Page 90 of Demo
“When did this happen?”
“A few hours ago.”
“Where is Knox? Bram? Clyde?” Tears started running down my face.
“They are still at the hospital. Monica is … she’s in the morgue. Bram is absolutely inconsolable, out of his mind about it. Clyde isn’t much better. Emily is trying to help but, it’s bad, Lyzbeth.”
“What about Knox?”
Another sniffle. “He’s just, he’s blank. You know? Like he’s removed or something.”
Yeah … I know …
“I got your number out of his contacts and came out to the parking lot to call you. When I left, Emily was trying to get them all to drink some water. They are all just …” She sighed. “It’s terrible. I can’t go back in there.”
“OK. OK. Which hospital?” I asked, putting the car back into drive and pulling out of the lot.
The hallways of the hospital were long, wide, and bare. Just an endless expanse of cream-colored walls that were almost yellow under the awful glow of fluorescent lighting, which gave off a low hum. The soles of my flats squeaked with each step and echoed down the corridors as I turned this way and that, trying to find Knox and his family.
His family sans one.
The man at the security desk gave me a visitor’s pass I had to stick on my jacket, and gave me piss-poor directions to the morgue which, of course, was in the basement—where there was no activity or, well, signs of life.
I knew I was getting closer to them. I could feel it.
I got to a room at the end of the hall I knew they would be in, and my steps slowed. My heart beat erratically in my chest, my breaths came hard.
I took a deep, ragged breath as I approached the open doorway and glanced inside and took in the scene. It was a white, stale, lifeless room that contained three black couches and a few single chairs. One end table was tucked into the corner with a fake, pathetic plant. On the couch to the side was Bram, slumped and crumpled into Emily’s arms, who rubbed his back that shook with his loud sobs under his Mitchell & Sons hoodie. His fists clenched her coat as he mewled and moaned unintelligible words.
Clyde sat on the center couch, slumped over with his elbows on his knees, head in his hands, fingers pulled through his hair as his back slowly rose and fell with steady breaths that I could hear him pulling in and pushing out. Deliberately, consciously, with effort.
Beside him was Knox, also in a Mitchell & Sons hoodie, a hand on his dad’s flannel-covered back, his head bent down toward Clyde’s, encouraging him to take deep breaths. “That’s good, Dad. That’s really good,” he said.
And then, because he could feel me as much as I could feel him, Knox’s shoulders gave way just the slightest before he pulled his head, and then his eyes up to meet mine while I shuffled awkwardly through the doorway.
His eyes were red, his face pale, his expression blank. He wasn’t crying, but for the briefest millisecond I saw the wall crack, before he blinked away the sadness and turned back to his dad.
It wasn’t a dismissal. It wasn’t meant to offend me, and it didn’t. It was him trying to keep his shit together for his family because that was Knox. A rock. So, while everything in my body pulled me toward him, instead, I slowly crept around to the other side of Clyde and sank down onto the fake leather couch cushion beside him, and I gently placed a hand on his knee.
Before looking up at me, Clyde placed his big, tear-soaked hand over mine and squeezed so hard I thought he might break it. Then he slowly turned his face over and up toward mine. His eyes were bloodshot. Angry capillaries webbed throughout the white, while his pupils were blown wide. Snot dripped out of his nose and down his lips, which were swollen, and I wondered if he had popped blood vessels just under his eyes.
We shared a silent moment as we locked eyes. We said nothing. With his other hand he clasped my small palm between his large ones, and I placed my other hand on top, so our hands were just one big heap. He brought them to his chest, pulling me closer to him.
“My baby,” he said through broken, beaten breaths. “My love, my life, my light … is gone.” It was the most mournful, downright saddest thing I had ever heard.
I don’t know when they started, but the tears were dripping down my face and falling off my chin and onto my jacket as I simply nodded at Clyde.
“Yeah, she is,” was all I could muster. And then he curled over our clasped hands and sobbed some more.
I snuck a glance over Clyde’s back at Knox, who was staring straight at me, red eyes rimmed with unshed tears. “Thank you,” he mouthed.
“I’m so sorry,” I mouthed back.
Knox cleared his throat and said, low, “We’re just waiting for the coroner to finish up. Then we can see her,” he said, breaking up at the end.
It wasn’t a moment later when an older gentleman wearing a white robe covering blue scrubs and black sneakers appeared in the doorway. He had his hands clasped in front of him and his head bowed, revealing a bald spot on the back. “The Mitchell family?” he asked in a respectful tone. Bram shot up at the sound, Clyde simply looked at the man, and Knox was the one to answer. “Yes.”
“Your loved one is ready for viewing, if you would like to see her,” he said, looking at each one of us, landing on Clyde. “And I am terribly sorry for your loss.”
