Page 4 of Emily’s Moments (Shorts #3)

Emily’s POV

Later that night, I was in the shower in his room, cleaning the day off of me.

Since it was just him in this room, no one else was using the shower.

It had been a long day. Ryder stayed for an hour or two, filling us in on his classes and his social life.

He filled Jefferson in on everything that was going on at college.

He told us about a paper he had to write, and he was nervous about asking his dad.

He was thinking of possibly going from law school, like his uncle Kai and Grandpa, to computer science, and doing something like his dad.

He also told us he was going to be prospecting for the club, so a big portion of his tuition was being paid for by the club.

He wanted to be able to do something important for them since he and his mother had always been taken care of by the club.

Stepping out of the shower, I was drying myself off when I heard alarms going off.

It wasn’t unusual in the ICU, but these sounded louder.

Like, loud enough to be in the same room or right next door.

I hurried to dress and open the bathroom door just in time to see Jefferson being wheeled away with someone doing CPR on his chest. I was stuck in the doorway of the bathroom and his room.

I was stuck to the floor, like I was a fly, on fly paper.

A frantic-looking nurse came in and saw me standing there like a deer in headlights.

I saw her in my peripheral vision as I watched, where I had just seen him being wheeled out.

“Mrs. Patel?” When I didn’t answer, she tried again, gently touching my arm, “Mrs. Patel?” I finally found the strength to look at her.

“We need you to come to the surgery waiting area. Has his D-POA paperwork been put on file?” I nodded, following along.

She asked me more questions, and the one thing that stood out was the term ‘full code’.

“My husband said he wants everything done for him, but if there’s a greater than seventy-five percent chance, he’ll be a vegetable, he doesn’t want to be saved.

He had it written in his paperwork.” I told her, not sure if anyone had looked into that part of the paperwork.

Jefferson had linked up with a medical lawyer to get the terms and specifics, and so he knew what each term meant and what they would or wouldn’t do to help keep him alive.

She nodded at me and took off through a set of double doors.

I looked around, seeing no one else but me, and I moved to a chair and sat down.

I saw his name come up on the screen with the list of all the patients and how long they’d been in there.

It was just his last name, but I held onto that.

I don’t know how long I sat there for, when the phone at the desk under the screen started to ring. No one seemed to come to answer it, so I walked over and picked it up.

“Hello? This is the surgery waiting room.” I said, trying to keep it together so I could try to help whoever was on the other end of the line.

“Mom? It’s Raven. Your phone kept ringing, so I called the switchboard to connect me to Dad’s room. Why are you in the surgery waiting room?” I took a breath, feeling like I was going to fall apart if I answered my daughter’s question. “Mom, it’s Stormi. We’re coming up. What happened?”

“He…I…” I couldn’t get the words out. Sobs just wracked my body as I tried in vain to explain what happened to Jefferson. I couldn’t do much other than cry and get the occasional word out that sounded like it should.

“We’re on the way, Mom!” Raven shouted, sounding further from the phone.

“We’ll be there as soon as we can, Mom. My dad’s here to watch the kids.” I heard Stormi saying as I nodded. Even though they couldn’t see me. “Stay close to this phone since you don’t have yours with you. Okay?” I nodded again, sniffling. I knew, and I think they knew, I couldn’t talk.

“We love you, Mom!” they said together before hanging up. Twenty minutes later, it could have been more; I wasn’t sure how time was working anymore. My girls, Beckam, Prez, Atlas, and Parker, were in the waiting room with me. They surrounded me, taking me into a protective fold.

“Becca and Bullet came over to watch our kids so we could be here for you,” Parker said, knowing I wasn’t going to understand anything in the state I was in.

He had become a good friend over the years that we had lived here.

Not just mine, but Jefferson loved talking with him and Atlas, too.

I would frequently see all three of them sitting on the porch watching all of the kids, just talking about all sorts of topics. “What happened?”

“I-I don’t know. I was in the bathroom in his room, taking a shower.

When I was toweling off, I heard alarms, but that wasn’t unusual in the ICU.

” He nodded, following along, “But they sounded louder, so I hurried. When I opened the door, there was someone on his chest doing CPR as they wheeled him out of the room. I was frozen in shock until I nurse came to get me and brought me here. I haven’t heard anything since. ”

Parker nodded, looking at Atlas. I knew what that meant. He knew something. Or had an idea about what might have happened. Just as I was about to ask, the doors opened. I stood up and took a few steps toward the doctor. The look on his face.

I knew.

I’d seen it before.

*Flashback*

The doctor came out of the double doors, and I stood, hopeful, with that look of pity on his face.

I knew. I knew before he even said anything.

He stood before me and told me they did everything they could.

Alex had developed a blood clot after his emergency surgery following his accident, and it traveled to his lungs.

There was nothing else they could do. They tried everything they could think of, but he was gone.

I stared at the man in front of me. Telling me my husband was gone. I felt frozen.

The feeling in my legs went out. I fell back into the chair behind me.

The doctor tried to talk to me more, but I wasn’t able to hear anything he was saying to me.

He was gone. Alex was gone. I had no one now.

He was my everything. He was my life. What do I do now?

Where do I go from here? How do I do this?

Do I have to call our lawyer? Where do I get him from?

I have so many questions, and I have no one there to help me get through this.

What do I have? I have work…and that’s it. What do I do now? How do I do this? I’m only thirty-one. We promised for life, till death do us part, but I have to keep on living. Without him. Where do I go from here?

“I’m very sorry for your loss.” The doctor said, walking away after patting my hand like I was some sad little puppy who’d lost its owner. Like, it was just another day, same old, same old. Like, it was just a bad day at the office for him. I stayed seated. Not sure where to go or what to do.

Snapping out of the memories, I saw Parker talking to the doctor. I took one step towards them, out of the group of loved ones around me. Parker and the doctor look up at me. The doctor hung his head, and they both walked over towards me.

“How is he?” My voice was trembling, but still sounded stronger than I thought.

It was silent in the room, all of them waiting for news of Jefferson.

I was fidgeting with my fingers, waiting for someone to say something.

The doctor took a deep breath, and then he dropped the bomb.

The earth-shattering, life-changing news that I never wanted to hear again.

I watched his mouth open in slow motion, and the silence in that moment was so loud that I thought I’d gone deaf.

“I’m very sorry, Mrs. Patel. We did everything we could…

” He continued talking, but I couldn’t hear anything.

My heart broke as I heard someone screaming ‘no’ over and over, and I agreed with them.

I was feeling the same way; I couldn’t believe it.

My knees gave out. I was sobbing and crying on the floor of the surgery waiting room.

My husband, the other half of my soul, was gone.

He left me.

“He fought hard, Emily. They didn’t expect him to make it this long,” Parker crouched down next to me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.

“Come on, Mom. Beckam went to grab all our stuff from the room in the ICU. Let’s get you home.”

Home? My home was gone. I didn’t have a home anymore.

My home was no longer here. No longer anywhere on this earth.

How did you go back to somewhere like that?

To a place that went from a home because of who lived there, to just a place?

My girls picked me up off the floor. Parker held me up on one side. Atlas was on the phone with someone.

“He’s making all the phone calls, so you don’t have to call anyone.

We can get you back to either our house or Raven’s, and you can take a nice bubble bath and sleep.

” I looked at him. Not ready to face a house full of kids, wanting to be alone to wallow and drown in my grief.

I wanted to sleep on his side of the bed. I wanted to wrap myself in his smell.

“Couldn’t I just go to my house? I want to smell him. I want to sleep in our bed again.” Tears welled up in my eyes. I was going to sob harder if I couldn’t be as close to him as I could in the only way I had left. He was gone. I just wanted to feel as close to him as I could.