2005-02-28 - 1:39 a.m.
Part VII
The next day, Peter didn’t show up. After waiting ten minutes without his arrival, I immediately contacted a nurse, who led me to his room. On the way, she informed me that Peter refused to get out of bed, refused to eat, that he had not gone to sleep the previous night, and he would not stop crying.
I walked in and sat down in the chair next to his bed. He was an absolute mess. His sobs were long and painful. His hands covered his face which was drenched with tears, as well as his hair and most of his pillow. I laid a gentle hand on his arm.
“Peter,” I said. He seemed not to acknowledge me at all. Then he started saying things in a hoarse, tired, nearly screaming voice. A pleading voice almost. It was gut-wrenching to listen to it. The sobbing, shaking voice. So full of sorrow and regret. Even the second time I heard it, I was close to tears. The first, in that room, watching this horrible pain come out in the form of stinging tears and deep sobs, I had to work hard to fight them back.
“Was it just yesterday that I was someplace but here? Anna and I were always together. Nights at Denny’s and at K-mart. Nights spent making faces in the mirror, and making faces in the dark, and scaring each other, and then having intelligent conversations. Just staring at each other. She was so beautiful. I miss her hair. Burying my face in it. I miss her so much. I can’t stop thinking about those times when it was only us- just the two of us- being together in the weirdest places. Sitting in the gazebo and in booths at twenty-four hour restaurants. Wondering what we would look like with no hair. Wonderful conversations that take place in cars that are parked because we've already arrived at the place we were going, but are too deeply involved with each other to even begin moving, or the song on the radio is too good to get out now, just at that part where we both know every single one of the words and are singing too loudly to open the doors. Entertaining ourselves with the smallest of things. Laughing about how I move my mouth when I write and how she talks in her sleep and having half-hour conversations about things we’d never remember later. Wasn’t that just yesterday? I can’t even describe it. I just want to sit around in Anna's basement when it's really cold outside but warm down there and sing to her and play the guitar for her and just talk about everything and listen to MeWithoutYou playing from the stereo and then go sledding. I just want to be able to love on her again. I want her to love me too. But instead I’m in this room in this hospital remembering the times we did exactly that, and wondering if it could have been different. What I really want to do is get in the car with her, get in the car and just drive someplace. See where we end up. That’s what I want to do. But I can’t. She’s gone.”
After that, his sobs became more and more uncontrollable, as the nurse said they had been for hours and hours. He was still talking, but I could not make out the words anymore. I just sat on the edge of his bed and rubbed his back. I felt like his father, only I didn‘t know exactly what to do. What do you say to a man who doesn’t know what to say to himself? He was finally realizing what had happened two years ago, and it was physically, mentally, and emotionally ripping him to pieces.
