Prompt Ramblings - 15. Prompt 353 - The Anniversary

I'd become well acquainted with the sound of my crutches on the floor, but here in the hospital in brought out a sweat across my forehead and spine that had nothing to do with exertion. I was swamped in memories that were better left in the silence of the morgue.

A murmuring cacophony surrounded me, a mass of hushed voices trying to maintain some modicum of privacy and dignity. Directories mounted to the wall somehow attempted to make sense of the maze this building was designed to be. Herds of the sick, wounded, and caregivers dodged my ambling gait. At least here, they were a common occurrence.

It was a morbid kind of anniversary, one year to the day of the interstate pileup that changed everything. Months of recovery from injuries and surgeries to repair the damage of multiple breaks in my leg and hip. I'll never walk unassisted again.

A woman held the elevator for me as I hesitated. Entering the patient wards was never a easy task. It reminded me of those months of loneliness after realizing that my partner who I longed to see wasn't going to visit me at my bedside because he had one of his own.

While only two doors from the elevator, it might have well been a mile. Guilt was a heavy burden to carry when you're on crutches. I hobbled inside, and there Matty was, a frail shade of himself, his mother Grace reading to him from his bedside.

Matty didn't move or breathe on his own. His darkened eyes were closed as always. The ghastly tubes and wires running from every orifice and limb brought a sick shiver to my bones and made my leg ache. Wasted away, I could barely recognize him. He was incapable of surviving on his own, machines kept the living corpse in existence.

“Good morning, Hank,” Grace said. She closed the book and laid it in her lap, leaving her finger between the pages to mark her place.

“Morning, Grace. Are you still reading to him?”

“Of course. They say coma patients can hear things in the distance. It may help stimulate his mind.”

I shuffled close to the bed and brushed a lock of hair from Matty's forehead. A faint scar along his temple from where the doctors removed shrapnel from his brain could still be seen. The surgeons repair the immediate damage, but there was no brain activity after their best efforts.

“He's not in a coma, Grace. How many times do we have to say that?”

“I have faith that Matty will come back.”

I wish I could say I did. Matty didn't respond to stimulus and his brain activity was zero. Doctors had declared him brain dead months ago. I'd say it was cruel to keep him on life support but that wasn't really true. He wasn't suffering; Matty had long since left us.

Matty and I had been together for twenty-two years and if we lived in a state that allowed it, we would have married. We talked about it a lot recently, but Matty didn't want a ceremony that wasn't legal. If he was going to do it, it had to be legitimate in all sense of the word.

If we were married, I would have saved him from the indignity that Matty would never have wanted. He wouldn't be hooked up to machines that fed him and made his lungs work when his body wasn't capable of doing it for itself. But we weren't married. And because of that fact, the hospital didn't recognize me and placed all decisions in the hands of a woman I adored, but who couldn't bear the concept of letting her child go.

I didn't say these words out loud to Grace, we'd had all of these arguments before. In the end, her wishes were all that matters to the powers that be.

“No he's not, Grace.”

“Then why are you here if you don't have hope?”

My chest tightened as I steeled myself. “To say goodbye. Like I should have months ago.”

I stroked Matty's unfeeling jaw, avoiding the breathing tube, as I felt Grace's gentle hand on my arm. “Hank, don't. He'll want to see you when he wakes up.”

“He's not waking up, Grace. I have to move on.” I crushed my eyes closed as I struggled to keep my breath from coming out in a tragic rush. “Matty would want us all to move on. He never wanted any of this.”

When I opened my eyes, nothing had changed. Matty lay before me, unaware of my presence and it strengthened my resolve to know that nothing was going to change. Once again, I felt my heart breaking. The constant rhythm of life support machines mocked me.

“I can't bring myself to mourn him forever. There's nothing here to wait for.”

A tear rolled down to my jaw as I brushed a kiss across his forehead, horrified that my final farewell couldn't be more. I wanted to capture his lips one last time, but the tubes jutting out from his nose and mouth like some macabre experiment impeded me. I had to remind myself one more time that this was not Matty, but just a husk left behind to let us know of his passing.

“Goodbye, Matty.” My voice broke as I found it hard to catch my breath. “I will never forget you.”

With a hissing inhale, I pulled away, trying to control the tightness in my chest from spewing its anguish in ugly, ridden sobs. Too many nights had already been spent wishing for a miracle that would never come. I had a lifetime of memories to draw from, happy times to warm my soul in the coming months. As long as I stayed in the room, I was as lifeless as the body masquerading as my husband inside. I couldn't even face Grace as I strode out, my will might have fractured if I saw her betrayal in her eyes.

The soft tap of my crutches echoed into the hallway as I heard from the room a sad sound I'd become all too familiar with since the accident. Grace was crying.

Goodbye, Matty.