The Brightest Sunset

They were not supposed to be standing there with apology in their eyes.

“Charlotte,” Greg called before swallowing hard.

“No,” she whispered.

He swept his gaze through the room, stalling on Tanner and Rita for a beat, but the pain in his eyes was stronger than ever when it landed on Charlotte.

“Maybe we should talk in the hall,” he whispered.

On shaking legs, Charlotte rose to her feet, her eyes feral. “You are not here right now.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“You are not here right now!” she repeated, her tears finally breaching the surface.

Every hair on my body stood on end, and nausea rolled in my stomach.

“No!” she screamed. That single word was so tortured that it was as though it had been torn from her soul.

And, as it ricocheted around the room, it tore through mine.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t focus.

My legs wouldn’t work, and my arms were slack at my sides.

It felt as though every part of my body were simultaneously being ripped off while I was being stabbed with a million hot irons.

Greg moved fast and was on Charlotte in a second. His arms wrapped around her, keeping her on her feet, while his mouth moved at her ear.

The room erupted in a flurry of cries and questions.

But I couldn’t hear anything over the thunder of my own pulse.

I sat there, unable to move, desperately trying to figure how it was possible for the darkness to get even darker.

* * *

The room was pitch black.

The darkest night even before the sun had sunk on the horizon.

We’d been sitting like that for a while. I was in his lap, my legs draped over the arm of the chair, and his arms around my back.

Our hearts beat in unison.

Our breaths mingled in the inches between us.

The tears had dried hours ago.

But the fear and the uncertainty were more potent than ever.

“What do we do now?” he whispered.

“We just keep holding on to each other,” I choked out. Unable to see, I felt his head fall back as he stared up at the ceiling.

“How?”

My breathing shuddered. Porter had always been so strong for me. I had to be there for him now. I owed him that much.

“Did I ever tell you about my first sunrise after he went missing?”

He shook his head, sad and slow.

I curled closer into him as if I could somehow get inside and ease the staggering aches in both of our hearts.

“The day Lucas was taken, I overheard Brady tell my mom that only two percent of children who had been kidnapped come home after the first twenty-four hours. I didn’t think much of it at the time because my son was coming back to me. You know? But, as time wore on…I wasn’t so sure anymore. I began to obsess about that clock. After I got home from the police station that night, my mom helped me change out of my clothes. I’d been too consumed mentally, physically, and emotionally with the second hand on the clock to perform even the most basic of tasks. Each silent click of that tiny, plastic arm was deafening.” My voice hitched as the memory of that day slayed me. “Time was running out. I was only hours from becoming the part of the ninety-eight percent who never saw their child alive again.”

“Charlotte,” he whispered. “Don’t go back there.”

“I have to,” I breathed, touching my lips to his.

He sighed and silently waited for me to continue.

“I was one sunrise and two percentage points away from a lifetime of the unfathomable—being forced to carry on without him. It was all so surreal. I couldn’t sleep that night. And, with another tick from the clock, I feared I’d never be able to sleep again. Not without him. So I threw on a pair of shoes and climbed out the window like I was sixteen again.

“I can still remember the chill in the air assaulting me, though it was still infinitely warmer than the frozen tundra icing over my heart. Where I was going, I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t sit there doing nothing anymore. He was out there somewhere without me. My feet started moving on their own accord toward the park. The same path, step for step, that I’d taken earlier that morning with my son before the world had turned upside down. My hands ached for the stroller handle, and my ears yearned to hear the cries I’d so desperately been trying to silence with that morning walk. In that minute, I’d have given anything to have those cries back.” My body tensed, the regret and longing in the memory becoming tangible all over again.

Porter nuzzled my jaw with his breath whispering over me like the softest feather. “I’m right here, Charlotte. I’ve got you.”

I inhaled so deeply that my lungs ached, and then I continued. “As my legs carried me closer to the place I’d last seen him, I allowed my mind to conjure up memories of that trip. It was crazy… When I had left my house that morning, I was frustrated, sleep-deprived, and impatient, but in hindsight, I’d never been happier in my life.” My voice cracked.

But Porter silently held me and allowed me the time to collect myself.

“I talked to him,” I confessed. Closing my eyes, I allowed my mind to transport me back in time. “Little things, like, ‘Shh… It’s okay, baby. Mamma’s right here.’ I whispered them into the wind as if he could hear me. But, with a silent scream from yet another second passing me by, hope slipped further and further out of my reach. That night, I sat on the bench for hours, pretending the sun was still high in the sky, children running and laughing all around us, Lucas crying in his stroller.” I paused as my chin began to quiver and the traitorous tears once again hit my eyes. “But, most of all, I pretended I’d never let him out of my sight.”

“Sweetheart,” Porter soothed, gliding a hand up and down my back.

“I stayed there all night. My eyes aimed at the horizon. And, regardless of how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop the sun from rising that morning. It was the darkest sunrise of my entire life. For ten years, I lived and breathed that darkness every day until I found you.”

“Jesus, Charlotte.” He palmed each side of my face and kissed me. His lips were full of love and tasted of hope.

“It’s always darkest before dawn, Porter. We just have to wait a little while longer. The sun always rises, baby.”

“Dad?” Travis croaked, and we both exploded out of the chair.

“Yeah…I’m here, buddy. Charlotte too,” Porter said, smoothing our son’s dark hair down.

I flipped the nightlight by the sink on so we could see him.

He’d been asleep for hours. When they had returned him to his room from the OR, he had been awake but still groggy and out of it from the anesthesia. We didn’t even have a chance to talk to him before he fell back asleep.

“Is it over? Did I get a new heart?”

Porter took both of our hands in his. “No, buddy. There was something wrong with the donor heart. They didn’t even start the surgery.”

“Oh,” he groaned. “That kinda sucks.”

I laughed, a single tear escaping the corner of my eye.

Kinda sucks weren’t the words I’d wanted to use when I had seen his surgeon in that doorway.

It had been too soon.

I had known right then and there that there wasn’t going to be a transplant that day. Suddenly, I feared there wouldn’t ever be one. And, after the drug of hope had swirled so high inside me, the crash back down hit me with a devastating force.

We were right back to the agony of waiting and praying all over again.

It had taken me over thirty minutes of sobbing in Porter’s arms to realize that it wasn’t over.

There was only one choice.

And, through it all, we would be together.

As long as we held on to that, we couldn’t possibly lose.

“Yeah. It definitely sucks,” I said softly.

Porter gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. “Hey, what do you say we FaceTime Nana and Hannah? They made me promise to call as soon as you woke up.”

“Okay,” he mumbled, shifting in the bed. “Since I didn’t have the surgery, does that mean I can eat? I’m starving.”