Chapter 10

When the siblings wouldn't wake up, their mother called 911, and the paramedics were able to revive them, only to see them pass out again. They were stabilized at the hospital, and treated for severe depression and shock. There was nearly a two person riot until they were put in the same room together, and the beds moved close enough for them to be able to hold hands.

As they listened to the story of what had happened to the loves of their lives, they kept breaking down and sobbing loudly. It seems that they were only a few miles from their destination of their grandmother's house, when they were stuck broadside by a drunk driver. The force of the impact pushed their car directly into the path of an oncoming Semi. All five of them were killed instantly. The truck driver was seriously hurt, and was nearly inconsolable with the memories of the accident and the death of a family. The drunk driver? He only had a few cuts and bruises, and didn't even remember leaving the bar that had over-served him and let him drive away drunk. Both he and the bartender would wind up in jail for many years because of it.

They let Denise and Freddie go home from the hospital a few days later, under heavy sedation, just in time for the funeral. Just the sight of the five caskets, even though they were closed, would have been way too much for Freddie and Denise to handle if they hadn't still been partially sedated. As It was, it was still several weeks before they were able to make it through a whole day without breaking into tears, and they wouldn't let each other out of their sight.

By the second week in February, they thought were about ready to go back to school, and that first day back, it was real rough. There was a lot of support from friends and classmates, but it was almost too much, bringing back too many memories of what they had lost. By the time that lunchtime had rolled around, Denise was at a breaking point, and sought out her brother in the cafeteria. With tears in her eyes, she asked Freddie to please take her home, and she meant NOW!

He agreed, and after a quick stop in at the school office to let them know what was going on, they left, and walked the few blocks home.

Denise didn't seem to want to talk as they walked, and as soon as they were inside the door she ran to her room and slammed the door behind her.

Freddie knocked quietly on her door, but the only thing he could hear was her sobbing loudly. He knocked a second time, and still got no response. "Can I come in Den?"

Still more crying, and then a weak voice said, "OK."

"What's going on here Baby? You know I'm here for you, so please tell me what it is?"

Between the heaving sobs, she started to talk. "All... everyone kept... sayin' how they... were sorry... and missed... Leah... and... Jerry... and I tried... to be strong... but then there... were all those... posters... all over the... place..."

"What posters?" Freddie asked. Then it hit him, and it hit him as hard as it had hit his sister. Valentines Day. It was only a few days away, and it was their first Valentines Day without Jerry and Leah. They both lay on her bed, crying their hearts out, holding each other tightly until they cried themselves to sleep.

Their mother tried to get them to come to dinner, but finally gave up, and locked herself in her bedroom, and she too, cried herself to sleep.

They got up the next day, and after talking to each other about what they were going to do, they decided that to the memory of their lost loves, they had to carry on, and survive. The would go to school, but both were withdrawn into themselves, and barely spoke to anyone else while they were at school, and concentrated on their classes, and getting good grades.

Their school friends tried to break through the walls that the siblings built up, but after a while, they just stopped trying, and left them alone. They all knew that they had lost their loves, and tried to understand. There were several girls that wanted to take over for Leah in Freddie's life, but he just ignored their efforts to get his attention. Just the same, there were a lot of boys, drawn to Denise's incredible beauty, that tried to get her to go out with them. When they were turned down repeatedly, she started to get a reputation of a snobby bitch, like nobody at her school was good enough for her, and they were mostly right. The truth was, that other than her brother, she truly felt that there was nobody else left for her.

They never went to any dances, and even though before the accident they had both been involved in sports, and Denise had even tried out for the cheerleading squad, they dropped out of all the extracurricular school activities. They had both been on the swim team, and Freddie was supposed to be the captain of the soccer team, but they just stopped going to practices. The coaches and teammates were dismayed, but were forced to respect their wishes, and let them quit the teams.

When she was told she had made the squad, she sent them a letter letting them know that she had changed her mind, and didn't want to be a cheerleader any more. This had never happened before in the history of the school, and had quite stunned and outraged the other cheerleaders.

Freddie and Denise threw everything they had into getting good grades, and managed to make up the lost month's work of homework and tests, and by the time spring rolled around, and it was time for Freddie to graduate, he had a perfect 4.0 grade point average. He had earned a full ride academic scholarship to the University, which meant that he was able to go to school in town and not leave his loving little sister.

His scholarship also meant that since he was still living at home, and all his school expenses were paid for, he didn't have to work, and attending class all year round, was able to complete his four year college degree in pre-law in a little less than three years.

Denise had buried herself in her schoolwork too, and she also maintained a 4.0 GPA throughout her high school career. She too earned an academic scholarship to the University like her big brother, and began her studies in business.

While Freddie was in his last year and Denise was in her first at the University, the only thing that could isolate the two of them from the world they grew up in, happened. When they got home from school one night there was a message on the answering machine telling them that their mother had collapsed, and to come to the hospital right away.

Their mother was unconscious in the ICU, and was unable to talk to her children, but they stayed by her side all night, and into the morning. When the doctor came in to check on her, he just looked at her chart, and walked towards the door. As he reached for the handle, he turned to Freddie and Denise and motioned for them to follow him. He took them out to the empty waiting room by the nurses station, and told them to have a seat.

"I won't lie to you kids," he began. "Your mother's condition is very bad right now, and probably won't get any better."

When he said this, first Denise, and then Freddie began to cry, and held each other tightly, still looking up to the doctor.

"Yesterday at work, your mother complained of a really bad headache. She was on her way to get an aspirin and a drink of water when she collapsed. Her boss called 911, and she was brought here, and according to the tests we did yesterday afternoon, she had an aneurysm that had burst. An aneurysm is a when a blood vessel in the brain has a weak wall, and swells up like a balloon. Sometimes if we catch it soon enough, before it bursts, we can operate and fix the problem. Unfortunately for your mother, by the time she got here, it was already too late, and the aneurysm had burst." He paused here, to let them cry a little, but decided to continue on and just get it over.

"There was significant brain damage, I'm afraid, and if it wasn't for the machines in the ICU, she would already be gone." They really began to wail at this point, and the doctor just stood there waiting for them to calm down a little bit before he finished.

"What we need, is permission to turn off the machines, and let her go peacefully. If you want to go in and say goodbye, this would be the time to do so." The doctor really hated this whole part of his job. He had become a doctor to help people get better, not to watch them die.

"OK, Doctor," Freddie finally said as he stood, pulling his sister up with him. "Give us a little time with her please."

"Take all the time you kids need, just let the ICU nurse know, and she'll page me and I'll come back." With that, the doctor went over to the nurses station, and Freddie ushered his sister into the room where their mother was, so they could say their good-byes.

A couple of days later, there was a small memorial service for their mother at the church down the street from their house. Her ashes were spread in the park at the lake where the kids loved to go picnic and swim, and where Freddie, Denise, Jerry, and Leah had first become more than brothers and sisters and friends.

They went back to school the next week, but Freddie's mother never got to see him graduate from college at the end of the year. They sold her house and most of the things in it, the house the had grown up in, and where they had lived next to Jerry and Leah. There were just too many memories there. They moved into an apartment closer to the University, and with the money from their mother's life insurance, and the proceeds from selling the house, Freddie was able to attend Law School while Denise finished her business degree and went on to get her Real Estate Agent's License.

Denise was doing fairly well in the real estate business, and was helping to add to the money left over after their schooling was all paid for, and they were actually building a nice little nestegg to someday get a small house somewhere.

After spending a year working for a medium sized legal firm, Freddie decided to branch out on his own, and although it was rough going for a little while, he was starting to hold his own and was actually bringing in more money than he was spending. It helped that he was able to use a corner of their small apartment as an office for a while, meeting clients in a café down the street. As his client base grew he was eventually able to afford to rent an office a few blocks away from their apartment. His office was really just a one bedroom apartment, but the living room made a decent reception area and waiting room while the bedroom was his private office and meeting room.

The main thing that had really bothered Freddie after Denise had started college, was that he would lose her too. Not to death, like Leah, and then his mother, but that she would find someone that would love her like she deserved to be loved. Love her like he never could. He knew he couldn't hold her back, and that someone that was as beautiful as she was would attract the attention of some handsome stranger, and she would leave him. He couldn't blame her, he was only her brother, not someone that could marry her, and not someone that could give her the children that he knew she always wanted.

All this time since they had lost the loves of their lives, and then their mother, all they had was each other. Sure they still made love once in a while, but it was never again like that last Christmas time when he was a Senior in High School.

When she came home all giddy and excited about this new client she was trying to sell a house for, he could see the love in her eyes. He hadn't see that look and she hadn't been this happy since Jerry and Leah had died. He tried to hide it, and be happy for her, but he wasn't sure how good of a job he was doing about it.

The next day, he had been out with a client, and they had had a couple of drinks over lunch while they worked out the wording of the contracts they were working on. Time went by quickly, and before he knew it, they were again at a restaurant, eating while they continued to work, and had a few more drinks. About the same time they had finished dinner, they had finally finished the work that needed to be done on the contracts.

After his client had left, Freddie took his as yet unfinished drink into the bar, and did a little thinking. The problem with thinking while you are drinking, is thinking while you are drinking. The thinking part makes perfect sense at the time, but in the light of the day, it doesn't usually make any sense at all.

Under the influence of the booze, he had decided that he should let his sister go, and get on with her life with someone that could do a better job of taking care of her. That night, he went back to his office, and spent the night on the couch in the waiting room. Neither Freddie nor Denise were really that much into drinking, due to the fact that a drunk driver had killed their loves. That night, however, was an exception. He just kept on drinking.

When he woke up the next day, he had a hangover, but a few cups of coffee and a couple of aspirin soon helped enough that he was able to start the corrections and changes to the contracts they had worked on the night before. He didn't want to stop for lunch, but he realized that he couldn't live on just coffee, so he took a quick break, and grabbed a burger from the McDonalds on the corner. He took it back to the office, and continued to work.

Denise was starting to get worried. Freddie never came home the night before, and he didn't call. That wasn't like him at all. She tried calling his cell phone, but it was turned off, or the battery was dead. She tried his office, but the phone there was continuously busy. When he didn't come home for dinner, she tried his office one more time, and this time he answered.

"Freddie? Are you OK?" she asked, somewhat frantically. "Where have you been?"

"I've been here since last night," he responded, not noticing the tone of her voice. "Been working on contracts for a client that needs them right away."

"Are you coming home for dinner?"

"Nah... I'll just get a pizza or something. I need to get this done," he said quickly. "G'bye," he added, and then hung up before she could say anything else.

She knew something was up, but had no idea what it was. Rather than just take what was going on, she quickly called the pizza place that Freddie usually ordered from, and made sure that he hadn't already ordered. She talked them for a few minutes, and then got in her car, and drove down to pick up her brother's pizza. When she got there, the manager told her that yes, Freddie had called for a pizza to be delivered, and that they had gone along with the plan. Denise took the order and drove down to his office, and playing the part of the delivery girl, rang the bell.

Freddie was surprised to see his beautiful sister standing there with a pizza and Mt. Dew in her hand, but quickly ushered her in.

Denise set the food down, and turned to Freddie, and pulled him into her arms. When she pulled his head down to hers for a kiss, he stiffened in his arms. That shocked her, and she backed away, the kiss never happened.

"What's wrong Freddie? What have I done wrong?" She looked into his eyes, searching for an answer. He pulled away from her, and turned around so he didn't have to look into her eyes.

"I... I'm... I've been doing some thinking over that last couple of days." He turned around, and took her hands in his before continuing. "It's not fair to you to keep living the way we have. You need someone you can marry and have kids with." She started to say something, but he shushed her, and kept on talking. "If Jerry hadn't been killed, you would probably be married by now, and maybe have a kid or two running around. I'm keeping you from finding someone that can make you happy like that." He gave her a quick kiss on the lips, and ran into his office, and closed the door behind himself, breaking down into tears.