The Edge of Always

“Camryn?”

“You’re going to be fine,” I say to him matter-of-factly. “I know you’re going to be fine.”

He steps back up to me, kisses me on the forehead, and says, “I will be.”

35

The past four days have been stressful. Although Camryn said she’d remain positive and not let it get to her, she hasn’t been herself. Her nerves are shot all to hell. Twice I’ve heard her crying in the bathroom and throwing up. Ever since I told her about the headaches last Tuesday night, she’s been acting a lot like she was before we left out to visit Aidan and Michelle in Chicago: faking her smiles and pretending to laugh when something is supposed to be funny. She’s just not herself. Worried about her and remembering what happened after her miscarriage with the painkillers, I flat out asked her if she’s found that “moment of weakness” at all again.

She says she hasn’t and I believe her.

But nothing is going to fix her this time except us leaving this hospital today and me having a clean bill of health.

If I don’t… well, I don’t want to think about that.

I’m more worried about her than I am about myself.

Camryn was asked to wait in another room while the scan is being done. I can tell she wanted to argue with the nurse, but she did as she was asked. And just like the last time, I feel like I’ve been in here for hours, feeling slightly claustrophobic in the tunnel of this huge, noisy machine. Be very still, the technician had asked me. Try not to move or we’ll have to do it over. Needless to say, I practically didn’t breathe for fifteen minutes.

When the scan was over, I pulled the earplugs from my ears and tossed them in the nearby trash.

Camryn just about lost it when the nurse who came to discharge me said that it would be Wednesday before we’d know anything.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Camryn’s eyes were feral. She looked between me and the nurse, back and forth, hoping that one of us could do something.

I looked at the nurse. “Is there any way we can find out the results today?”

Knowing just by looking at Camryn’s expression that she wasn’t going to budge, the nurse sighed and said, “Go sit out in the waiting room and I’ll see if I can get Dr. Adams to come look now.”

Four hours later, we were sitting in Dr. Adams’s office.

“I don’t see any abnormalities,” he said, and I felt Camryn’s hand release its death grip on mine. “But given your history, I think it will be in your best interest to see me once a month for the next several months and for you to make note of any changes you feel need noting.”

“But you said you didn’t see anything,” Camryn said, squeezing my hand again.

“No, but I still think it would be in Andrew’s best interest. Just to be on the safe side. That way, if anything does start to show up, we’ll catch it very early on.”

“You’re saying you think something’s going to show up?”

I wanted to laugh at the look of mild frustration on that doctor’s face, but instead I looked at Camryn to my left and said, “No, that’s not what he’s saying. Just calm down. Everything’s fine. See, I told you everything would be fine.”

And all I could do from that day onward was hope I was telling her the truth.

36

Many months later…

Andrew wrote me another letter sometime during our first month in our new house. I think I’ve read it a hundred times. Usually, I cry, but I find myself smiling a lot, too. He told me that he wanted me to read it once a week to mark another week gone by and nothing happened, that everything was still fine. And I did. I usually read it on Sunday night after he had already fallen asleep next to me in our bed. But sometimes, when I’d fall asleep before him, I’d reach over the next morning and take the letter out of the book beside the bed and read it before he woke up. And just like every other time before it, I would look over at him sleeping when I was done and hope for another week.

Andrew has always amazed me. He amazed me with the way his mind worked. The way he could look at me without saying anything and make me feel like the most important person in the world. He amazed me with how he could always be so positive even when life was falling apart around him. And how he could make a light shine in the darkest recesses of my mind when I thought that I’d never see another light there again.

Sure, he had his bad days, his “moments of weakness,” but by far I’ve never known anyone else like him. And I know I never will.

Maybe I really am a weak person at heart. Maybe if it wasn’t for Andrew, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. Sometimes I wonder what would’ve become of me if I never met him, if he wasn’t there to save me from that dangerous, reckless bus ride I decided to take on my own. I wonder what would’ve happened to me if he didn’t care about me enough to help me through my moment of weakness. I hate to think of myself this way, but sometimes you just have to face the reality of what is, of how things are and how they might’ve been based on your actions. I know in my heart that if it wasn’t for Andrew, I might not be here today at all.

These last several months have been very hard for us, but at the same time, they’ve been full of life and excitement and love and hope.

Life is a mysterious, often unfair, thing. But I think I’ve learned in my time with Andrew that it can also be a wonderful thing, and that usually when something happens that seems unfair, it’s just Life’s way of making room for better things to come. I like to think that. It gives me strength when I need it most.

And right now I need it.

I try to look up at the clock high on the sterile-white wall of the room, but I can barely make out the little black hands through the blur in my eyes. I want to know how long I’ve been here. I’m exhausted and weak, mentally and physically and can’t take it anymore. I swallow down a lump in my throat and my mouth feels as dry as sandpaper. I reach up to wipe a tear from my eye. But only one. I haven’t really cried much at all. Because the pain had been so unbearable before that it practically dried up all of my tears.

I can’t do this. I feel like at any moment I want to just give up. I want to tell everyone in the room to go away, to just leave me alone, and stop looking at me as if my soul needs mending. It does! It fucking does! But no one here can do it.

Mostly I’m just numb. I can’t feel anything anymore. But the hospital walls are starting to close in around me, making me somewhat claustrophobic. But as far as pain and heartache, I can’t feel anything. I wonder if I’ll be numb forever.

“You have to try to push,” Andrew says next to me, holding onto my hand.

I whip my head to the side to see him and argue, “But I can’t feel my waist! How can I push if I can’t feel myself pushing!” The only pushing I think I’ve managed to do were those words through my gritted teeth.

He smiles down at me and kisses my sweating forehead.

“You can do it,” Dr. Ball says from in between my legs.

I close my eyes tight, grip Andrew’s hand, and push. I think. I open my eyes and allow myself to breathe.

“Did I push? Is it working?”

God, I hope I don’t fart! Oh my God, that would be so fucking embarrassing!

“You’re doing great, baby.”

Andrew looks at the doctor now, waiting.