After Forever Read online

  "Yeah, I just--I hoped--"

  "And please, don't give up that hope." Dr. Overton leaned forward, elbows on his knees, fingertips pressed together. "Here's a very honest truth for you both: We know very little about comas, about the human brain in general, really. There's little we can do at this point but keep her body healthy and hope that she comes out of it on her own. She may, I'm not saying she won't. Miracles happen. I've seen it. But...medically, statistically--"

  "You're saying it would be a miracle if she does." Cade seemed more fragile than I'd ever seen him.

  I took his hand and squeezed; I couldn't not. Sometimes you just need the touch of another human, no matter who it is.

  Dr. Overton sighed. "It's very unlikely that she will wake up, yes." A pretty young nurse came in then, with a folder in one hand. "This is Ms. Jackson. She'll go over your options with you."

  Nurse Jackson was quiet, but efficient. She listed various facilities in the area equipped to deal with Ever's condition, explained that the cost of her care would be borne by the state, and then left us with the packet of information. Left us to choose in which nursing home we'd put my comatose sister.

  We went through the motions of discussing the various facilities, and picked one. Cade seemed to be simply going along at this point, blindly accepting. We fell silent, and Cade stared at Ever for a long time, almost as if not seeing her.

  "What--what if she never wakes up, Eden?" His voice was a ragged whisper. "What do I do?"

  "I don't--I don't know."

  "I--she's my wife. I love her. I don't know how to--I don't know what to do. I miss her. I need her."

  I wanted to cry for him, for the brokenness I heard in his voice. "I know, Cade. She's my sister, my best friend."

  "But she's my wife. She's all I had. Should I just...live as if she'll never wake up? Move on? Go back to school? Just keep on going? Like...like she's dead? But visit her like she's alive?"

  I heard what he wasn't asking, what he wasn't saying. "I don't know, Cade. I don't think anyone can tell you that. You just have to do what seems right to you."

  "But--I don't know what is right. How can I? She's not dead, but she's not alive." He seemed to be barely hanging on suddenly.

  "Let's go, Cade. Let me take you home."

  He nodded and followed me to my car, silent all the way.

  things you can't unsee

  Caden

  Ever,

  My love. It seems like it's been forever since I wrote you like this. Since I sat down with pen and paper and expressed my thoughts to you. So much has changed since then.

  Everything has changed. I don't even know where to start. We met IRL (I didn't know what that phrase meant, way back when you first used it, you know) and we fell in love and we got married. God, all that seems like a lifetime ago. I don't know who that was, that Cade who was with you back then. I'm someone else now. This...hole in the world, man-shaped. Me-shaped. A vacancy.

  I can't pretend like you're going to read this, like you're going to write back. I'm sorry, but I just can't. You're in a coma, and you might never wake up, and I'm alone. You promised, Ever. You promised you'd never leave me. I know you didn't want to, you didn't mean to. But you still did, and I'm back to being numb and floating through life, through every day.

  Except now I don't even have you, have your letters to keep me tied to the earth.

  It's been six months. It's summer, and it was the day before Christmas the last time I heard your voice. The last time I saw your smile and your eyes.

  I have to make some decisions now. Finish school? Keep the condo? Do I pack your things away? Do I hang up the sweater you left draped over the kitchen chair? I haven't yet. Do I put away your shoes that are by the door? Do I put all of your stuff in a box like you've died?

  I can't. I know I should. Seeing your stuff just like you left it on December 23rd, it hurts. Every day, every time I see it all there, like you left it. But I can't bear to act like you're never coming back. I have to hope that you will. Because you will, right? You'll wake up. You'll come back to me. You love me, and you're just...lost. Somewhere out there, trying to come back. Like Odysseus fighting to get back to Penelope.

  I don't know how to live without you, but I have to try. Don't I? If you were to wake up and I've given up, just stopped living, you'd be so mad. You'd kick my ass. So I have to keep going. I have to pick myself up, and live. I don't know how I'll do it, but I will. For you. For US.

  I love you, forever and always.

  Cade

  I lowered the letter, rested it on my knee. A bird chirped outside the window, hopping on a tree branch just beyond Ever's window. I stared out, watching the bird, struggling to keep it together. I'd decided to keep our deal, from back when we were writing letters to each other. I'd write whatever was in my heart and head, and I'd never erase or hold back. And I read them to her, out loud. Every word, no matter how painful.

  I was driving on my own now, and able to use a pencil again. I could draw and write. It was going to take months of work yet to get my hand back to the skill it once had so effortlessly, but I could function. I could walk, I could drive. I'd never run the hundred-meter dash, but I could move around without much problem. Getting the ability to drive back meant I wasn't dependent on Eden anymore, but we still saw each other at the nursing home a few times a week. That was...bittersweet.

  "I have another one," I told Ever. "So I'll read that."

  Ever,

  I finally got the insurance company to pay for a new truck. A Jeep Grand Cherokee. Brand new. You'd like it. It's green. Almost the color of your eyes, but a little darker. I wish I'd had you there to help me decide what to get. I wanted to pick something you'd love, but I just...I didn't know what. I almost picked another F-150, but I've had enough of those. I needed something different.

  Your hair is getting long, you know that? They had to shave it all off when they did the surgeries on you. And now it's almost to your chin. I think it's actually a little darker black somehow. I think I remember reading that when you shaved your head, sometimes the hair would change a little. But then I read somewhere else that that wasn't actually true, it was just the ends of the hair being different or something.

  I miss you so much, Ever. I miss talking to you. I miss waking up next to you. I miss the way you'd smile at me first thing in the morning. Sleepy, sexy, hair messy, like seeing me was the best way to wake up. I miss watching you put on your lotion. The way it made our bedroom smell like vanilla. I miss sleeping next to you. Jesus, I miss, most of all, the way you sounded when we made love. Your voice. How dirty you'd talk to me.

  I'm going nuts, baby. Six months without you. Six months without touching you or kissing you. Six months, and I don't know what to do. About how horny I am. How I ache. For you. I wake up at night sometimes, and I've dreamed of you. Sex dreams of you. And I'll be on the verge of coming, just from the dream, but I always wake up, and then I remember that you're gone and I can't get the dream back, can't get the feeling back.

  I miss your skin. Soft, smooth, warm.

  I miss you so much sometimes that I could cry. But I can't. Don't. Won't. It's stupid, maybe, but if I don't mourn you, don't cry for you, then part of me thinks maybe you'll come back. And I won't have to.

  Come back to me, my love. Please. Come back to me, and make love to me.

  Forever yours, and yours beyond forever,

  Caden

  I heard a noise behind me, swiveled to see Eden standing in the doorway. Her hand was over her mouth and she was crying, bright silver tears sliding over her cheekbones.

  "Sorry," she murmured, "I didn't mean to eavesdrop."

  "It's okay," I said, as though part of me wasn't mortified that she'd heard my confession. As if she hadn't learned that, with Ever in a coma, I was still somehow able to go on having physical needs as if she were fine, as if my life hadn't ended with hers. I shouldn't want anything but for her to wake up. I shouldn't be so selfish as to want her to wake
up so she could satisfy my desires.

  Eden wouldn't quite look at me. "I can go, if you're--if you need more time."

  "No, I was done. I was gonna go."

  She held up a vase of daisies. "I've already been today. I just wanted to drop these off. She likes daisies. She always says they're--"

  "Happy flowers," I finished.

  "Yeah. Happy flowers." Eden set the vase on the windowsill, where the flowers could get the most sunlight.

  Neither of us moved to leave, and neither of us spoke or looked at each other. Tense, thick silence hovered between us, freighted with the things we knew about each other that we shouldn't.

  "I'll see you--"

  "Do you want to grab some dinner?" Eden spoke at the same time as me. I gestured for her continue. She swept her fingers through her hair, flipping it back over her shoulder. "I was just thinking, you know, we're--there's no reason we can't talk, right? Hang out? We're...in some ways, we're all each other has."

  I hated the reminder. "Yeah. That's true." I hated how part of me jumped at the opportunity to be around her. It wasn't her, really. It was anyone. I spent far too much time alone, and Eden and I were bound together, like she'd said. "Sure. That sounds good."

  We ended up at a little Italian place in Birmingham, sharing a loaf of bread and sipping red wine while we waited for our orders to come up. Conversation was easy as long as we stayed to light, neutral topics. We both liked the same kind of movies, and generally kept the talk to actors and actresses, favorite scenes, quoting lines from movies we'd seen a thousand times. There was always a layer of awkwardness, a constant thread of tension, the feeling that somehow this wasn't quite acceptable in some subtle way. It was just dinner and conversation, though. Nothing else.

  Dinner that night turned into dinner at that little Italian place twice a week, Sundays and Wednesdays, after we visited Ever. We ate, we had a couple glasses of wine, and we talked. We never lingered after the meal was finished. It was company, companionship. The chance to interact with someone who knew what the other was going through. We shared an unspoken commiseration, a missing of Ever Eileen Eliot Monroe. We knew, we felt it, but we never acknowledged it out loud. We never discussed meeting twice a week for dinner; it just happened, all by itself.

  And then one Tuesday, Eden asked me if I'd drive to the restaurant. She didn't feel up to it, she said. She seemed...out of it. Lost in her head. I drove, and as soon we sat down at our usual table in the corner by the window, Eden ordered not a glass of merlot, but a bottle. That was unusual. One, maybe two glasses apiece, that was it, always.

  I glanced at her. "Are you okay?"

  She shrugged, ripped a piece of bread off and dipped it in the oil, all without meeting my eyes. "Yeah. Fine."

  "That's convincing."

  She waited until the server poured the wine and left to respond. "Sorry. Just...I had a bad day. No big." Except her eyes, downcast, conveyed otherwise.

  "How about the truth, Eden? I'm your friend. You don't have to act fine with me, of all people. I'm the least okay person on the planet, probably."

  She laughed, a sniffling giggle. "Quite a pair, aren't we?" She took a long sip of the wine. "You want the truth? I got dumped."

  That stung in a way I didn't dare examine. "That sucks. What happened?" I hadn't known she was seeing anyone.

  "The usual." She waved a dismissive hand. "Guy seemed nice. Guy seemed cute. Guy seemed nice and cute until he got what he wanted from Eden, and then Eden gets dumped. It's a routine by this point. Every few months, I do this to myself."

  "Talk about yourself in the third person?" I asked, joking.

  "Ha-ha. No. You know what I mean."

  I sighed. "Yeah, I guess I do. Why do it to yourself, then? If it's a routine and you're aware of that fact, then why not try to change it?"

  She gave me a look that said, are you dumb, or joking? "I don't go out there looking for this to happen. I just pick the wrong guys. I just have shitty radar, I guess. Like I said, I met this guy, Ryan, at a show. He's a stand-up bassist in a band. I went with some girls from the program. They just kind of dragged me along, you know? Ryan was nice. Took me out, paid, opened doors. And then as soon as I put out, he stops answering his phone."

  I winced. "That fucking sucks."

  "Tell me about it." She swirled the ruby liquid in her glass. "I'll be fine. I just...someday, I keep hoping I'll meet a guy who's after more from me than...that." I opened my mouth to speak, but she wasn't done. "You know, it's not like I'm going home with these guys on the first date, either. I give it time, you know? I try to be smart. I try to make sure they seem like decent guys. And they always seem that way, right until I get burned. And I get fooled every time. I mean, is it the way I look? What is it about me that makes me such an easy target?"

  "Maybe they're just douchebags."

  "Yeah, that's a given. But there's got to be something about me. I mean, a couple times, okay, bad luck. But an ongoing problem? Every time I date a guy, this happens." She was halfway through her second glass already, and we hadn't gotten our food yet.

  I had no idea what to say. "Maybe...I don't know. Maybe don't...go there at all? I mean, not never, just see how much patience the guy has. If he sticks around for a while without that, then maybe he's actually interested in you."

  Something about this conversation was making me want to hide, run, talk about anything else. It was too much; it was wrong somehow. I shouldn't hear this about her. I didn't want to know.

  Eden laughed. "Yeah, that seems great in theory. Not so easy to do in practice."

  "Yeah, I guess it wouldn't be."

  "Sorry," Eden said, pouring her third glass. "This is probably TMI. But you did ask."

  "Yeah, I did. It's okay. We're friends. We can talk about things, right?"

  She peered at me, her gaze sharp. "Is that what we are? Friends?" Her tone suggested doubt.

  I didn't like where this was going. "What else would we be?"

  She drank yet more, too much, too fast. Our food arrived and she dug in, answering after her first mouthful. "I don't know. But 'friends' isn't the right word."

  "Why not?" I asked.

  "You choose friends, right? You meet someone, recognize something in them that you like, that you identify with." She gestured between us with her fork. "You and me? We're something I don't think English has a word for. We're thrown together by life. My sister is your wife, but...brother-in-law, sister-in-law, that just describes the...the on-paper way we're connected. It doesn't describe the way our lives have intertwined. You know? How our journeys have intersected. We're fate-companions. Path-mates. That's something. It's more than friends. Even good friends, you hold things back. You share good times, bad times. Get drunk together, maybe fight about something. But this? You and me, bonding over Ever's coma? It's something else. Something...thicker, realer than all of that. Does that make any sense to you? Would we be friends if it weren't for Ever? I mean, are we even compatible, as people? I don't know. Yes, sometimes. No, sometimes." She was rambling, but it was coherent, coming from some raw truthful place, drawn out or let free by the wine.

  I set my glass down, not daring to drink any more. "I get what you're saying."

  "But there's more, isn't there?" Eden wasn't done. She ate, spoke, drank, repeat. On a roll, unstoppable. "You know there is. I've blurted shit about myself that I wouldn't even to friends. I have friends. At school. I do. People I play music with. We drink together sometimes. Talk about life. Philosophy. Movies. Guys. Typical college girl bullshit. Classes, profs, music. Always music. We talk about entire movements, try to describe how it feels to let the music rule you. It's different for everyone, you know. But it's not...it's not real. With them. I wouldn't ever tell them how I feel about my body. I hide that. I act like I'm confident. I dress confident. I am confident, most days. But when the doubt hits, it's all-powerful. It's like depression, but worse. I should know, because I get depressed, too, but that's separate. I get it from Mom. Ever
does, too. Or...did. She'd lock herself away and paint until it passed. When she was in her studio for, like, days without eating or anything? That's her depression. For me, I play through it. But that's just...a Band-Aid. Not a fix." She poured the last of the bottle.

  "Just so you know, I'm not gonna stop anytime soon." She held up the wine glass. "I'm getting wasted. It's what I do now. How I deal. If Ever was...around, I'd see her. We'd watch Love Actually or Notting Hill or Sleepless in Seattle. Eat ice cream and cheesy chips and salad with lots of ranch and shredded cheese and drink, like, a gallon of wine, and she'd make sure I'd snap out of it. Now...I think I'll just skip right to the wine."

  "I'm not Ever--"

  "No shit, Sherlock."

  I ignored that. "But we could watch a movie. Under the circumstances, I could probably stomach a chick flick. If...if it'll help."

  She peered at me. "Why? Why would you do that? Help me get over some asshole after I've been humped-and-dumped?"

  "Well" --I wasn't sure why, myself-- "because, friends or not, or whatever you want to call this, like you said, we're all we've got. And I like ice cream."

  So we ended up at the condo. After stopping for another bottle of wine and mint chocolate chip Breyers. The whole time, my head was telling me to take her home, that someone else could help her through it. That she'd get drunk and pass out and wake up and deal with it, same as she always did.

  Instead, we watched How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, and Ever got colossally wasted. I sat on the opposite edge of the couch and got more slowly and more carefully tipsy. We didn't talk, just laughed and drank and passed the gallon of ice cream back and forth, each of us with our own spoon.

  She fell asleep at some point, and I left her there, covered her with a blanket. Only, she woke up, sat up, peered at me blearily. "Hot. Gotta pee." She lurched to her feet, stumbled three steps sideways. I caught her, held her by the shoulder and guided her into the bathroom. She stood facing the toilet, swaying in place. Then she glanced at me with one eye. "This could be tricky. Too many toilets."