Daisies

“The days seem darker and heavier every time I open my eyes. I keep searching for an outlet… a change… a daisy peeking out through a crack in this endless concrete tunnel I am wandering through; yet there is never any light to give that daisy a fighting chance and I am growing weary. The bills are piling up even more now. What am I to do?? It’s not his fault, I know, but that fact doesn’t make this any easier… Or affordable... I only wish I could have seen this coming. Prepared somehow. Oh god oh universe, help him, help me! We must make it through, I must be strong”

She closed the cover and clicked her pen. “Breathe,” she repeated for what was sure to be the hundredth time today; easily on par with the number of times she had said it yesterday and would most definitely be saying it tomorrow. A freak accident is the only way to label what had happened. A freak accident that took her partner, her lifeline, the only person she’d ever shown her vulnerability to; and it left her a shell of the man he was, a shell she was still madly in love with. “We will make it through this” he would say if he could. He always had a certain magic in his voice, he could say one word and calm her down immediately. She could hear his words echoing around her and could only hope that echo would stay with her forever. All of the doctors had stated his odds, “The left hemisphere of his brain is severely damaged. He will, most likely, never communicate with you again,” and at first, she refused to believe them or accept anything negative they had said, but every day the facts became more real.

The doctors had mended all that they could, and she was grateful for all they were able to do. His hair was starting to grow back, and the many broken bones were almost healed, but there is only so much to do when there is severe damage done to the brain and spinal cord. This freak accident had robbed a wonderful man of his voice and his ability to walk. He would be spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair, but that was nothing compared to the loss of communication. It was a knife to her chest; knowing he could hear her but not knowing if he’d ever feel her words again, or understand her concerns, or coax her back from the edge of a breakdown. So instead, she poured herself out through the tip if her pen and into her journal. She had never been much of a writer, but now, she wrote daily. That little black book was constantly glued to her side and had become the keeper of her secrets and fears; the way her husband used to.

Two months after the accident and their new normal was starting to take form. He would be coming home from the hospital soon and the renovations to their house were almost complete. She had been working tirelessly to turn the old office space on the first floor into his new bedroom. The stairs made their old bedroom inaccessible to him, so his study would have to suffice. Though, the more she thought about it, the more this seemed to be the perfect fit. Before the accident, her husband would spend most of his evenings in his study and finally crawl into bed at unbeknownst hours of the morning. This room felt like the perfect fit, the most comfortable and easy transition yet. Hopefully.

A knock at the front door brought her back to reality. She had no idea how long she had been lost in thoughts of the never-ending bills and the rapidly depreciating existence of their savings account, but she was back in her house as soon as the second knock came. She had grown used to the visitors her husband had collected at the hospital, but never to their own front door.

Five deep breaths and a quick glance in the hallway mirror told her she could open that door without scaring the guests away; but once the door opened, her anxiety was replaced by confusion. No one, not even a car pulling away, was there. Maybe the heavy bags under her eyes were still too much for the word to handle. As she began to close the door and drop her head in a sigh, she thought of how welcome that distraction would have been. But the distraction did come, in the form of an envelope placed neatly on the doorstep. She picked up the envelope, closed the door, and decided that a cup of tea would do a world of good in settling her down.

As she leaned over the kitchen sink filling the kettle, her mind raced through how an envelope can be placed so perfectly on the doorstep without even a glimpse of someone racing away, not even a shaking bush that someone had just darted into. In the world before the accident, she would have decided right then and there that some sort of doorbell camera system would be the way to go; but now, she had much larger troubles and who’d been standing on her porch seemed more of a mere curiosity than a safety concern. She put the kettle on, jumped up to sit on the counter and await the steamy whistle, and prepared to open the envelope.

Her husband had hated her sitting on the kitchen counters. “Not where we prep our food!” he’d say, and she’d laugh and say things like “Relax!” and “What’s the worst that could happen, I’m comfortable!” But now, those little arguments had turned into cherished memories and her butt on the counter didn’t matter in the slightest; the worst that could happen had already happened.

She unfolded the tucked flap of the envelope and removed the two items: a check and a note. Her jaw dropped at the sight of the check and she quickly convinced herself that this was a joke. The check was for $20,000! “No one would ever do this,” she thought. No one she knew could afford to gift something like that, nevertheless, be able to save up that much in the first place. Her shaky hands began to unfold the note that read, “We were deeply saddened when we heard of the accident and the despair it has caused your husband and yourself. We could never imagine that kind of pain, but we hope to help. Let this be your reminder that the days will get lighter. – Anonymous”.

Immediately, the tears welled in her eyes and poured down her cheeks. She cried. She cried as heavy that day and she had every day for the past two months. She knew at some point she would have to figure out who had left this for them; but not today. Today she would enjoy this because even though the tears fell hard, and the bills still surpassed the $20,000 gift, a glimpse of light had found its way into her tunnel. The kettle whistled and she smiled. She had found the crack, a place for the daisy to finally bloom.