Blue Plaid

Paralysis

In which Stella feels entirely numb. 

This is all just a nightmare.

That was the recurring thought in my mind. Because I was absolutely refusing to believe the words the police officer was currently saying.

He was an older man with a balding head and quite an impressive gray moustache, but my mind was too hazy to entirely appreciate it.

They didn’t make it.

Those were the words he used. Georgia and Eric were on their way to a bed and breakfast in the country and their car was hit by an oncoming semi-truck and the doctors did everything they could, but they didn’t make it.

Both their parents had long since passed away and neither had siblings, so Tyson and I were listed as their emergency contacts.

While I stood absolutely frozen with shock, Tyson was handling this life altering shift in the universe remarkably well. He actually looked as though he was somewhat paying attention as the police officer offered his condolences and told us to take a seat as they worked some things out.

I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I barely registered the touch of Tyson’s hand as he pressed it into my upper back and guided me towards the uncomfortable looking plastic chairs lined up against the wall.

Lowering myself slowly to the seat, I leaned forward, clasping my fingers together and staring at the floor.

“It’ll be alright you know,” he whispered from beside me.

For the life me I couldn’t understand how he was holding it all in. “How are you so calm? They’re dead, Tyson. Two people we loved are dead and you’re sitting there like nothing happened.”

His lips parted in disbelief, his eyes flashing with anger, which was the first emotion I’d seen him express since we’d arrived. “For f**k’s sake, Stella, do you really think that little of me? Of course I’m upset. Actually, it’s taking every ounce of my willpower not to curl into a fetal position and sob hysterically on the floor, but one of us has to keep it together.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I scoffed. “I’m sorry that I’m upset about the fact that my best friend is no longer alive.”

“They were my friends too.”

The words were so quiet that I almost didn’t hear them, but as soon as they registered, I felt instantly guilty. His eyes were sad, but his expression hard and I sighed softly, my eyes squinting in apology.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my tone sincere this time, “You’re right. That was insensitive of me.”

“It’s alright,” he replied, clearing his throat.

I wanted to say something else, but my mind was utterly blank, so I shot him a sympathetic glance and turned my attention back to the floor, counting the specks in the tile until the police officer returned.

This time, he was accompanied by a petite woman. She looked to be in her thirties with extremely light blonde hair that was pulled back into a neat bun. Dressed in a black pantsuit and carrying a few files and a clipboard in the crook of her arm, she stretched her lips into a closed smile.

“Hello,” she said softly.

The police officer stepped in to explain. “This is Marie Hanley. She’s a social worker.”

My brow pulled into a confused furrow. “Social worker? Why do we need to talk to a social worker?”

As soon as the words left my lips, I realized there was something, or rather someone, both Tyson and I had forgotten about entirely.

“Cooper!” I gasped as Tyson’s eyes widened. “What’s going to happen to Cooper?”

Marie nodded. “That’s why I’m here. If you two would please come with me, we have many things to discuss.”

Bewildered, Tyson and I stood and followed her into a nearby conference room. She nodded at a cart in the corner on which sat a coffee maker, a hot water dispenser, and various packets of tea bags.

“Would you like something to drink before we start? Coffee, tea? You can help yourselves.”

I shook my head in response, slipping into a much more comfortable leather chair on one side of the long table as Marie walked around to the other. Tyson made his way towards the cart, presumably to make himself some tea as he had some sort of addiction to it. I was surprised, however, when he slipped into the seat beside me and pushed a steaming Styrofoam cup in front of me.

“Thanks,” I mouthed, feeling comforted when my fingers wrapped around the cup and absorbed the heat.

He nodded once and we both turned our attention to Marie, who had opened her files and laid them out on the table.

I felt inexplicably anxious. As though this was some sort of job interview.

Folding her hands together, Marie looked at us seriously, nodding in our respective directions as she read off our names. “Tyson Thomas Kingsley. Estelle Amelia St. Clare.”

I winced at the use of my full name.

“Are these your proper names?”

We both nodded in response.

“Are you two aware that in their will, Georgia and Eric Hastings have stated that in the event of both of their deaths, you would be the guardians of their son, Cooper Hastings?”

This information should have surprised me, but I recalled Georgia and I having this conversation a few months after Cooper was born. At the time, I’d thought she was insane for wanting me to take care of her child, but she was my best friend and I figured it was highly unlikely that I would ever be put in that situation in the first place, so I said yes.

I glanced over at Tyson, who didn’t look the least bit shocked either, so I assumed he and Eric had also discussed this matter.

“Yes,” I whispered. “We’re aware.”

She seemed surprised, but continued. “Do you know where the child is now?”

Tyson stepped in to answer. “He’s at home with a babysitter.”

Marie blinked, apparently confused as to my and Tyson’s complete lack of emotion. To be entirely honest, I felt so numb that I wasn’t even sure I could move.

“Do you two understand what’s happening here?” she asked, shifting her gaze between us.

Up until this point, I had just been mindlessly replying to her questions, not really putting together the pieces. But as she stared us down, I glanced at Tyson, who seemed to suddenly come alive and sit up a little straighter. I followed suit, taking a sip of my tea, which was now lukewarm, but nevertheless, it calmed by nerves.

“We have custody of Cooper,” Tyson replied quietly.

Marie nodded, letting out a little sigh of relief. “Yes, legally, you are now tasked with taking care of Cooper. But seeing as both of you are young and apparently single and childless and were most likely not expecting these circumstances, I’m giving you this opportunity to walk away.”

“Walk away?” I repeated blankly.

She nodded slowly. “Yes. If you two do not think that you are capable of raising this child, I need you to tell me now.”

“And if we say we aren’t…” Tyson replied, speaking as though he was putting a great deal of thought into his word choice. “Then what happens to Cooper?”

“He’ll be put up for adoption. He’s still quite young, so the chances that we’ll find a home for him are extremely high.”

I sucked in air as I stared at her, my eyes wide. I could feel Tyson shifting uncomfortably beside me and he was the one who broke the tense silence.

“Can we have a few minutes to discuss this?” he asked quietly.

Marie nodded and rose from the table, closing the door of the conference room as she left.

Letting out the breath I’d been holding, I turned in my seat to face Tyson fully, slightly relieved to see he looked just as overwhelmed by this situation as I was. “What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” he sighed, tangling his fingers in his hair. “I guess I knew that this was always a possibility, but I just assumed it would never happen.”

“Me neither,” I whispered.

“Ok,” he blinked, sitting up a little straighter. “Let’s think about this rationally.”

I nodded, not entirely sure what he meant, but I had no better ideas, so I let him continue.

“We’re talking about raising a child, here,” he spoke slowly. “You and me. We can barely tolerate each other, so how are we going to be good examples for a kid?”

I sighed and looked at him sadly. “It’s not just any kid, Tyson. It’s Cooper.”

And that was it. I knew we’d both made up our minds. Despite the fact that the logic I had presented wasn’t really logic at all, we both knew that we would never be able to live with ourselves if we didn’t fulfill our friends’ final wishes. Besides, we both loved Cooper with all our hearts, one of the many reasons, no doubt, that we’d been asked to be his godparents in the first place.

Sighing, he nodded. “I know.”

“So we’re doing this?”

Licking his lips, he stared at me hard and nodded again. “We’re doing this.”

Rising from the table, he opened the door and requested Marie to come back in, closing it once more and rejoining me at the table.

“So you’ve made a decision?” Marie asked calmly.

We glanced at each other and I could tell he was as scared out of his mind as I was, but we knew that this was the right thing to do, so we both nodded.

“Yes,” I said softly. “We’ll take responsibility for Cooper.”

“Are you absolutely certain?” she asked humorlessly. “This is a life changing decision and you shouldn’t be thinking about it lightly.”

“Yes, we’re sure,” Tyson replied, his tone hinting of annoyance.

“Alright,” she sighed, pushing a stack of papers towards us. “These are the documents you need to sign, stating that you both agree to take legal responsibility of Cooper Hastings until he is eighteen years of age.”

I could tell she expected the number to startle us, but we kept our expressions stony as we signed the paperwork.

Nodding as she collected the papers and filed them away in a manila folder, she spoke briskly. “Congratulations. You’re now parents.”

The reality of the situation still had yet to fully settle with me, so I nodded as I stared blankly and watched her pack up her files.

“You two better get home to your son,” she said calmly as she stood. “I’m sure the babysitter is worried.”

Tyson rose to his feet, holding out a hand for a polite shake and watching as Marie left the room before sinking back into his seat.

“What have we gotten ourselves into?” he said quietly.

I blinked at him, shaking my head. “I don’t know.”

“Well that’s no surprise.”

I blinked again, utterly confused as to how he could possibly be making rude remarks at a time like this. My lips parted, my first instinct to make him feel incredibly guilty, until I looked into his eyes.

They were an absolutely beautiful shade of clear amber and they currently swirled with a mixture of anxiety and pain. Perhaps this was his way of coping. Perhaps in the midst of the mind numbing insanity our lives had just become, he still yearned for that sense of normalcy. The one that came from our constant bickering.

So I communicated that I understood by rolling my eyes and crossing my arms over my chest. “I suppose you have some sort of grand plan.”

The corners of his lips twitched just slightly and I heard an almost imperceptible sigh of relief before he responded. “I think we’re probably both too emotionally and physically exhausted to do anything tonight. So maybe we should just go grab a change of clothes, relieve the babysitter, and figure everything out tomorrow.”

This seemed reasonable to me, so we slowly rose from our chairs and walked on unsteady legs out to the parking lot. Neither one of us owned a car, but Tyson had managed to persuade his friend to borrow his and we’d driven out to the police station nearest Georgia and Eric’s house in the suburbs.

The ride back into the city was surprisingly quick. Neither one of us was in the mood to talk or even engage in our usual verbal sparring, so we remained silent and avoided all eye contact.

Tyson watched as I shakily shoved random articles of clothing into an overnight bag and I did the same for him, barely registering my surroundings until we were pulling up to the driveway of the house where we’d celebrated a little boy’s birthday just two weeks prior.

The babysitter, Izzie, a girl who could be no more than fifteen, was wary of our arrival, but Tyson vaguely and quietly explained that we would be spending the night with Cooper, as his parents were…unable to make it back.

At least I think those were the words that Tyson used. I became distracted by the baby boy currently sleeping on the floor of his play pen.

As Tyson paid Izzie, I walked over to the play pen and stared down at Cooper. He looked so peaceful, so innocent, so entirely unaware of how much his life had changed in the past few hours. I felt a presence next to me and glanced up to find Tyson staring at the boy, wearing a heartbroken expression which entirely encapsulated how I felt.

“Tyson,” I whispered, my voice cracking as I blinked back tears. “He doesn’t know…”

His eyes were wet as well and he reached out to pull me into an embrace, both of us breaking our previous silent agreement to keep our relationship as it had always been. Right now, none of that seemed to matter.

“He’s never going to know his parents,” I hiccupped into Tyson’s chest, rubbing my cheek against the soft blue plaid of his button up shirt. “He’s never going to know what amazing people they were.”

“I suppose it’s both a blessing and a curse,” Tyson responded quietly, though I could tell he was doing his best to choke back tears. “The fact that he’s too young to remember. He’ll never have any happy memories of them, but because of that, he won’t feel their loss either.”

I’d never thought of it that way, but I’d never really been one for recognizing silver linings. Tyson would have to be the optimistic one.

Sniffling, I nodded against his shoulder, lifting one side of my mouth into a small, grateful smile. “That makes sense.”

His head shifted slightly and I could have sworn his lips pressed to the top of my head, but the feeling was so fleeting I couldn’t be entirely sure. Deciding I was just tired and hallucinating, I pulled away from the embrace and dropped my hands to the side.

“We should get some sleep,” he spoke softly, glancing towards the staircase. “You can take the guest bedroom. I’ll take the couch.”

“Alright,” I sighed, turning towards the staircase, hoisting the strap of my overnight bag onto my shoulder.

“Goodnight,” I heard him call out to my retreating back.

Stopping on my way up the stairs, I raised a hand in a melancholy wave before turning the corner towards the guest bedroom. I stripped off my clothes robotically, leaving them in a pile on the floor before climbing into bed.

Surrounded by warm blankets and soft pillows, I cried myself to sleep.