Things Only Heaven Can Fix (Part Two)

…
A man is hunched there on his bed. His chest is sunken in. His cheeks hollowed. Hair, white.
The last time I saw him it was black. That’s how many years it has been. Time and cancer have whittled him away. But I know this man.
I still know him.

His bearded face turns toward us. And I look into familiar eyes, the same pools of black that peered so attentively at me in that other hospital. Twenty-one years ago. His lips were the ones that uttered those words I cannot forget. The words that changed my life. His face is my vivid memory of that moment. And I have wished many times since then that it was not.

I used to crane my neck to look up at him; he was so much bigger than me. Now I look down on him. Is it wrong that I find some kind of power in this?

So many thoughts, so many emotions, spinning around inside. It’s confusing. Disorienting. What was once adoration has been smothered by hurt.
I feel my teeth clench though I will myself to bend down and hug him. He manages to weakly acknowledge me. But even that feels like rejection all over again.

You were all I had left of her, the one my world revolved around. And you stole that from me. You killed her a second time. The fragile remnants that were left, you obliterated.

I am a small child again, running through a crowd. My hand has slipped from hers. I’d only looked away for a brief moment and she vanished. I am running. Pushing. Frantic to find her. Frightened, as only a child can be.
Lost.
Perhaps it is then that I realize how my identity and my personhood are so tightly intertwined with hers.
And suddenly it is as if there are two rooms. I stand in one. And he in another. I cannot see her but I know she is there. In the other room. Out of reach.
He stands at the door. He looks at me.
And he closes it.
I weep and wail. I bang on the door. But there is no answer. He will never open it. The other room is impenetrable.
And she is gone.

“What took you so long?” He asked, his dark eyes judging our intentions. “I thought you’d be here hours ago.”

I look at my lap, my legs bent rigidly over the seat of the visitor’s chair. I had thought you’d be here years ago.
Bitterness rises, but I swallow it down. And in its place comes a desperate question.
…