, Court,” I say one last time, pressing my lips to her temple. 
“Thank you for all of the years of your wonderful friendship.  I will see
you on the other side.”  I leave the room when I hear the coroner coming
down the hall.  Matt is standing in the hall and he wraps me in his arms
as we both cry not caring
who
is here with us. 
When we can compose ourselves, Matt motions towards the kitchen where the
doctor awaits.  Formalities make our grieving feel interrupted. 

    
We take a seat in the kitchen while the doctor drains her morphine into a
special pad and mixes it with a substance so that someone else cannot use
it.  He looks up long enough to offer his condolences and then lets us
know he will be ordering a few death certificates for us so that we can have
extras to close out her affairs.  We say thank you and shake his hand
knowing that Court has already taken care of her affairs and one certificate
would be enough. 

    
Matt holds me up as they wheel her body out of her room and down the front
steps for the last time.  When they leave the house is silent and Matt and
I sit quietly on the couch not knowing what to say to one another.  I
suddenly feel sick and run to my bathroom to vomit before throwing myself on
the bed to sob.  I hear Matt walk down the hall and once again stand
outside the door weighing the decision to turn the knob or leave me
alone.  This time I hear the knob turn and he slides into bed beside me,
pulling me close to him and we both cry until sleep overtakes us. 

    
As I drift off to sleep I fall into a dream.  We are running down the sand
to the waves and I see Court out in front of me.  She is laughing at
first, turning her head back to see if we are catching up.  I smile as I
see her full healthy body free from the bruises of her current illness. 
Turning back to see how close Matt is, I feel like my heart feels has stopped,
the fear in his face is evident and I try to process why he is afraid.  He
is reaching out to us but we are too far ahead.  The feeling that it is
too late is falling upon me.

    
Court is still running in front of me and I watch her trying to figure out why
Matt is so fearful.  The night is dark around us and the sound of the
waves crashing against the shore is loud.  I look to the ocean to see if
it holds the answer and I feel a sudden tightness in my chest as I see what
lays
before us.  We will never make it out of there.

    
Court is so busy looking back at us she doesn’t see what is ahead of her. 
Waves as high as buildings are crashing down in front of us, annihilating the
shoreline and ripping its life forms back out into the ocean.  I can’t get
her attention and she laughs as she keeps running, think she is gaining on
us.  I try to scream but nothing comes out, and when I turn my head around
to see Matt, he is so far behind, crying now and screaming to her but she can’t
hear him.  Court is too focused on us and where we are on the beach to
worry about
herself
.  There is nothing we can do;
shut out by the darkness and sinking in sand, we watch as she crashes into the
water and disappears under the wave. 

    
I fall to my knees in the sand screaming for her, praying her head comes up
from the water that is white with the force of the crashing waves.  My
voice is small and fragile and I continue until
the my
voice is too horse to escape my mouth.  Matt is gone now and I kneel alone
in the sand.  The night is no shelter from the worry and I cry as I reach
out to her.  When the tide rolls out again I see her there in the
water.  Her lifeless
body
floating on the surface
waiting for the brother that will never come find her.

    
In the morning I wake to an empty bed and for a second there is no pain. 
Once the haze of sleep has left me the thunderous cloud of loss hits me and I
remember whom I lost yesterday.  When I have cried all the tears I can
cry, I find myself wandering to the living room in search of Matt.  He is
on the couch, clearly having spent his morning the same way that I have and he
raises an arm to me, opening his chest so that I can lay my head down.  We
sit for a long time in the silence and I start to wonder what it would have
been like to do this alone. 

    
I had imagined that I would be there for her when she passed and then I could
leave too, knowing that Matt could take care of her remains when he came home
to put her to rest.  I did not expect that she would want me to be a part
of caring for her remains. I feel grateful that Matt is here with me to help
serve out this sentence before her ashes are returned to us and we can scatter
them at the beach. 

    
I can’t eat and neither can Matt but he insists we at least try to get some
water down.  Candy calls to say she is sorry and before she hangs up I
hear her voice crack and know that Court’s loss is shared between the three of
us.  We spend the day sleeping and crying, together in our misery. 
When night falls again we return to my room and crawl back into bed the same
way we had the night before.  I did not think it was possible but the
crying seems less and we both fall asleep quickly.  Matt has a nightmare
despite being with
me and it
breaks my heart to
witness him experience that moment when you are still in the haze of sleep
before the reality hits you.  I know he remembers when he buries his head
in my hair and I wrap my arm around him, all too familiar with what that feels
like. 

    
There is no alarm set, no reason for waking, no medicine to give.  We
sleep for hours, finally resting for the first time in weeks.  When we
wake up I take a shower, trying to wash away the grief so I can get through the
next few days.  When I get out I find that Matt has done the same and we
nod to each other as if to say we did it. 

    
“Are you hungry?” he asks me and I have to really focus to give him an
answer.  I feel like I have been detached from my own body for days. 

    
“Yes.”

    
“Let’s walk to that café again, I think they have breakfast.”

    
We leave the house and again Matt puts the key under a plant outside.  He
takes my hand in his as we walk in silence to the café.  I order some
toast and a
coke which makes Matt
smile for the first
time in days and he seconds my order which makes me smile too.  We sit
there watching the world go on around
us,
the hardest
reality to accept when someone you love passes away.  When our food is
brought to our table we eat in silence and then pay the bill and begin our walk
back home. 

    
As we reach Court’s doorstep I hear the phone inside ringing.  We rush to
open the door and answer it, knowing that Candy is the only person who calls
the line now. “It should be soon,” she says, “her doctors were expecting her
death so no autopsy needs to be performed.  They are cremating her body
and you should have her ashes back in a few days.”  Before she hangs up
she thanks me again for the time she shared with Court and then wishes Matt and
I luck. 

    
We spend the day watching movies on the couch and eating the ice cream that is
in the freezer.  I wonder if my stomach will ever recover as I feel sick
most of the day and struggle to get food down.  Matt does much better than
me and by
dinner time
he is ready to eat again. 

    
“Let’s get out of here for a little while Cait.  I can’t stay in here
anymore or I will go crazy.”

    
“I know. What did you have in mind?” I begin to warm up to the idea of going
out again, returning to the land of the living instead of sitting in a house
that is full of death.

    
“Let’s grab a burger and some drinks at Pete’s Place.”

    
“All right.”  I know we need to get out but I am not sure how it is going
to feel going back there without her.  I remember the idea of exposure
therapy, facing what you fear so that you no longer fear it.  I take a
shower and pull on my jeans and a tank top.  I twist my hair up and
feeling brave I put on a little mascara. 

    
Walking down the hall I feel a mix of so many emotions.  When I pass
Court’s room my
heart aches
for her, the void she has
left is immeasurable.  As I near the living room I start to feel anxious,
knowing that tonight will be our first night back out in the real world without
her.  As I see Matt standing in the living room texting on his phone I
feel panicked, knowing that this will be over soon and I will be left with my
decision, one that I no longer knew the answer to.

    
“Everything okay?” I ask as he looks up from his phone. 

    
“Yea, I let my unit know that Court has passed and now we are just waiting to
carry out her final wishes.  They are leaving again soon and want to know
if I will be back at work in time to travel with them.”  He looks into my
eyes and I can tell he is hoping I tell him to stay. 

    
“What did you tell them?”

    
“I wasn’t sure yet.  I guess it all depends.” He opens the front door and
we head out to his truck, both of us knowing what it depends on.  If I
tell him I love him he will stay as long as possible, if I deny it he is leaving
soon.

    
When we pull into the parking lot of Pete’s, it is loud outside.  There is
a live band again and as we make our way to the door I see the same group of
girls we had seen before with Court.  They look at us and I can see the
wonder in their eyes as they register that she is not with us.  I know I
should let them know but I just can’t bring myself to say it so I let Matt’s
hand on the small of my back guide me into the bar. 

    
It is hot and crowded as we push our way through and take a seat at a small
table in the back.  The waitress is clearly having a bad night and we try
to order quickly so she can leave.  When she is gone we both look at each
other and laugh about it.  Matt ordered a beer but my stomach just
couldn’t handle one so I order a coke instead and we sit listening to the
music because it is way too loud to try and talk.  I watch as the girls
dance on the dance floor and every so often I look Matt’s way to see if he
notices them.  When I don’t catch him looking at me I catch him looking at
his beer.  This break is going to be harder than I imagined. 

    
Nothing has gone how I planned and I am not surprised.  Falling in love
with Matt will make ending my life hard, only because I know he will feel more
pain.  After watching him these past few days I am not sure he can handle
my death and I start to feel guilty for involving him more than I should
have.  I will never regret our night together, but I regret that he will
have that experience to make it harder when I go. 

    
When our food gets to the table, we both try to choke it down.  I don’t
want to over do it and see it again so I stop when I feel my stomach clench up
knowing that nothing else is going down.  Matt does a little better than
me but both of us are defeated by our meals.  He finishes his beer and
orders another as the waitress rushes past us.  When I put my hands up on
the table to play with the condensation on my glass, he reaches out and puts
his hand
over mine and motions to the dance floor
with
his head.  I wonder if the cliché will work for me also and the band will
start playing a slow song as we begin to dance. 

    
Clichés never work in my favor and before I know it Matt is spinning me around
the floor as the music blares so loud I can feel it vibrate through my body.
 For a second she is there with us, I can feel it.  The weight of her
death is lifted and my feet are light as I am spun around the floor and back
into his arms.  Just when I start to feel like I might get sick the music
slows, and Matt pulls me close to him and begins to rock me. 

    
Willing myself to stop thinking about us leaving each other, I just try to
enjoy tonight.  There will never be another night in this bar for us and I
want to soak it all up.  Matt nuzzles his face down into my neck and wraps
his arms around my waist holding me like he is afraid I am going to get
away.  I lean into him and close my eyes, wrapping my arms tightly around
his neck swaying with the music one last time. 

    
When the song finishes we go back to the table and pay our bill.  Matt
takes my hand and leads me through the bar back out to the truck.  He
opens my door but before I can get in it he closes it again and pins me up
against the truck.  He touches my face with his hands and then leaves them
on my cheeks as he gently kisses me.  It is different than before, sadder.
The passion I felt the last time is there but there is a new tenderness
now.  He leans his forehead against mine leaving our mouths close and I
can feel the heaviness on both of us.