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Alexis
and Angels, Unawares Act II
Sonny was afraid, fiercely shivering as he pulled his jacket close around him. He felt chilled to the bone as if tendrils of wispy ice were invading him to his very marrow. He was terrified and sad and deeply angry all at the same time, watching her cling to life frightened him. He kept shivering, his body seeking warmth as he walked quickly, blindly, no destination contemplated, except away from the hospital. Exhausted from thinking and walking, he spied a bench and collapsed in a heap, head in hands, rocking himself as tears drifting down the smooth planes of his face. I can't lose her, Sonny cried silently to himself. He heard a shuffling sound and suddenly he wasn't alone on the bench. A hand moved toward his shoulder, his own hand instantly answered in defense, prepared to fight. The hand was pulled back and the face of an old man, confused and uncertain, stared at him. Sonny glared at the excuse for a man who sat down - shaggy hair poking out from under a soiled fedora, matted beard, stained clothes that smelled of tobacco, whiskey and rotten tomatoes, a bum. "Why don't you get away from me, old man," Sonny hissed as he moved further along the bench. The old man looked at him and said with innocence, "You looked sad, felt sorry for you, maybe I could help you." Sonny looked at the man and sarcastically replied, "That's rich - you feeling sorry for me! Take a look at yourself, pal, and that is where your "sorry" belongs. Yeah, help me when you obviously are doing such a great job with yourself. Here's twenty bucks, go bother someone else." Sonny turned away and rubbed his face, wanting to be alone with his pain. "Young fella like you should be happy. All young folks should be happy. So what is so bad that looks like you are at the end of the world, son?" asked the man. Sonny turned to look at the man, cynicism and anger throwing a veil over his face. This guy just wouldn't go away. Fine, he wants to know, I'll tell him. "Someone I love may be dying and I can't do a damn thing about it. All I can do is watch and ask myself why God would do something so cruel," Sonny spit out as he stared the old man in the eye. "I'm a bad person, I know that, but good people like her don't deserve to suffer." The old man looked at Sonny and said quietly, "Maybe God has decided it's her time, son." Sonny felt his anger growing like a cancer inside him. He grabbed the bum by the collar, pulled him toward him and screamed, "Why her? Why not me? I'm worthless, no one will miss me!" His anger spent, Sonny thrust the man back against the bench. The old man straightened himself up, looked sadly at Sonny and said softly, "When we are born into this world, we choose the way we live, good or bad, right or wrong. It is how you choose to live your life that makes you worthy. If you feel worthless, maybe you should think about the choices you've made, son." Sonny muttered, "I should have been there for her but what I wanted meant more to me than her." A single tear coursed down his cheek. "How can I make it up? How can I tell her all the things I've never said when it may be too late?" "Life puts each of us exactly where we should be when we need to be, son, and it is never too late to say what is in your heart. You just need to make the right choice," whispered the old man, his hand on Sonny's shoulder. Sonny sat with his head in his hands for a moment and then turned to speak to the man but he was gone. Sonny looked all around and there was no sign of the strange old man, almost as if he was never really there, a ghost. Oddly, Sonny found his words comforting as he walked back toward the hospital - to face his dying mother. Shivering, Sonny found his hand touching the cold glass partition. He hadn't thought about his mother in a long time but as he watched the doctors work tirelessly to save Alexis and her baby, that odd night in the park as his mother lay dying crept back into his mind. He could not stop her from dying, could not change her past but he went back and spoke to her from his heart as he held her. He never truly recovered from the loss but that old man's words enabled him to make his peace and let her go. A piercing cry startled him and he saw a very tiny form emerge, a form that was whisked away quickly through another door inside the operating room. Thank God, thought Sonny, little Kristina is alive. "Please God, watch over that tiny life - for her mother," whispered Sonny. He watched, forcing down the panic rising within him, as they continued to work on Alexis. They were speaking amongst themselves and suddenly a monitor began to shriek. Sonny, his face now pressed to the glass, his uneven breaths leaving trails of fog, couldn't tell what was happening but it didn't look good. He heard someone cry out the words "cardiac arrest" and his fingers gripped the ledge of the window, digging into the creamy paint. His mind screamed, "NO!" and he began to panic and veer toward hyperventilation. Words tumbled outward from hidden places in his memory and he heard a familiar voice whisper, "Breathe, Sonny". He grasped onto the voice, the memory of her as she stood outside the jail cell, her gentle voice quietly speaking to him, the urge to climb out of his skin replaced by the sensation of gentle ripples on water as he looked at her serene face and embraced the calm she projected. She saved him from his demons that night as she always did until he took that salvation and turned it inside out and back upon her in this very place where she now fights for her life. Relentless in his anger, bitter words spit out in the heat of disappointment, a wanting denied, self-realization that she hadn't lied to him but he had fallen so far as to have believed it in the first place. Emotions pummeling him he stayed true to form, he chose to lash out at her, embittered for reasons he accepted and those he continued to deny. Now he studied that beautiful face, so pale and drawn, hovering between life and … no… he couldn't even utter the word. Alexis is a survivor and now she has someone to survive and fight for - her daughter. An eternity passed as they frantically tried to force Alexis to hold onto life. As Sonny watched and prayed, made deals with God and begged her to live, he thought of that old man and once again his words drifted by in a soft whisper as if spoken just a moment ago, "… it is never too late to say what is in your heart. You just need to make the right choice." "We are both fighters, Alexis," whispered Sonny as he reached out his hand, wanting to touch her through the glass, "maybe it's time we fought to get back what we've lost." For a split second, Sonny could swear he felt her soft hand caress his cheek and her voice responding in answer, a solitary word - hope. Everyone stopped in the OR as the monitor sprang back to life, the flatline replaced by the peaks and valleys of a steady heartbeat, a heart that Sonny knew was strong and sure and filled with love. He vowed to touch that heart again, determined his choices this time would be the right ones. "Just what in hell are you doing in here? Haven't you done enough damage? Get out." Sonny
turned slowly and looked into the angry eyes of Ned Ashton.
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