Tanner and I nod.
We all sit in quiet for a while, lost in our own thoughts. Your whole world can change in a blink of an eye. You don’t ever think about death until someone you know dies. You get caught up from one day to the next and before you know it years have passed. But suddenly when your world falls out from underneath you, you stop and think back about all the past times whether they are good or bad. You forget that you should live like it’s your last day on Earth. And dealing with the emotional fallout when not one, but four people, one of which was an unborn baby, is almost too much to bear for all of us. I cannot fathom the emotional wreckage that this accident has caused and the amount of time it will require to heal from it.
“Savanna was twenty weeks pregnant.” Knox speaks, almost a whisper, for the first time since we arrived. “We had an ultrasound appointment set up to find out the sex of the baby at the end of the week. We talked for hours about whether or not we wanted to know what we were having.” Knox’s eyes glaze over. “I secretly wanted a boy but I never told her that because she wanted a girl.”
He’s quiet for a while again. Tanner reaches for my hand and links our fingers together.
“The baby had just started moving a few weeks ago and anytime that I put my hand on Savanna’s stomach I was hoping the baby would move or kick but nothing happened.” Knox shakes his head. “I felt nothing last night when I put my hand on her stomach. I waited and willed our precious baby to move. Just a little flick, nudge, something, but I got nothing.”
How does anyone ever recover from something like this? He lost four of the most important people in his life.
“I told our baby how much I loved both of them and that I was sorry I’d never been able to meet him or her, but at least they would get a chance to know their mother and to watch out for each other up in heaven.” The intensity of what he’s saying has become too much for him. The cracks in his resolve that he’s been barely holding together finally gives way. The floodgates open and he loses all sense of self right in front of us.
I lost it, I tried being strong for Knox but that broke me. Life isn’t fair. Tanner pulled me to him and I buried my face in his chest soaking his shirt with my tears.
He continues, how he’s speaking through his grief I have no idea. “I kissed her stomach and pulled the covers back up. Then I kissed Savanna on the lips and told her all my plans that I had for the night and how I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. I even took the engagement ring that I bought her and placed it on her finger. I dropped to one knee and proposed to her right there in the hospital. I knew I would never get an answer but I was ok with that. It was something I needed to do for myself. I know she would have said yes, I just know it.” Knox’s breathing gets harder and his voice shakes. “I kissed her once more before telling her I loved her for the last and final time. I walked out of the hospital and went home.”
His composure returns, albeit briefly, and he gets quiet again, lost in thought. Tanner runs his hand through my hair.
“I couldn’t be there when they pulled the plug on my girlfriend and unborn child. It just seemed cruel in my eyes even though I knew it is what they had to do. When I got home I took a shower and sat in the chair in my bedroom trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do with my life now that everything was gone. The only thing right this seco
nd that is keeping me going is Rex. I have to be strong for him. We don’t have anyone else.”
“You have us, Knox.” Tanner tells him. “You’ll always have us. Anything you need you let us know. You know we have always stuck together. Nothing will ever change that.”
Knox nods and stares back at the window. We sat there for hours. Rex never came back with lunch, not that I was very hungry anyway but I’m worried about him.
The sun had long set hours ago before Knox spoke again.
“Tanner,” Tanner glanced over at Knox. “I’m going to need your help with Club Mango. I can’t go there and I don’t trust anyone else to run it.” Club Mango was Savanna’s club. She started it from the ground up, named it and helped Knox’s parents with it from day one.
Tanner didn’t hesitate with his response, “Done.”
“Is that going to cause a problem with you and Rhea?” Knox looks between the two of us.
Managing Club Mango would mean that Tanner would have to move to South Carolina, two hours away.
Tanner stares at me, his wheels are spinning. “No.” He answers Knox. “You’re eighteen, you can move out. There isn’t anything your father can do or say to stop this.”
I manage to muster up a small smile, he’s right. “Not a damn thing.”
“Find a place to live, close to the club and get me the information. I’ll get everything set up.” Knox tells us.
“You don’t have to do that.” Tanner argues.
“Yes, I do.”
“Knox,” I warn.
“Just let me do things my way. Just…I have to do this. It’s the way it has to be, the only way.” Knox scrubs his face with his hands. “Let’s go find Rex.”
Three days later, Audrey and Austin Mitchell were laid to rest; two days after that Savanna and Knox’s unborn baby were buried. There’s always this surreal feeling enveloping everyone that seems to fall like a suffocating blanket over people when a tragedy like this happens. Once loved ones are buried though it’s almost like the blanket lifts and we are faced with the reality of this “new normal,” being forced to live our lives differently without each of them in it. There’s no step-by-step guidebook that tells you how to do that though.
I want instructions, I want to read words that will help me show others how to cope and move on but I can barely cope myself. Have you ever read something and just the intensity of a few words gave you tingles? I once read a phrase that actually made my heart skip a beat, although for different reasons at the time. It said “One breath, one step, one day at a time…” Little did I know how appropriate this phrase was going to be for all of us as we dealt with this unimaginable loss and went on with our lives like nothing had changed when, in fact, everything had.
Chapter Eight
~ Age 23 ~