“The chances that she’s going to come out of this at this point, Mr. Shaw, are very slim.”
Words that no son wants to hear. For Michael Shaw, the last week has been hard to handle. Just over a week ago, he was a student at Arizona State University, pledging a fraternity, adjusting to classes, living the college life.
Now, he was the person that needed to make the difficult choice.
A week ago, he stayed home to watch his little sister as his mother and her boyfriend went out to go see a movie. Michael was angry with her, because he had wanted to attend a party with his girlfriend. The last thing he said to her before she left was just go.
Now, he regretted that.
A week ago, a drunk driver T-Boned her 2002 Nissan Ultima, a car that his former stepfather bought her for her birthday. His mother was in the passenger seat. Her boyfriend took the impact.
He was killed instantly. She clung to life with the help of machines.
Now, Michael spent his days watching her through a window into her room. Seeing the tubes coming from her nearly lifeless body was unbearable. He couldn’t watch for long before he had to go to the chapel. Sometimes to cry, but every time he prayed.
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The house is empty, cold. It’s as if all the life had been drained out of it. Jason Ryan did his best not to be in the house, even though it was once his home. He sits out on the patio, staring into the mountains while he sipped a cup of coffee.
Today is the eighth day that he stayed at the house. Since he came back, his former stepson has only said a few words to him. Not because of anger or spite, but because he was hurting. Jason was there if Michael needed him.
Jason looks at his watch, it was only 7:43 in the morning. In an hour, he was going to make his way to the airport to pick up Serena’s mother. Last night, Serena took a turn for the worse. Michael was missing another day of classes to be there, to possibly make a very difficult decision.
Nine days, and she still hasn’t regained consciousness. Jason believes that if she was truly still there, that she wouldn’t want to be in the pain that she’s in. The doctors stopped her morphine drip, they know that right now, the only thing that is keeping her alive is the machines.
Jason has been to the hospital every day. He watched as the doctors have done their best to bring her back, but realistically, he knows that it isn’t possible. Not anymore.
Jason continues to look into the mountains, he thinks back to the time that they decided to move back to the mainland and chose this house to be their home. He thought that it was cliché that they would choose a home with a view of the mountains. She thought that it was romantic.
Much like everything else in the house, Jason bought it for her. At the time, he thought that he was coming to the end of his wrestling career, and that he would be able to retire here. That he wouldn’t know that life anymore.
Times change, but Jason didn’t. He sits, looking at the view that he hadn’t seen in nearly a year and a half. A bitter divorce kept him from seeing his daughter except for only a few times a month.
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Michael wasn’t alone at the hospital anymore. His girlfriend, Sasha sits in the waiting room with him. She looks at him, and sees the pain that he’s in. She wants to try and comfort him, but she doesn’t know how.
“Mr. Shaw.” a nurse calls out from the station. Michael gets up and walks over there, his eyes still red from crying. This isn’t something that an 18 year old needs to deal with. The nurse hands him a clipboard. Michael takes a look at the paper, a tear falling from his eye, hitting the document.
It was the authorization to take his mom off of life support. He walks back into the waiting room, drops the clipboard on the table in front of them, and receives a supportive hug from Sasha.
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“You know, Jason, had you not decided to go off and be a wrestler again, none of this would have happened.” Those are the words that Jason anticipates hearing the moment he picks up Caroline. He hadn’t seen his former mother-in-law in nearly a year. Last time he saw her, he was in Hawaii doing promotional work for Damage Fight Gear, a company that he helped to create with his first wife.
It was working with Kelly again that allowed Jason and Serena to move to Arizona. It was that work that was going to allow Jason to retire.
He continued that work after the divorce as it was the one thing other than wrestling that kept him from losing it some nights. After everything that happened with Lauren, or as he knew her then, Edie, Jason needed the break.
Caroline always had a dislike towards him. Jason knows that he’s to blame for some of the problems in her daughter’s life at the time. He broke up with her as soon as he left Hawaii to return to the states. He didn’t think that a long distance relationship would work.
He devastated Serena the day he told her that he was married to Kelly again, even though they had been separated for the better part of a year.
To say that the man that the world knows as Jay Draven didn’t feel guilt over the pain that he caused Serena would be an understatement.
Part of that is probably what took him back to her after his attempt at a long term reconciliation with Kelly failed. Part of that is the reason that when he found out that Serena was pregnant with his daughter brought Jason to do something that he had failed twice at. Jason knew that he hurt Serena badly over the years, and yet she kept finding ways to forgive him.
Maybe that’s why she thought that when they moved to Arizona that Jason would finally settle down and end his wrestling career. When he couldn’t, she knew that in order to protect herself and their daughter, that she needed to end things with Jason once and for all.
Jason sits in the pick up zone at the airport, waiting. He remembered that after every flight that Caroline took, that she liked to relax with a cup of Earl Grey, so he stopped at a near by Starbucks to pick one up.
Samantha was in her car seat nibbling on some biscotti. It is hard for Jason to fathom that only a few years ago, he was a part of a happy family with Serena, Sam and Mike.
Jason peers into the rear view mirror and watches his daughter for a moment, before turning his attention to the entrance of the airport. He then sees a rather statuesque older woman walk out of the terminal pulling a rather large suitcase. Jason exits the van, walks around back and opens the tailgate of the van that he had rented.
“Jason, you look like shit.” Caroline says as she makes her way to the van.
“Yes, ma’am.” Caroline Shaw was one of the few people that Jason would take that from. Part of it was the fact that she was the grandmother of his daughter. The other part is that no matter how good of a fighter Jason had become, Caroline still held two black belts, and continued to practice Martial Arts well into her 60s.
“How’s Michael?” Caroline asked, remembering that she wasn’t just here because her only daughter was in the hospital, but that her oldest grandchild needed her as well.
“He’s hanging in there, barely. He’s at the hospital with Sasha now. You hear if Gray is going to be coming?” Jason responds.
“He said that he will be leaving London tomorrow. He and Christa are taking it hard as well. She’s going to stay and watch the kids, but he’ll be here for his sister.”
“Caroline, I know that you never thought that highly of me, but I just want you to know that I’m here for the family, no matter what.”
“Thank you Jason. Now, what hotel did you book me in?”
“I didn’t. I thought that it would be better if you stayed at the house. I cleaned up the guest room for you.” Jason answered.
“What about you?”
“The couch. I’d rather you be comfortable in a place that’s almost like home than me being comfortable.”
“That’s very generous of you, Jason, but I really think that you would be better off with the room, after all, I can tell that you’re not doing all that great.” Caroline says as she points at the cast on Jason’s left hand.
“It will heal just as well on the couch. I insist that you take the bedroom.”
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Like most hospitals, this one is cold and sterile. You can hear pages going off for doctors, nurses and receptionists shuffling through papers, “The View” playing on one of the waiting room TVs. Michael had fallen asleep with the clipboard in his hand, Sasha cradling his head.
“How is he holding up?” a voice asked. Sasha looked over, and vaguely recognized the man that was standing there. She only met him once, at Michael’s graduation party.
“It’s been hard for him, sir.” she replied. The man took the clipboard from Michael’s hand and set it aside.
“I know what he’s going through. I lost my sister because of a drunk driver. His sister was named after her.” The man looked down at them, taking off his NWC Central Baseball Cap. “I hope that he realizes that he’s not alone in this.”
Michael started to open his eyes, seeing the 27 year old man that was talking with his girlfriend. “Dorian, when did you get here?”
“I arrived from San Francisco early this morning.”
Michael got up and gave the man that was once his uncle a hug. “Is he here?”
“Jason, no. He should be on his way back to the house from picking up your grandmother. How are you taking this?”
The sorrow that was in Michael’s eyes held the answer. “How hard was it for you, when Keiko…”
“There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about that. But remember this, no matter what, you at least can do something with your mom that I wasn’t able to with Keiko. You have the chance to say goodbye.” The words didn’t give much comfort to Michael, but they were the best that Dorian could come up with in this time of grief.
Michael sits back down, picks up the paperwork once more and takes a look at it. He keeps staying optimistic that his mom could come out of all this. Even though the doctors kept telling him that it isn’t going to happen. That the best they could do is keep her on the ventilator until it is time to pull the plug.
“As long as you remember, a part of her will still live on.”
“What about Samantha?” Michael asks.
“It will be your job to teach her how good of a person you remember your mom to be.”
Michael takes the pen that was attached to the top of the clipboard. Before he is able to sign it, a hand comes out and stops him.
------------------------(Beat) ------------------------
“Serena, I know that you can hear me.” Caroline says from her daughter’s bedside. Serena’s face is still bruised and swollen from the impact. “I want you to know that it’s OK, it’s OK for you to go with God. He will protect you.”
The sound of a door opening can be heard though the beeps and sounds of air being pumped into Serena’s lungs. A cast comes to rest on Caroline’s left shoulder. Jason looks down on his ex-wife, and tears are visible. This wasn’t the life he imagined when he got back with Serena and brought her to the mainland.
But there they were, Serena lying there, a broken shell of a once vibrant woman, and Jason there trying to comfort her mother.
“Caroline, the doctors want to take her off of life support. Michael has the paperwork, but I asked him to wait for Gray to arrive. They’re saying that it’s almost time.”
Caroline, in a rare showing of affection towards her former son-in-law, places her hand on his cast. “You don’t have to be here, Jason. You aren’t her husband anymore, you don’t have any obligation to her.”
Jason continues to look at the woman that he once said saved her life. “I know I don’t. I’m not here out of any obligation. I’m here because I want to be. Caroline, no matter what happened between her and I, deep down, I still love her.”
“Thank you, Jason. I’m sorry I rode you as hard as I did.”
“You don’t need to be. You were looking out for what was best for her. You wanted her to be safe, you didn’t want to see her get hurt.”
“After everything that I tried to do to break the two of you up, I’m surprised that you’re able to just forgive me like that.”
“There was nothing that I needed to forgive. I accepted that you didn’t like me, and I respected that.”
“So, where do you go from here?”
“Well, I guess talk to the lawyers about what to do with the house. Samantha is probably going to go back to Detroit with me. Michael doesn’t need to worry about school, I made sure that was taken care of a couple of years ago.”
“Jason, I never told you this, but you are a good man.”
Jason continued to watch as the machines pump blood and breath for Serena. “No, I’m not. I’m just a man. Neither good, nor bad.”