Chapter 9: What Matters
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The world seemed frozen.
The sounds of the hospital were negligible, drowned out by the sound of Azalea’s crying. Of Azalea’s breathing. Of Azalea’s heartbeat. All I could hear was her. Her despair. Her spirit sinking into darkness, into oblivion. And there was nothing I could do to help her.
She sat in the waiting room and cried. And cried. And cried. I wanted to comfort her, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t know what to say to make her feel better. There was nothing to say to make her feel better. Nothing. There was nothing.
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When we got there it was too late. She didn’t even get to say goodbye. I managed to get a nurse to tell me what had happened, and she told me everything. He’d been shot in the heart, they couldn’t stop the bleeding. He was DOA. Dead on arrival. He didn’t even make it to the hospital. She dumbed everything down for me. He probably didn’t suffer. It was too late. He was gone.
I made sure she said it all out of earshot of Azalea. I didn’t think she could handle it, not yet. Then I went back and I sat next to her. I sat with her. I wanted her to know I was there. She cried. Ugly, wracking sobs. Until her eyes were swollen. And her face was streaked with tears and snot. Until I was worried she would become dehydrated.
When I saw Amaranth and Kobi--both of them were crying--I felt another stab of pain in my heart. I didn’t think that was possible. I thought seeing Azalea cry like that was the ultimate pain, but there was more. I thought about how just before we found out, we’d been talking about their baby. About a new life being brought into their family, and then suddenly one was taken away. Mulberry would never know that he was going to become a grandparent.
Did Kobi even know his wife was pregnant? Or did he find out about his dad first?
Did it even matter? It was hard to think anything mattered.
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I spent the night at Azalea’s that night. Nobody was going to stop me. Mulberry would have been the only one to object, but he couldn’t any more. I texted my parents and told them where I was, and then I turned off my phone. They might get mad at me, they might not. I didn’t know and I didn’t care. Azalea needed me.
Nobody ate dinner that night. Nobody was hungry.
I hoped Amaranth and Kobi had gotten a chance to eat something, but I doubted it. And then she threw up and it didn’t matter. I wondered again if Kobi knew. If he would make her eat something if he did. If he couldn’t think about anything but his dad. They spent the night at Azalea’s, too. They all needed each other. And they all needed me. I was sad, of course, it was tragic and it was horrible and I wished it had never happened, but I was one layer removed and because of that I was just a little bit stronger. No. Not stronger. Less weakened.
I had to help Azalea change into her pajamas. I told her I would try not to look, and I didn’t look, but she never said a word. She sat down on her bed and stared into space, and still never said a word. I rummaged around her house to find a sleeping bag and some pillows, and when I returned she still never said a word. But she’d stopped crying. I had a feeling it was just a momentary break.
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I woke up in the middle of the night to find her crying silently, tears streaming down her face without a sound. She was sitting on top of her bed with her back against the wall, and it looked like she’d never even gotten under the covers. It was 2:00 in the morning. I got up from the floor, where I’d been sleeping, and I sat next to her on her bed.
“Azalea,” I whispered, “Are you okay?”
She cracked again and began to sob. I felt awful. I wished that I could take some of the pain from her, but there was nothing I could do. She looked so small and lost, and nothing felt like it was right in the world.
“Azalea, do you want to come here?” I opened my arms to her, and for the first time she scooted over and latched on to me for comfort. At first her arms had a tight grip around my waist, but I readjusted her so she was sitting across my lab. Everything was wrong and I didn’t know how to fix it.
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I guess I’d never been involved in a funeral before. I wish I could say I’d never been involved in a funeral at all, but those weren’t the cards that were dealt. So at 19 years old I stood, dressed in all black, listening to my girlfriend and her family say nice things about her father. Then I watched them lower his coffin into the ground, and I let Azalea cry more onto my shoulder.
Everyone hung around for a while after, as if leaving the graveyard made it all just a little more final, but nobody talked.
I didn’t let go of Azalea the whole time. My grip was loose, enough so that she could separate from me if she wanted to, but she stayed with me. I was glad. I think there was a part of me that was worried about losing her into the darkness of despair, and having her in my grasp was comforting. I hoped I was comforting to her, too, but I didn’t know if it was. I could have been a rock or I could have been a tree, scraping her hands raw with my bark as she fell.
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Azalea stayed for an especially long time. Kobi and Amaranth went off to a doctor’s appointment; Azalea’s mom went home--probably to cry in private; Mulberry’s friends from work said a last round of condolences to Azalea, but then they had lives to get back to, unlike Azalea whose life was still frozen in place; Mulberry’s two older brothers left, too, taking their regular, undamaged families to get back to their regular, undamaged lives.
Azalea sat down next to the headstone and cried some more. She ignored the dirt that rubbed into her dress, there were things more important than stains. I hated seeing her like this. It felt like she was a different person. Like she’d been possessed by a sadder version of herself. I couldn’t blame her, though, loss did this to you. I couldn’t imagine how empty she must have felt.
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“Phlox,” she whispered. I thought I’d imagined it, it had been so long since I’d heard her talk, she hadn’t even been able to speak at the funeral (she tried so hard, but all she could do was cry) and so long since I’d heard her speak my name. Maybe a whole week. That’s how long it had been. How long it had taken to get this whole thing put together. I was amazed at how fast it went. I wished it didn’t have to be fast.
“Yeah, Azalea.” I responded.
She swallowed, “Can I… can I tell you about him?” She leaned against the headstone. “Can I talk to you?”
“Of course. Tell me anything.” I agreed, and I meant it. If she could pour her soul out into me, empty herself of the sadness that consumed her, I’d gladly accept it. There wasn’t even a question.
“He was 24 when Kobi was born,” she started, and her voice was amazingly clear. “My mom was 19. I know they seemed like squares, but when they were young they were rebellious. Kobi settled them down, though, they got married. My grandma had a friend who faked their marriage certificate to be earlier, so it would be before Kobi was born. It was a big deal back then. He was 27 when I was born, and by then we were a classic suburban family.” She sniffled. I pulled out a kleenex I’d been keeping for her in my pocket. She took it. I did the math, and it told me that her dad was only 45. That was too soon.“When I was little everything was so normal. I didn’t understand what it meant for him to be a police officer. I thought it was cool, though, that he was a hero.”
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A tear found its way down her cheek. I wanted to wipe it away for her, but she got to it first, so I stayed put.
“When I was 10 years old he killed someone. They tried not to let Kobi and I know, but we were too curious for our own good. Kobi sent me in because I was smaller and quieter, so I sat by the door and listened to him talk to my mom about it. He was traumatized. I could hear him pacing around and telling her what it felt like to take a life. That was when I started to realize what he had to do for his job. He was a hero still, but I knew it wasn’t all saving people and being praised. That’s when I realized that he wasn’t always right, that he wasn’t infallible.” Another tear. I wanted to tell her she could stop, but she didn’t seem to want to stop. “They found me sitting outside the door listening to them. I wasn’t thinking clearly and I didn’t slip away in time. I didn’t even hear them walking over. I didn’t get in trouble, but I saw the way it pained my father to know what I’d heard. They got mad at Kobi, they couldn’t imagine that I’d wanted to know, too. My dad was different after that. More distant. He spent a lot more time at work, trying to atone for what he’d done. He went to counseling, too, but I don’t know if it helped. It must have, because he started to get promotions after that.”
She stopped and leaned her head against the headstone. More tears slipped down her face. I wanted to gather her in my arms, but she looked like she wanted some distance.
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“He loved us so much, but he was afraid. He was afraid of death. More so than ever before, because it had been brought once by his own hand. He knew how easy it was for someone’s life to disappear.” She closed her eyes, “When I was 14 I started dating those… those losers. I wanted him to stop me, I wanted him to tell me who I could and couldn’t date, but he wouldn’t do that.”
He had seemed perfectly willing to be overprotective of her when I was involved, but I resisted the urge to say anything. I knew better than to doubt what other people said about their own families. They always had a different perspective, they saw a side of their family that would never be shown to anyone else. Maybe she just didn’t see the way he treated her boyfriends until it came to me.
“I didn’t like any of them. I just wanted him to say something to me. It had been so long since he directed his affection at me. Or Kobi. But Kobi was stronger than me, he didn’t care. He had Amaranth. I was so mad at her back then, but I’m not anymore. I didn’t know about her then. All I could think about were my own problems. So I continued to pick guys I didn’t like. I got affection from them, I got friendship from people at school. But everything from my dad was so distant. But Phlox--” there’s my name again. It sounded so good on her lips. “--you were different. I didn’t know what I had been missing, what love felt like, until you. What it felt like to give love, and what it felt like to get it. My dad must have seen that, that I really cared, because he was different with you. For once I actually saw him being protective, maybe he thought he might actually lose me to you.” She stood up and brushed the dirt off her dress. “He approved of you. Maybe that’s what I needed.”
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I spent the night after the funeral at Azalea’s house, too. I helped her with some of the homework she had to do, and then I helped her stop doing the homework at 1:00 in the morning so she could go to bed. She didn’t want to fall behind, but she had so much else on her mind that it was hard for her to keep up. Thank Berry she was so close to graduating. As long as she didn’t fail a core class, she’d be fine.
The next day, a saturday, Amaranth called her and asked us to come over. It didn’t sound like anything was seriously wrong, they just wanted some company. I understood, I would have wanted some company, too. I drove Azalea over, and in the car she had another life story to tell me.
“Remember when I was telling you about my dad?” she asked, and I nodded. “And I said I was mad at Amaranth. I want to tell you why. But you can’t tell her I told you this.” She waited for me to agree, and I did, then she continued. “When she was a kid her dad was verbally abusive to her and her mother. He left when she was 13, and he blamed her for it. He said she wasn’t a good enough daughter and that she wasn’t prettier enough to be anyone’s wife. She developed an eating disorder after that, and her mom wasn’t much help. Her mom chased after her dad, constantly trying to get him to come back, but he wouldn’t. It made Amaranth feel like her dad was right, saying what he did. When she was 15 she met Kobi. She was so skinny. I didn’t know it meant anything. They bonded over reading, and they started dating. She was still being affected by what her dad said. I didn’t know this at the time, but my parents must have. My dad must have. He was like a father figure to her, and it made me so mad because he wasn’t even her dad. But later I learned about what happened to her, and I understood that she needed that.”
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She went silent as I pulled into Kobi and Amaranth’s driveway. I’d always thought my home life sucked--with my absentee mom, and dad who only thought about her, I’d always thought I’d grown up without parents. But hearing about Azalea’s childhood, and--even more than that--about Amaranth’s, I realized that I had it pretty good. And that everybody had issues. People try to present their lives as perfect, but on the inside everyone is falling apart.
“I’m worried about her baby.” Azalea spoke, jolting me out of my self reflection. “She and Kobi fill in each other’s weaknesses. But their not going to be able to do that now. They’re not stable. I’m worried she’d gonna… she’s gonna…” but she didn’t have to say it. I was thinking the same thing.
“Let’s go in there.” I told her. We got out of the car. “They need us.”
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I knocked on the door, keeping a tight grip on Azalea’s hand. I heard a faint ‘come in’ and that was good enough for me. I pushed the door open. Inside, it was dark. The blinds were closed, most lights were off, it felt sad. Azalea split off from me to let in some natural light while I went for the light switches.
Kobi looked up from his spot on the couch and groaned. “Don’t do that.” he muttered. Azalea approached him. “What are you doing here?” He was in terrible shape. It looked like he probably hadn’t showered or slept in days. I hope he was getting paid leave. I hoped he wasn’t going to have a hard time going back to work, considering his dad was killed on duty doing almost the same job.
“I invited them.” Amaranth said. She was leaning against the wall just outside the kitchen, and she didn’t look much better than Kobi. Although I suspected she’d been trying a lot harder than him to keep healthy. But still, she looked very skinny, other than her stomach, which had just barely started to round out.
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She strode over into the living room, looking disproportionate. Kobi couldn’t bring himself to look up at her.
Azalea sat down next to him, and the two of them huddled together and started to cry. Kobi tried to block his face, but the shake of his shoulders was unmistakable. At this point I didn’t think it was just the death of his father that was bothering him, it was that plus the pressure of starting a family plus the fear of going back to the danger of his work plus the fear of ending up like his father and leaving a grieving family behind. A family he’d never gotten the chance to become used to having.
Amaranth asked to talk to me in the kitchen, and I followed her out of the room, unnoticed by Kobi and Azalea.
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She stood for a minute, leaning against the counter with her hands gently holding her stomach, without saying a word to me. It looked to me like she was gathering her thoughts. “Thank you for coming.” she finally said. I just nodded. “I feel like we haven’t gotten out of the house at all. Other than the doctor’s appointments. I didn’t know who else to call, but I was going to go insane if I didn’t see other people.” She looked to the floor.
“It’s okay. Azalea needed a break from school stuff anyway.” I said.
She sighed, “It’s like the sadness bounces back at us. Against all the walls. Against each other. It’s closing in on us. He’s slipping so much faster, but I’ve been clawing against it because… because of…” she rubbed her stomach. “I don’t know what to do.” A tear sprang up in her eye, she wiped it away hastily and smiled out of embarrassment, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” I repeated. I didn’t know what else to tell her.
“He won’t go back to work. He’s afraid. I’ve never seen him like this. It was always him holding me up, and now I have to do the same, and I don’t know how.” More tears. “I’m sorry.”
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“It’s okay.” I said, for a third time. “It just takes time.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called you guys. I’m just bringing you down again, I’m sorry.” Her voice sounded almost frantic. I recognized the tone of guilt, too, that laid under all the words, she felt really awful about this.
“Amaranth.” Saying her name snapped her out of it, at least a little bit, “It’s fine. You guys will get through this. Azalea and I are happy to help.” I turned to the fridge, and I opened it to find a sparse selection. I grabbed out a bottle of juice, opened it up and sniffed it, then handed it to Amaranth. “You should eat something.”
She smiled at me, “You can’t possibly be a 19 year old. You’re far too mature for that.” She took the juice from me with a smile.
She was right. Somewhere along the way, I’d left my childhood behind. Everywhere I looked was adulthood, coming at me from all sides. I was trapped. The only way to go was up.
