Chapter 5: Choices

In life, the hardest choice is often the right one.

Thirty. Emily was Thirty years old.

She fell down the stairs at work. Banging her head on the wall at the bottom. She suffered a severe brain injury.

She was in a coma for a month, and when she came out of it, she was like a child.

She had all of her memories supposedly… But she had the mental age of a five year old. The doctors said she was unlikely to ever make a full recovery.

I take Lacy to visit her at the Hospital, where she will stay until the doctors are sure there is nothing else they can do for her.

I can’t stay in the stuffy hospital room for another moment. So I walk outside the hospital and sit down on the curb with my head in my hands. The doctors have told me that I have a choice to make.

I know there are two paths in front of me and that I have no choice but to go down one. The first is the easy way, Emily can stay in a full time care facility. Lacy and I can visit her whenever we want, but I know what will happen.

Life will catch up, what started out as visits every day will turn into every other day. Every other day will turn into once a week, which will turn into once a month. Until its only once every so often.

I’ll be in the big house that Emily and I bought together alone with Lacy. There won’t be any more children, no big family like we always planned. I’ll have Lacy, but then she’ll grow up, move out. The house will be silent. I will be alone.

Then there’s the hard path, the one where I bring Emily home with me. I become responsible for basically two children. I’ll probably have to quit my job to take care of Emily. I’ll have to drive her to various therapies, deal with her on her bad days.

Yet, I’ll never be alone because she’ll always be with me. She can see the milestones she would otherwise miss. Lacy’s first day of school, first assembly. Graduation, and beyond.

Even if she doesn’t understand, she’ll still be there and I know it will make Lacy happy. To have her mother smiling at her. I’ll be so tired, but there will be happy moments. We’ll still sort of be a family.

I know it would be easier to put Emily in care but I can’t do it. Even if I’d sleep better, even if it would be less stressful. I don’t think its what Emily would have wanted. She was always so determined.

She could have taken the easy path and stayed with Brad. He would have made a good husband and she wouldn’t have been stared at as much. She chose the hard path and she chose me. She had to work at it, but she never gave up.

So I can’t find it within myself to give up on her.

Author's Note

It would be impossibly hard to have to make the choice Callan did.