The Air He Breathes

“What’s happening?!” I shouted, but no one heard me. “What’s going on?! Charlie!” I yelled as two nurses tried to pull me out of the room. “What are they doing? What’s…Charlie!” I said, louder and louder as they pushedme from the room. “CHARLIE!”

Late Friday night, I sat at my dining room table and dialed a number that had previously been so familiar to me but hadn’t been used as much in recent days. As it rang, I held the phone to my ear. “Hello?” the voice said, smooth and soft. “Tristan, is that you?” The alertness in her sounds made my stomach twist. “Son, please say something…” she whispered.

I pounded my fist against my mouth, but I didn’t reply.

I hung up the phone. I always hung up. I sat alone in the darkness for the rest of the night, allowing it to swallow me whole.

Chapter Eight

Elizabeth

Saturday morning, I was certain I was seconds away from waking up the whole neighborhood as I tried to start the lawnmower, which kept backfiring every few seconds. Steven had always made it look so easy when he handled the lawn work, but I wasn’t having the same luck.

“Come on.” I yanked the chain to start the engine one more time, and after a few sputters, it went ahead and died. “Jesus Christ!” I kept trying over and over again, my cheeks blushing over when a few neighbors from across the street started staring at me from their homes.

When a hand landed against mine as I was about to yank the chain yet again, I jumped in freight.

“Stop,” Tristan scolded me, his brows narrowed and his eyes filled with irritation. “What the hell are you doing?”

I frowned, staring at his tight lips. “Mowing my lawn.”

“You’re not mowing your lawn.”

“Yes I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Then what am I doing?” I asked.

“Waking up the whole fucking world,” he grumbled.

“I’m sure people were already awake in England.”

“Just stop talking.” Hmm. It seemed he wasn’t a morning, afternoon, or night kind of person, so he had that going for him. He pushed the lawnmower away from me.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Cutting your grass so you will stop waking up the whole fucking world, minus England.”

I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry. “You can’t cut the lawn. Besides, I think it’s broken.” Within a couple seconds after he yanked the cord, the lawnmower started up. Well, this is embarrassing. “Seriously, though. You can’t cut my grass.”

He didn’t turn back once to look at me. He just went to complete his job—the same job I’d never asked him to do. I was seconds away from continuing arguing with him, but then I remembered how he’d killed a cat for meowing wrong, and well, I liked my sad little life enough and didn’t want to risk dying.

“You did a great job with the lawn,” I said, watching Tristan shut off the lawnmower. “My husband…” I paused, taking a breath. “My late husband used to cut the grass in diagonals. And he would say, ‘Babe, I’m raking up the grass clippings tomorrow, I’m too tired now.’” I chuckled to myself, looking at Tristan, but not really seeing anything anymore. “The clippings would stay there for at least a week, maybe two, which is weird because he always handled others’ lawns so much better. But still, I liked the clippings.” My throat tightened and the burning of tears entered my eyes. I turned my back to Tristan and wiped away the few that fell. “Anyway, I like how you did diagonal lines.” Stupid memories. I grabbed the white metal handle and opened the screen door, but my feet paused when I heard him.

“They sneak up on you like that and knock you backward,” he whispered like an abandoned soul kissing their loved ones goodbye. His voice was smoother than before. It was still deep with a bit of gruff to it, but this time there was a slight bit of innocence that existed in his sounds. “The little memories.”

I turned to face him and he was leaning up against the lawnmower. His stare had more life to it than I’d ever witnessed, but it was a sad kind of life. Broken stormy eyes. I inhaled just to keep from falling. “Sometimes I think the little memories are worse than the big ones. I can handle remembering his birthday or the day of his death, but remembering the little things like the way he cut the grass, or how he only read the comics in the newspaper, or how he only smoked one cigarette on New Year’s Eve…”

“Or the way she tied her shoes, or puddle jumped, or touched the palm of my hand with her pointer finger and always drew a heart…”

“You lost someone too?”

“My wife.”

Oh.

“And my son,” he whispered, quieter than before.

My heart shattered for him. “I’m so sorry, I couldn’t even imagine…” My words faded off as he stared at the newly cut grass. The idea of losing both the love of my life and my baby girl was too much; I would’ve given up.

“The way he said his prayers, the way he wrote his Rs backward, the way he broke his toy cars just so he could fix them…” Tristan’s voice was shaky, along with his body. He wasn’t speaking to me anymore. We were living in our own worlds of little memories, and even though we were both separate, somehow we managed to feel for one another. Lonely often recognized lonely. And today, for the first time, I began to see the man behind the beard.