CHAPTER 10: THE GARDEN

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Journal Entry

May 23, 1995

I never really know where to start with these things. To be honest, I’m still not really sure what the point is, but my guidance counselor, Mrs. Wright, keeps telling me how important it is to get out my feelings or whatever, so here we are. Supposedly this journal is just for me and my eyes only, but it feels kind of silly to be writing to myself, so I’m just gonna keep pretending I’m writing to some other version of me in an alternate reality who isn’t having to go through any of this crap. Maybe that’s a morbid way to cope… I don’t know.

Anyways, this week has been a real drag. The last time I spoke to Mom was four days ago. It was pretty messed up too. We were having one of the best days she’s had in a while. I got to take her for a spin out in the garden. She likes to call me her little chauffeur. It’s crazy that we have a “favorite place” at the hospital, but we’ve been here so much over the past few years, what can you do? Like I was saying though, we were having a great day and talking a lot about all the fun things we used to do and how we couldn’t wait to do them again… one day. We both know that “one day” is probably never going to happen, but Mom likes to say that she is habitually optimistic and only God knows what the future holds. I try to tell her that it’s the 90’s and science has come a long way, but I don’t know a person on this planet who could win a God vs. science debate with Lisa Tanner, so I choose my battles wisely.

She told me she loved me, that she was proud of me, and that she’s known since the day I was born that I was meant to do great things. She always says that. You would think after the one millionth time, it would lose its impact, but somehow coming from her, it always feels like she means it. I always respond with,”You have to tell me that. I’m the only kid you’ve got. You kind of put all your eggs in one basket!” That always makes her laugh, and this time was no exception. She has the best laugh.

She knows I love her, but before I had the chance to say it back, she started to have one of her coughing spells. I started wheeling her back inside. Before we made it to her room it started to get worse and I knew the good day was over. Once she starts coughing like that, it usually gets pretty bad, and it did. It got really bad. In less than an hour, she had slipped into a coma. That was Friday and it’s already Tuesday. It’s been the longest few days of my life.

Everybody warns you about loss and how to prepare and what life is going to look like when she’s gone. I think I’ve gotten advice from just about every person in this town at this point. We do live in Holly Creek, Georgia though, so that’s not that many people, I guess. One thing is for sure, they all completely adore Mom.

At this point, I’m fully prepared for when that time comes. Well, as prepared as a thirteen-year-old kid in my circumstance can be. Honestly, I probably stopped being a normal kid a long time ago. The truth is, I’ve already grieved her passing even though she’s lying right here in front of me alive, just barely. I wish I would have told her I loved her. I know she knows, but I think I needed to hear myself say it, just one more time. What no one warns you about is the in-between. The months of radiation and chemo, the years of degradation, and the guilty feeling you have for wanting them to stay forever, but also wanting it to be over. I don’t want her to go, but I can’t keep watching her suffer. It always feels like we are moving at warp speed or slow motion, and we never have any control over which. Time is weird that way. The one thing there’s too much of… and not enough all at once… Well, I think that’s all for now.

Miles slides the pencil into the metal spiral on the spine of his notebook and closes the pages. He looks up at his mother, tubes delivering fluids into her arms and nutrition to her stomach through her nose. The ventilator rises and falls in a steady pattern, feeding oxygen to her lungs.

He looks over at Shea. She reaches down and squeezes his hand.

He squeezes hers back and gives a forced smile.

For as long as he can remember, Shea has always been there. He had heard the story so many times that it almost felt like one of his own memories.

Shea and his mother met in their freshman year of college. They had the fortunate misfortune of being roommates in the dorms. Shea saw Lisa as a total goody two-shoes who kept a Bible on her nightstand, and had never once in her life done anything she couldn't tell her mother about. Shea was an art major with a nose ring, a passion for large scale art installations, and a Mötley Crüe poster above her bed.

What started out as a textbook “my roommate is the absolute worst because we couldn’t be more different” story quickly turned on its head when Lisa came home one night crying with a black eye.

Up to that point, they had mostly ignored each other and tried to stay out of one another’s way, but something inside Shea shifted that night as she listened to Lisa’s story.

It turned out that Lisa had ended up at the university following Ricky, her high school boyfriend. She had just found out she was pregnant two days earlier, and he wasn’t too happy when she delivered the news. The saddest part was they had only slept together once after he guilted her and threatened to break things off.

She had felt so guilty for weeks that she almost chalked the morning sickness up to stress. But after being two weeks late, throwing up in the girls’ bathroom three days in a row, and finally taking a pregnancy test, she realized it was something a little more complicated.

When she told him, he went ballistic.

He was there on a scholarship and told her this was going to ruin everything. She tried to assure him that they would figure it out and do the right thing, because that’s what people who love each other do. Hearing that she was thinking about keeping the baby set him off in a way she had never seen before.

It wasn’t the first time he had hit her.

But it was the first time her face became the point of impact.

Miles shifts in his seat, the hum of the ventilator pulling him back. He glances at his mother. Still. Unmoving.

Shea’s hand is still wrapped around his. He looks at both of them and wonders, not for the first time, how different everything might have been if they had never found each other.

The two girls spent the entire night talking. It turned out Shea had a father who drank too much, and even though he never physically touched her, his verbal abuse left invisible scars deeper than wounds that leave a mark.

In that dorm room, sitting on the floor in the middle of a pile of pillows and blankets, their friendship was born.

They were no longer two people stuck in a room together.

They became something else entirely.

Lisa decided to keep the baby, raise him on her own, and named him Miles. She moved back to her hometown in Holly Creek, but the two of them remained close even over the distance.

As for Ricky—Miles has never known much about his dad. After the night of the black eye, Shea told his mom she would “handle it.” They never really told him exactly what that meant, but anytime the name Ricky came up, they couldn’t help but laugh, so it must have been pretty satisfying.

Miles swallows hard.

Thinking about his mother laughing makes him happy and sad at the same time.

Will I ever see her laugh again?

Will I forget what it sounds like?

The thought hangs in the air.

He looks over at Shea, still beside him. Still here.

Miles tries to think of a single moment that mattered without Shea in it.

He can't.

She became his godmother the day he was born, and felt more like a family member than anything else.

She was there when his grandmother—his last living relative other than his mom—passed away, helping his mom with funeral arrangements, bringing meals, and watching five-year-old Miles so she could take care of everything she needed to.

Anytime they ever needed her, she was there. No questions asked.

When Lisa was diagnosed with ovarian cancer three and a half years ago, Shea dropped everything. She found a small studio space in Holly Creek and moved in with them. She assured Lisa that no matter what, this is where she wanted to be, she would stay as long as she needed her, and that she would always take care of Miles.

Over the past few months, as things got progressively worse, her promises became reality. All the paperwork was filed. Shea became Lisa’s power of attorney and Miles’ legal guardian.

The oxygen alarm suddenly goes off, making Miles jump in his seat.

Panic sets in as he stands and rushes to her side. Shea follows close behind.

“Mom?! Are you okay? Can you hear me?” His voice begins to tremble.

He doesn’t know if he should run out to get help or stay by her side.

“We need help! Something’s wrong!” he yells.

Shea places her hand over her mouth.

The door swings open and a nurse rushes in, her face tight with concern. She quickly finds the finger cuff and slides it back onto Lisa’s finger. The alarm stops.

“False alarm,” the nurse says.

Miles relaxes and Shea lets out a long breath like she has been holding it in as the pressure in the room begins to ease.

The nurse steps over to the monitor and studies the numbers.

Her face shifts.

Just for a second.

Concern.

Miles catches it.

“Is everything okay?” Miles asks, trying not to spiral again.

“Why don’t the two of you have a seat, sweetie?” the nurse says gently. “I’m going to grab the doctor and have him take a look.”

Miles nods, but doesn’t sit.

He stays right where he is, fighting the tears pushing their way up.

What’s happening?

I’m not ready.

I thought I was.

I just need more time.

“Please, Mom… I need you to wake up,” he whispers.

Shea places a hand on his shoulder.

“Your mom is the strongest woman I know. If there's one thing your mom has never done, it's quit.” she says softly. "If there’s a way back, she’ll find it.

She wraps her arms around him. “You are everything to her. She has repeatedly told me for thirteen years that you are the best thing that ever happened to her.”

Miles doesn’t look away.

He just stares at her face. Hoping she will wake up. Move. Do anything.

The door creaks and Dr. Thomas steps in.

“Shea, do you mind if I speak to you in the hallway?” he asks, his voice quiet and measured.

“Sure, Doctor,” she replies, then turns back to Miles. “I’m going to step out for just a second. Are you going to be okay in here?”

“Yeah… I think so,” he says, trying to steady his voice.

“I’ll be right outside. Just come grab me if you need anything.”

While Shea steps into the hallway, Miles grabs a chair from the edge of the room and slides it up next to the hospital bed. He slowly takes a breath and gently lays his head down in her lap. He closes his eyes and tries with everything in him to will her awake so she can stroke his hair, just one more time, like she always has his entire life. There’s nowhere on the planet he feels more at peace than right here… and he’s not ready to let it go. He wonders if this will be the last time. He scoops up her limp hand, interlacing her fingers with his. and just lies there in the stillness of the room. The steady rhythm of the machine keeping her alive starts to pull his consciousness towards sleep.

“Please don’t leave me Mama,” he whispers. “I just need you to stay a little longer.”

And then he’s dreaming.

The steady rise and fall of her breathing anchors him, and then takes him deeper.

It’s not like any other dream he’s ever had.

He’s everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

He’s been here before.

But there’s something—new.

Not a sound.

Not a smell

Just… a presence.

Like someone is standing nearby.

Close.

Watching.

But it doesn’t feel like a stranger.

Or invasive.

It feels—familiar.

He startles awake when the door opens behind him..

He can’t grasp how long he has been asleep.

A minute?

An hour?

He rubs his eyes as the fog clears.

Shea closes the door behind her. She doesn’t speak. She walks over and pulls the other chair to Miles and sits. Her eyes are glossy and her face is still. She stares at Lisa, and the two of them just sit in the silence.

After a few moments, Shea speaks, “Mouse…we need to talk. Things aren’t looking great.”

Miles continues staring at his mother.

He swallows.

“ The doctor is saying that we don’t have much time. He said it could be today, it could be in three, but he doesn’t think she will make it to the weekend.” Her voice begins to tremble. “He says we may want to go ahead and say…our goodbyes.”

Miles doesn’t move, but his eyes begin blinking. Tears begin to flow down his face. He taste salt as they pass through the corners of his mouth. He sniffs, and quickly wipes his nose with the back of his hand.

“I—uh— I don’t I.. I’m just—ah—I…”

He hesitates briefly.

“Shea, can you run me to the house real quick?” He’s already up and walking towards the door. “There’s something I need to do.”

“Miles…” Shea says, softly, tears of her own beginning to fall. “I think it’s important that—”

“I know, I know... but look…”

He reaches up and runs his hands through his shaggy hair.

“...we’ll come right back, I promise. Please…can we just go for now? Real quick. It’s important.”

He tries to hold back his emotions but it’s too late. The pressure is too much and it erupts. His body begins to convulse as he begins to sob. Shea immediately wraps him up and begins to take him out of the room. She doesn’t need any more explanation.

He buries his face in her arms as they walk down the hall towards the parking lot. Every one steps back and lowers their head. They don’t need an explanation either. The hall goes quiet.

They break through the threshold of the hospital and Miles is hit with the instinct to run. There is no fight left, and his body instinctively kicks into flight mode.

He tears away from Shea. His legs begin to pump. His muscles burn as they begin to propel him forward. He makes it three steps and runs abruptly into a body, strong and solid. His first instinct is to jerk away, and maneuver around this human obstacle, but it grabs onto his shoulders, gentle but firm, and holds him steady.

“Miles?” the man says confused, as he bends down to look him in the eyes.

Miles lifts his head and is met by the familiar face of Sheriff Jett Babb. His best friend's dad. The closest thing to a father Miles has ever known.

A soon as recognition crosses his face, he crumples into the man's arms.

Jett wraps his arms around the boy and squeezes him tight. “Woah, woah now, what’s going on here?” He questions as he looks to Shea. “Is everything alright? Is she…?”

“No, not yet,” Shea says quickly, “ but soon… Miles needed…some air. We are running to the house but we’ll be back soon.”

“Ah, I see.” He steps back and takes a knee while still holding Miles by the shoulders. “Well, I’ll tell you what buddy, I gotta run in here and see about a John Doe call I just got, but when I finish up with that, I’m gonna go sit with your mom until you get back. How does that sound?”

Miles nods his head slowly.

“Yes sir... that sounds good,”

He wipes tears away with his sleeve.

“Thank you Sheriff Babb.”

“You’re welcome son. And speaking of welcome, you know you can come by the house anytime. No invite needed, and no need to ask. We’re all going to get through this—together—because that’s what families do.”

He turns and looks at Shea.

“The same thing goes for you. If you need anything, or need to get a hold of me, just call the station and they can patch you through or send me a page.”

“Thank you Jett,” she replies.

“Yes mam. We’ll see you in a bit. I love you both.”

He steps towards the door as he takes off his hat and steps inside.

Shea and Miles turn and walk towards the parking lot—praying this is not the last time.