In A Moment - A Short Story

In a Moment

By Amy Baumhoefner

The roar of the crowd pushed the blood faster through my veins. It was the game of a lifetime and I was there, cheering my team on towards victory. Even the sharp November breeze couldn’t cool my passion. We were up twenty-one to fourteen in the third quarter.

A-t-t-a-c-k the wildcats are back!
A-t-t-a-c-k leading the pack!
A-t-t-a-c-k attack, attack, attack!

It was my birthday. My parents had come down to watch the last game of the regular season. They were taking me out to dinner as soon as I could get away.

De-fense, (clap, clap), De-fense

The three cheerleaders supporting me tossed me into the air. It was beyond exhilarating. I weighted nothing, heard nothing, and for just that moment I was in a perfect state of peace.

Go, Fight, WinGo, Fight, WinGo, Fight, Win

In the corner of my eye I saw a police officer come up to our coach. It was the middle of the 4th and the score was 30-28, but I couldn’t keep my mind on the game. Something was going on, I knew it.

Hail! To the victors valiant!
Hail! To the conquering heroes!
Hail! Hail!

Hail! To the victors valiant!
Hail! To the conquering heroes!
Hail! Hail! 

The officer was talking seriously to our coach. Whatever he said upset her. She turned and I felt the heat of her point burn into my cheek; I stubble on the next cheer.



At the end of the game I couldn’t find it in my heart to celebrate our victory. Icy tendrils slowly crept into me and I knew. My hand closed over the silver locket that always hung around my neck. The metal surface felt cold in my overheated palm. As our coach walked towards me, my head started moving back and forth.

‘No…No…No—’

‘Can we go somewhere to talk, Jane?’

I backed away. ‘No, I’ll stay here. Thank you.’

‘We need to talk with you.’ The policeman reached out his hand.

I started to shake and my eyes darted around like a trapped rabbit.

My coach grabbed my hand. ‘Sit down.’

It was her coach voice—I sat.

Amidst the roar of the celebrating mob the sudden silence that engulfed us was more deafening than a crowd of ten thousand.

‘Jane, there’s been an accident. On the way down to the game your parents were broadsided by a young driver when he ran a red light.’

‘Are they alright? How badly was the car damaged?’

‘Jane—you’re father’s in critical condition…’

‘So my mother’s okay? She’s fine, right?’

‘I’m sorry, Jane. Your mom died at the scene.’

For a moment that stretched longer than a lifetime, I couldn’t react. There was no way it was real. I’d just talked to her that morning—her barking laugh still rung in my head.

‘Oh, God,’ I whispered.

Slowly a wail rose from my gut that was beyond anything I had ever experienced. It raked tremors through my body and Coach supported me so I wouldn’t fall off the bench. People stopped and stared but I didn’t care. She was gone. It was unreal. I rejected the fact as it, like a poison, stole the oxygen from my lungs.

I don’t know how, but they got me to the hospital and gave me a mild sedative. Numbness filtered through my body and everything around me blurred together into a sodden mess.

Hours went by. I really don’t know who came and saw me. They tried to comfort me; they never know what to say. Their presence rubbed my already frayed nerves. I wanted to scream at them to leave me alone. Why couldn’t they give me that? I didn’t want their arms around me or their sympathetic words. I wanted to be six again, curled up between my parents in their bed, weathering the storm. I wanted to be talking with my mom about what we were doing for Thanksgiving and joking about Aunt Harriet’s runny gravy as we ate my birthday dinner. Every word they said, every hug they gave drove home a fact that I refused to accept—my mom was gone. Forever.

Hours—days?—later a doctor finally came to see me.

‘Miss Bennett your father’s awake and he’s asking for you.’

My hazy world formed a pinpoint of clarity—Dad. I still had my Daddy.

As we walked down a corridor that oozed of human sickness covered poorly with disinfectants, the doctor said hesitantly, ‘We haven’t told him.’

‘What?’

‘We haven’t told your father.’

‘Oh.’

I knew what this young doctor was trying to tell me. He wanted me—the grieving daughter—to tell her broken father that half of his soul was forever taken from this earth. That he would never be whole until he left his broken body behind and joined his love in the great beyond.

We stopped before one of the white doors that marched uniformly down the long corridor. This one was different somehow. Behind this one I knew lay my dad. He was supposed to be immortal, my Zeus. But he was just a man who could be destroyed. I didn’t want to see what was behind that door. It made everything real. I didn’t want it to be real. I wanted to wake up and find that all this had been a terrible nightmare. If I walked through that door I wouldn’t be able to hide anymore.

Slowly I pressed my hand to the cold metal plate, placed there to repel the wear created by the thousands of hands seeking entry. In the bed before me lay a man who only slightly resembled my beloved daddy.

For a moment I just stared. His brown hair was grayer than I remembered and his face looked so worn and old. There were double the wrinkles creasing his features and his dark eyes had sunk deeper into his skull. He had a black eye and his sharp nose was bandaged. In the cold bed he wasn’t the towering giant that had lifted me from the ice when I broke my ankle skating at twelve. Pain dug its cleats into my heart.

‘Oh, Daddy!’

I couldn’t stop myself. I flung my arms around his chest and sobbed until my stomach convulsed and my head throbbed.

‘Daddy…’

‘I know.’

‘I love you.’

‘I love you too, pumpkin.’

‘I’m so sorry that you were coming down to see me. If only I hadn’t insisted that you came to the game. Or if…’

‘Don’t do this to yourself. You can’t live thinking about all the “what ifs.” You’ll drive yourself insane.’

Only a few more tears traveled stubbornly down my cheeks. Even with the sharp beeping intruding, Dad’s breathing soothed me and calmed my frayed nerves. I slid into the chair next to his bed. I couldn’t look at him; instead I watched as my fingers plucked at a thread hanging from the hem of my shirt.

‘Daddy?’

‘Yes, pumpkin?’

‘I’ve got to tell you something.’

I looked up and our gazes locked, causing the words to stick in my throat. After a moment, a dark cloud seemed to cross over his face. He dropped his head back onto the pillows, breaking eye contact.

‘I know.’

‘Know what?’

‘I know your mom’s gone.’

My gut twisted and black spots crowded the edge of my vision. I laid my head on the bed—attempted to take deep enough breaths to get air into my lungs. ‘Wh—what are we…what are we going to do?’

‘Go on. She’d want us to.’

I instinctually closed my hand around my locket, the cool metal slowly heated in my hand. The warmth seemed to seep from it and spread up my arm, then through my entire body. At last, I eased my hold and opened it to look at the image inside. She’d just found out she was pregnant with me when the picture was taken. Her blue eyes twinkled and her soft face was flushed with joy. The locks of her soft blonde hair flowed over her shoulders. She’d been so beautiful.

My father reached out and touched my cheek.

‘You look so much like her.’

‘Oh, Daddy…’

Without a word my father’s large, calloused hand engulfed my tiny one. My hand disappeared; for that moment I felt safe.

Words refused to form so we just sat there, allowing the silence to anoint our grief.

In with all that pain, all that sorrow, I felt peace. I fell asleep nestled like a small child in my father’s arms.

‘Jane. Jane, get up.’

Slowly I rose and found myself looking into my aunt’s pale blue eyes. They were nothing like my mom’s. They’d never shone with a joy for life or passion for those she loved. I didn’t understand why this cold unfeeling woman was standing condemningly over me while my mom was gone. I still needed her!

‘What is it, Aunt Pru?’

‘You have to come and make some final decisions about your mother.’

‘Why me? Why can’t you do it?’

A deep sigh rose from Aunt Pru.

‘It has been stipulated in you parents’ wills that in the case of one or both of their deaths that you would be the sole executive of their last will and testament if the other was unable to complete the task themselves. Why, I really don’t know. Leaving a child in charge, for goodness sakes!’

I struggled into a sitting position and tried to get mentally balanced.

‘Who do I need to call?’

The next few days rushed past as I struggled to get everything organized for my mom’s funeral. I hadn’t realized that there were so many things to do. In some ways the busy pace that I lived that week was good. I didn’t have time to get lost in my grief.

The hardest part was going to the morgue and getting my mom’s body released. I had to go and sign to agree that the funeral home could take her body.

It was a lanky young man with almost white hair that came out to greet me.

‘Miss Bennett?’

‘Yes?’

‘Follow me.’

As I walked down the hall I noticed how they had tried to make their department as festive as possible but that didn’t help with the strange smell that whiffed past me or the oppressive feeling that sucked out my breath as I trailed after the white-clod man.

‘I’m sorry, but you are going to have to identify the body before we can release it.’

‘Her—’

‘What?’

‘Release her.’

‘Of course.’

This man dealt with death everyday; I shouldn’t have expected him to treat my mom any different. Yet she was a person, not an ‘it.’

‘Right in here, Miss Bennett.’

Death hung in the air. I followed the man to one of the many metal drawers on a long wall. I knew that in each was probably the body of someone’s loved one. The man pulled out one of the drawers and a body silently slid out on its metal bed. There she was; for a moment I thought I was going to faint. Then every muscle in my body turned to stone. My eyes froze on her lifeless body. I forced my lids to close before the image burned into my mind.

‘That’s her.’

A piece of paper was thrust in front of me.

‘By signing this you have identified this body to be Katherine May Bennett and agree to the release of her body to the above mentioned funeral home.’

Quickly I signed the paper and walked away, refusing to look back.

I got to the elevator and pushed the button for a floor—any floor. When the lift stopped I got out and aimlessly walked ahead.

It had been her, yet it hadn’t. On the outside she appeared the same, but her—who she was—was gone; forever. My feet moved faster and faster but I couldn’t escape the simple fact that she was never coming back.

Then a single sound broke through my misery—a cry. It hit me in the face like a wet towel. I suddenly woke to the sounds around me and I noticed how different the entire area around me smelled—felt. I glanced into an open door and realized where I was—the maternity ward. I couldn’t help myself; I started walking around and peeking into different rooms, watching the families ‘oh’ and ‘ah’ over their little bundles of joy.

Soon I found myself standing in front of a large glass window looking in on row after row of tiny miracles.

A young couple stood a few feet from me, wrapped up in each others arms. The women looked exhausted but she practically glowed with irrepressible joy.

‘She’s so beautiful.’

‘She has your eyes, Mary.’

‘But she had your ears.’

‘Poor thing.’

‘George!’

The couple laughed.

‘But she’ll grow into them, like I did.’

We all stood in silence as we stared at the prefect little person wiggling with glee in her pink blanket.

‘I know what I want her name to be, George.’

‘What?’

‘Katherine Ann. Isn’t that a beautiful name?’

I felt weak. Trying not to make a scene I sank into a rocker situated a few feet from the couple.

‘It is. She looks like a Katherine.’

Holding hands the couple ambled away.

Tears tumble down my cheeks as I sat and watched baby Katherine fall into a gentle sleep. Her tiny hand clutching the soft blanket wrapped lovingly around her.