Seeking Sarah Read online

April took a deep breath and calmed herself, but her eyes were filling with terrified tears. “Grandma is fine.” She reached across the table and took my hand. “It’s your dad. They rushed him to the hospital.”

  I didn’t wait for her to finish. I grabbed my purse and raced out of the restaurant.

  CHAPTER 4

  * * *

  I channeled my high school track days as I raced through the doors of Duke Memorial.

  The nurse at the front desk greeted me with a smile as if I had just stopped in my favorite restaurant to place an order for food. “Good evening, may I help you?” she said.

  “Yes, I’m looking for my father, Jacob Hayes, they just brought him in.”

  My panicked expression wiped her smile away as she turned and began pecking on her keyboard. She leaned in and peered at the screen. “Graham, Green, Hamilton, Hayes. There he is. Yes, he’s in room 212. Right down—”

  I didn’t give her time to direct me and just took off down the hall. I had just rounded the corner when I saw my grandmother standing in the waiting room, tears in her eyes. Her Bible was clutched to her chest and she was mumbling what I knew was a fervent prayer. Everything morphed into slow motion. I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out.

  “Is . . . Is . . .”

  “Is Uncle Jacob okay?” April asked, stepping in to finish my sentence. I had left her in the parking lot, but I was thankful that she’d caught up with me. She took my hand to steady me. She must have known my knees were on the verge of giving out.

  “He is.” My grandmother’s voice vibrated with fear. “They have him on a ventilator. It’s not looking good.”

  “What happened?” April and I spoke at the same time.

  Slow tears trickled down her face. My grandmother was the epitome of a strong matriarch. I’d only seen her cry once in my lifetime—at my grandfather’s funeral. So this sight put my stomach in knots.

  “He had a stroke,” she said.

  “A stroke?” I gasped. I had been motherless all of my life. Was I about to be fatherless, too?

  April’s hand went to her stomach as if the news had punched her in the gut. “It’s all that fatback Uncle Jacob eats,” she muttered.

  “I’ve been eating the fat off the back for eighty-six years and I’m fine,” my grandmother snapped.

  “Okay, Granny, calm down,” April said.

  My grandmother took a deep breath and began pacing the waiting room. “I’m sorry, baby. It’s just my nerves are so bad. I came downstairs and found Jacob laid out on the floor, barely breathing. My heart almost gave out right there, too. I lost Ray from a stroke. I can’t lose my only son.”

  “Granddaddy died from hypertension?” April asked. “And you didn’t change your eating hab—”

  I shot April a “Not the time” look and she quickly shut up.

  “Sorry,” April mumbled. “Let’s just pray for Uncle Jacob. He’s gonna be fine.”

  “He is,” I said, nodding as if that would make it so. “I need to see him.”

  “He’s back there,” Grandma said. “His doctor, Dr. Toobin, asked us to wait here until someone comes and gets us. I think they’ve got him stabilized but I just can’t see him like that.”

  Honestly, neither could I. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing my father . . . like I’d lost my mother. All of us must have been thinking the same thing, because a deathly silence filled the room, allowing morbid memories to take over.

  ······

  I clutched the flowers, squeezing the stems to the point that I thought they’d break in half. I didn’t know how I even had the strength to stay steady on my feet. The only comforting grace was my father’s strong hand gripped tightly on my shoulders. He had talked to me about how I had to be strong. But how could I be strong when my mommy was dead?

  I willed the tears away. Unfortunately, my body wouldn’t sync with my mind and the tears I’d been trying so hard not to let loose burst free. My father squeezed my shoulder tighter. My grandmother moved in and took my hand.

  “And so today, we gather to say goodbye to Sarah Hayes.”

  I looked at the 11x17 picture of my mother, which sat on the table at the front of the room. It was my favorite photo. And now, it would be all that I would have.

  “You’ll have your memories, too, baby.” Daddy had told me that just this morning. But I didn’t want memories. I wanted my mommy. I wanted to go back to the time when Mommy would take me to play in the park. We didn’t do stuff like that a lot (I didn’t really know why), but I loved whenever we did.

  “Ashes to ashes . . . dust to dust . . .”

  I looked around our living room. I still didn’t understand why we were having Mama’s funeral here—or why Uncle Clyde was performing the ceremony. He wasn’t a preacher, at least I didn’t think he was. I also didn’t know why none of Mommy’s friends were here. Not that she had many friends . . . she didn’t work and she didn’t get out much, but even her friend Denise was nowhere to be found.

  “She’s too broken up, she can’t handle it,” Daddy had said when I asked him about it right before the service started.

  There must not have been many people that could handle it because nobody was here to say goodbye to my mommy but me, Daddy, Grandma, and Uncle Clyde. Daddy said that was the way Mommy had wanted it. He called it a private memorial service, with no fuss. Just something small and intimate to say goodbye.

  My pudgy little hands trembled as I thought about the fact that I never got to say goodbye. Mommy had gone to the store and simply never come back. A drunk driver had plowed into her car, killing her instantly.

  Mommy’s death had made Daddy incredibly sad. He had tried to be strong and not tell me what happened, but I heard him in his room crying and breaking everything in sight, he was so upset. He finally had to tell me the truth.

  Today, however, he hadn’t shed a tear, and I knew it was all because of me. Daddy needed to be strong to help me be strong. That’s what he had told me this morning. I guess Granny was trying to be strong, too. She hadn’t shed a tear, either.

  “Until you meet again,” Uncle Clyde said. “May you rest in eternal peace.”

  My heart broke and I fell to the floor in a heap of tears. I was scared of dying, but I would be happy when death finally came so that I could see my mommy again.

  ······

  No one knew how much that day had shaped me. The reason the memory was so vivid was that I had relived it ten thousand times over the past twenty-five years.

  I glanced up at the clock on the waiting-room wall. They really needed to get rid of it because all it did was remind people of how long they had been waiting. In our case, three hours.

  That’s why when I saw the nurse enter, I all but leapt out of my seat.

  “The doctor said one of you can go back.”

  Of course, April and my grandmother turned to me. I didn’t reply as I took off.

  As I rushed down the hall, the hospital smell assaulted my nose, causing my nerves to tense up even more. I slowed my pace when I reached room 212.

  “God, please let him be okay,” I mumbled before pushing open the door to his room.

  The sight of my father lying in that bed, his eyes closed, tubes coming out of his nose, the slow drone of the monitor beeping as if it were a countdown to his demise, made me sick to my stomach. A nurse was standing over his bedside checking an electronic chart. She nodded a silent greeting, then tiptoed out of the room.

  I took slow steps toward my father, trying my best not to break down into a ball of tears. My heart dipped with each step I took.

  “Hey, Daddy,” I whispered. The slow drone was the only reply. I summoned up every iota of strength as I took his hand. “I heard you had a rough time today, but everything is going to be fine. I need you to get better. I’m about to get married, remember? I know we talked about eloping, but I’m still walking down the aisle and you have to give me away. I can’t do it if you’re not there.”

  My fat
her really liked Trent, had liked him since the first time he met him. He told me he had prayed for a man like Trent for me. I could only hope seeing me marry Trent would be enough to get him to pull through. I would even agree to a big wedding if he would just promise to be there.

  My father was a fighter. I’d seen that over the years—when a teacher wronged me, when a classmate bullied me, when someone tried to take advantage of him. The only place I’d ever seen an iota of weakness was behind my mother. Right now I needed Daddy to summon up all of his strength, fight through this, and come back to me.

  “Daddy, can you hear me?” I whispered.

  The drone continued, piercing the silence of the room.

  “Don’t leave me.” I echoed my father’s words that he used to mutter while he cradled my mother’s picture for years after her death.

  A slow sob built inside me, then snowballed, funneled by my anguish, until it verbalized into a painful wail with the thought of losing my father.

  “Daddy, please be okay,” I cried as I buried my head into his chest.

  I felt something on my head and I jumped. My tears of anguish turned to tears of joy when I realized my father was stroking my hair.

  “Oh, my God, Daddy. You’re okay.” I caressed his head. I had never been so grateful to see him open his eyes.

  The oxygen mask covered his nose and mouth but he managed a slight nod.

  “I was so worried.” I leaned up and kissed his forehead. He struggled to remove his mask. I gently grabbed his hand to stop him. “No, Daddy, leave that alone. Let me get a nurse.”

  He shook his head and gripped my arm to keep me from leaving.

  “I . . . I need to . . .” His words were muffled by his mask and I could barely make them out.

  “No, you need to rest.” I broke free and ran to the door. “Nurse! My dad’s awake.”

  The medical team rushed in and immediately began examining my father. His arms flailed as he kept trying to remove the mask, but the nurse grasped his hands, trying to keep him calm.

  After a few minutes, the doctor hung his stethoscope around his neck, then stood erect. “Mr. Hayes, you gave us quite a scare. But we’ve managed to get your blood pressure down and get all your vitals stabilized. You’re not out of the woods yet. It’s touch-and-go so we need you to rest. We’ll keep this IV flowing but you cannot exert any energy.”

  My dad didn’t seem to be listening to the doctor. He kept trying to reach for me. “Br . . .”

  “Daddy, please.”

  My father struggled to sit up, his arms outstretched toward me. “I-I’m s-sorry . . .”

  “Mr. Hayes, you have to take it easy,” the doctor admonished.

  I eased closer to him. “Would you stop? You have nothing to be sorry for. You have no control over your heart.”

  “Not. That.” He gasped, wheezed, and still tried to sit up. But immediately fell back down. “I-I’m just s-sorry.” Just that minuscule effort seemed to have drained him of all his energy.

  Dr. Toobin put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. We need to keep him stabilized.”

  The frantic expression on my father’s face was frightening. But the doctor was right, my presence was getting him worked up.

  “I’ll be right outside, Daddy,” I said.

  He was too weak to do anything other than lie there. I eased out of the room as two nurses worked to calm my father.

  My father had always been the epitome of cool. But one thing he seldom did was apologize. I stood in the hallway trying to think of the last time he’d ever said, “I’m sorry.” I couldn’t recall. Then it dawned on me; the only other time was during a fight days before my mother disappeared.

  ······

  “I’m sorry, okay? Is that good enough for you?”

  My mother hadn’t replied and my grandmother had come in the room so I never got to hear what he was apologizing for.

  ······

  Other than that, the stubborn part of him rarely let him apologize. That’s why his words continued swirling in my head. I approached my grandmother. My nerves were frazzled.

  “How is he?” she asked.

  “Daddy woke up,” I replied.

  “What?” April exclaimed, wobbling in an effort to stand up.

  “Praise the Lord!” my grandmother cried.

  “He kept getting worked up and he kept trying to apologize.”

  My grandmother’s eyes grew wide. “For what?”

  I shrugged. “He just kept saying ‘I’m sorry.’ You know Daddy doesn’t do that so what in the world could he be talking about?”

  The way my grandmother’s shoulders slumped made my heart beat faster.

  “Did he know he was dying?” I demanded to know. “Is that what he’s talking about? He’s sorry for not telling me that he was sick?”

  She shook her head harder. “I don’t know, baby. We can’t worry about that now. All we can do now is pray, pray that your daddy gets better. I’m going to the chapel to pray.” She darted out of the lobby before I could ask any more questions.

  CHAPTER 5

  * * *

  This had been the longest twenty-four hours of my life. Both April and my grandmother had gone home to get some rest. Now they were back, along with Trent, trying to get me to go home for a little while.

  What they didn’t understand was if I left and my daddy died, I’d never be able to go home again.

  I mean, I hadn’t lived at home for twelve years, but my father’s house would always be home. And if I had no father, I’d have no home.

  Daddy had taken a turn for the worse right after trying to talk to me and all night, every time a nurse or doctor headed in my direction, my heart plummeted in morbid anticipation.

  Trent walked over and hugged me for the twentieth time. “Babe, are you sure you don’t want me to take you home? You can shower and get something to eat, because these chips from the snack machine aren’t going to cut it,” he said.

  I pushed him away, a little harder than I meant to. “I’m. Not. Leaving. So please stop asking,” I snapped.

  He released a defeated sigh.

  Trent didn’t get it. No one did. My dad was all I had. After my mother died, it was just me and him against the universe. He’d never remarried. Over the years I had seen several women at church try to come on to him, but he wasn’t having it. Once, when I was sixteen, I overheard him and Uncle Clyde talking.

  “Man, I can’t believe you’re gonna let that fine Bonnie Carothers get away,” Uncle Clyde had said.

  “She is fine, isn’t she?” my daddy replied. Ms. Bonnie showed up at our house on a regular basis—in the beginning, to borrow a cup of sugar, or some milk, or some cream. It never made sense to me because she lived the next neighborhood over and had to pass the corner store to get to our house. After a while, she stopped pretending she needed to borrow something and would just show up, trying to invite herself to dinner. My father always made excuses and eventually, she just stopped trying.

  “Every man this side of the Triangle wants that woman and she wants you,” Uncle Clyde said.

  “Yeah, but Brooke—”

  “Brooke is dang near grown.” Uncle Clyde cut him off. “In a few months, she’ll be gone off to school and you’ll be all alone.”

  “I’m alone, not lonely.”

  A silence hung between them before Uncle Clyde said, “It’s Sarah?” He didn’t give my dad time to answer before he said, “Man, you’ve got to let her go.”

  “I can’t. She’s the love of my life.” I could hear the pain in his voice. I think that’s the first time I decided I didn’t want to know love like that. I didn’t want to love someone so hard that no one could ever take their place in my heart once they were gone.

  Uncle Clyde obviously was not moved by my father’s proclamation because he said, “The love of your life is gone. And no matter how much you keep hoping, she ain’t coming back. It’s time to move on.”

>   “Would you hush before Brooke overhears you?”

  That conversation had made me so sad. My father had never gotten over my mother’s death. And we never talked about it. Truthfully, it made us both so sad. But sometimes, even all these years later, I wish we could talk about her, reminisce, anything. But it’s like my father wanted her wiped out of our minds and hearts. I guess it was just too painful for him.

  “How’s he doing?” I jumped up as my grandmother walked back into the waiting room. When she’d returned from home a few hours ago, she finally had the courage to go and sit with him for a while. The puffiness and redness of her eyes told me that the visit hadn’t gone well.

  “He’s dying.” My grandmother sobbed. “My baby is dying.”

  Trent stood and took my grandmother into his arms. I know that I should have gone to hug her, too, but I was frozen in place. I couldn’t move. I don’t know what I was expecting, maybe for her to say some miracle had taken place. That the God that she worshipped faithfully, and that I had all but given up on when He took my Jared, would prove Himself worthy and restore my father.

  My grandmother composed herself as she released herself from Trent’s embrace. “His brain is swelling. They are going to rush him into surgery. The doctor asked that I come get the family so . . .” She fanned herself with both hands as she swallowed the lump in her throat. “So . . . we can say goodbye, just in case.”

  “No!”

  I hadn’t even realized the words had come out of my mouth. My grandmother looked too exhausted to argue. “Either you can say goodbye now. Or you can wait and do it at his funeral.”

  His funeral.

  The words caused my legs to crumble, and Trent raced to keep me from tumbling to the floor.

  “It’s okay, babe,” he said, helping steady me. “I’m right here. I’ll help you through this.”

  I don’t know how, but Trent guided my wobbly legs down the long hallway and into my father’s room. The drone continued humming, louder this time, like it was mocking my dad. My father looked even more frail than he had when I was in here six hours ago.