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Drowning
Stay with me for just today and
I feel that your eyes won't open
What can I say, what can I do
Oh I'm drowning
Oh I'm drowning
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I awoke with a start. I stretched and rolled over onto my back. Where was I? And why was it getting light? As I rolled over, I took a deep breath, I was surrounded by Taylor’s scent. A smile crept over my face as I realized I was in his bedroom, in his bed. I felt like I was surrounded by him, reveling in him, drowning in him. But sometimes, drowning is a good thing. I looked at my watch and was surprised to see it was 5:30 am. I really needed to head back to my house. I walked out of their eerily quiet home, climbed into my car and headed back towards Jenks. Each time I looked over my shoulder, I would catch whiffs of him. Each time, it made me smile.
As I turned onto 78th Street, I looked at my darkened house. This house had somehow become a sanctuary for grief. I pulled into my parking spot and closed my eyes. I could feel the black wave of sadness licking at my toes, pulling me in, trapping me in it’s undertow. I reluctantly pushed my door open and looked at my house. I realized being here was like being underneath the waves, looking up at the blue sky, knowing oxygen was within reach, but completely unable to break the bonds of the undertow. I moved slowly forward toward the house, glad that my parents were in bed. I trudged up the steps and slowly opened the back door, I could smell coffee. This was a bad sign.
“Cleo?” I heard my Dad’s voice call quietly from the sun porch.
“Hey Dad.” I said as I stepped into the room. “Whatcha doing?”
“Watching videos and wondering what happened...” He said looking up at me. I noticed then that his cheeks were wet. He lifted the remote and hit play. Suddenly before me was a game of Tackle Tag. Thad was running after me, but I was easily staying just out of his reach, laughing at him over my shoulder. The scene changed and all of us were sitting around the picnic table in our backyard. Zac and I were spitting watermelon seeds at each other at high velocity. Thad kept leaning over and whispering in my ear and each time I laughed. “I look at you here and I realize... I never knew you. How can I even claim to mourn Thad? I never knew him...”
“Daddy...” I said as I walked over and sat on the couch next to him. “I’m sorry about what I said earlier. You’re a great father.”
“No. No, I’m not.” He said reaching out and grabbing my hand. “How old are you in this video?”
I turned and watched as I climbed a tree over the river and shimmied out onto the end of a limb. I hung over the river with Thad, Ike and Taylor in the water below me, launching handfuls of mud at me. I was 13. I remember that summer so clearly. The summer that I became a better soccer player than any of the boys. The summer that Taylor broke his arm. The summer Thad become a better than average swimmer. The summer I got my period. “Thad and I were 13.”
“So, at this time, I had 3 more years to get to know my boy and I didn’t.” He said, his voice a sob. “And, I’ve had 9 years to get to know you. And I recognize your face, your voice, but I don’t know a thing about you. For example, what is your favorite food? What is your favorite movie? What was your favorite class in college? Why don’t I know you?”
“Daddy, don’t...” I said hugging him. “Don’t torture yourself. How could anyone have known that we would lose Thad...”
“But, I lost him before he died.” He said smoothing back my hair. “I don’t want to wake up one morning and find you gone too. Is it too late for me? For us?”
“No, Daddy, it’s not...” I said settling against his shoulder. “It’s never too late to fall in love.”
“Are you in love?” My dad asked as Thad and I played soccer before my eyes. This particular game had been a championship game. Thad had played goalie and I was a forward and Isaac was a midfielder, I remember Walker videotaping the game for my dad who hadn’t been able to come to yet another big game. My dad always had an emergency whenever anything remotely important happened. I understand that he is a surgeon, but still... I wanted at least one fan in the stands. I felt my fathers breath hitch in his chest as I turned toward the camera and waved and yelled, “hi Daddy!” in the middle of the game. “Do you really love Taylor?”
“Yes, I do.”
“I don’t think your mother will ever accept you being in love with Taylor.” He said holding up the grungy purple cast. “Just like your mother refuses to accept or believe that anyone other than her misses Thad.”
“I know Dad.” I said sighing. We sat together for a while watching Thad and I playing soccer. “Do you think she’ll ever forgive me for being the one who lived...”
“Honey, she loves you...”
“Maybe, it just doesn’t feel like it sometimes...” I said quietly.
“She’s hard on you, I know, but it’s because she expects so much...”
“Dad, don’t give me that she expects more from me garbage.” I said as the game before us ended. I watched as my Mom ran out onto the field as the game ended. She hugged Thad and Isaac, telling them what a great job they’d done, telling Thad how wonderful he did, how amazing all of his stops were. As I sprinted over, Thad hugged me and Ike hugged me, but my mother just patted my back. Instead of telling me how well I did, she asked me what happened, how I had missed that point, why had I kicked it over the goal. “Cleo, you just don’t concentrate...” She said as she walked off, probably to congratulate another player that wasn’t me. My head dropped forward, but I didn’t cry. By the time I was 13, I knew I couldn’t please my mother. Suddenly, I had an eight year old Zac on my back and a 2 year old Avery had her arms wrapped around my knees. I leaned down and scooped Avery up into my arms. She was so beautiful. Diana came over and hugged me, placing a kiss on my cheek. “Mom always loved Thad more.”
“No, she just doesn’t know how to show you.” He said quietly. “You were so different. From the beginning, Thad had loved to cuddle and you were not like that. I mean, he was so much bigger than you, he never had to be in the PICU, but you were so tiny and so frail. Your mother was afraid to love you, because she thought your were going to die. I remember her holding Thad and looking at you in the incubator and telling me that you scared her.”
“Why? I was just a baby...” I said.
“Cleo, you were so tiny. We didn’t get to hold you very much at first.” My dad said quietly. “I think she was afraid that if she fell in love with you, you’d die and leave her broken hearted... Maybe she forgot to stop being afraid of you and just love you. And then, you became the strong one, the one who seemed to be able to do anything. You walked first, you climbed out of your crib first, you figured out how to open the door first. He looked to her for answers and you only had questions. And then, ironically, she lost Thad. Up until then, you never seemed to need her.”
“I needed her, I needed you...” I said looking him in the eye.
“I know and I’m sorry. You just hadn’t really needed us before. You were so independent.” He said watching the video. Taylor was now spraying me down with a soda that looked an awful lot like Mountain Dew. “You know, I had never taken the time to sit and watch these videos... I missed so much of your life.”
“Well, I have a lot of life left.” I said holding his hand. “You can be the worlds best grandpa...”
“Are you pregnant?” He asked surprised.
“No,” I said shaking my head.
“Cleo, I promise to try harder.” He whispered into my hair as we watched Thad bring me to the grass in a flying tackle. We started tickling each other, rolling back and forth across the lawn. Soon, Isaac, Taylor and Zac were in the pile. Walker was laughing so hard as he tried to videotape us, the camera was shaking up and down. “Despite all of this, you had what looked like a happy childhood.”
“Yeah, I did.” I said smiling at our ridiculous antics. “I had Thad and really, that was enough at that time.”
“So, you love skinny, little Taylor Hanson?” My dad asked.
“Yeah, I really do.”
“Good, you deserve to be happy, to have someone who loves you unconditionally. I’m sorry it wasn’t me or your mother...”
“It’s okay Daddy,” I said. “A year ago, it wasn’t, but today...”
“I want to know everything about you, about your life.” He whispered into my hair. “And hopefully, your mother will realize how amazing you are soon...”
“Yeah, I hope so too.” I sighed, but for some reason, I didn’t think it would happen anytime soon. “Daddy, I’m tired. I’m gonna go to bed.”
“I love you, you know.” He said as I started towards the stairs.
“I know you do.”
“Your mother will come around.” He said. “Just give her some time.”
“Dad, it’s been 6 years...”
“And it may be 6 more, but I promise it will happen...” He looked at me again, almost as if he wanted to memorize me. “You really are truly beautiful...”
“Thanks Dad.” I said smiling.
“Aww... go to bed, princess.” He said, calling me by a nickname I hadn’t heard in forever. I turned and trudged up the stairs. I was tired, so tired. But, as I fell into my bed, a small smile stole across my face as my eyes fell onto the pictures of Taylor and I that I’d moved to next to my bed. He was so quickly becoming my life. He was my last thought at night and my first thought in the morning. I reached over and grabbed the pictures, they were taken in Europe. The first pic has the camera is focused on Taylor, but I am standing to his right, facing him. He is looking at me and laughing at something I’ve said, his hand is on my shoulder. The next pic, he has his arms around my neck. The third, I have my arms around his waist and he has his chin resting on my head. We both are so happy looking. I put the pictures back and rolled over onto my stomach curling around my pillow, my hair tumbled over my face and again, I was surrounded in Taylor. I pulled off my glasses and felt my eyes drooping shut.
I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what my would be like if Thad were still alive. Would my mother love me more? Probably not. I knew she loved me. I had always known, But, she had a hard time showing it. Maybe my dad was right, maybe it all stemmed from my weeks in an incubator. Still, if I were completely truthful with myself everyone found it easier to love Thad. He was like a puppy. He was happy and active, jumping all over those he loved, doling out sloppy kisses to everyone he deemed worthy. And as far as I remembered, he found everyone worthy. Really, everyone was better when they with him. But me? I had always been cautious and wary emotionally. I was more daring physically, I ran the farthest and the fastest, I climbed highest in the tree, jumped off the tallest rock into the river, rode the scariest ride the most times. But for all my bravado, I was always afraid. Afraid of the pain that came with a broken heart. Maybe that was why my mother would never believe that I was in love with Taylor. I remember once, long before Thad died, that she felt sorry for the man who fell in love with me, cause I was hard. Brittle and sharp like broken glass.
As I was falling asleep, I heard the shower in my mothers room come on. My mother, now what was I supposed to do about her. I suppose, I could just let life move along as it always had. Her and I would ignore the fact that the abyss between us seemed unbreachable. I heard the shower go off and then I could hear her moving around. I could imagine what she was doing, picking out one of her many business suits, pulling her still wet hair up into a ponytail and then twisting it around base and securing it with bobby pins. I heard her bedroom door open and then the clipped clicks of her heels. “Greg?”
“Yeah?” My dad called as quietly as possible back up the stairs.
“Did Cleo come home last night?”
“Yes...” My dad answered.
I heard my mother sigh and then her footsteps took her into Thad’s room. I heard his bed creak as she sat on it. I lay perfectly still, forcing my breathing to stay even and calm. I listened to her almost silent sniffling. After a few minutes, I heard Thad’s bed creak as she stood up. Instead of her retreating out of Thad’s room, they moved forward into the bathroom between our rooms. I lay on my stomach, my arms wrapped around my pillow. I could feel her standing over me, watching me. “Oh baby...” She breathed. I felt my bed dip as she sat next to me. “Please, always know I love you.” I felt her fingers gently move my hair back out of my face. “You are the only reason I can go on...” Her voice broke as tears choked her. She sat next to me her fingers gently smoothing my hair out of my face.
At that moment, I knew somehow if I just opened my eyes and told her I loved her everything would be alright. And somehow, I couldn’t make myself move. I was being pulled down by the undertow, I was trapped underneath the waves.