Lucy used to get these raging fevers, connected to the anorexia that she’d developed. I would wake up in the middle of the night to find the sheets soaked right through with sweat.
For a little while, I managed and I didn’t mind. I thought it was a stage she was going through with postpartum and wanting to look a certain way. I hoped in time, she would heal. But one day, she leaned over the bed and I could see her spine sticking out from her thin back, her head weighed down. The life had been sucked out of her from dealing with back-to-back illnesses.
Meanwhile, I was breaking down. I was drinking a little too much to numb my hurt and confusion. I remembered getting a six pack out of the fridge a little too frequently.
We tried. We really did. Her parents came to see us, and that was the last of the interventions.
“We have to take her. She can get well with us. The ocean, the water. She’s not listening to you. I’m sorry, Chalk. I really think it’s best we take over from here.” Her mother was distraught, just like I was. Lucy had been so vibrant, and she had a great life. She was hard-working and wanted to be a nurse. We wanted to travel together. Build a family, but that’s not quite the way life turned out. Curveballs can come out of nowhere.
“It’s going to be mine and Lucy’s decision. She has to decide in the end.” I’d insisted. I was spent, young, and wanting the madness to end.
That day, she left. The day we made the decision for her to go and live with her parent was tough for both of us.
Her legs dangled over the bed, and it was the first day in two weeks she’d been able to do that. Her long dark hair hung forward.
I knelt in front of her, watching as the tears dropped from her face.
She was crying into her hands, trying not to look at me. “I can’t do this. You can’t either. I have to get well. I can’t even give her milk. I have to go away for a while to get better. I need you to take care of Sarah, I have to go stay with my parents.”
“Is this temporary? What are you saying? Can you look at me?” My heart was ripped apart, and the toll on both of us seemed unbearable.
Her sickly eyes lifted to me calmly, but clouded by sadness. “Temporary. I love my child and I love you, that’s why I have to let you go. I know you’re struggling. You won’t say it, but you are. My parents think it’s a good idea too. It’s hurting me, but you have a life to live too. This is it. I understand you can’t wait for me. I’ll come back once I’m on my feet. I’m gonna try. I really am.”
Yeah, the guys could rib me about it, but I had no desire or the time to date.