I haven’t been in a church in years.
But I’m kneeling with her.
She whispers under her breath. I can’t make out the words, but her tone is…urgent.
Desperate. Pleading. Intense.
I can’t think of what to pray.
Except…
Please.
More Everything, And Nothing At All
Westley
Days pass.
She clings to life.
They tell us to expect the end soon. Any hour, any day.
Time ceases to have meaning. Morning, night—hours, days. It’s all a blur.
There’s cafeteria coffee and puck-like burgers I don’t even taste. Hard chairs in the hall while others have time with her. Hours in the waiting room, or her room.
Things beep and hiss, whir and pump and drip.
I find myself alone with her. It feels like the middle of the night, but the blinds are shut and the fluorescent lights are always the same—dimmed.
I kneel beside her. Hold her hand.
She’s intubated. Not breathing on her own.
Shutting down.
“Jo?” I whisper. The first words I’ve said since I woke up with her sick beside me. “Can you hear me?”
She doesn’t move.
But I feel…it’s not her, physically; she doesn’t move, or stir, or twitch.
What I feel is…her.
Her spirit. Watching from somewhere. Feeling me. Hearing me.
I know it’s hokey, stupid—
But I feel her listening to me.
“I’m not ready to let you go,” I whisper. “I know it’s selfish of me, Jo. I know you’ve fought this your whole life, and you’re probably tired. And…if you’re ready to go, I understand. I do. But…I guess I…I don’t want you to. I want you to stay. Please. For me.” I choke. “I want more time with you. More magic. More everything, and nothing at all. Just you and me.”
My voice cracks, and I hear myself break. I don’t remember the last time I cried like this.
But it’s just her and me, I know she won’t judge me.
“Please,” I whisper.
Is that a prayer? Or a plea whispered to her?
I don’t know.
“Please,” I repeat. “Please.”
I rest my head on the edge of the bed, near her hand.
How long I’m there, I don’t know.
A Sacred Silence
Westley
Hands grasp my shoulders. “Westley, come on.” Grandma.
I blink awake—I’m in the chair in her room, slumped forward onto the bed, my arms across her legs.
Beep…beep…beep…
Whirrrrr-hisssss—whirrrrrr-hisssss…
Reassuring sounds, because they mean she’s still alive.
I look at her: she’s the same. Thin and pale and small.
Grandma pulls at me. “Westley, dear, come with me, please.”
I stare at her—shock-white hair in a rather chic cut, slacks with a cardigan. Reading glasses. “Where? Why?”
There are nurses behind her, waiting. Her parents behind them.
“They want to do some tests.”
I stand up. Frown. “Tests?”
There’s a doctor with the nurses, white lab coat, stethoscope, carrying an iPad. Older Indian male with thick-rimmed glasses. He looks at me, at Jo, at the monitors and then his iPad. Says nothing.
“Come.” I’m pulled, and I allow myself to be drawn out of the room.
Machines are turned off, tubes and leads disconnected but not removed from her, other things are transferred to stay with the bed. They wheel her out of the room and down the hall, pause at a set of doors, which open with a tap of a keycard, and then she’s gone.
Grandma, Sherri, Charlie, Beth, Macy…we’re the only ones in the waiting room. It’s silent. A TV plays an old CHEERS episode.
“Why are they running tests?” I ask.
Charlie clears his throat, opens his mouth but nothing comes out. His eyes are red, with dark bags under them. He tries again. “They, um. She—she should be…she should have passed on already.”
I’m not following. I look to Grandma. That’s how I think of her, feel about her; we’ve exchanged few actual words, but when we sit together at Jo’s side, something bonds us on a soul-deep level. My own grandparents have either passed or I’m not close to. So to me, she’s…Grandma.
“She’s holding on longer than they anticipated,” she says. “So they’re going to scan her. Just…to see, I suppose.”
I don’t think anyone wants to say out loud what we’re all thinking: what if she’s…pulling through it?
Is that even possible?
Hours pass.
More hours.
I don’t remember bringing it here with me, but I somehow have my laptop and headphones in my bag; I don’t even remember bringing a bag with me, to be honest. But, on the laptop I have the raw recording file from our session in the studio. I spend the hours mixing it, refining it, tweaking the details. Process it into a final master file.
I sit in the waiting room, staring at my screen, contemplating. One click of the mouse, and our impromptu recording session will be released out into the world, on Apple Music, on YouTube with a series of still selfies of her and I taken at various times over the past month or so, on Spotify, Soundcloud, everywhere. It’s a remarkable recording. I left some of the conversation in, which makes it feel real and raw and personal, vulnerable.
I stare at the publish button.
Should I?
Without asking her? She knew I was recording, but she doesn’t know I’m doing this.
I’m proud of it, though. Of her, of her talent, her bravery, her passion for the music.
With a deep breath, I click the mousepad. Sigh a slow, ragged breath out, and watch as the screen tells me our EP is live. I titled it Captured Voices: Jolene Park & Westley Britton in the Studio. The album artwork is a selfie of us, snapped in my Range Rover in the parking lot of the diner outside Cheyenne—the sun washes us with brilliant golden light, bathing her skin and turning her red hair into fire. She’s leaning against me, nose in my throat, a huge grin on her face, lighting her features with joy and vivacious life. Her eyes are closed, and my head is thrown back, laughing as she said something funny at the exact moment I hit the shutter button on my phone. I’m blurry, in motion, and she’s in sharp focus.
It’s a reflection of us.
I hope she’d be proud of it. I know I am.
The doctor enters the waiting room, and we all stand up. He waves us back to our seats and takes one for himself. He moves as if his limbs weigh a thousand pounds each. I can tell nothing of his news from his face.
“So,” he begins, and then hems, clears his throat. “There’s an anomaly.”
Charlie stands up again, paces four slow steps away from the doctor and passes his hand over his head. Returns. “An anomaly? Meaning what?”
“We scanned her…several times, actually.”
Sherri grips her hands together and wrings them until her skin goes white. “Doctor, please.”