Vital Sign (6 page)

I lean over the center console and pull
my troubled mother to me. “I’m sorry, Mom. I hate upsetting you,” I admit as I lose the battle against my emotions. Tears spill down my cheeks and drip from my chin onto her shoulder. I’ve cried on that same shoulder more times than I can count. I’m glad to have that shoulder to cry on. Lucky.

“Sadie, just know that I’m fighting right along with you. I’m trying to get you through this any way that I can manage to figure out.”

“I know, Mom. Thank you for hanging on.” It sounds like a simple thing to be grateful for, but it means so much more. Her finding the strength to keep hanging on means that I don’t have to travel this journey alone. Her hanging on means that I have the greatest ally a person could have. I have my mother, the person most motivated to see me make it out of this.

“You got it, honey.
I’ll always hang on.”

I feel so guilty. I wish I had someone to talk to
, someone safe to explain how much I hate the way I am, where I’m stuck. I know I’ll be making that call again later. It’s all I have. It’s my only choice.

April 22, 2013

Tybee Island is an enchanted little speck on the coast of Georgia.
Even in my depressed state of being, I can appreciate this place. Mom and Dad took me and Jenna when we were little. I vaguely remember it. I don’t recall it looking exactly like this, but I was six years old and far too young to appreciate everything that the island had to offer. I was only interested in building sandcastles. Even then I was in love with sculpting.

It’s
a charming island, quiet and spattered with quaint cottages, beach homes, restaurants, a few tourist-friendly resorts, and shops of all sorts. It’s not teeny tiny but it’s certainly nothing like Atlanta. It’s so much calmer here. There’s no city buzz swirling around me. There’s no hurried pace driving everyone into a speed walk. There’s tranquility here.

Since Jake died
, I thought that staying in Atlanta suited me just fine because it’s the right sized city for a person to disappear in. It’s ironic, but there are so many people in Atlanta that it’s like there’s no
one
person at all. Like some massive ant mound, there is no single ant, it’s just the colony, a single heap of life moving and breathing in unison, as one life form. I liked the idea of disappearing into the crowd. Being invisible has meant that coping with things is that much easier to ignore.

Being here
makes me second guess that philosophy. It’s a small place and disappearing would be next to impossible, but the perks are definitely there—the sea breeze, the sound of the water meeting the shore, the tranquility, all of it make Tybee a prefect respite. Making the four hour drive down here in my own car was a wise choice. I could hang out for a few days doing nothing. I could hang out here and just breathe in and out, which has proven to be a task in itself on most days at home.

***

“Now, if you need anything, my name is Dawn. You just give me a call or stop by the desk and I’ll be glad to help.” The older woman with green eyes and short grayish hair smiles sweetly as she hands me the key to my room. She’s kind and must be around 60. I imagine I could carry on a conversation with her easily. She just seems like that type of woman. Some people are easy to interact with and I can tell she’s one of those people.

“Thank you, Dawn.” I leave the lobby following the directions Dawn gave me to my room.

Back out the door, take a left, and it’s just down the path. Room number four.

The motel I’m staying in is small but very nicely maintained. I can’t imagine that there
are more than fifteen rooms in this place, but that’s what makes it nice. There are flower boxes full of blooms rimming every inch of the outside of the motel and, based on the worn gardening gloves that were sitting on the counter in the office, I imagine they’re all Dawn’s handiwork. 

I take a look around
, actually admiring my accommodations. The motel itself is painted pale yellow, trimmed with white shutters and white rain gutters. Sheer curtains are drawn back from every window, exposing the well-furnished, clean rooms through the white plantation blinds covering the windows. They’re tilted open, allowing for a view of the space within.

Even the small parking lot is tidy.
I especially like that there are no plastic keycards to contend with. I hate those damn things. They almost always mess up when you try to get into the room that it is suppose to unlock. Instead, Dawn, the innkeeper, handed me a real brass key attached to an oversized blue plastic keychain in the shape of a surfboard with the number “4”  printed on one side and “The Beachcomber Inn” on the other.

I prop the door open with the rubber stopper sitting just inside the room and let the salty breeze drift in with me.
Like I’ve done on my last two stops, I drop my things on the floor at the foot of my bed and think carefully about taking a little nap. I could use one. I’m supposed to meet Alexander McBride, the heart guy, in the morning, and since I don’t usually show my face to the world until after noon, this morning meeting is going to be extra unpleasant for me.

I haven’t spoken to th
is guy on the phone, we’ve only communicated via emails that left me curious and drawn to meet him. I know his name is Alexander McBride, he’s twenty-nine years old, and he’s the person that’s walking around with Jake’s heart in his chest. I dislike him already. I hate him for the most irrational reason. He isn’t my Jake. Jake is gone but this guy gets to live—thanks to Jake’s
heart
—I’m just so pissed at the world for it.

The door to my room is still open
, allowing the sea breeze to drift in. It feels nice and smells like my childhood. It brings me back to a time before my world was turned upside down.

I was a little girl with
out a single care in the world. I miss those days. I didn’t know it then, but I was drunk on simplicity. The loss of that freedom, that carelessness, has me grieving for more than just Jake. I grieve for a past that was bittersweet and far too short. It seems like it zipped right by, putting me in the fast lane towards sobering tragedy. Had I known then what I know now, I think I would have done my best to slow way down, to take in every day that I spent with Jake as a kid. I’d take it in. I’d soak it up. I’d
breathe
it. I’d shoot it directly into my veins in hopes that somehow, once he was gone and life was no longer simple, there would be some residue of our short life together to maintain me. I’d ration it out in hopes of having just a morsel of that perfect simplicity every day for the rest of my life. Even just a morsel would be enough. It would have to be. I think I’d be grateful for it.

The burden of my private lamenting is just…stifling. I can’t breathe. I can’t even think about anything beyond Jake and the simple times that seemed to vanish overnight.

The distant sound of the water coaxes me from any napping that I’d been planning on and the dangerous train of thought that could only leave me dropping anxiety meds on my tongue and hiding beneath the covers.

Dawn said the water was just “that way”
when she pointed across the street to a worn path that I assume leads to the ocean.

I look from the bed to the door then back to the bed. “It isn’t going anywhere, Sade,” I
say to myself, knowing that I can nap after I check out the water and if I still feel like torturing myself with more reminiscing, I could do that on the spot.

I’d become good at punishing myself
. I’d become skilled at allowing myself to disappear into memories that were sure to leave me curled up into a ball in the shower, crying until my eyes burned and my head ached.

Looking to my purse,
I decide to skip on the anxiety medication too. I don’t need it. Not right now that is. Maybe when I get back. In the morning, before I meet Alexander McBride, I more than likely will. I had barely survived my meeting with Terry and Ellen and that was
with
the medication streaming through my system. I cringe, imagining what I would’ve felt like without it.

It’s late April and it’s warm here in Georgia
, but I’m sure the water hasn’t gotten up to comfortable swimming temperatures. Either way, it would be nice to just go see it, to walk on the sand and try hard to remember a time in my life when I was carefree and unaware of the devastation that adulthood would bring.

I step outside to just beyond the awning that covers the sidewalk in front of the motel room doors
and look up at the sky. I close my eyes and listen to the chirping birds. The scent of Dawn’s flowers scattered about the property inundate my nose with their soft floral essence and I can’t even breathe. Everything around me is a testament to life and how it goes on in spite of my loss and I hate it. A dismal feeling washes over me and I feel nothing but hatred for the blue sky above me, the flowers growing, the green grass, and the oblivious little birds singing from their perches in the trees. I can’t imagine living the rest of my life feeling like this, but at this point I can’t honestly say what would be worse—living like this, or moving on.  

The sea air beckons me for
ward and I shove aside my misery for the time being. I hurry across the street, holding on to the hem of my white sundress as I go. The sea breeze caresses my exposed legs the nearer I get to the water. I make my way past a few buildings until the pavement has been replaced by the sand.

Twenty, maybe thirty yards ahead of me is a wooden planked walkway jutting straight
out towards the beach. It’s heavily flanked by brush, other indigenous trees, and bushes. Brown stalks that look similar to bamboo reach skyward, five, six, seven feet tall. I can’t see the water yet for the greenery and the high mound of sand blocking it, but I can hear it. My pace increases and I make my way up the small incline of the wooden boardwalk.

There it is.

I close my eyes and inhale deeply. My hair is lifted from my shoulders and stays back courtesy of the steady ocean breeze. It’s not like regular wind. I know that sounds dumb, but it’s true. The wind coming off the water is strong and steady. It doesn’t gust then die down. It prevails from the east and northeast, leading the trees and brush around me in a lilting sort of organic noise. It’s a gentle shushing, a chaste order from Mother Nature, telling me to listen. The sound of the wind passing through the trees and brush doesn’t fight for attention with the sound of the ocean crashing. Instead, they seem to blend together flawlessly.

The water roars as waves crest and topple, racing toward the shore
, eager to meet the dry sand waiting there. It’s a marriage of dry and wet, ocean and land, salt and sand. One cannot exist without the other and sometimes I feel the same way about my life. I’m so damn tangled in loss that it seems neither one can survive without the other. My sullen life wouldn’t subsist without me. That goes without saying. Just the same, without my melancholy existence, I’d be lost. I’m so accustomed to my unwelcome reality that I’ve lost sight of what life is without it. 

More waves crest and crash,
lulling me into a daze. I open my eyes and watch the foam of the whitecaps sloshing on the surface. The sudsy-looking masses of foam ride the waves ashore to be deposited along the line separating wet sand from dry sand.

I’m sure the water
’s cold, but it looks so enticing. There’s something about allowing my body to intermingle with something that seems so relatable. The water, wind, and shore are all interweaved into this constant dance. They battle against each other, but they don’t. They work together, one existing because of the other or for the other. It’s all subjective, I suppose.

I’m certain of one thing standing here in this place. The trio right in front of me is symbolic of the dance that I
’m stuck in. The dance of death, life, and me feels like an eternal, somber melody playing on an endless loop.

I
have the desire, the need, to slip into the water and join my dance with the one in front of me. Wind, water, land, life, death, and me. Six elements jumbled together, me being the weakest of the bunch. Maybe I won’t feel so isolated in this water. Maybe it’s the prospect of weightlessness that has me wiggling my toes, contemplating dipping them into the sea.

Something in me is tired
, like my mother said. It’s tired and broken and ready to give up. I’m just so tired and when I say that, I don’t just mean physically. Sure, the lack of sleep takes a toll but that’s not what I mean.

When I say that I’m tired
, I’m talking about my mind, and my heart. I feel so heavy. Even just walking around, I feel like there’s this force pushing down, cinched tight to my back. I can’t see that force. I can’t touch that heavy weight and I can’t put the weight down, but it’s there even when I sleep. It’s always there. I carry it day in and day out, feeling closer to the ground and more alone with every step I take.

The idea that maybe getting in that water could ease the constant weight pressing down on me
, or that the water could somehow wash away the state that I’m in, or that it could be my silent companion is more than enough incentive.

I glance back at the various buildings behind me. If someone sees me out here
, they’re going to think I’m nuts and I just may be, but my white dress means I require some privacy before I dare to slip into the freezing water.

I walk to the end of the boardwalk and step off into the plush sand. I l
ook to my left, then to my right, trying to figure out the best direction to walk in hopes of a sparsely populated area, perfect for wading in frigid water in a white sundress. I’m insane. It’s official.

I decide to make my way north
up the beach. It appears more residential than where I began. I can see a few massive beach houses in the distance. I slip off my sandals and walk towards them at a comfortable pace, careful not to step on any sharp-edged seashells that littler the sand.

I follow along the beach
, tracing the line in the sand with my eyes, watching where the waves have rolled to a stop then retreated, wet sand and the occasional cloudy dollop of sea foam the only proof that it had been there.

I focus on one wave as it
comes crashing down. It races forward, slowing the closer it gets to its destination, then deposits the foam and retreats back into the ocean from which it came, no better or worse for the journey it had just made.