Insipid (18 page)

“Accident. There’s been an accident.”

“NO! No. Josh, tell me she’s okay! Where is she?”

He flinched as all heads turned towards my high pitched scream.

“She was flown to Northwestern. We have to get there now. Please, Jade. Come with me.”

I stayed in my seat, my legs suddenly feeling like they were buried in cement. I couldn’t move. My eyes blinked uncontrollably. I was shaking violently.
The last day of life. My last day of color. My last bright and sunny day. This is the day my life was brutally snatched away from me. Why was I still standing there, living, breathing?

“Josh, No!” I cried and collapsed on the seat while he slid in between the booths to try to catch me.

Two police officers approached the table. One of them started to speak.

“Mrs. Richmond. We are so very sorry.”

“No. No. Please, I’ll pay anything to get her to the right hospital. My parents! Please call my parents. My father will have a helicopter fly me there now. My husband is a neurosurgeon. He has friends who can help. Wait a minute, please. Let me call them.” I grabbed my phone and attempted to still my trembling hands enough to start dialing.

“Jade, your parents are on their way.” Joshua tried to reach for me but I blanched at the mere thought of his touch. I wedged myself into the far end of the corner and huddled in a fetal position.

“Mrs. Richmond. Your daughter died on impact. We’re here to take you to her.”

Died. Did he say died? Who died?
“Don’t touch me!” I shouted as the air in my chest expanded the contents of my stomach, causing me to vomit forcefully all over myself and the table. “Get away from me, all of you!” I heaved, bending over on the ground and seizing my heart, desperate to hold on to it before it disappeared forever. “Please leave me alone!”

HOURS LATER, I
sat in a dark, cold room, my back against the wall, my feet flat on the floor. A rancid stench lingered in the hall, but my senses were too numb to really care. I focused my eyes on the cement slab that separated me from her. All her life, I was never far away. It wasn’t going to start then. I lived for her. I loved for her. There was never any other purpose in my life; I thought that I was born to be her mother.

As I waited for daylight to come, for the time when she would be taken away from me forever, the events of the day kept rambling through my head. In the blink of an eye, I lost my identity. Who I was and what I stood for lay lifeless on the steel bed before me.

Slowly, I stood up and walked towards my baby’s body, without fear or repulsion. I was filled with undying devotion as I stroked her hair and kissed her lips. She was still so angelic, like a porcelain doll with golden hair and immaculate skin. How many times had I looked into this face and imagined the life that could have been? How many times had this face fulfilled my dreams, my hopes, my need to be loved?

She never went through an awkward stage. I was always amazed at the way that she went from perfect child to perfect woman. Always an angel.

She remained warm to the touch but nothing about her felt real. There were bruises on her arms, but not a single cut on her face. Where were the wounds? Internal bleeding, they said. Something about the probability of her losing her focus, which caused her to slam right into a parked garbage truck. Her Mini Cooper was wrapped around a lamppost as a result of the force. She was gone by the time they found her.

“I no longer have anything to live for, Cia,” I whispered as I climbed into the bed beside her. “Please take me with you. My life is nothing without you.”

OUR DAUGHTER WAS
born and bred in Chicago, but San Francisco was where her heart always belonged. For the past eighteen years, our summers were spent there. Cia loved spending months at a time with her grandparents. My parents’ neighbors and friends looked forward to her visits every year. With my father on the Board of the local golf club, she spent her summers working as a caddy on the greens. He loved to golf and so he found the perfect excuse to have here there with him whenever she was in town. It was only fitting to give in to my parents when they requested that she be interred in San Francisco. We had no family in Chicago and often spoke about relocating back home once Joshua’s contract with Northwestern Hospital had expired.

When I was twelve years old, I obsessed endlessly about death. For some reason I realized one day that once you are born, there is no other way out of this world than to die. I was so afraid to die that I stressed out about being alive. For months, I lay awake at night fearing death, horrified at the prospect of dying. I imagined what it would feel like to close my eyes and never wake up. Do you just black out in total obscurity and cease to exist? Why invest in life then, if you become nothing when you die? I began to search for answers, for the truth about the soul, and immersed myself in the church’s teachings about heaven and hell and the afterlife. I forced myself to believe, assured myself that there’s got to be more to this than waiting for my turn to die.

Years later, there I was, living in the irony of all my apprehensions, swept up in the maelstrom of my greatest fear.

She looked so tiny at the very end of the long aisle of St. Dominic’s Church. It was a grandiose structure with arched walkways and gothic architecture. A large red carpet covered the original Italian marble floor and a glorious light shining through the French stained glass windows illuminated her casket. The church was full of people; close friends, acquaintances, and strangers. Parents of children who grew up with my daughter, guilt ridden and bereft over the loss that could easily have been theirs. There were flowers everywhere; the aisles looked like a blooming garden of colors. There was no room to move. It felt suffocating and confining. People and flowers blocked my view when all I wanted to see was her.

I sat at the front with Joshua, his mother, and my parents. For days I had been heavily medicated, waking up only to change and to eat despite the fact that I was also fed intravenously for fear of malnutrition. My husband was my rock throughout the entire ordeal. He picked up right where my life left off. I will always be thankful to him for that.

We decided on a closed casket at her wake despite the fact that Cia’s face and body looked untouched. I didn’t want people to remember her as anything other than the girl who was so full of life. “Hija, I think your boss is here. I can see him approaching the altar,” my mother notified me, rubbing my arm.

Joshua held me by the elbows to help me to stand up. The medications and lack of sustenance still had me feeling extremely weak. Slowly, we made our way towards Warren and Skip, who took me in their arms as soon as I reached them. I made no qualms about dissolving into tears; everyone who knew my daughter knew how close we were. Cia used to help do my filing for me on weekends. She was also the little girl who ran around the office spilling juice on the white carpet and writing on the walls with her crayons. We exchanged a few pleasantries before they left me to kneel in front of the casket.

I was about to sit down upon making my way back to our pew when I noticed a man walking hesitantly in my direction. I stopped in my tracks, supporting myself by leaning on the arm rest at the end of the wooden bench. He looked exactly the same as when I last saw him, his hair was a little longer but still bright and golden, his eyes were as blue as ever.

It was like seeing Cia come back to me in the form of an angel.

Or an archangel.

The fallen one. The one who started this all.

He continued to trudge slowly towards me, his gaze fixed on mine, never blinking his eyes until we stood two feet away from each other. I wanted more than anything in the world to touch his face.
Was he real?

“Jae—” He cleared his throat. “Jade.”

I tried to open my mouth to speak, but my vision turned hazy and it felt as if my eardrums had exploded. I attempted my best to force my eyes open, not wanting to lose sight of him ever again. But no matter how hard I strained to remain conscious, the darkness snatched him away from me and I was left with nothing.

“WHAT HAPPENED?” I
croaked when I woke up to find myself lying on the couch of what looked like the church rectory.

Joshua was crouched down on the floor holding a bottle of smelling salts.
Did he take this from the church’s old medicine cabinet? Smelling salts. Really?
“You fainted. How are you feeling?” he asked worriedly.

“I’m okay. I don’t know what came over me. I just blacked out.”
I saw him. That’s what came over me.

“Yeah. The exhaustion is getting to you. I think I should take you home as soon as you’re able to get up,” he said gently as he stroked my forehead with his fingers.

“Was that him? Was he here?” I asked, knowing full well that he would know who I was referring to. A tiny flickering light caught the corner of my eye. I turned my head from side to side, wondering what it was that had suddenly disturbed my attention enough to distract me from the conversation.

Josh didn’t notice anything. “He still is. He refuses to leave until I tell him that you’re okay.”

“Can I see him?”

It was a moth. A tiny, colorless moth with powdery wings that flapped around me in a circle. It finally rested on top of the unlit lamp on the table beside me.

“What for? He walked out of your life nineteen years ago. No, you can’t see him.” He positioned himself directly in front of me and I responded by moving to the end of the couch.

“I walked out of his, Josh. Please… let me see him for a few minutes.” My high-pitched tone seemed to get his attention. He knew better than to upset my fragile emotional state any further. After all, it was a miniscule request in the grand scheme of things. “I’m okay. Please help me straighten up.”

He grumbled to himself but offered me his hand so I could pull on it as I sat upright. I swung my legs over the couch and leaned against its back with my feet tucked under my legs. Joshua left abruptly, only to be followed in immediately by the man I left my heart with years ago.

They used to look like night and day, but twenty years later, the boy I left behind looks just as accomplished and well put together as the man I married.

“Jade!” He rushed over to me and took me in his arms. “I’m terribly sorry for your loss.”

Surprisingly, I didn’t shed any tears. “Thank you, Chris. How did you know?” I pushed him away only because I wanted to look at him
. Cia. I see Cia.

“It was weird… you’ll never believe it. Something in me told me that you were in town and that I had to see you. I can’t explain it, but I called your parents’ house and Concha told me what happened.” He held my face in his hands. “You haven’t changed at all. You still look the same.”

“You too. You look great.”

“Oh Jade, I can’t imagine what you must be going through. I am so sorry about your daughter. I’ve stayed away for too long. Please know that I’m here now, for you, as your friend. I know you need to get back to the church, so I won’t keep you, but may I call you soon to catch up?” He removed his phone from his back pocket. “Could you program your phone number in here for me?”