Loss

All rights reserved-Alex Leidig

What?” Jackson asked stopping in midstride. A jackhammer was pummeling away down the street, but his attention was elsewhere. With the blaring of a horn and the yells of profanities, he was brought back to reality. Jackson had stopped in the crosswalk, phone in hand which had been lowered from an inattentive ear. The rattle of that jackhammer pounding away at the street invaded his ears as his senses returned to some semblance of normal. Waving an apologetic hand at the angered motorist, his brain, still numb, persuaded his legs to carry this body to the stoplight. Once he regained control of his faculties, Jackson spoke into the phone. “Are you sure?” upon hearing the reply, he responded without delay, “I’m hailing a cab now. I’ll be there after a bit.” Before he had disconnected the call, a taxi had responded to his hail.

“Where to?” the driver asked.

“St. Mark’s, and step on it,” Jackson said scooting into the back seat.

“There’s construction on the ten,” the driver told Jackson merging into traffic.

“How long do you think?”

“’Til we get there? That is a question for the ages,” the cabbie stated. “I guess we could go around it but that would run the meter up—” “Just tell me how long,” Jackson sighed, interrupting. “I need to get there NOW.” He didn’t like raising his voice, but every minute counted and this cab driver would not speed up.

“Okay, okay,” the driver said refusing to be hurried. “I’m figuring thirty minutes if we take Canifer.”

“Fine, fine, just get me there,” Jackson pounded the seat. He hated resorting to violence, but this person was not getting the hint. With an open hand, he rubbed his scalp, pausing at the back of a tense neck before massaging that muscle. Breathing in deep, Jackson said with a single exhale, “there’s an extra fifty if you get me there in fifteen.”

“You got it.”

True to his word, the car made it to the revolving doors in thirteen minutes and forty-two seconds. Jackson paid the driver and ran through the doors, down the hallway, and into the waiting room where Skylor was pacing.

“Any word?” he asked.

“Skylor,” a doctor had walked through the double doors to the emergency patient rooms.

“Yeah?” Skylor smudged the makeup across her face. “This is Jackson, Chelsea’s husband.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We did what we could.” Chelsea’s mom and sister wailed like two bats at this horrid news.

“Are you sure?” Jackson asked, hoping his brain misinterpreted what his ears had recorded.

“I’m sorry, Jackson is it?” Grasping his chest, Jackson dropped to a knee. The doctor grabbed his arm and maneuvered Jackson onto the couch. “Breathe,” the doctor said. “In, out, in, out.” A nurse handed him some water.

As Jackson regained control over his body, he heard somebody say something about normal. That was unfathomable. He thought. What was normal now? Chelsea was his normal.