Waiting Room

by Daniel Machado


In the waiting room, I sat with my face buried in my hands, trying to make sense of the nightmare I found myself in the midst of. I’ve never been good at handling death, or even just the prospect of it. Of all the noises resonating throughout Saint Anne’s emergency room, none were louder than the sound of my heart pounding in my chest, as if trying to make its way out. The knots in my stomach were as much from the uncertainty of what was happening on the other end of the corridor as from knowing that I was going to have to break the most horrible news to two people whom I had tried to avoid whenever possible over the last several months.

     Just an hour earlier I had sat in the living room of our apartment, watching television while sipping coffee and eating a bowl of cereal, dreading the imminent task of having to put on my uniform and head off to work. As I picked up the remote and began to flip through the channels, the doorbell rang. It took me off-guard, since it was nearly nine-thirty at night. Looking over my shoulder, I gazed out the window and saw a storm raging outside. Then I noticed a police cruiser. That can’t be good, I thought. I hurried down the stairs and opened the front door. Two police officers stood on the other end of the threshold. The older one spoke: “Sorry to bother you, sir, but is this the home of Kristen Quinn?”

     I nodded. “It is.”

     “And you are?”

     “I’m her boyfriend.” I looked at the younger cop, then back at the older one. Neither of them was very easy on the eyes. “Is everything alright?”

     The police officer appeared to be agitated, as if I was the one who had suddenly showed up on his doorstep. He continued in a callous tone, as if he were about to hand me a speeding ticket, “Sir, we’re going to need you to head over to Saint Anne’s Hospital. There’s been an accident.” 

     As I raced to the hospital, horrid scenarios ran through my head. I had no idea what I was about face. I had received no further information from the police officers. Just that my girlfriend and her two children had been in a car accident. It wasn’t until I arrived at the hospital that I realized I still had to call her mother and step-father. I told them to come to the hospital, to hurry, Kristen and the kids had been in an accident. Her mother, suddenly frantic, asked what happened. I told her I had no idea, that I had just arrived myself.

   Kristen and I had gone to school together during the sixth and seventh grades. Although we never actually spoke back then, I had quite a crush on her, despite her overbite and excessively short bangs. However, during the summer following the seventh grade, my father moved us to Massachusetts and I never saw her again.  

   Until sixteen years later when I received a message from her on Facebook, in which she said that I looked familiar and she asked where I grew up. I messaged her back, stating that I grew up in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, until the age of twelve, when my family moved to the Bay State, where I’ve been ever since, for better or worse. She replied that she grew up in Portsmouth too and she thought that maybe we had gone to school together. She gave me her phone number and told me to call her. After a few phone conversations, we met up for some coffee, and the following evening I stopped by her house. After that, we spent at least one night a week together, usually a Wednesday or Thursday, since those were my days off from my security job. We usually just watched a movie at her apartment, since she had two children and finding a babysitter during the week was no easy task. From the very beginning, my instincts were telling me to run, that I was way over my head, since I had never dated a girl who had a child, never mind two.

   But despite my better judgment, I stuck around. Despite the earnest, almost desperate, pleas of my parents and sister, I continued to date her. After about four months of seeing her, I took the plunge and moved in with her and her kids. Up to that point, I really hadn’t spent too much time with her children. Her daughter, Mallory, was three, and her son, Kyle, was six. Kyle was a bit of a wild child, always getting into trouble in school, constantly being sent to the principal’s office. I figured that was to be expected, probably the result of never having a father-figure in his life. Kristen and Kyle’s dad had split up less than a year after the birth of Kyle, and Kyle never saw his dad again. Mallory was a handful too, as are most three-year-olds, but she was one of the cutest three-year-olds I had ever seen, with her blue eyes and her blond pigtails. Although Mallory’s father was in her life to an extent, she would cry every time she saw him. She wasn’t at all fond of him, and I loved her for that.

   Ashamed as I am to say, prior to moving in, I had more or less tried to avoid Kyle and Mallory like the plague. But that changed soon after I moved in. Although I worked the third shift, I spent a good deal of time with them, helping Kyle with his homework, throwing the football around in the front yard. I would read to Mallory and we’d watch Tom and Jerry cartoons together. Before long, the four of us were going to carnivals together, where Kyle and I would ride on the bumper cars together, and I’d win over-sized stuffed animals for Mallory shooting basketballs or firing water guns. I spent as much time with them as I could. They became the family I never had and, frankly, never wanted. I had admired kids, usually from afar, but having a family was something I never really desired. But I was glad that I had come into their lives, and that they had come into mine. As much or as little as I had given to them, they had given me so much more.

   It seems that people are sometimes shaped and defined by the obstacles they manage to avoid. But most of the time, they’re shaped and defined by the obstacles they choose to encounter and face head on, and, hopefully, conquer. And in a life where I was constantly avoiding obstacles, not wanting to deal with any unnecessary hassles, this was one obstacle I was glad I hadn’t fled from.                 

   But as is usually the case, that happiness did not last. In fact, it came to an unforeseen crashing halt. I sat in that waiting room, sick to my stomach, knowing something that was about to break the hearts of two grandparents: their grandchildren were dead. A four- and a seven-year-old, dead. On arrival. At the point of impact. A white minivan. A patch of black ice. An over-sized pick-up truck. Shattered windshields, smashed head lights, burned rubber, contorted steel. A disaster. A catastrophe. An utter nightmare come to life.

   And I was the one who had to break the news. I was the one who had to reach into their chests and tear their hearts out, the one who had to destroy their dreams. Pluck them out of their minds and stomp on them, smash them beyond recognition.

   I knew what my duties entailed, but what sickened me even more was what I didn’t know: Kristen’s condition. Was she going to pull through, be given the God-given curse of having to live on, of having to bury her own children, watch them be lowered into the ground, robbed of the opportunity to live full lives? Would she be forced to suffer through that? Or would the Selfish One take her too, there being no limits to His greed and wrath. I sat there and waited, trying desperately to hold the contents of my stomach down. For a moment, I imagined a plug at the base of my esophagus, keeping my coffee and cereal down where they should be. A quick, one-second, much-needed distraction. But then I returned, and so did the burden and worry, heavy as ever.

   I leaned over and clutched my stomach, needing questions to be answered. I shook my head, involuntarily. I had no control of it. I had control of nothing. You can plan and plan your whole life away, but it will all amount to nothing. Always it will.

   I looked up, hoping to see the doctor approaching me, needing not to see him, needing not see anyone. What I needed was to be turned off, to hit the reset button, to start over again. To fix this awful mistake that had somehow occurred.

   But I knew it couldn’t be fixed. It was a wrecking ball that would irreparably destroy lives, shatter hearts, and soil souls. Rape us and leave us where we lay, bloody and broken, hollowed human beings. Leave us stumbling through the rest of our days, not even allowing us to remember the people we used to be.

   I stood as the doctor approached. I knew the news before he even opened his mouth. She was gone too. The girl I had first laid eyes on as an eleven-year-old was no more. She would never she her thirtieth birthday. She ceased to exist. She had woken earlier that day by my side, a happy, contented woman. But less than twenty-four hours later she was gone. The woman I had kissed and touched every day for the past seven months was no longer with me. She was gone forever, never to be heard from or seen again. The woman I had loved so deeply, carried away by the wind.

   But I was here, stranded, alone. Alive. But not really. Breathing? Yes. But alive? No. I turned away from the doctor as he continued to speak. I couldn’t hear him anymore anyway. My head was filled with a loud humming. All around me, people were walking about, talking, but all I could hear was that humming.

   I knew it was only a matter of time before her parents would arrive. I wasn’t sure that I could manage to utter a single sound, never mind speak an actual sentence. I lowered my head, placed my palms over my eyes, tried to pull it together. Or at least that which still remained.

   If there was one thing I didn’t wish to be, it was the bearer of bad news. I didn’t want to bring sorrow to anyone. My whole life was pain, be it real or imagined, and I didn’t wish for anyone else to feel that same hurt. That unbearable sting, which always leaves a mark, perhaps large, perhaps small, but always indelible.

   I sobbed into my hands as tears slipped down my face. I wanted to run out to my truck, slam the door shut, and pound my forehead into the steering wheel. To shout questions that no one would ever hear. To cry and sob and pound my fists.

   But I remained seated in the waiting room, reluctantly standing by to carry out my unfortunate duty. And, ten minutes later, I did just that. Graceful and poised I wasn’t. But the necessary words emerged from my mouth. I told them how sorry I was. They embraced, sobbing into each other’s shoulder, and, not knowing what else to do, I rubbed Kristen’s mother’s back for a few moments. I lowered my head, wiped at my tears, then patted Kristen’s step-father’s arm. The news had been broken and, for some odd reason, I felt a bit lighter.

   My hand dropped as I lifted my head and, with blurred vision, spotted the exit sign overhead. I meandered towards it, taking my time, thinking there was no hurry, that all had ended anyways. And though the humming returned suddenly, it seemed as if it had been with me my entire life. And that it always would be. It seemed as if it were the most natural sound that existed, a subtle, yet mighty vibration that could accomplish anything, bring entire universes into existence. I welcomed it, wanted it to always be there for me, to comfort me.          

   Through the glass double doors I saw the rain falling furiously, violent gusts of wind getting tangled up in flags, blowing them every which way, forcing the branches of trees to shake and bend. I didn’t speed up, I didn’t slow down. I knew the storm awaited me, and that I would get there as I should. Like everyone else, I would enter into the storm the moment I was meant to.      

   As the doors slid open and I stepped through, onto the pavement and into the storm, I was immediately assaulted by the heavy rain and gusting winds. As I tried to navigate my way through the parking lot to my truck, which I spotted just ahead, my forearm pressed to my forehead, staggering this way and stumbling that way, I realized that, for the first time in a long time, I was free; and, at the same time, completely lost.