The Milestone Tapes (25 page)

Sophia began to hum, climbing into the bed beside her sister, wrapping her arms around. The song was one their mother used to sing to them when they were little. She held Jenna close, swaying her softly; it was all she could think to do.

Gabe wandered down the hallway, following the sounds of Mia’s jagged cries.

“Mr. Chamberland?” The nurse intercepted him. “Could I speak to you for a moment?”

“Sure.” Gabe motioned for her to join him in his office, and she followed quickly behind.

“This won’t take long, I know you want to be with Mia.”

“Okay.” Gabe felt numb, hollowed out and broken, going through the motions of all this while really in the middle of it, like he was watching a scary movie and living it in the same moment.

“I just spoke Dr. Henderson. She’s prepared to admit Jenna into the hospital right now, I just have to call for an ambulance, and she’ll meet us there.”

“The hospital?” Gabe’s eyes widened.

“Yes. If this is too much, and sometime’s it is, the hospital is an option. Jenna can stay there, get the best care, and when things like … what happened ... arise, a full staff is waiting to help … it can be less ... traumatic for the family,” the nurse carefully worded her thoughts.

“I don’t want that for my wife,” Gabe realized, this was scary and this hard, but he wanted Jenna here. He wanted to keep her surrounded by the things she loved, by things that comforted and consoled her, not in some hospital bed.

She’d always hated being sick, but at home it was better. The hospitals terrified her; she always felt like the next time she walked in, she’d never leave. He wouldn’t do that to her. Not now. Not ever. This was her home.

“I figured you might feel that way, which is why I told Dr. Henderson I wanted to speak with you first.” The nurse nodded understandingly.

“Can you be straight with me? How bad is this going to get?” Gabe sank into the vintage leather chair behind his drafting desk.

“It’s not going to get better. The struggled breathing, that will only become more frequent. The breaking bones, the periods of unconsciousness, it’s all going to become more difficult.” The nurse hesitated, worrying her hands into tight, veiny knots.

“How long do you think she has?” Gabe asked, choking over the words.

“Days, maybe,” the nurse offered. “Everyone is different, but Mrs. Chamberland has gone downhill very quickly, and that concerns me.”

“Days?” Gabe gasped.

“I can’t say for certain Mr. Chamberland. I’m just going off of what I’ve seen in the past, each patient is different,” the nurse consoled. “It could be longer.”

“My wife is going to stay here, in her home, with us,” Gabe finalized, the numbness spreading through his body. “Can you call Dr. Henderson and tell her that?”

“Of course.” The nurse took her leave, heading swiftly back towards the kitchen.

Gabe rested there for a moment. Thinking. Days. He felt like he was living in a vacuum, that suddenly all the air around him had vanished. Their whole life, all their time together, dribbled down to a few days. There wasn’t anything left he could do. He could rub her feet, her hands, brush ice over lips, hold her hand, love her—tell her that every moment of every day left. But then there would be nothing.

But Mia.

Mia would remain. She would stand to remind him of what was shared between them. The love that built this house, built this family. Jenna would be inside of Mia, in her wavy hair and sweet smile. She would remind him that Jenna had existed, that all of her goodness hadn’t been imagined, wasn’t a dream that was dashed by the unforgiving morning light. That Jenna, for a time, had been his wife, his lover and his best friend. And that though he’d miss her, he would carry on for his—for their—little girl.

The thought pulled him from his office, hurried him down the hall. He had a job to do now, a purpose; he had to be a father.

Gabe saw Ginny holding Mia. They sat together in the comfortable recliner, Ginny’s arms cradling Mia, her voice to low and methodic, soothingly slow and steady like a song.

“Ginny, I can take Mia,” Gabe interrupted, reaching out for her.

“Daddy, I’m sorry,” Mia whimpered, leaning in closer to Ginny for comfort.

“You need nothing wrong.” Gabe lifted Mia from Ginny’s lap.

“I hurt Mommy,” Mia shamefully owned, taking her share of responsibility innocently, wrongfully.

“No, you did not, Mia, you did not hurt your mommy ... you made Mommy happy baby.” Gabe carried Mia around the room, cradled in his arms, like he had when she was an infant, pacing the floor. He had haunted this room with her at night, lulling her to sleep.

“She couldn’t breathe,” Mia sobbed into Gabe chest, tears soddening his shirt.

“Baby, that wasn’t your fault.”

“I was scared, Mommy said it was brave to say when I am scared. Mommy said she wasn’t getting better.”

Gabe said nothing, the words clinging to the walls of his throat. He knew she wasn’t getting better, but he couldn’t say the words out loud, to hear them echo off the walls. He’d known as much all those months ago, sitting stoically beside her as she decided to take herself out of this life. He’d thought about what it would mean, to be without her, driving the empty roads of this sleepy town. He’s tried to imagine what after would be like, the adjustments and changes, but still, he never really believed she’d be gone.

“But, I want her to get better,” Mia pled softly.

“I want her to get better too, sweetheart.” Gabe could say that much; he had prayed those exact words for years now.

“I miss my Mommy.”

Gabe thought of all those private moments he’d seen shared between Jenna and Mia. The way they would collapse in laughter over a joke that Gabe didn’t find remotely funny, or the way Jenna would absentmindedly stroke Mia’s hair, snuggled close watching a movie as though it was the most interesting thing in the world, the way Jenna’s patience seemed without measure as she sat beside Mia working out the complexities of homework. For the two of them, mother and daughter, halves of a whole, it was natural.

Motherhood had changed his wife. Taken the girl he knew and loved for so many years and gave her a laser focus, a rounded nature, any shape edges of her personality dulled by the love she felt for her child. Mia had softened Jenna.

Gabe had loved Jenna since the moment he’d first seen her laugh. The way the easy smile crossed her face, crinkling her eyes, she seemed to laugh with every inch of her existence, she was light and easy and carefree. She gave herself up to life, going easily with its ebb and flow of it. She was dreamy, wordy and idealistic; she was passionate about literature and loved those around her so fiercely.

When he asked her to be his wife, he’d know that this was the one person he could truly, come whatever, see himself being content with. But it was better than contentment, it was pure joy. He had thought, over the years, that maybe they didn’t need a child to be happy. That maybe, just the two of them, could have everything and be everything and need nothing more but each other.

But, he saw that Jenna needed a child to feel his level off fulfillment. That she’d never be really, truly happy living in a beautiful city, in a great apartment, eating delicious take out or dining at the newest, most exclusive hot restaurants, that they could travel the world but the only home that would ever captivate her was the one that included a baby. He would see the look that crossed her face when she saw a mother with a baby, it was somewhere between longing and heartbreak. He never wanted to leave her wanting something, anything. He could never deny her a wish, when she had so freely answered all of his. So when she asked, he gave her what she needed, but Mia had been her dream.

And then Mia had been born. The rounded bump between Jenna’s hipbones drew more love from his heart that he ever thought imaginable. He’d watch his wife, heavy with child, stroke the fullness of her stomach, speaking lovingly to the little being inside, and he’d soar. Jenna had known, even when he didn’t believe, that a child would give them more.

So, now, even if nothing remained and he was merely a shell of the man he once was, even if he was only half of the whole, he’d managed to capture Jenna in a vessel. He’d look at Mia and see the love they had for all those years and keep a part of what made his life so rich. He’d take care of Mia, treasure her and adore her, raise her in the light Jenna would have wanted, honoring her memory in the choices he’d make. Even gone, she’d linger behind.

“I’m scared, too,” Gabe admitted as he paced the floor with Mia secure in his arm. “But we will be okay, I promise you. We will be okay.”

Death ends life, not a relationship

—Jack Lemmon—

Hey Mia, sweetheart, it’s time to wake up ... I know, another day, but embrace it. Every day is a important one, you never know what can happen.

Mia snapped the stop button on her tiny silver tape recorder and snuggled deeper into her soft pillow. It was her ritual, to listen to her mother’s tape every morning; it gave her a suspension of normalcy, like it she closed her eyes and just listened, her mother could be alive and well and encouraging her out the warm bed. Her father had given it to her a few weeks after her mother died, pulled it from the box Ginny had given her. The only words scrawled across the tape were
Good Morning.
She had listened to it every day since. She liked hearing her mother’s voice fill up her room before she even managed to crawl out of bed. She liked the way it was familiar and predictable; the words were comforting, it was almost like her mother was still an everyday part of her normal life.

Mia had managed to remember a lot about her mom, or at least she tried to. She could recall the way, when her mother laughed, she would throw her head back and let the sound overtake her, her eyes crinkling and her teeth shining. Sometimes Mia believed she could still hear it if she closed her eyes and listen really hard, as though it seeped into the walls or blended into the furnishings of this old house. Mia remember her cooking, how Jenna used to throw things together and it was always so good, but she didn’t cook a lot, and Mia wished she had cooked more, wished she had the haphazard recipes and the talent to make them savory and sweet and rich and delicious. She remembered how Jenna would hold her hand when they went into town, not just when they crossed the street like other mothers Mia saw did. Or how they’d eat ice cream cones at the ice cream shoppe, even in the winter because why not—that’s what Jenna used to say with a wicked, defiant smile licking the side of her drippy cone. She could remember how Jenna would play with her hair and rub her back when they watched television, she missed that a lot. She missed her mom a lot. Every single day.

But, she also didn’t remember a lot of things. She couldn’t remember her eyes or the color of her hair or the particular shade of lipstick she wore. Gabe had been good about keeping pictures dotted around the house, and Mia knew Jenna’s eyes blue like her own and that they shared the same hair, although Jenna’s was short, but both had very dark and curly waves. Mia couldn’t remember any of that in real life. Almost as though Jenna only existed in print but was never an everyday part of her life. It bothered Mia that things were so fuzzy around the edges. She couldn’t remember the way hugs felt, how tight they had been, or if Jenna had kissed her a lot, but Ginny told her all the time that Mia was a gravitational pull for Jenna; she couldn’t get enough of her.

“Mia!” Gabe yelled from down the hall, like every morning. Making sure she was up and dressed and ready to take on the day.

She was not.

There was something about waking up to clouds and overcast skies that never really encouraged Mia to jump out of bed. She felt safe here in her room, surrounded by the things that mattered to her, pictures and books and soft bedding, the small recorder and the precious tape. High school was an unavoidable thing and eventually she’d have to pull herself from the warm bed and take on the day, but she couldn’t force herself into that just yet.

“I’m up, Dad!” Mia hollered back, buying herself more time before Gabe would knock on the door and ask if she wanted breakfast, and if so, what. He wasn’t a hoverer, his work took him away every day, and his return was often late at night. But when he was around, he tried. Mia could hear Ginny puttering about the kitchen, unstacking bowls and clanking the silverware down on the thick wooden table. It was comforting, knowing that Ginny would wrap her up in a good morning hug, feed her something homemade, warm and delicious, sit beside her sipping coffee, talk to her about her friends, teachers and homework.

Holding the recorder close to her ear, Mia pressed the rewind button and listened to the whir of the tape going back in time, back to the beginning. Mia worried that one day the tape would break, the thin slick of film would snap, stealing her mother away. But it hadn’t. Not in nine years, and today, like every morning, she crossed her fingers this wouldn’t be the day it failed.