When August Ends

Oh my God.

My fear paralyzed me.

“What about the other seventy-five percent?” Neil asked.

“Anywhere from mild to severe brain damage. Once blood enters the brain, it damages the tissue. Brain function is impacted, causing, in many cases, memory loss and cognitive disability. It’s why we acted as quickly as possible.” He must have noticed how distraught we looked because he added, “Some people do go on to live perfectly normal lives without any long-term damage despite rupture. Don’t give up hope. We’ll know more very soon as he wakes up.”

He placed his hand on Neil’s shoulder. “Someone will be out shortly to escort you back.”

“Thank you, doctor,” he said.

We held each other, and I whispered, “He’s alive. We’re so lucky.”

So many thoughts flooded my mind. No matter what happened, I was in this for the long haul. I would never leave Noah’s side. I didn’t care if he couldn’t remember me or couldn’t speak. I was here to stay.

A nurse appeared. “Both of you can come back, provided she’s family.”

“This is my daughter, his sister,” Neil said without hesitation.

“Follow me,” she said as she led us down the hallway.

“Thank you,” I mouthed to him.

My heart felt like it started beating again at the sight of him. Noah was still asleep, hooked up to an IV. It was a relief to see that he looked pretty normal, albeit unconscious. His chest rose and fell, and I was never so happy to see someone breathing in my entire life.

Tears stung my eyes as I asked the nurse, “How long until he wakes up?”

“It varies. It’s taking him a while, but that’s not uncommon.”

She wrote something down in her chart as if this was business as usual. I wondered if she realized this moment was the hardest I’d ever experienced, that for me, the world had stopped moving every second he wasn’t awake. I didn’t know whether the love of my life was going to be okay, whether he would even remember me. I didn’t know what I would do if Noah couldn’t speak. No matter what, I would be here. I needed to be strong for him.

Neil reached for my hand as we sat and waited for Noah to wake up.

An indeterminable amount of time went by before Noah finally opened his eyes. His dad and I leapt from our seats when his lids fluttered.

His father spoke first. “Son…it’s Dad. I’m here. Heather’s here, too.”

“Hi, baby,” I added. “I’m here, and I’m never leaving.”

Noah blinked.

I knew it would take a while for him to fully come to, but the longer he wasn’t saying anything, the more fearful I became.

I rubbed his shoulder. “It’s okay. Take your time. There’s no rush.”

“You’re going to be okay, son. I just know it.”

I lay my head next to his and began to pray silently. The sound of his breathing grew louder.

When I looked up again, his eyes were almost fully open, and he stared blankly back at me.

Oh my God.

Say something. Please. Anything.

“Hi…hi,” I whispered. “You have no idea how happy I am to see those beautiful eyes of yours. I love you, Noah. I love you so much.”

He didn’t respond, but a lone teardrop fell from his eye. He could hear me. But could he understand? Did he want to speak but couldn’t?

I hadn’t wanted him to see me upset, but I couldn’t help it as my own tears fell.

“It’s okay, son. Everything is going to be okay.”

I reached for Noah’s hand and held it. “We’ll be here with you every step of the way. Your mom is coming, too…and your brother. And Olivia is out there. Oh my God—she and I actually hugged. That’s how much we both love you.”

Please say something.

Please.

I kept talking to him. “I’ll make a deal with you. When you get better, I’m going to let you listen to every embarrassing song on my phone. You know I vowed never to let that happen. But you know what? It will be worth it. And I can’t wait to hear you make fun of me.”

For the next half-hour, Neil and I stayed at Noah’s bedside, offering words of encouragement in a desperate attempt to get him to say something—anything.

Then everything went silent for a while. I turned away for a moment, stepped over to the window to clear my head.

“Hea…”

I whipped back toward him.

Noah pushed the words out. “Hea…Heather…”

“Yes!” I rejoiced. “Yes. It’s me! I’m here with you.”

Neil let his tears fall for the first time since I’d arrived. “Dad is here, too,” he said.

Noah’s voice was groggy. “Where am I?”

“You’re in the hospital. You had surgery on your brain,” Neil answered.

Noah turned to me and asked, “Wha…what are you doing here?”

“Where else would I be?”

For several seconds, I waited with bated breath for his response.

He swallowed. “Vermont?”

Neil and I looked at each other. Vermont was such a simple answer, but it meant so much. It meant his cognition was there. It meant everything. It meant Noah was probably going to be okay.

“Do you remember anything that happened?” I asked.

It took him a while, but he finally said, “I remember I love you.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

* * *

NOAH

In a strange way, Bonnie and Clyde saved my life.

If I hadn’t gone to the supermarket that day to buy their food, I might not be alive. The store near my house never seemed to keep the kale they liked in stock. So I’d gone out of my way to the market across town. It happened to be right around the corner from the hospital. My surgeon was convinced if more time had elapsed before the operation, I might not have made it, or at the very least I would have had brain damage.

Thank God I wasn’t driving when it happened. And if I’d been home alone? I probably would have died. It was never easy to think about that. But I refused to dwell on what might have happened. It would have been easy to let all of the “what ifs” flood my mind, but I had too much to live for.

It had been three weeks since they’d admitted me, and I was finally set to be discharged today. I was more than ready to go home. Keeping me here was standard protocol, though, because of the high risk of complications after surgery.

I remembered very little about the moments before my aneurysm ruptured—aside from the urgent need to talk to Heather to tell her I loved her, and a headache. Other than that, I didn’t remember anything until I woke up and found Heather and my dad hovering over me. It had taken a while to realize I wasn’t dreaming.

It was better that I hadn’t been aware of what was in store for me that day. If I’d known my head was going to be sliced open, and that fifty percent of people don’t survive a ruptured aneurysm, I probably would have had a heart attack—especially since at the time, I hadn’t had the chance to tell Heather how I feel.

The first week after my recovery was the toughest. People visited, but I still felt really out of it. Heather was my rock through it all. She’d left everything behind in Vermont to stay by my side. I couldn’t even argue with her decision because I didn’t know how I could get through this time stuck in the hospital without her.

There were no words for how grateful I felt to be alive. My memory was unaffected. My speech and motor skills were intact. Basically, I was a living miracle. I hadn’t lost function, and in fact I’d gained something: a new perspective.

I could no longer waste my life in any way, couldn’t get stuck because of indecision or fear. Every day, every moment needed to matter.

Heather had been sleeping at my house and spending each day at the hospital. My mother and brother had also been staying at my place. They’d just left to go back to Minnesota yesterday, so Heather had gotten to know them really well. I no longer had to wonder how my family was going to react to her. They’d fallen in love, just as I had.

My beautiful girlfriend beamed as she walked into my hospital room. “I just got word from the final professor I’d been waiting to hear from that I can complete my last few assignments from here. I won’t have to go back to school to get full credit for this semester. I won’t lose anything.”

Sitting up on the bed, I leaned in to kiss her. “That’s the best news. We can drive out there and get the rest of your stuff in a few weeks.”

“Whenever you feel up to it. It’s no rush. Ming says she’s not going to get another roommate until the fall. So my stuff will just be sitting there until we get it.”

“I owe that girl an entire case of baby powder.”

***

Walking into my house after being gone for nearly a month felt freaking awesome. And it seemed more like home than ever, because Heather had put her touches on it. There were fresh flowers on the table and some candles scattered around.

It felt like I’d missed so much, like I’d come back from the dead.

I got emotional when I looked over at the cage—a new and much bigger cage—and saw it filled with four guinea pigs—Clyde and three babies. Bonnie had died giving birth. Evidently that was typical with older females. I’d barely cried over my near-death experience, but when I found out Bonnie hadn’t survived her labor, I’d lost it. Heather had been the one to break the news. She’d gone to my house for the first time shortly after my surgery to feed them and realized the babies had been born. Soon thereafter, she’d discovered Bonnie wasn’t breathing.