Losing Ruby

Copyright © 2020 Kelsa Dixon

All rights reserved

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[Brody]

The call came late at night.

It was after ten o'clock when I placed the transfer paper to the side of Owen's chest.

The sketch laid out in front of me wasn't a memory of mine, yet I found it haunting. Perhaps because it reminded me of all the ones painted across the canvas of my own skin, and the anatomically correct heart with a chamber that burst into fragments, splattering into stars that would soon litter the chest of the man in front of me reminded me of the red ruby in the center of my chest. His was for a daughter born with only two chambers of her heart and had passed away within hours. Mine was for my sister—Ruby. The one that died in the seat next to me while I was behind the wheel.

As an artist, it was giving these memories permanence that helped me find value in the work I did; being able to freeze time for the people who wanted to turn a fleeting moment eternal.

A regular, Owen had his arms stained in as much heartache as I'd become accustomed to: a brother killed in Iraq; a grandmother with Alzheimer's; a mother in and out of rehab; and a father in and out of his life. Now he had a child he'd never watch grow into adulthood.

My chest constricted at the thought of the baby I'd never held—the one I'd lost.

I dismissed the thoughts and wheeled my stool to the bench. With the ink gun hovering above his sternum my phone rang out like a siren.

No one called. Not while I was working; not at this hour. A glimpse at my brother's name and dread surged through my veins on instinct. I hadn't spoken to him in over seven years. Not since her accident; not since I walked out and hadn't bothered looking back—I hadn't dared to look back.

The words came through the phone garbled and distant as I stumbled out the door with only a vague idea of what was happening—of where I was headed. Colors of the traffic lights and the oncoming cars—the ones braking in front of me, too—began to blur together until I made it to the parking lot across town. Only drawn to it because of the unholy tether that would keep me bound to it. Bound by the harrowing memories.

Sweat coated my palms as I sat, staring at the building in front of me. Looming, laughing, daunting. The autopilot I'd been on came to a screeching halt and every step forward became brutal and forced. The white fluorescent lights and sterile scent stung my senses. A wave of nausea hit me. This couldn't be happening. Not again. Not to this family.

But the people who filled the waiting room assured me it was all too real. Older men dressed in suits; coaches, donors, school board members from the college Luca attended—my father's colleagues—sat, bent over their knees; waiting. Heels tapped, palms shielded their faces or scrubbed together.

Younger guys, all Luca's age—his teammates—restlessly leaned against walls. They stood in groups, shuffling on their feet, their hands tucked behind their backs. But no one said a word. Hoods flipped up to hide the discomfort they were finding in their emotions. I was privy to the tactic—to the feelings. I watched as some crossed their arms, only to reconsider and stuff their fists into pockets. Nothing to do but try to buy time.

"Stratford," I said at the desk. "Christian Stratford. He was in a car accident." That was all that I could remember. They had been at a university fundraiser and their car wound up wrapped around a tree. There was a deer in the road; he hit the gas instead of the break. It didn't make sense and I hadn't thought to ask how someone who had made a living off split-second reactions could make that kind of mistake.

The woman behind the desk didn't bother to look up. "You can wait with the rest of them."

Phrases such as, 'I'm his son,' 'He's my father,' got caught in my throat. "I'm family."

With a stern look, she laid down the clipboard she held between her hands and folded her arms onto the desk. "Relation?"

I swallowed. "Son."

Her eyes softened and she pressed a button on the wall. The door beside me buzzed. "Take a right. Room 427."

The hallway seemed to narrow the further I went—the closer I got. The white walls started to morph, tinged a hideous pale, sickly sheen of gray. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a spray of red like splattered paint and I whirled at the site of it. I was met with a soft pillow of white paint in its place.

And then the sounds of soft sobs floated toward me, they pulled my attention in the direction I was to be moving. They sounded too similar—a near echo of the ones I'd heard that day. That day years ago where I woke, and Ruby never did. It had been in a hospital room similar to the one I stood at the threshold of now. I'd woken to the gentle hum and repetitive beeping of the machines all around me. And to the soft weeping of my mother on the other side of my open door.

Now the weeping belonged to Chloe. Her back was to me; with her hair down and her stance broken over the hospital bed, I envisioned it was Ruby. Maybe this was all an odd dream and the years that had passed hadn't in fact moved at all; the roles were reversed and Ruby was bent over my bed as she said goodbye to me. Maybe I'd swerved the car at the last moment and the truck had made impact on my side instead of hers.

But in this rendition of our life, Luca was on the wrong side from the one I'd woken up on. Here his fingers were clenched over the bed rail and there were tears in his eyes that he didn't attempt to brush away. His saddened gaze flickered between the face resting in the bed to the monitors next to it. The numbers were too low, and only slowing.

In this life, years ago—in the one where I'd been condemned to a constant stream of torment—he'd been slumped in the chair next to my bed. A mess of curly brown hair, the same shade as mine, fell into his closed eyes. He was hunched over, his arms folded across his chest and I watched the rise and fall of his steady breathing. His legs were stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. I took in the bags under his eyes and the stubble he'd only just begun to form at his age as it peaked around his jaw. He'd been asleep and my first thought...how long had he been sitting like that?

It wasn't until I lifted my hand to wake him that I realized someone else was holding it. On the other side of me was a blanket of chestnut hair. She was in a chair identical to Luca's, sleeping with her head on the edge of my bed. I looked down at her dark lashes as they fluttered slightly with the light weight of my thumb across her cheek. She groaned quietly, but didn't wake. I pushed a few of her dark strands behind her ear and her fingers twitched against my leg where her hand lay protectively around my knee.

In one moment my heart swelled at the sight of her.

Then Luca spoke, and my heart dropped—shattered. He was suddenly standing, his hands white from their grip on my bed rail. The same dose of tears in his light blue eyes then as there were now.

'She didn't make it.'

"Luca." I repeated his name now as I had said it then. His gaze rose from across the room and the answer was already in the tight crease of his brow. A look of forlorn shadowed the corners of his eyes.

As the monitors dipped and the slow hum turned to chimes, Chloe slid further up the side of our father's bed. Her hand coiled around his arm and she pleaded. For anything; for everything. To hold on longer; to not leave her, too.

Luca was beside me as the doctor and a team of nurses surged into the room. "There wasn't anything they could do for him."

"Mom?" I asked, my voice hoarse. But I'd already heard the answer once before, that time ago.

"She was gone before the ambulance got to them."

My heart constricted and I thought to pull Chloe out of the way; to let the professionals do their job. Orders were barked, numbers were called out. IV's removed and reinserted. They weren't asking her to step aside.

My mind flashed back; Luca's words echoed in my head. Ruby was already gone, no chance for one last goodbye. It had been days I'd been unconscious, and I wouldn't believe her death was anything but a lie. The monitors had started a ravenous climb. Nurses shouted from the hall, but they'd seemed distant as I remembered them now. The hand that had a hold of me tightened as Ella's fingers interlocked with mine and she breathed my name.

She didn't let go as I tore the bandages from my arm. The needle of my own IV sprung free and I'd never forget the sight of the splay of blood across the white linens. But as the stark red contrast sank in, images of Ruby in the passenger seat began to flash through my mind. The humming sting of the needle ripped from my arm had only brought a moment of peace. Of clarity. The drenched words of despair settled into my bones and bred into my veins. She was gone. For good and forever.

I glanced down at my arm now, the space in the crook of my elbow. The only one of my injuries not covered in ink and drawings and memories. Because that was the one that I wanted to remember. The clarity, the realization, the engulfing torment.

I tore my mind from the reverie. "Noah?" He wouldn't come, but I needed to ask something as my past and present collided in swirling anguish.

When Luca said nothing, I found him already staring back at me. A shared look between brothers who knew nothing about the other anymore. Nothing but the destruction of a family torn apart by grief.

"Did you call him?" I asked.

"He knows."

Suddenly, everything around us fell still. The nurses backed away from the bed. Only the steady sound of a single line racing across the screen filled the room. A voice called for a time of death, another announced the exact moment.

"No! Do something—you have to do something." Chloe raced around the bed. I hadn't noticed when Luca was moving, but he suddenly had her in his arms. He wrapped her into him, his forearms like shackles holding the pieces of our sister together as she doubled over the bed in hysteria. Tears scorched her face as she yelled at him to open his eyes. Her fingers stretched for his, grappling with his hands, begging him to come back. To hold on a little longer.

I stood like the outsider I'd become as Luca buried his face into the back of her head, softly repeating her name as though the forced calm in his voice might find its way into her heaving chest. 

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• losing ruby •

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