Once and Again (Chapter 5)

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:: FIVE ::

Triple K Ranch looked as if it never saw snow before. It sat in a verdant valley that was thick with lush vegetation all around. Only a single road granted access into the huge clearing that the ranch was built on. The entire perimeter of the ranch was fenced up and the sign that hung high above the entrance boldly proclaimed it the most beautiful ranch this side of the country.

Looking at it through the windscreen of his car, Cole couldn’t find fault with the statement. The ranch was built in a diamond shape. Three blocks of building lay on the side further away from the entrance, and flanked the rear in an open “n”. The buildings were colonial in design, the middle block being the main building and most stately of the three. It was three storeys high and looked as if it had no problem housing the next few generations of McKennas. The stables lay to the right, a smaller but nonetheless majestic affair with dramatic flairs to its architecture. On the left was the staff block. To the front of the ranch lay a humongous rink which Cole guessed was for the exercising of the horses. It shared the space with a garden with exotic plants blooming and a clear lake that sparkled under the sun.

The whole ranch was, as its sign proclaimed, beautiful except for one tiny thing. It was empty.
At least, it looked empty. There were no horses galloping in the huge rink, no people hustling about in everyday life, no children playing in laughter. It was as if Cole had driven into a modern remake of a castle, and found all its occupants asleep, sans Sleeping Beauty.

Warily, he inched his vehicle forward towards the main block, trying to catch signs of movement. His car moved silently, as if noise would indeed wake up the entire ranch. Cole got off when he reached the front door, and wanted to wince at the slam of his car door.

A sombre young servant dressed in black opened the door and regarded him quizzically. “May I help you, sir?”

“I certainly hope so,” Cole chuckled. How very different this was from his imagination. Sentimental fool that he was, he’d dreamt that Quinn would rush into his open arms the moment he drove into the ranch, and he would sweep her feet off to the church, where everybody would weep with joy. God, only five days and he missed her so much. “I’m looking for Ms. McKenna. Quinn McKenna, actually.”

Cole couldn’t help but notice the servant’s face turn pale at his words. He watched as the young woman stammered and tried hard not to cry.

“What’s wrong?” Cole wanted to know.

The servant shook her head and tried to explain but was at a loss of words.

With a sense of foreboding, Cole swept her aside and walked into the building. “Hello? Quinn? It’s me! Cole!”

Nobody answered.

“Sir, please... you must listen to me,” the servant tugged at his shirtsleeves.

“Where is she?” Cole focused his bewilderment and growing fury at his hapless victim. “Where is everybody?”

“Sir, please... Ms. McKenna, she...”

“She what? Answer me!” He shook the maid when she hesitated.

“Ms. McKenna had a relapse. Everyone is at the hospital.”

Cole felt the blood drain out of his head.

Relapse.

He remembered the tears he noticed the day they’d parted. Tears he’d not commented on as he’d assumed they were sentimental in nature.

Cancer.

The desperation in her eyes as he’d left. Desperation which he’d taken for impatience.

Hospital.

He recalled the way he’d left her in her time of need. He realised that, once and again, he was on the verge of loss.

“Which hospital?” He roared, his fear galvanising him into action.

*

Cole never hated hospitals as intensely as he hated them now. They were a place for the dying. At fifteen, he’d watched his mother waste away to nothing in a C class ward. Age had taught him the knowledge to understand that the hospital had nothing to do with neither his mother’s death nor his dad leaving them, but still he could not help associating the hospital with everything bad in his life.

Now, his beloved Quinn was lying in one of those wards, waiting.

Waiting for him.

“Which room is Quinn McKenna in.” Cole asked brusquely at the check in counter of Missoula Memorial.

The nurse’s eyes lit up with interest at the sight of him and shifted to curiosity as they regarded the second man behind Cole. “I’m sorry...”

“Quinn McKenna. What room is she in.” Cole savagely spoke each word, carefully enunciating them as he would to a retarded five year old.

The nurse glared at him, offended, and checked her charts. “Intensive care, fourth floor.”

Cole bit out his thanks and pushed through the throng of people to get to the elevators, dragging his hapless hostage with him.

“My son, you are scaring people off with your temper. Might I suggest that you cool down.” The priest that Cole had grabbed from the church spoke softly once they were in the elevator. Cole snapped his head around and looked set to bite his head off for that comment. But one look at the priest’s kindly eyes nearly did him in.

“I’m scared, father. I’m scared to death of losing her.” Cole whispered softly, so that the other people in the elevator couldn’t hear him.

“I know. Don’t worry.” The priest rested a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “It cannot be up to you now.”

When the elevator doors drew open, Cole was dry eyed but his heart was thumping so loudly that he thought everybody must be hearing its rhythm. He walked down the corridor in ground eating strides and tried to push past the crowd of people pacing in front of the intensive care unit. All of them turned to look at him simultaneously, as if by clockwork. He noticed the similarity of their face structures and immediately understood that he was looking at Quinn’s family, with the exception of the children.

Choosing to ignore them for the moment, he pressed on to the glass panel separating the ICU from the main corridor and inspected the occupant. Quinn was lying still on the bed, her skin deadly pale. Tubes ran through her hand and into her nose. Her head was bandaged up in white swaths of dressing and she looked horribly frail. Computer consoles lined the tiny room, and made the vase of carnations sitting by the bedside look incongruent.

Cole must have made a sound of pain unknowingly, for the priest laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. He didn’t feel the tears that rolled down his cheeks, nor notice the presence of the rest of the people, for he was overcome with grief that pulled him under a tidal wave of depression. The rest of the McKennas stood around him like a phalanx, puzzling over the man who was crying silently.

One aged but nonetheless stocky, barrel chest man finally spoke up. “And who will you be?” His hoarse voice was the only clue that he felt anything for the woman lying inside the room. His countenance, however, was forbidding as he confronted the stranger who intruded on the family’s private moment.

Cole jolted at his voice and hastily brushed his tears away. Turning over, he looked the man straight in the eye. “I’m Cole Hollister. We’ve met before. How are you, Will?”

Quinn’s father narrowed his eyes and studied the man. “Cole Hollister? Cole? Cole from Larkspur?”

“Yes.”

Introductions were quickly made among the McKennas, though there was no joy in the reunion. All of them had known Cole from twelve years before, and understood the rest as Cole briefly brought them up to date about Quinn and himself.

“Quinn was barely home for half a day when she told us of her condition. She collapsed shortly after.” Michelle, Quinn’s red headed sister with a dusting of freckles across her attractive face said. “She didn’t have much time to chat. Or she’d have told us about the two of you, I’m sure.”

Cole zoomed in on her words like a homing missile. “Condition? What condition?”

Sky, her tall brother who looked successful and wealthy in a Saville Row suit, answered. “Didn’t she tell you? She’s had several minor relapses in the past few days already. What was left of her original tumour, turned from benign to malignant, and started to grow again.”

Several relapses in the past few days...

Suddenly, Cole remembered the day when she got “lost” in the snow. And the next day when she got “tired” after a snowball fight...

God, how could he have been so dense!

“What do you mean, what’s left of her original tumour?” Cole managed to rasp out.

Quinn’s mother, Janet McKenna, a homely woman in her fifties, answered this time. “The first operation that she had didn’t completely remove the tumour because of the risk involved.” She dabbed at her eyes. “The doctors agreed that the tumour was already benign and would not cause any further damage.”

“There was a chance of this happening, of course, but it was one Quinn had been willing to take.” Catherine, Quinn’s other sister, whispered softly. A model by profession, Cat was dressed in subdued black today. “Here. I found something in her purse. I think it was meant for you.”

Cole roughly took the letter that she offered and all but ripped the envelope on which his name was written apart.

Cole,

By the time you read this, I will most probably be dead. The other happier scenario is that I survived the operation in which case, you wouldn’t be reading this.

I lied to you, Cole. I withheld the whole truth from you all the while. I did have an operation twelve years ago and I do love you, then and now. What I didn’t tell you, couldn’t bear to say, was that my condition has suddenly taken a turn for the worse recently. My neurologist says that I only have a short time. I have to choose to leave silently, or to undergo another surgery, the risks of which are much higher than the last one.

I will not choose to die, Cole.

My operation is three days after Christmas and I will be long gone by the time you reach the ranch. Whether I live or die, this Christmas will always be in my heart. I came to Larkspur with the intention of visiting my family, possibly for the last time, and fate intervened in the form of a broken down car and a snowstorm. I am forever thankful, for I found you again and experienced love and joy unexpectedly. You showed me hope, made me understand that life is a gift by itself. I hope that I have shown you the same.

I love you, Cole. I always have and I always will. I know you must hate me now for not telling you all this earlier. I was about to, but changed my mind. After all, the heart has reasons that the mind knows not of. I hope that, in the years to come, you will be able to find forgiveness in your heart, and remember the times we’ve shared fondly.

Always,
Quinn

They looked on sadly as Cole sank onto the metallic benches that lined the hallway. He lowered his face into his palms and exhaled out tiredly.

This was so unfair. After all they’d gone through, now this. Why hadn’t Quinn told him of her condition earlier? Why had she remained silent even as he packed his bags to leave her? Wasn’t she hurting? How could she do this to him?

“What are her chances?” He asked without looking up, afraid that he’d lose his composure once more.

“The surgeons gave her a fifty-fifty chance of surviving this.” Kyle offered helpfully as he and his dad sat down by Cole’s side. “But once she regains consciousness, it’ll be all over. The neurosurgeon has removed the entire tumour this time round. But she’s already been unconscious for three days.”

“Let me go in.” Cole requested after a while.

“I’m sorry?” Will said.

“I want to go in and see her. I need to... I need to...”

“What? Why do you want to go in? It can’t possibly make a difference. Besides, only family members are allowed to go in one at a time.” Michelle told him.

“I need your permission to marry her, Will.” Cole lifted his head and look at Will’s eyes with his blood rimed ones. “I need all of you to allow me to take Quinn as my wife.” Cole addressed the McKennas. “I love her. And I know she loves me.”

There was a bustle as the McKennas discussed this new development.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Janet asked dubiously. “You both only met up a few days ago.”

“I cannot be more certain than I am now. I need to do this.”

“You don’t need to, Cole.” Will regarded him with eyes that were suddenly sharp and shrewd. “Nobody is forcing you to do it. You can wait till she wakes up, and if, heaven forbids, she doesn’t, then there’s really no point, is there?”

“I am not doing this to prove a point, Will.” Cole snapped. “I’m doing this because I love Quinn. I’ve lost her once and I don’t intend to lose her again.”

The McKenna men bristled at his impatient tone but the women heard and recognised the man’s love, frustration and grief. Janet laid a restraining hand on Will, so her husband wouldn’t punch his future son-in-law, determined as Cole was, and get himself black-eyed in the meantime.

Will looked at each of his family members in turn, and they each gave a nearly imperceptible nod. “You’d better do good by my darling Quinn,” Will warned. “Very well then, you have my blessings. I’ll go inform the nurse to let you in.”

*

Cole told the priest to wait outside the room, allowing him some private time with Quinn.

Up close, she looked even more fragile than she’d seemed from outside, engulfed as she was in life-support machines and tubes. Kneeling by the bed, Cole gently lifted her hand and rested it against his cheeks. The hot tears that rolled down to stain her hand wet was seemingly beyond of his control.

Wake up, Quinn. Don’t let me lose you again. Wake up.

“I guess this is it, huh?” Cole began unsteadily and kissed her hand tenderly, knowing the entire family was watching him but not giving a damn. “After making me wait for twelve long years, this is how we are to be married. Well, better this than nothing.

“You broke into my life so many years ago and brought sunshine to me. You gave me a joy I never knew. A joy that overshadowed the pain left by my parents. Even after we parted ways, I never stopped loving you, never stopped missing you. Every time I walked into a stadium for a game, I wished you were there in the crowd, cheering for me. Every time I did an interview, I would search for your face in the audience, hoping you were there to support me. And when I had to end my baseball career, how I prayed that you were there to comfort me, to tell me that everything would be all right.

“And you know what?” Cole chuckled sadly and dried his tears, as he whispered softly into her ear, words from within the deepest of his heart. “I wished too, that I was right there by your side, living life with you, cheering you on, supporting you, comforting you, telling you that everything would be all fine. And everything will be all right, won’t it? You’ll wake up and we’ll continue this in a huge church with lots of guests, and I’d be bursting with love and pride as you walk down the aisle. Then, one day far away in the future, we’d look back at this and laugh about it with our grandchildren.”

Unable to help himself, Cole stroked her cheeks tenderly, looking for twitching eyelids, moving lips. Anything to indicate that she was regaining consciousness. “You can hear me can you? I know you can. I love you so much, do you know that? Right now, I am pretty pissed at you for not telling me the truth about your condition straight out, but I figure it’s all right if you wake up now and let me take it out on you for the next fifty years or so. Quite a deal huh?”

Resting his forehead lightly against hers, Cole continued speaking to her. “And if you wake up now, I promise not to cook for the rest of my life. No, make that the next three lifetimes. That’s how long I intend to live life with you. How’s that sound?” Memories of their dinner together resurfaced and Cole wanted to break down again.

“Look at this ring I got for you back at New York.” Sliding a diamond ring out of his shirt pocket, Cole was oblivious to the fact that there was not a pair of eyes that was dry outside the room. “Isn’t it beautiful? I meant to surprise you with it when I came back from exposing my partner as a criminal who sabotages my planes, and instead, you pull this trick on me. I’m giving it to you now. See, I’m sliding it onto your finger. Perfect fit. Just wake up and see for yourself.”

Wake up, Quinn.

Stay with me.

Stay.

Unable to help himself any more, Cole buried his face in the bed beside her and his body shuddered with sobs of heartbreak.

Wake up, dammit! Wake up!

He wanted to pound on something. Anything. Break it apart with his bare hands. Destroy it like how his heart was being destroyed. Shred in into millions of tiny pieces.

Taking big calming breaths, Cole let the bedding soak up his tears, and stood up resolutely and opened the door to let the priest in, standing at the edge of the room. The females in the McKenna clan were blowing their noses noisily while the men were stoically silent but suspiciously red eyed.

“Father, I’m ready.”

He moved to Quinn’s side and held on to her hand, as the priest began reading from the bible. His mind was a blank as the priest droned on about holy matrimony. All he could think of was the past few days he’d spent with Quinn. Baking cookies, throwing snowballs, sharing joy. It was as if he’d lived through several lifetimes of happiness in those two days, and Cole supposed it was a gift that he was blessed with.

So how come he didn’t feel blessed?

His mind jolted back to the present. “Do you, Cole Anthony Hollister, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, in riches and in poor, in health and in sickness, for better and for worse, till death do you part?”

“I do.” Cole said softly, gazing at Quinn’s still face.

“And do you, Catherine Quinn McKenna, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband...” Cole focused on Quinn’s eyelids.

“...in riches and in poor...”

For a moment, he thought... there it was again!

“...in health and in sickness...”

But it couldn’t possibly be... Yes there it was again!

“...for better or for worse...”

Quinn had moved her eyelids! Three times!

“...till death do you part?”

The priest’s words were lost in excited exclamations as Quinn slowly drew her eyes open slightly and closed them again. For Cole who was hugging her tightly, and for the men and women who kept a vigil out in the hallway, it was more than enough. It was a sign of hope, of life that began anew.

Nobody was listening to the priest anymore, but he persevered through the tears of gratitude and joy, and the whoops of victory, as some of the McKennas ran to inform the doctor, and others sat down and cried in relief.

Cole simply held Quinn’s hand and gazed at her face, memorizing every detail, every line, every angle of this woman whom he loved more than life.

“There will be no cold, for each of you will be warmth to the other.
No rain, for each of you will shelter one another...

*

...There will be no hunger, for your lives will be rich with love.
No loneliness, for both of you will have two bodies but one soul.
With the power vested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife...”

“What’s that mean, Daddy?” The son mumbled sleepily when his dad stood up and prepared to leave. “Did the princess get cured of her sickness?”

“Yes she did.” His dad replied, tucking the covers around him, smiling as he saw his son battle to keep his eyelids up.

“What happened in the end, Daddy?” His son repeated, having lost the battle.

“The story ended the only way it could have.” The man pressed a light kiss on the boy’s forehead.

“G’night, dad.” With the enviable ease of young children, his son fell asleep.

“Goodnight.” The man whispered, shut the door and left, leaving a nightlight in case his son woke up.

Moving into the kitchen, he wrapped his arms around a slim, attractive woman who was finishing up the dishes.

She looked at him and grinned. “Kyle’s asleep already?”

“Yeah, but not before he conned a story out of me.” The man grinned back.

“You always had a thing for big round eyes. Can’t resist him, huh?”

“Umm,” he agreed and nibbled on her neck. His hands wandered down beyond her waist. “Just like I can’t resist his gorgeous mom.”

Quinn put away the dishes and turned her face up to share a warm, tender kiss with her husband.

“So how did the story go?” Quinn asked, as her husband pulled her eagerly into their room.

“It went well,” Cole replied, smiling deep into her eyes, loving her so much. “Everyone lived happily ever after.”

:: End ::

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