The Heart of Life Doesn't Beat

Chapter Seven

I feel sick. Jeanette follows right behind me as I run down the hallway. The agonizing screams can be heard from my mom’s room. As we near the bedroom, I feel more and more nauseous as the cries get more and more loud.

“Mom!” I shout as I burst through the curtains. Just as Jeanette had warned, there is a pool of blood between my mom’s thighs soaking into the white of the sheets. I let out a struggled gasp, feeling uneasy.

My mom lets out another wail, writhing and arching her back in pain as she grabs her stomach tightly.

“Hunter!” she screeches, “Hunter, I need Melody!”

She shrieks loudly as my jaw drops. I don’t understand… She couldn’t possibly know Melody. I look at her with widened eyes. She groans and heaves forward. All goes silent except for my mom’s screams.

“She must be delirious from blood loss. Hunter, get to the phone!” Jeanette’s voice is shrill and rapid. I snap out of my bewilderment and run to the hallway to fetch the phone. All the while, my mind is overflowing with questions and confusions.

I dial 9-1-1 and stomp my foot hastily. My breathing is harsh and isn’t coming naturally.

When they answer, I give them the all the needed information in one, rushed sentence. Just as I slam the phone back on the base and turn to run back, there is a loud crash. I startle and look forward, winded. The only sound now is my own panting.

“Jeanette?” I call out, apprehensive. Without noticing, my feet begin to move and before long, I’m at the curtains. The sudden silence that followed the crash presses all thoughts out of my mind and I briefly feel my head give a squeeze.

I listen intently outside of my mom’s room… the only sound audible is a faint groaning.

With no answer from Jeanette and no more crying, I brush the drapes away with a shaking hand and when I see my mom, she is still… with closed eyelids.

I break into a sprint to her side but before I reach her, I stumble over a body lying limp on the floor—Jeanette.

Fear clouds my thoughts and I shake her violently. She looks so peaceful, just like my mom. Not having a clue what to do, I begin to cry.

Tears stream down my face and this room becomes the only place in my world. I hug my knees to my chest and fall to rocking myself. Finally, I begin to hear sirens of an ambulance.

It’s the most beautiful noise I’ve ever heard.

~

I don’t know what to think. My mind feels empty and barren, as if all thoughts had deserted me the second I heard that crash. The mysterious noise, whose source is still unknown, scared out all of my emotions.

As I sit outside of my mom’s hospital room, my blue eyes are hard and my face is made of stone. I watch blankly as nurses and doctors come and go from my mom’s side.

Everything I once believed is now muddled—the hope that my mom would survive and bring Rosa into this world and the belief that people don’t just fall unconscious for no reason. I still don’t understand why Jeanette had passed out, and neither does she.

I look over to Jeanette, who is sitting in the chair beside me outside of my mom’s hospital room. I study the older woman. After taking in her fading beauty, I lean back and close my eyes.

I’m so tired. Tired of staying up with worry in my mind, tired of not getting answers to questions, and mostly, I’m tired of this world. This world that now only seems to house sadness.

I try and remember a time in my life that wasn’t like this. Sadie comes to mind firstly, my lost true love. I miss her so much. That moment when I first found out about her death lasted forever and it continues to pierce straight through me to this very day.

I can recall when I ran into Jeanette on the phone, crying profusely. My heart stopped beating for an instant. When she told me of her daughter, I didn’t know who to feel worse for—her, me, or Sadie.

But like I’ve said, my heart doesn’t work in sync with my brain and it felt my pain more than any others’.

“Hunter?” I open my eyes to see Jeanette’s face.

“Yes?” I ask, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Jeanette sighs and looks away from me. I follow her gaze to my mom’s bed where my dad now is.

He’s huddled above her, clasping her hand with both of his. He’s shaking.

Jeanette has a tear in her eye as she says, “It’s moments like these where you know love still exists.”

I exhale heavily. No, Jeanette. It’s moments like these when the fact that you only know what you have until its gone shows.

I watch as my dad shakes violently above my mom. My mom is crying and so is he. It really is a depressing sight.

I guess that it always is—when a child’s life is lost…

Beginning to shake, a tear breaks through the surface. I hold back everything I feel like doing, though. To break out in fits of violent crying and screaming is just not appropriate…

Instead, I weep in silence.