Because of Ellison (25 page)

Looking over my room, I groaned at the amount of work it
would take to pack everything up. I pulled open my junk drawers to find piles
of drug
paraphenila
,
loose change, concert ticket stubs, photographs and other
momentos
of a life lived on the wild side. Picking up the
differents
odd and ends, I tossed most of it in the trash
bin to the side of the bureau. What I’d once considered trophies of a life
lived well, were actually reminders of a lot of time wasted.

Ellison

Me: Yes, I got your
messages, all 20 of them. You’re seriously driving me crazy with it Hunter.
I’ve been out hiking and I come back to you freaking out and accusing me of
ignoring you. Calm the hell down or I’ll turn the phone off.

He wasn’t really freaking out, but it was fun to accuse him
of it anyway. But he was driving me absolutely crazy with his constant barrage
of communication. I’ll admit
,
my cheeks reddened every
time he sent something, but 20 messages? That’s just insane.

Hunter: You know, your
phone is portable, it can be carried with you on your hikes and then you won’t
miss anything while you’re gone. Plus, it’s a safety factor. What if you fall
down and break your ankle?

Me: I hike to get away
from technology. Why would I bring it with me? You’re wasting my minutes.

Hunter: I just added
more to your phone … Lily’s too …

As soon as I read that, a knock sounded from my bedroom window.
Rolling my eyes, I tossed the phone on my bed and opened the window to find
Lily standing with a grimace on her face.

“Would you please text Hunter back so he’ll leave me the
hell alone
?!
” She tapped her foot on the ground and
held her phone on to show me the litany of messages she’d received.

I chuckled. “Oh, that boy has gone overboard, now.”

Placing her hands on her hips, she asked, “What in the hell
did you do to him, El? I know you two had a thing for one another and all, but
this is a little ridiculous!”

A little over a month had passed since Hunter left for
school. Normally, we only spoke at night and on the weekends when he wasn’t in
class, but he had the day off for some school event, and just like the week
before he actually started school, he had nothing better to do but sit around
and message me. He was doing really well about avoiding the wild parties and
friends that would tempt him back to alcohol and drugs. To fill some of his
time, he joined a non-profit organization that focused on sick children and I
was proud of him for having done so.

“Why don’t you come inside, Lil. Walk around front. The
door’s open.”

Lily smiled and bounced her way around the house. I picked
up the phone from my bed.

Me: Did you really
feel it was necessary to send Lily over here?

Before Hunter could respond, I heard the front door open,
followed by a loud crash and the dogs barking.

“Ellison! Get in here! NOW!”

I ran from my room and when I rounded the corner of the
hall, I saw my father sprawled out on the floor near the coffee table. The
phone dropped from my hand to the floor when I ran to his side.

“Daddy
?!
Oh god, Daddy
are
you okay?”

My father groaned and his head rolled around on the floor.
His eyes were closed and he didn’t seem capable of responding.

“Lily! Call an ambulance!”

I carefully ran my hands over my dad’s skull. When I reached
the back, it felt sticky and wet and I pulled my hand back to find blood
smeared into his hair. “Shit! Dad, I need you to talk to me right fucking now!
Do you understand
?!
”

He moved his hand up to touch his head. “El?” His voice was
weak and his face contorted from pain.

“You must have fell and hit your head on the coffee table.
What hurts?” Tears distorted my vision as I looked over the rest of his body to
try and find any other injuries. Nothing looked out of place.

“My leg feels like someone slammed into it with a
sledgehammer, and my head. I was walking in here and my damn leg gave out from
underneath me.”

I had to stop the bleeding on his head until help could
arrive. “Don’t move. I’m going to go get a towel for your head. Help is on the
way.”

Pushing up from my crouched position, I faintly heard my dad
bitching about help having been called, but I didn’t care. I was in full panic
mode and I would call in an entire army if it would help. Running back, I
placed the towel under his head and breathed out a sigh of relief to see that
it didn’t immediately soak up a lot of blood. I prayed that meant the injury
was superficial. Lilly ran back inside.

“They’re on their way.” Taking a position next to me, she
looked like she wanted to reach out and help but she was too afraid to move.
She didn’t ask any questions, but just sat quietly beside me until we heard the
sirens from the approaching ambulance.

~
    
~
    
~

“It appears Mr. James’ leg broke from a tumor that had
developed in the femur and weakened the bone. It’s a painful break, but it can
be managed with pain killers.” The doctor paused and looked at me.

“So, are they going to take him into surgery tonight to fix
it?” It was simple.
A broken bone.
I’m sure there were
millions of them that occurred every year, and it was something that could be
repaired easily. I wasn’t concerned.

“Ms. James.” His voice sounded sympathetic. “They’re not
going to set the bone. There’s no point. We can put him in a protective cast to
keep it from becoming worse, but that cast would have to come off within a few
weeks.”

“Well, then how in the hell is he going to walk again
?!
What do you mean they aren’t going to fix it? I’ll come
up with the money to pay for the surgery, just tell them to get in there and do
it!” I was mad and scared and shaking where I stood. I couldn’t understand why
the hospital was refusing to fix my dad’s leg and would just leave him like
that. He needed to be able to walk.

The doctor breathed out a resigned sigh. “Ms. James —
I’m sorry. I believe its time for your family to consider your options from
this point forward. Your father is refusing treatment for the cancer and his
care from now on will only be palliative — to keep him from feeling pain.
We don’t typically render that type of care long term in the hospital, however
there are programs that can assist you. They have their own facility where your
father can be transported or he can receive care at home as long as there is
someone who can provide 24-hour care.” He paused again and breathed a slow
breath. “The disease is progressing quickly, Ms. James. It may be time for you
to make arrangements. As for now, I can give your father a prescription for
oxycodone to help with the pain and I can provide you with a phone number for
the local Hospice. It’s an excellent program and they can walk you through the
process.”

“The process? What process? And I don’t know about the oxycodone.
Isn’t it addicting? How will we get him off of it?”

His expression didn’t flinch. I briefly wondered if doctors
were taught to remain so serious and impassive in medical school. “Your father
is dying, Ms. James. I can’t tell you how much time he has left but any
addiction he develops will not be a problem. There are steps that you are going
to need to take to prepare for his death. That is where Hospice can assist you.
I recommend you give them a call today if possible. We’ll keep your father here
until transfer arrangements can be made.”

~
    
~
    
~

After quickly thumbing through the paperwork, I looked up at
the Hospice representative who’d come out to my house. She quickly assessed the
space and we agreed to set up a hospital bed in the living room for my father.
She told me that they would provide the bed, a system for me to use to lift my
father and that they would work directly with the doctors to obtain
prescriptions and other medical care that my father would require.

“Ms. James, the first couple days or weeks will be the
easiest part of this process. Since you will be your father’s caregiver, you
will be in direct contact with our nursing staff 24-hours a day if need be. If
there is ever a time where the task becomes too much, or if you need to leave
the house for an hour or two, a nurse can sit with your father during that
time.”

Her face fell and she reached over to take my hands into
hers. “I’m sorry this is happening to your family. We’ll be with you every step
of the way and if you need anything, you let us know. I also want you to
remember to take of yourself during this time as well. Caregivers tend to
forget that they have needs. The last thing you need is to make yourself sick
during the coming weeks. The paperwork will explain everything.”

We went over the arrangements and she explained how to use
the equipment and how to administer my father’s medications. When she left, I
closed the door and fell against it. My entire body hurt, my heart, my bones,
my skin — everything. It was quiet in the house except for a soft
vibration. I looked towards the hallway and saw the screen of my phone light up
on the floor. Stepping away from the door, I approached the phone to pick it
up. Hunter had texted me more than 15 times. I scrolled through the texts, but
didn’t really read them. He was upset that I hadn’t responded, but not in an
angry way. He was simply concerned. My thumb moved to hit the button to respond
back to him, but I couldn’t push it down. I had nothing to say. My world had
just been hit by the beginning of the storm and I’d become almost catatonic to
see it coming. It was as if my reality had shifted and even though I was still
part of my life, I was only watching it rather than participating. My body
wouldn’t let me do anything more than feed the dogs and crawl in bed. I didn’t
even have the strength to shower. I held the phone to my chest, felt every time
that it vibrated with a new message. I didn’t look at them and I didn’t respond
back. I couldn’t.

My father would be arriving from the hospital the next
morning and all I could do was curl up under my blanket and lay there while I
waited.

Hunter

Me: Well have you
tried going over there?

I’d broken down and texted Lily again around midnight when I
didn’t hear back from Ellison.
Lily’d
responded that
Ellison’s dad had fallen and was taken to the hospital, but she didn’t have
much information beyond that. When she told me she let Ellison drive to the
hospital by herself after the ambulance left, I almost reached through the
phone and strangled her.

Lily: I walked over
there a little bit ago and knocked on her door and window. The lights are out
and I think she’s asleep. I’m sure she’s just tired. I talked to Jake and he’s
heading home now to see what’s going on.

“Fuck!” I threw my phone across the room, but then
immediately ran over to make sure I hadn’t broken it. The screen was cracked,
but thankfully it was still operational. It was the only somewhat reliable
source of contact I had with Ellison. It was on rare occasions that she turned
on her computer and she didn’t really like social networking — most
likely because she wasn’t interested in taking the time to learn it.

Every muscle in my body tensed and clenched. I paced
helplessly through my apartment not sure what I could do. I wanted to jump in
my car and race to the airport to catch the next flight to Florida. I didn’t
give a shit that I had to be in class the next day. Ellison was more important.
But I knew that if I pulled that maneuver and it wasn’t a serious issue,
Ellison would be pissed. She’d warned me when I left that the stuff going on
with her would distract me from school. As usual, she’d been right. Even over a
thousand miles away it was affecting me. But my heart wasn’t
here,
it wasn’t in the walls of that fucking school or in the walls of this
apartment. It was in a small wooden house in the middle of nowhere fucking
Florida and THAT was where I should have been.

Flicking my phone on, I typed out another text to Ellison.

Me: I’m flying down.
I’m worried and you’re not responding, so I’m flying down.

It was a cheap trick, but I knew Ellison would respond if
for nothing more than to yell at me for even threatening to leave school. I
waited for what felt like an hour, but eventually my phone chirped. Snatching
it from the table beside me, I pulled up the message.

Ellison: It’s nothing,
Hunter. My dad broke his leg. Everything’s fine. See - this is why you don’t
need to be involved in this. You’re too damn willing to drop everything. Now
stop. It’s three in the morning, I know you have class tomorrow and you need
sleep. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

I knew she was lying but I also knew that was all I was
going to get from her. I tossed the phone back on the table and leaned forward
to hold my head in my hands. Blood rushed through my veins and my headache
pounded in time with it. I’d been fucking miserable since I left Florida. The
week before school was a joke and I’d spent most of my time at the guesthouse
avoiding my parents. Ethan had come by a couple times, but when I told him I
wasn’t interested in partying, he eventually gave up. He’d informed me that he
and Tiffany had hooked up when she returned from Florida and I wished him luck.
For some fucking reason, he thought
I’d be upset, so you can
imagine his reaction when I laughed so hard
,
I’d
started clapping
. I was that happy about it because I knew it meant I
wouldn’t have to deal with her before I left for Massachusetts.