How to Save a Life (11 page)

Hearing his heavy, labored breathing getting even closer, I had to think of something to do. Fighting back never stopped him, so what made me think that it would now.

“No Pate, no!" I screamed, hoping he would gain even an ounce of compassion.

I looked over my shoulder only to see his hand coming closer to me. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and strained myself into locking my muscles and joints, to try and brace myself for the impact only to feel myself being shook by my shoulders.

“Wake up, Sheridan. You’re having another nightmare. Sheridan, sweetheart, please wake up."

That soothing almost trembling voice wasn’t the voice of the monstrous Pate. It was the one voice that I longed to hear day in and day out, but hadn’t in several days.

Mike.

My eyes immediately flew open as I jerked up in bed, Mike had to abruptly dodge his entire body back, because the impact from our heads colliding would’ve been excruciatingly painful.

“Whoa, Sheridan it’s just me." He calmly stated as he put his hands up in mock surrender. I supposed he thought I was going to attack him. Actually, it was the opposite as I lunged for him thrusting my arms around his neck as I clung to his body.

I was safe in Brown County. No Pate in sight. Nothing to worry about. These nightmares kept getting worse and more and more realistic.

I felt his hand linger on my back as he embraced me and rubbed his fingertips up and down along my spine.

“Shh. It’s alright. Nothing can hurt you while you are here with me, do you understand?"

I still didn’t trust my voice so I just nodded knowing that indeed I was safe with Mike. And even safer in his arms.

I finally let go of him and settled back onto the mattress, and started feeling a little silly for my freak out.

“I’m so sorry, Mike, I didn’t mean to wake you up. I sometimes get bad dreams, it’s no big deal."

“One you didn’t wake me and two, I’ve heard that excuse before, and it’s time to come up with a new one. And perhaps maybe one a little more believable if you are wanting me to back off. Now, you screamed ‘No, Pate’ just like last time. Are you ready to tell me who Pate is?"

I hesitated, was I ready to tell him about the
illustrious
Pate Strickland? Illustrious being said with very stern sarcasm. In his everyday professional life, he was highly respected and looked up to because of his father. Within the outer four walls of our house, he was anything but.

He directed me to sit against the headboard as he sat right beside me and covered our lower extremities with a blanket. He turned towards me brushing back some of my hair off of my shoulder. I didn’t know why he did that, but the touching movement sent electric zings straight to my heart.

“Sheridan, I’m here to listen, if you are willing to open up."

I again, couldn’t find my words and it was beyond frustrating. I didn’t know why I was bottled up so tightly. So many concerns were floating around. Would he judge me? Would he think I brought all of this on myself?

Just when I thought that I could convey my fears and insecurities, he took a deep breath and let his words hang in the air, “I was married before."

This surprised me so I swung my head around to where I was looking at him, deep into his eyes. I could see his broken heart right before me.

Instinctively, I reached for his hand and mingled our fingers together and it warmed me that he squeezed my hand back instead of letting it go. He had a story to tell as well, he just started his before mine, and now I was urging him to continue on. I knew that this wouldn’t be easy for either of us. Tonight was a turning point in this dance between us, I could feel it deep down to the depths of my soul.

“Erin and I went to school together and began dating in high school. Things were serious and now that I look back on it now, more serious than they should’ve been. We were just kids for Christ sake. We were twenty-one and had just barely started our actual life when she said that she was pregnant. So, I knew my responsibilities and wouldn’t ever slack on them, so we got married, and several months later Hannah was born…"

With the tone in his story, I knew it wasn’t going to have a pleasant outcome, but little did I know how extremely devastating this would be.

I could already feel the tears beginning to well up in the corners of my eyes. He would never truly know how deeply he impacted me with his words.

“Erin was a manic depressive and didn’t follow her doctor’s strict guidelines and medication, so she was lazy, and disconnected from the entire world, and didn’t see the wrongfulness in her actions."

I squeezed his hand tighter to silently convey that I was still with him, even though inside I was reeling.

His eyes started to haze over, he was projected right back into that time in his life as he continued on, “Hannah was my entire world, my princess. She hung the freaking moon, I never knew how I could love another human being so much, but I loved that little girl more than anything in this entire world. Erin had goaded me into putting Hannah in preschool whenever she turned three, and I agreed. I thought it would be great for her to interact with other kids her age, make new friends, and learn things that I couldn’t teach her, her mom’s reasoning for wanting her to go to school, were selfish. Erin just wanted time to herself without having to watch her.

“I worked for my dad, I was the head mechanic at Jameson Auto; I didn’t always want to be a paramedic. I was a born and bred mechanic and I enjoyed it, and to an extent I still do. But that Monday morning I had to open the shop because my dad had to take my ma to a doctor’s appointment. That was the day my mother was diagnosed with Stage IV Breast Cancer and she ended up losing her battle exactly six months later, but I think a broken heart helped in that matter as well." He wiped a stray tear from his eye, “Sorry I’m getting off track. So because I had to open the shop early I wasn’t able to take Hannah to school. Erin wasn’t exactly thrilled about it, and I remembered her being hateful and pissed off that she had to get up out of bed to take her own daughter to school.

“The day had went on, but I was constantly on edge waiting to hear the news from my parents. I had to even stop what I was doing to call Erin to remind her to pick up Hannah. Well, a little later I received a phone call from Hannah’s school stating that she was struck by a motorist walking across the crosswalk in front of her preschool and that they had just gotten off of the phone with 9-1-1."

My heart lodged in my throat and the onslaught of tears was steadily streaming down my face by this point. I wanted him to stop, needed him to halt his storytelling because I ultimately knew what the outcome would be, but he didn’t, he trudged on.

“I don’t even remember leaving the garage, I had left all of the doors open and unlocked, I didn’t care, and by the grace of God I made it to the scene. I arrived ten minutes after the school had called me, and would you fucking know it that the ambulance didn’t pull up until thirty seconds after me. I had rushed over to where the director of her school was holding my little princess," his voice choked up and it became difficult to understand him because he was almost to the point of sobbing. “The director later told me that Hannah was alive when she brought her in her lap and had died while waiting for the ambulance to arrive."

He buried his head in his hands and I could feel the sobs wracking his entire body as I rested my cheek on his shoulder. My heart broke for him and for Hannah. I was speechless, I didn’t know what to say or do. I knew better than to give him pity or be overly sympathetic because if he was anything like me, if would just cause more harm than good.

He lifted his head up and sniffed trying to clear out his nose and proceeded even further, “Twelve minutes. It took the ambulance crew twelve fucking minutes to get to my baby girl. In that moment, I knew that I had to become a paramedic because I couldn’t let innocent people die in the fucking street because they had to wait twelve fucking minutes for someone to arrive."

“Did Erin get hit as well?" He hadn’t said anything further about Erin so I wondered if she was injured or worse.

He let out a maniacal cackle, “Erin didn’t get a fucking scratch or a droplet of blood on her. The director of the preschool was covered in Hannah’s blood trying to keep my princess alive while Erin stood on the sidewalk and fucking watched. Come to find out, she was walking ahead of Hannah at the crosswalk, not even holding her hand. I sometimes wondered if Erin ever had a motherly bone in her body. That day I lost my Hannah, I lost all respect for that bitch, Erin. I never ever thought I could be the type of person to hate someone, but I loathe that woman with every fiber that I am. For her to just stand there and watch her own daughter die without trying to do a damn thing, that’s fucked up."

I was utterly appalled at Erin’s actions and I didn’t even know the woman. How could any mother not protect her child? I would fight tooth and nail for my child and ultimately to the death to protect them. I was more angered than I had ever been and if Erin were right in front of me, I would have a few choice words to say to her followed by one hell of a beating.

“So the day I buried my Hannah, Erin was served with divorce papers. I’ve never seen or heard from her since. I went into a pretty deep depression myself and cut ties from everyone including my parents. I quit going into work and began drowning myself in alcohol. It wasn’t until the phone call from my dad saying that my mother had died six months later did I finally realize that I needed to get my life together. The day after my ma’s funeral I packed up and left St. Louis and haven’t been back since. I call my dad on the rare occasion. But I’m different now, things are different. I know my dad suffered through all of this too, but I just can’t bring myself to go back there."

I finally spoke up, “How long ago has this all been?"

“Four years."

To think that Mike would’ve had a seven year old running around. No wonder he kept himself closed up and to himself. I couldn’t even fathom what he’d been through and it makes like all of my problems seem like child’s play.

He got up from off of my bed and walked out of the room, I didn’t hear his door shut, so I assumed he went into the living room.

I was going to give him a few minutes before I went in there to rehash my past. He was brave enough to tell me about the agonizing way he lost his precious princess, that the least I could do was speak up about mine.

I recalled the conversation I had with Brock the other day at the garage, I thought it was strange that he came to the truck while Mike was still inside, but now his words made sense. He told me to be patient with him and not give up because he had been through so much in his entire life. Things were starting to make sense now as to why Mike had been almost guarded with me, he didn’t want to open himself up in fear that he would possibly be happy. He felt as if he shouldn’t be happy in life and that is the wrong way of going about it.

After fifteen minutes had passed, I walked into the living room to find Mike leaning his head against the back of the couch. I sat down right next to him and rested my head on his shoulder and automatically felt his hand come around and grip mine.

“First, I want to say thank you for trusting me enough with your story. I’m not going to dwell on it, because that wouldn’t be what I would want, but I want you to know for what it’s worth, I’m sure you were an amazing father, like you should be. And Hannah would be so very proud of you for becoming a paramedic and helping save lives."

“Thank you for that. It feels oddly comforting getting it all out. Brock is the only person in Brown County to really know anything about me."

“Did you love her? Erin I mean." I had no clue why I just asked that question. It was really none of my business.

“Did I love Erin? That is a tough question to answer. At one point in time I believed that I was in love with her, but now I see it as it was infatuation. I think I loved the idea of Erin, but in the end I wasn’t really
in love
with her."

He sat there for a moment, before he said something that made my world tilt on its axis, much like the man did himself.

“I do know that I never want any more kids. I don’t think I could ever take being subjected to something like that again. Is that selfish of me? Possibly, but if anyone wants to judge me for that, then they really don’t know what it’s like to lose a child."

“I do."

Two little words were all I could get out. Because I knew what it felt like to lose a child, granted mine was still in utero, but nevertheless I’ve dealt with that pain.

He turned towards me with a perplexed look on his face, “You do?"

I nodded my head before I started along on my journey through the past.

“Let me start at the very beginning… I was what you more or less would call a child prodigy. I was classically trained and mastered the piano by the age of ten. My childhood consisted of hours upon hours of rehearsing and learning different concertos on the piano, and recitals near and far on the weekends. I was accepted into Julliard with the hopes of achieving a double major, one for concert piano and the other for singing."

I looked down at my damaged hands, although to the average person on the outside they looked like normal hands.

“You sing?" He interrupted my thoughts by that one question.

“Not anymore. I’m sorry, but you will probably never hear me sing, I just
don’t
anymore. I still enjoy playing the piano, but sometimes it’s just hard for me to because of my arthritis in my hands and fingers.

“Anyways, back to where I was. I was so genuinely thrilled to be one of the ones chosen to study at Juilliard. I wanted to play for the New York Symphony. To have the distinguished honor to play in the Symphony Orchestra in front of all of New York, it was my dream. And it was almost obtainable.

“But fresh out of high school I met Pate Strickland. My story started out much like yours, a lot like yours in fact. It was a whirlwind romance and I really did believe that we were in love. I ended up pregnant shortly after we met so being only eighteen, I cancelled on my dreams so we could follow Pate’s. We moved in together and things ended up changing.