My Bridge To Forever Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by Tavares Jones

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Brandt Hoffman

  Published in the United States of America

  First Edition: August 2015

  Originally published in the United States by Brandt Hoffman, August 2015

  Brandt Hoffman is a publisher of the United States of America. The Brandt Hoffman name and logo are trademarks of the publisher.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Interior Designer: Damonza

  Cover Designer: Damonza

  Editor: Clarabelle Peterson

  ISBN (eBook): 978-0-9912629-3-9

  For the Most High

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Author Bio

  One

  I come here every morning. I stand near the bed of this frigid hospital room, hoping the woman I love wakes from the coma that has preserved her for ten years. Medical practitioners approach me every morning, badgering me to pull the plug that helps breathe for her – the ventilator that has helped breathe the past ten calendars of her life. Regardless of the expressions I receive en route to start the beginning of my day, the mutters of insult under their breaths, I refuse to give up on the woman who stands beside me in all storms that life throws my way.

  As I stand witnessing the rises and depressions of the chest beneath her powder-blue gown – holding her hand in mine – I cannot hold back tears from falling because of how brilliant of a future there seemed. I care about nothing but the pale, bloodless face that lies before me – not the stenchy mane of a beard that conceals the tan jaws of this slender face of mine, not the scummy white t-shirt that clothes me and my muscled chest, not the holes in the jeans I wear – have been wearing ever since I lost everything – not the lips of my worn shoes. Her weight dropped from one hundred and twenty pounds. Her face still charms my eyes after a decade of lifelessness.

  Dr. Jamison shows her face through the fastened door of the chilly hospital room, to ask if I have had a change of heart, as I raise my girlfriend’s hand to kiss its dorsum.

  I assert my intentions with a headshake so assertive that the doctor turns and leaves without questioning further of the situation because of the defiant look I give. She has some kind of boldness, asking the same question each time she sees me here or in the hallway. How many times must I have to speak on something that is not up for discussion? I place attention on the monitors of the beeping machines attached to the light of my life. I place attention on the tubes coursing around her mouth and nose and immediately am reduced to tears because she does not deserve to be like this. I place attention on her. I fix her hand to her side. I kiss her forehead. I storm out because I can’t fathom seeing her that comatose, that lifeless, that pale.

  As I walk down the hallway on my way to leave, a couple in their late thirties weeping at the bedside of a small girl – comatose as my girlfriend Jennifer, except worse – grabs my attention. I halt, unable to do anything other than empathize for the man and the woman as an impersonal medical practitioner from a huddle of practitioners, gathered inside the room, pulls the plug and leaves as if he has someplace better to be. How cruel! His accompaniments give their condolences ahead of giving the couple privacy to mourn their daughter’s final breaths. Raising a hand to wipe away the tear gliding from my left eye, I continue down the hallway, dreading knowing I wouldn’t be able to stomach witnessing them pull the plug to my light.

  I have a seat on the bench of the sleek cement deck that exists outside the automated entrance to the hospital. I drop my head. I think of the relational calamities me and my light conquered – the ones that nearly wiped us out but bowed with time because of our faith. Of course there were times I wanted to throw in the towel – and I’m certain she faced a share as well – but we decided we had come too far to give up, and remained, placed our backs together and jackhammered through each trial that tried to claim our happiness, our peace, our promise in one another. And now, we’re more inseparable than ever, and nothing can shake the covenant we share – not this living situation of mine, not the coma that hinders my light from shining through my life, not the fact that I haven’t bathed in a couple of weeks – three, I think. I lost count after a week due to the contrition over me, my nerve to think of my needs when the woman I love needs me and my undivided love and support now more than ever.

  A yawn catches me by surprise. My eyes suffuse with tears as my mouth stretches to release an elongated breath. I lean back into the brick wall that forms the back of the bench. I shut my eyelids to rest, another yawn sneaking over me. I haven’t slept in days. I haven’t had much of an urge because when I lie during the night I can’t do anything but wonder if she is twitching or flexing or opening her lids to me not being there to kiss her forehead or let her know how much I miss gazing into her blue eyes. The thought of the feeling that overcomes me when I look deep into what resembles a Hawaiian ocean grants me peace so pure, so elating, they either make me forget to breathe or just plain make me forget all, as I am now, as debilitation sees me to sleep.

  Two

  TEN YEARS PRIOR

  I am on break from work an hour past noon, wearing jeans and a fitted v-neck tee, driving the foreign automobile that I had purchased last year around Thanksgiving. Its kempt sedan frame turns heads as I navigate the main street of downtown business districts, en route to someplace distinguished where I plan on making an acquisition. A dealer points to an automobile parked alongside the street. A seducer hustles on a corner. Businessmen journey down the sidewalks by foot.

  I pull into a parking space alongside the street. Before opening the door and climbing out, I check the rearview mirror to make sure there is no oncoming traffic. Extending the keyless remote of my keychain in the direction of my automobile to lock the doors, I step through the professional entrance of a preeminent establishment.

  An interested woman, whose age seems to be the mid twenties, approaches me with upturned lips – carrying herself with professionalism by her styled shoulder-length black hair, her suit-dress, and heels that give an inch or two of height to the five-foot-three inches she stands slimly at. “Let me guess. Shopping for a special occasion?”

  “What makes you figure that?”

  “Four years into the job, only time we have men here in the store is when they’ve either done wrong and are trying to make things right, or when they’re one of the good ones looking to take the next step. You don’t strike me as one who’s desperate to make things right, so I’d say you’re ready to take your relationship with the woman in your life to the next level, am I right?”

  “Big plans tomorrow.”

  She extends her hand at me. “Allegra.”

  “Gabriel,” I introduce myself, giving one of my own to acknowledge hers with a shake.

 
; I take time to explore the fine diamonds they have beneath the surveillanced glass counters, finding not one that intrigues me until the glimmer of one in particular enraptures me. I cannot believe I found it this soon. Considering what happens in the romance movies she likes for me to watch with her, I thought it would be much more challenging than me finding a ring not even twenty minutes into my quest. I feel for the gentlemen because it seems as if it takes them, joined by their accompanying girlfriends, hours to come across the perfect one. I don’t know if I would be able to survive that much time looking for a ring. What man takes the woman he plans on proposing to with him, ring shopping, anyhow? Never mind them though – because movies are seldom real. This moment belongs to me and the beautiful girlfriend who I am sure will burst into tears of joy when I reveal how much I truly love her.

  Allegra, assisting me from behind a restricted counter, unlatches the glass. She retrieves the ring. She meets me at the sales register, where she scans the barcode and secures the fourteen-karat white gold band down in the groove of a small suede box. “Forty-five thousand, forty-two dollars and six cents,” she says, closing the suede box, and bags the item.

  I hand over a debit card for her to swipe. After she drops in the receipt, she hands me the bag, wishing me well. I return the plastic to my wallet. I smile, uttering a simple “thank you” as I turn to depart for my downtown office – I am the chief executive of the juice corporation I founded four calendars ago, one month ahead of my twentieth birthday. Climbing behind the steering wheel of my automobile, I phone the assistant of the lobby to see if paramount deadlines hang over me, and when she confirms they do not, instead of going there, I commute to my home – which is located on the nine acres I purchased a month prior to preeminent contractors building it from the ground up – where my girlfriend takes me by the chest of my tee as soon as I show my face through the front door, to deliver a kiss like no other. Her initiative vamps me so much that when she releases my shirt for a come-hither look at the enslaved expression on me – a bulge developing, pulsating, in the crotch of my jeans – my heart forgets to beat.

  She flexes her bare, pedicured ankles to stand on the tips of her toes to aim her lips near me. “How about a game of hide and seek?” She speaks sensually in soft, hushed tones. “I go hide. You seek. You find me and I’ll be yours to do whatever to, for however long you please.”

  More excitement than I can handle sends me into overdrive. I snatch off my tee, unfasten my belt as she struts away in the body lingerie that she painted on herself. I close my eyes. I turn around. I count to nineteen. I open my eyes. I turn in a haste to set out searching.

  She improvises adventures like this all the time – surprises me, seeks ways to make smiles and better days for me no matter how hers goes. I oftentimes am hardly able to make it inside to shut the door before she welcomes me with either a hug or a kiss in greeting – as she did a moment ago – that steals me into the moment, even during the seldom days that Jen Juice takes hits in customer service or sales or whatever the case may be. I believe against bringing work home because abhorrent workdays, if given a chance, can cause verbal altercation in or destruction to a relationship. When things go against how I plan, she compromisingly discovers a way to understand or give advice on the situation until her sense of humor leads me to forget the thing that caused disappointment to begin with.

  I search the living room. I search the kitchen, which my girlfriend finds spacious, airy, clean, and utilitarian with lots of natural light coming in and cabinets with neat handles. I search the guest bedrooms. The instant I make an entrance into our bedroom – a principal bedroom of enormous space – my jaw drops at the most sentimental ambiance my eyes have seen during twenty-four years of living. The prime ceiling lights introduce a dimmed setting. The flames from neat assortments of candles sparkle on the light-colored walls of our bedroom. A conglomeration of red flower petals forms a heart on the carpet, around our ultra pillowtop bed.

  I fix attention on her sprawling on the lush comforter to part my lips and express how thankful I am for what she’s doing, when suddenly her severe jerks and eyes rolling back into her brain startle me. I shoot like a bent arrow to be at her side. Her foaming at the mouth shatters and panics the inside of me. Imploring her to remain conscious, I snatch hold of the landline from the bedstand and put it to my ear, stabbing nine-one-one into the number pad with a trembling index finger. Before the dispatcher can introduce the company she works for, ask where my emergency is, I interrupt her. I request that an ambulance be sent to Three-Hundred Fourteen Pencil Brook Drive while consciousness gradually abandons my slender girlfriend until her chest all of a sudden stills. At the soft, devastating sound of her last breath, I chuck the cordless landline to split to the bathroom to snag a hand towel. I return like a racehorse from the starting gate. I dry the foam from her lips. I flick the towel out of my sight to begin mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, weeping for her to hold on with me until paramedics arrive.

  I’m trying to convince myself that faith will see us through. But this time I am not sure. She lies limp as if the spirit realm of her has gone.

  The resuscitations getting me nowhere, all breathed out, I jump down into a kneel at the side of the bed. I place my hands in front of my chest. I bow my head. I pray. I ask the Father to have mercy and spare the life of the lone person I have and have had ever since the morning my father killed my mother, only to turn the shotgun on himself before I could shoulder through the door and convince him not to let the cocaine addiction, causing him much depression and guilt, become an excuse to take lives. Contrarily, perhaps receiving hassle from their bedroom door was a blessing in disguise. Life surely could have been taken from me that night. Ambulance sirens blare from afar, gradually increasing in sound. I heave up onto my feet. I strike out for the door to let them in. I race – like a bullet – back to the master bedroom with them pressing in a portable gurney behind me.

  When my mind rebounds from the blackout it fell victim to during the ambulance ride, I am seated in the overloaded entrance hall of a hospital, waiting to hear from someone – a medical practitioner, a nurse, an assistant – who can give a reason for the frightening seizure my girlfriend suffered. Our primary medical practitioner had assured us that all was pleasant – that all was perfectly fine – at the last appointment for a neurological examination that I had accompanied her to. She was suffering from odd sensations. Had we been diagnosed accurately about the ever and again fidgets that sometimes seized control of her left arm this predicament would not have happened.

  The restricted double-door entrance opens automatically. I assume the bright-skinned medical practitioner with shoulder-length hair intends to come to me. She clears through the entrance to halt her steps to begin a thorough scan of the waiting room. I separate from the sitting area, which holds an impatient mother of six children, a grizzled matron aiding a boy in maintaining an icepack on the bulge that disfigures his thin arm, to make my approach. I know the athletic woman in her long white coat is here to speak with me. I can see it on her face and in her brown eyes. She has come from performing urgent operations on my light.

  “I’m sorry.” Her apology rock-bottoms me into a flood of heartbreak.

  “As in she’s gone?” I try to restrain the tears gliding from my eyes but fall short. The grief rotating violently through me possesses far deadlier winds than I can handle. It rips what little awareness I have from my grasp and flings me into a daze.

  The medical practitioner touches me back to reality.

  “Huh?”

  “I said, sorry as in we could not figure out the cause. Are you alright?”

  I take a hand to wipe my face clean of tears.

  “Would you like to see her?”

  “Please.”

  Dr. Jamison leads me back through the restricted entrance. It shuts automatically when I make it through to continue trailing her lead. We board the nearest elevator of the hall to the highest level. We disembark. She continues
leading me down to the halfway point of the hall to a door. I enter with an inquisitive mind, my heart sinking the instant my eyes meet with how nurses have my girlfriend situated in a universal bed with seven machines attached to her frame – my first time seeing her since I stumbled upon her suffering from involuntary jerks and eyes rolling into her brain. I cannot speak. I cannot think. As I inch nearer to stand beside my light, I can just let the tears fall at the sight of her lifeless face and the tubes fixed down her mouth and nose, the ventilator set to help her breathe twenty percent of her breaths.

  A chill shivers through me from the base of my spine to the erecting hairs on the back of my neck. I cannot help but feel for the dark-hued gentleman that medical practitioners forced from the hospital room at the beginning of the hall. When I exited the elevator to continue letting the female medical practitioner lead me to Jennifer, the sound of his tearful voice froze me in the middle of the hall for a gander through an open door. He was pleading for the pallid woman in the bed to find her way back to him. The instant he brought himself to be believe everything would work itself out, the electrocardiogram attached to her, his better half, I suppose, startled him with its alarming beeps. The flatlining monitor rupturing him to pieces, medical practitioners poured inside – like firemen looking to extinguish a fire – forcing him out. If not for the one medical practitioner leading me calling my name for me to move along, I would’ve still been fastened there in a standstill stunned by his situation.

  I pull up a chair. I lower myself to its edge to fix my downcast eyes on her midsection, which is bundled by sheets. I slide closer to make certain she feels me near in spirit.

  I admit we don’t abide by all of the things the Bible says we’re to do. I admit that. However, we love each other more than anything. I’ve never cared for anyone as I do her – the lone star in my universe ever since we met in fourth grade – and she’s quick to speak the same of me, although she refused to give me the time of day until the fourth semester of high school. It was quite the pursuit – hundreds of respectful compliments, nine letters from me to her, nineteen times of asking her on a date before she smiled and gave the yes that led us here. It was worth the time invested, especially when she confessed to being in love with me. I thought I was dreaming. I pinched myself to see if it was real. I’d dreamt of hearing those three words come from her mouth. The number of times cannot be determined. But if I had to guess, I’d say thousands. The same goes for how many times I fantasized about having an initial meeting between our lips.