SGQ - Vignette #2 - "All for Blood"

You were watching the skies for snow when the kitchen phone started ringing. Normally it meant someone had died. People didn't typically call your house other than for business. Sometimes Mark called for Grace when she lived here, before they moved to Lasker City together, a cute little three bedroom. One for them, one office, and one they laughingly called a guest room.

You'd seen your mom give Grace looks whenever she called it that. It was obvious, even to you, that it would one day be a baby's room. Grace and Mark had been married long enough, or so conventional thinking went.

The phone rang again, no one was picking up.

Now, lately, the only one besides customers who called was Grace to talk to mom or dad. Today though, the roles were reversed.

"Grace!" You call.

"I'm coming!" Grace says, coming into the kitchen. You catch sight of her from your seat in the living room, through the open kitchen door. Mom and Dad were in Lasker, seeing some kind of Christmas play, you forget. Grace had come over to watch you and help them clean up a bit.

"Cherna Funeral Home, this is Grace speaking, how may I help you today?"

It was December, and close to your birthday. Generally you had one or two suicides every year around this time, and that meant a slight uptick in business. You'd heard a reliable rumor on the news that it might snow today, you hoped it would. While generally you preferred the Fall, Winter had its own charms, something you looked forward to every year.

"Mark? What are you-?" Grace starts pacing, phone cord trailing back and forth.

You turn to watch her. Mark was working today, as an EMT he very rarely had time to call, so that meant it must be important.

"What?" Grace asks, her voice flat, emotionless.

Her tone sends a chill down your spine.

"What do you mean." Grace wasn't asking a question. "No, that's'-" she stops again. "No, Mark!"

You lean back in your chair, trying to get a better view. You see Grace, her eyes wide, one hand pressed to her forehead, the other holding the phone. She listens like that for a few minutes, the only sign she's listening is the occasional head shake.

Suddenly, her legs shake once and she falls to her knees, phone dropping to bounce off the floor beside her, dangling from its cord. She claps a hand to her mouth.

"Grace!?" You spring from your chair and race over to her, suddenly feeling that something is very, very wrong. "What happened?"

Grace shakes her head, tears glistening on her cheeks.

A million miles away, you hear Mark's voice from the phone speaker, calling your sisters name.

You pick up the receiver. "Mark?"

"Alice, put Grace on the phone please."

"Um," you look at your sister who is wiping at tears on her cheeks, "She fell, I think-"

"Is she alright?" Mark asks, concerned.

"Um. Yes, I think so. Do you want-"

"Alice, your parents have been in a car accident."

The meaning of the words elude you. "Oh, is everyone okay?" Beside you, Grace takes a shudder breath that ends in a sob.

"They're airlifting them to St. Mary's. I'm on my way to pick you guys up, be ready to go."

The words weren't registering. Airlift. Why?

"What?" You said, your voice distant. You suddenly felt cold.

Grace was recovering beside you, "Alice, give me the phone." She'd stood and was wiping at her cheeks, leaning heavily on a table.

You hand her the phone like it were a poisonous snake, stepping away slowly.

"Mark? God, I- okay. Okay I'll come. Should I bring Alice?" She looks at you, nodding at Mark's unheard instructions. "Okay, okay." She covers the receiver with her hand, "Alice, get ready to go. Put on a coat."

You don't move, your feet won't move, that cold sensation was making your skin crawl and settling into your gut. You feel sick.

"How are they?" Grace asks, panic rising in her voice. Mark answers and she closes her eyes. "Okay, alright. God. We'll be ready." When she opens her eyes again, she sees you haven't moved. "Alice, go!"

That command sets you moving and sets your timeline a blur. Jacket, boots, waiting in the kitchen. Grace alternating between wiping at her eyes and sniffing. You ask her questions.

"What happened?"

"Are mom and Dad gonna be okay?"

"Where's Mark?"

Only one answer.

"I don’t know, Alice."

Bludgeoned to silence by a lack of answers, you were grateful at first when Mark arrived, rolling to a hard stop in front of your house and tapping his horn. Your relief was short lived. Fear had taken root in you and was growing in the absence of knowledge, the fear of what could be.

Mark is taking the long way into town. Maybe he and Grace weren't thinking clearly, the shock of all this having gotten to them.

"Why aren't we taking 202? I think that way's faster to get to Lasker."

Mark doesn't look back, "Foster Bridge is out. Part of it fell out into the creek."

You can hardly imagine part of that great concrete bridge tumbling out and falling into the frigid creek water below. You'd never heard there could be something wrong with the bridge. Then Mark's unspoken meaning become clear. Your parents weren't just in a car accident, some pathetic fender bender on a back road. No, they'd been on the bridge when it fell. Your father's hands gripping the wheel, mother screaming, as gravity seized them and dragged them inexorably downward, a one hundred foot fall with nothing but the frozen earth below.

This takes all the fight out of you, you sit back in your seat, arms limp, eyes dead ahead.

You're in St. Mary's hospital, waiting, stupidly, uselessly. You're watching Grace and Mark talk to a doctor, Grace is crying again, Mark asking questions she doesn’t have the strength too,

You don't react when Grace sits beside you, hand grabbing your leg, "Alice, mom-" she chokes. She can't go on.

Mark is there, "Your mother's passed. Your father is critical and it doesn't look good. The doctors want you to come say goodbye."

"No."

"This might be your last chance to ever say goodbye, don't waste it," there's an edge in Mark's voice.

You swallow, your mouth is dry, "I- you blink back tears, "No, I can't."

Mark stands up an leads Grace away and you watch them go. A nurse checks on you, you don't remember what she says but you nod and you have a cup of coffee. You hate coffee.

Grace and Mark come back, Grace is crying again. He sits her down beside you and then takes your arm, "Come on, Alice." There is no room for argument, though you try to pull away. He's too strong.

You don't want to see your father, you can't. Not like this, full of hoses and tubes and things, wrapped in bandages and gauze. Unable to speak, unable to breathe, trapped somewhere between life and death. You can't face that, but Mark doesn't give you a choice

"M-mark, I can't-"

Your brother-in-law jerks you to a stop and looks you in the eyes, "Do this for your sister!" he says, voice a hissing whisper "This is just as hard for her as it is for you. If you can't do this for you, do it for her, because if you don't do this, if I don't make you do this, Grace will always regret that she didn't let you say goodbye." The fire in Mark's eyes dies and he's left staring at you emptily. "Alice, your father might not make it. You won't have another chance."

You nod meekly, looking at the floor.

Mark sighs. "If you really can't do it, I'll take you back."

"I can do it," you lie.

Mark lets go of your arm, a test, gesturing the way ahead. You try not to shake as you walk, Mark following along behind. He stops outside of the door of the hospital room. "He's non responsive, he's on life support. There's a lot of swelling in his brain, do you know what all that means?"

It meant your father was as dead as your mother, his body just didn't know it yet.

You nod, walking into that room alone, through the door Mark holds open. Your father, the body that had belonged to your father lies strapped to a half dozen machines, all the same clinical white with friendly blue displays. Winking, blinking, and whirring away to themselves. You hear the hiss of oxygen and smell blood and chemicals.

Your father's eyes are taped closed. You wish you could tape your eyes closed. You're so tired and so scared, so empty. You're not sure how long you've been here, but a lifetime ago you were hoping it would snow. You were dreaming of your birthday presents and painting your nails. Now you were standing in front of your father who lay like a sacrificial lamb upon a medical altar. This was the step before people came to your family's funeral home. The part you didn't see.

Mark does not enter the room and closes the door behind you with a soft click.

You're afraid to get closer. You're afraid to touch your father, you don't know if underneath those wrappings he can hurt still, but you don't want to hurt him. His arms, strong enough to carry you upside down, are limp and buried in gauzy-white. His smile has been erased by an oxygen tube taped to his mouth. The eyes were once were so alive, that would look knowingly up at you when he inevitably crushed you in chess, they were sealed closed now and forever.

This wasn't your father, you should know your own father. You step closer, slowly putting a hand on the railing around his bed. You look down at your nails. Black. It had seemed important at the time.

You know you should say something. You should tell your dad you love him, that you're scared, that you miss him, that you miss mom, that you don't want this to happen. Grab him and tell him you don't want to grow up without parents, shout at him not to go see that stupid play, to stay off that stupid bridge and to drive slower.

You know you should tell him goodbye.

You look back at the door, the small window there. Mark is gone.

Your dad is gone too. There's nothing left to say goodbye to.

Your hand falls to your side and you turn away, words unsaid, leaving the way you came in.

X

Your father lived for six more days. Every day, Grace would say something about miraculous recoveries, the miracles of modern medicine. Mark never answered her. On the seventh day, on the other side of a closed hospital door, you heard Grace arguing with Mark and a doctor. The doctor didn't raise his voice, but Mark did. You heard the word 'insurance' and 'money'.

Four hours later, Grace signed the paperwork to take your father off life support. He died that same day.

You didn't have to go to school after that. They gave you seven days.

During that time, Grace and Mark sold their home, the cute little three bedroom house in Lasker City, the one with a 'guest room'. From late night conversations overheard, you knew most of that money went to medical bills and funeral expenses. You didn't cry at the funeral though a lot of relatives you didn't know told you how sorry they were. You got tired of hearing it. You tuned it out. Everyone was sorry, but no one had anything they could do about it.

Grace and Mark moved in with you, your house becoming their house. You mostly stayed in your room, a pillow clutched tight over your face. You'd lie like that until you slept. Back then you'd wake up expecting that your parents would come back, like this was some kind of nightmare, only you never woke up.

At school, the few friends you had treated you differently. They seemed afraid of you, sometimes they muttered more apologies you didn't want to hear. They stopped talking to you, got tired of dealing with you.

Except for one. Except for Franz.

"Let me walk you home after school," Franz said.

You didn't know him well, you knew him through Annette, a friend who'd become more of an acquaintance now. Franz didn't seem afraid of you. Not knowing what to say about your parents didn't seem to bother him because he didn't say much of anything about it. He ate breakfast and lunch with you, walked with you in the halls, talked to you about movies, books, music. One day, you were standing outside of music class when Franz pulled out his iPod.

"Alice, check this out." He puts his headphones on you, careful not to crush your ears, waiting for you to pull your hair out of the way. He hits play.

https://youtu.be/Mn8puoZ6L4U


Frozen grass
Water's black
Ice is thinning

Paper bags
Broken glass
No one's listening

All for less
All for blood

All for loss
All for love

The sirens
Frozen grass
Water's black
Ice is thinning

Paper bags
Broken glass
No one's listening

All for less
All for blood

All for loss
All for love


You close your eyes and the music washes over you in waves. Franz stands beside you the entire time, waiting until the song ends and taking his headphones the same way as he'd put them on.

"It made me think of you," he says, looking a bit sheepish.

"Can- can I listen again?" you ask.

X

Franz walks you home from school, the others in the group peeling off until only the two of you remain.

You stop when you see Mark's Bronco parked in front of your house. You frown.

"What's up?"

"Mark's here," you say.

"He a dick?" Franz asks.

You nod. "Pretty much."

"Well, look, come to my place. It's not far. You can stay as long as you want, okay?"

You knew Mark would probably get annoyed. "Okay."

X

That night, in Franz's room, while you watched old horror movies together, you kissed for the first time. His hand on the back of your neck, your lips meeting and parting, your fingers grasping at the front of his shirt. You find yourself staring into his eyes, dark, like yours. Franz doesn't look giddy, he looks sad. "Was that too much?"

You shake your head and kiss him again. "No. I just don’t ever want to leave."

He smiles, "You might have to eventually, but when you do, I'll walk you home."

Your arms go around him and you pull Franz into a tight embrace, face pressed into his neck. Only once his hands find your back do you allow yourself to cry.