5.
Stumbling Forward
The two funerals, held a day apart, were brief and
elegant affairs. There was little wasted sentiment,
and only a few shed tears. In truth, they were more
memorial services than funerals, since they dealt more
with remembering the good times than dwelling on the
deaths. Ryan spoke for a few minutes at his wife’s
funeral, and, being the professional comedian that he
was, managed to get everyone--including a
wheelchair-bound Colin--smiling with his remarks.
He felt a guilty kind of relief when the service ended
and people began the slow process of returning to
their lives. His brothers and sister left the next
day, and his parents finally left two days later.
Pat’s family, as well as Deb’s and part of
Colin’s,
all returned to Canada the day after the service.
Only Colin’s mother and father hung around longer.
They stayed for an extra three days--long enough to
see Colin safely into Ryan’s home--and then finally,
with an admonition that Colin come see them as soon as
he was able, they left.
Things were quiet around the house for the first few
days. Colin, worn out from the strain of the previous
two weeks, spent most of his time asleep. Ryan spent
a lot of time puttering around the house, fixing
things that didn’t need fixed, and procrastinating on
the thing he really needed to do: get Pat’s things
together and sent them to the appropriate places.
That was going to be the most unpleasant chore of them
all. Well, the second most…
He leaned against the doorframe to the room directly
across the hall from his. It was cheerfully decorated
with colorful teddy bears and other animals. In one
corner, there was a brand new white basinet. Against
the far wall, there was a changing table. At the near
wall, there was a new crib, and next to it was a red
and blue toy box. God, how long had it taken him to
make that? A month? Two?
His hands were trembling as he brought them up to his
eyes and as he began to weep for the child that would
never see the inside of the room his parents had
labored lovingly to build for him. He wept for the
wife who’d worked diligently by his side to turn a
storage room into a lovely nursery. And he wept for
himself, the father who would never know his son.
When his tears finally dried up, he closed the nursery
door, vowing not to open it again until more time had
passed. He went into his room and started cleaning
out the closet. For the first time, he found himself
wishing that his family hadn’t all left. It would
have been nice to have a little help with this part.
In a way, this was more difficult than looking at the
empty nursery.
Over the course of the next few days, he managed to
get most everything done. He didn’t know what he was
going to do with a lot of the stuff. A few calls to
her folks and her sister helped on that front. They
wanted most of it, so with a strangely ambiguous
feeling, he sent it off, after going through and
picking out what was most valuable to him. Her
favorite jacket, which he hung back up in its place in
the closet, her favorite snow globes, and her
scrapbooks…little things, he guessed, but things that
didn’t belong anywhere else but with him.
Those days were among the loneliest of his life. The
silence in the house was maddening and made his heart
ache. He talked to Colin when he could, and Colin
always seemed grateful for any kind of company.
Taking care of Colin also helped. It gave him
something else to do, and somebody to think about
beside himself.
After about a week, Colin felt well enough to get out
of bed for a while. With Ryan’s help, he got into his
wheelchair and joined Ryan in the den. They watched TV
together. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
Drew, Greg, Brad, Wayne and a lot of other people
stopped by occasionally, just to check in and make
sure everything was okay. Ryan didn’t mind that so
much as he minded all the phone calls. Members of all
families called everyday to see how they were doing,
to offer condolences, and just to talk. It was nice,
but after a week, it started getting very old.
He was restless and edgy, and occasionally,
inexplicably angry during the next week. The
slightest things set him off--he almost started
screaming because the towels in the bathroom were
folded wrong one morning. When he got to the point of
violence, he usually made himself go outside and take
a long walk to work off some of the excess energy.
Talking didn’t help when he was mad, but the walks
seldom failed to cool him off.
Most of the time, though, he was just tired. Nothing
seemed real. It was like he lived in a perpetual
dream world, where his worst nightmares came true. He
had a hard time believing that so much time had
already gone past--almost three weeks by then--and how
much it still hurt. There were few moments when he
*wasn’t* thinking about his wife and Deb and Colin and
the accident.
In a way, he supposed he was glad that he was going
back to work, even though some people thought it was
too soon. Hell, he even thought it was a little fast
when he sat back and looked at it. Three weeks? That
wasn’t much time at all.
“You sure you want to do this?” Colin asked quietly
the morning Ryan was supposed to report back to the
studio. “I’m sure if you talked to Drew, he’d
understand.” He was wearing an oversized black
T-shirt and black sweats. The dark coloring made his
pale skin seem almost translucent and made his eyes
seem to float in his face.
Ryan hesitated for a moment before finally nodding.
“I…I don’t think I’m ever going to be really
over
this,” he said. “It still doesn’t seem real, but I
can’t take sitting around here much more. I know that
everybody wanted to give me--us--time, and that’s
fine, but…I think getting back to work is what I
need.”
Colin’s expression was strangely sorrowful. “What
about me?”
Stretching his legs out carefully underneath the
chair, Ryan looked at his wheelchair-bound friend and
sighed. It was all about priorities, wasn’t it? He’d
always put work above everything, and he was about to
do it again. Christ, this was the first time they’d
even talked about it. ‘Fucking selfish idiot,’ Ryan
chided himself. “Colin…I’m sorry. I wasn’t
thinking.
Listen, I’ll call Drew and get things pushed back one
more week. Maybe by then-”
“By then what?” Colin asked, an edge of bitterness in
his voice. “By then maybe the cripple will be able to
fend for himself so you *can* go gallivanting off?”
“No,” Ryan said, taken aback. He shoved his coffee
cup away from him and adjusted his flannel shirt
before trying again. “No that wasn’t…that’s
not what
I was going to say.” The thought hadn’t even occurred
to him.
“Bullshit,” Colin snorted. “I’m nothing but
baggage
to you and you know it.”
“You never were,” Ryan replied softly. “I’m
sorry I
forgot to talk to you about this, all right? I’ve
never been good about prioritizing.” ‘And all of this
happened because of it,’ he thought, but didn’t add.
“I want to go back to work, yeah, but being around to
help you out is way more important. If that means I
don’t work for a while, so be it. I don’t care.”
He
was relieved to find that he honestly meant every
word.
“I’d be fine by myself.”
“Col…do you want me to stay or not?”
The Canadian grimaced and bit his lower lip. “You
know,” he said thoughtfully, “you’re only supposed
to
be down there for half a day, and…well, this place is
getting kinda boring. Think anybody would care if I
tagged along?”
These abrupt shifts in Colin’s mood never ceased to
leave Ryan stumbling. “Uh…I don’t think
that’ll be a
problem,” he managed. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” Colin answered. “I just…I don’t
want to be
alone, but I want you to be able to work. So…so if I
tagged along we could sort of kill two birds with one
stone.” He sighed and looked up tiredly. “If you
don’t think I’d be a distraction, that is.”
“I don’t think you will be.”
“I’m sorry I’m being so difficult-”
Ryan held up a hand and stood. “Not another word.
You’re not being difficult. I was being selfish, as
usual. Just thinking about putting my life back
together.” He smiled. “I’m glad you’re going.
I
felt bad about leaving you here by yourself. Guess
this arrangement wasn’t such a good idea, huh?”
“You haven’t been selfish,” Colin said quietly,
shifting a bit in his chair. “You’ve been bending
over backward to help me out. Plus, you’ve been
talking to me and not at me like everyone else. And
you haven’t been nagging or harping or anything like
that. So, I’d say this arrangement has been good.
Thank you.”
Despite himself, Ryan was touched. “You’re
welcome.”
He cleared his throat again and moved around the
table. “You’ve been a pretty good help yourself. Um,
I’m going to get a few things together before we go.
What do you need me to bring?”
Colin named off a few things, which Ryan quickly threw
into his bag. Before long, the two were off. “You
know,” Colin said lightly, from his perch in the
passenger’s seat of Ryan’s Jeep, “I really
shouldn’t
even be out of bed right now. Do you remember what
the doctor said? At least four weeks?”
Ryan shrugged, keeping his eyes on the road. Of
course he remembered. “Well, I trust you to know when
you’re pushing it,” he said. “Be warned, though.
I’ll be keeping an eye on you, and if you *do* overdo
it, I’m going to lock you in your bedroom and not let
you out for a month.” He chuckled. “I’d break your
ankles to make sure you didn’t go anywhere.”
“Oh, gee, if I’d known Kathy Bates was in the car,
I’d
have stayed home.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t make you write a book or
anything.”
“No, you’d just make me perform perverted sexual acts
on you.”
“Which is nothing new,” Ryan said with a smirk.
A ghost of a smile touched the corners of Colin’s lips
and his eyes. It wasn’t his usual bright smile, but
it was a genuine smile. It disappeared quickly,
however, as he sobered. “Ryan…?” he began
tentatively.
“Hmm?”
“Are we…is this…how we get on with life? We keep
going like nothing happened?”
After a moment’s thought, Ryan shook his head and
answered truthfully, “I don’t know.” It was a
question he’d been pondering for a while, and the
answer was elusive. “I just know that I don’t have
any better ideas right now. Maybe after more time has
passed…”
“Yeah,” Colin said. “Well, maybe this is all we
can
do.”
“I guess so, buddy.” Ryan scratched his head and then
sighed. “I guess so.”
**
Interlude #2
Ryan Stiles:
At the time…
Colin asked me a question the other day, one I
couldn’t answer: is this how we get on with life? By
going back and picking up as if nothing happened? I
told him that I didn’t have any better ideas, so I was
doing what I could. What am I supposed to do? Run
away from everyone and everything I know?
Am I being heartless? I don’t know. My wife is dead.
I have mourned her as best I know how, both by myself
and with others, and while she is gone, I’m still
here. It’ll probably be a long while before I’ll
walk with her again. This part of my life--my life
with her--is over. It hurts and it’s lonely and I
hate it, but I have no other choice. I’m not ready to
die yet.
**
6.
Letting Go
Time sure was a funny thing. Sometimes it seemed to
drag on endlessly. One could look up at the clock,
certain that an hour had gone by, only to discover
that just ten minutes had passed. Conversely, one
could look up at the clock and discover a whole week
had gone by in what seemed like an hour. For Ryan, it
was the latter.
Before he knew it, the taping season had ended. A few
days after wrapping the last episode, he and Colin
made the trek to Toronto and went about the unpleasant
task of getting Colin’s house cleaned out. Even if he
were to return to Toronto permanently, Colin made it
abundantly clear that he had no desire to live in that
house again. Ryan didn’t exactly blame him.
What helped considerably was the fact that Deb’s
family had already gotten most of her things out of
the house. Not everything, of course, but enough so
that the reminders were small and gentle: a few
pictures, her favorite handbag; things similar to what
Ryan had kept of Pat’s stuff. Colin never said a word
about them. He just packed them into the boxes and
moved on.
They finished three days later. Colin made
arrangements with a friend of his to sell the
furniture and get the house up for sale. Once all of
his affairs were in order, he turned to Ryan and
quietly said he was ready to get out of Toronto.
He’d changed, Colin had. He was quieter, smiled less,
and tended to be more serious about things than he
used to be. It was a change Ryan would have given
anything to prevent, but he saw signs of the same
change within himself. Things he once found funny
now failed to make him smile. He took life more
seriously, and tended to keep to himself more. If he
were to keep Colin from changing, he would first have
to stop himself. He had no idea how.
After Colin got the casts off his arm and leg, he
began the tedious process of rebuilding his muscles.
Ryan was there every step of the way, offering company
or support or even being a punching bag when Colin got
grumpy. It was actually a fairly pleasant time for
both of them. They didn’t really need anybody but
each other. Nobody really understood anyway.
On leaving Toronto, they headed for Ryan’s ranch in
Bellingham and spent a few weeks kicking around there.
They walked the four-acre ranch daily. For Ryan, it
was a way to work off a lot of his frustration and
tension. Being away from California and all that mess
helped tremendously. Even Colin seemed to be
relaxing. He took solitary walks and came back
smiling and red-cheeked. They didn’t ever talk much,
but they had already said most of what they’d needed
to already.
The two headed for Vancouver in June and spent a few
days with Ryan’s parents. After that, it was down to
Seattle to see his brothers. Then it was back up
north to see Colin’s brothers. They went to check in
on Deb’s family in Toronto and then shuttled off to
see Pat’s family. The constant travel wore Ryan down
to a frazzle, but he didn’t’ mind. It put the
families’ minds at ease, and that was important.
The last stop was the most grueling: to see Colin’s
parents. What started out as a two-day stay somehow
stretched into ten. Colin’s mom just had a way of
asking that Colin just couldn’t seem to resist. Ryan
didn’t want to stay that long, and more than once
considered hopping a plane back to LA. The only thing
that kept him from doing so was the knowledge that the
house would be empty when he returned.
Eventually, the two found their way back to Ryan’s
place. By then, it was approaching time to return to
the studio for the season’s “Whose Line is it
Anyway?”
tapings. Five whole months had come and gone since
the accident. Ryan could barely believe it as he
adjusted the calendar in his kitchen. Almost half a
year already. How in God’s name could that have
happened?
He and Colin returned to work five days later. It was
a little tough for Ryan to find that spark of desire
within himself, but after a few days of running
through new and old games, he felt better. The banter
flew back and forth with just as much spirit as it
always did, and if it was a little forced, nobody
commented on it. It was, after all, better than the
pensive silence that had marked the first day.
Over the next six weeks, they held fifteen
tapings--enough to last the entire season. They were
good tapings, too. Easily better than the stuff
they’d produced last year. After the third week, Ryan
had to go back to work on “The Drew Carey Show”, so
his days were busy again. It suited him just fine.
Things slowly began to take on a sense of normalcy
again. No, they’d never be perfect, but he was back
in a groove--a different groove, but a groove
nonetheless.
Once the taping season ended, however, all that
changed.
Ryan came home early after spending the morning doing
the first read-through of the week’s script. Drew had
been upset about the poor quality of the writing, and
had sent the entire thing back for a re-write. Even
Ryan had been unimpressed by the grossly unfunny
material. He’d made a few notes on his script before
tossing it to one of the writers on his way out.
When he walked into the house, the first sound that
hit his ears was what sounded like a heavy-duty zipper
being unzipped. Puzzled, he followed his ears in the
direction of the noise. “Colin?” he called. “You
up
here?”
“Yeah,” was the slightly muffled response.
“I’m in my
room.”
Arriving at the door of Colin’s room, Ryan was amazed
by the mess. It looked like Colin had taken every
shred of clothing he owned and tossed it all on the
floor. In the middle of a pile on the bed was a black
suitcase. Well, that accounted for the noise.
“What’s going on?”
Colin bent down and gathered up some of the stuff off
the floor. Without raising his eyes, he answered, “I,
um, I think…I’m going to, uh, head back up to…to
stay
with my parents for a while.”
“Oh,” Ryan said faintly. He folded his arms across
his chest and leaned against the doorframe, frowning
as he did so. “Any particular reason why?” he asked,
not entirely sure what to think.
“Well, they really want me too,” Colin said quickly,
dropping the clothes in his hands onto the bed. He
picked up a pair of slacks and folded them before
setting them into the open suitcase. In a rush:
“And, you know, as long as I don’t have anything
better to do here, I may as well. I mean, I’m just
kind of sitting around here not doing anything, and I
can do that just as easily up there, right?”
It took Ryan a moment to decipher a coherent meaning
from that rapid stream of words. “Sure, I guess so,”
he murmured, at a loss for anything else to say. “But
you know you don’t have to go. I don’t mind having
you around.”
Colin’s hands hesitated in the act of reaching down
for another garment. He finally looked in Ryan’s
direction, and his eyes held a great sorrow. “I know
you don’t,” he sighed. “It’s just…well,
look at you,
Ryan. You’ve got it together. You have your work,
you’re keeping busy, and you’re your old self
again.”
He shook his head and began folding a shirt. “Me, I’m
just lost. How the hell do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Keep moving. I’ve tried, and I thought…I mean,
with
the tapings and all, that I’d be able to do what you
did.” Throwing the shirt into the suitcase with more
force than necessary, the Canadian turned abruptly to
face Ryan. “It didn’t work. I couldn’t seem to get
into it the way you did. I didn’t see the point.”
What could he say to something like that? Ryan
dropped his gaze to the mess on the floor and
desperately searched for the words that would change
Colin’s mind. He didn’t want Colin to leave, and if
he could just think of something…anything. When
nothing came, he settled for a question. “What are
you going to do up there?”
“I don’t know. I probably won’t be there for very
long, though. I just want to have a chance to get
away.” A small smile touched the corners of his lips.
“Not from you. Just from…here. For a while.”
“I really wish you wouldn’t,” Ryan said quietly.
“I…like…having you around.”
Colin’s smile faded and he sighed again. “You
don’t
need me around here all the time,” he said. “I’m
just
holding you back.”
Nothing could have been further from the truth, and
Ryan knew Colin knew that. ‘I *do* need you, buddy,’
he thought. ‘More than you realize.’ It startled him
to realize just how deeply that need ran. A more
troubling question followed right on the heels of his
realization: was it need or dependence? Pushing the
thought away, he turned his attention back to Colin.
“Bullshit,” he replied. “You know that isn’t
true.”
“Feels like it is,” Colin said, tossing more clothes
into his suitcase. He crouched down and fished
another one out from underneath the bed. His knees
popped loudly as he straightened. After unzipping the
bag, he dusted his hands off on his jeans and went
back to folding. “Look, the point is that you’ve
gotten on with your life. I haven’t. I’m just
hanging around here, and I think…I think it’s time *I*
moved on, too.”
“But-”
“What?” Colin interrupted quietly. “You don’t
want me
to move on? You’d rather have me here mired in a
rut?”
“Of course not-”
“Then let me go.”
Ryan raised a hand and briefly massaged the bridge of
his nose. How could he argue with that? If Colin was
convinced that living here was pointless, then…maybe
it would be better to let him go. Still, this tore at
his gut. “If you’re sure that’s what you
want,” he
said quietly, voice thickening around a lump in his
throat, “then I’m behind you.” His vision trebled
as
tears began to pool in his eyes.
Colin turned away momentarily, and when he looked
back, his were much too bright. “Please don’t do
that,” he said, his own voice husky. “Don’t you
think
this is hard enough? I mean, I’ve been practically
attached to your hip for the last six months. Being
here has been…helpful, but…but it’s time for me to
go.
And it’s not because of anything you did.”
“I don’t want you to go,” Ryan said, reaching up
to
swipe the tears away. He was angry with himself for
being so upset by this. It was stupid…wasn’t it?
“But I’m not going to beg you to stay. If you
don’t
want to, then you shouldn’t.” Clearing his throat, he
straightened and stepped into the room. “Want some
help?”
His cheeks wet, Colin nodded. “I’m sorry,” he
said.
“Don’t, okay? Just…don’t.”
“I, um, my flight leaves at six-thirty. Would you
mind-?”
Ryan shook his head and grabbed a handful of socks.
“No,” he said. “I’ll take you. It’s the
least I can
do.” Resigned, he worked silently beside his old
friend. A panicky little bird fluttered around his
head at the thought of being alone. He quashed it
mercilessly and told himself to grow up. He was a
man, for Christ’s sakes, and not some little
three-year-old who needed mommy to tell him there were
no monsters under the bed.
It still sucked. It probably wouldn’t have been so
bad if Colin had mentioned something about these plans
*before* the very last moment, but as he thought about
it, Ryan understood why. By keeping the plan to
himself until now, Colin was able to keep from being
talked out of it. Either that, or this was a
spur-of-the-moment decision.
With two of them working, it didn’t take long to get
everything packed. Colin took all his clothes and
toiletries, leaving nothing behind. Together, they
carried his things out to Ryan’s car. It was only
four-thirty, so Colin suggested they go grab a bite to
eat.
Dinner was a silent affair. Everything important had
already been said. The only thing that remained was
the final good-byes, and that could wait until they’d
reached the airport. The silence wasn’t tense or
awkward, either. It was the kind of silence that
comes between old friends and lovers; the kind that
said more than mere words ever could.
Ryan felt very tired all of a sudden.
Stress--particularly unexpected stress--tended to do
that to him. There were a lot of things he wished he
*could* say to Colin, like, ‘thanks for helping me
through this,’ or ‘I do need you, you know,’ but
he
got the feeling that Colin already knew. Colin was
good at reading people.
The ride over to the airport was short and, like
dinner, quiet. They carried two bags apiece through
the terminal and up to the line for the counter. It
was long and they had to wait for over half an hour
before Colin finally got his tickets. After checking
the baggage, and making sure everything was in order,
the two got set to say good-bye.
“I’ll call you as soon as I get there,” Colin
said.
“Okay,” Ryan nodded. “I appreciate that.”
Colin smiled, but it was too wide and didn’t touch his
eyes. “I won’t be gone long,” he said. “A
couple of
weeks, maybe. I promise.”
Ryan knew he was lying, but he smiled just the same.
“I’ll keep your room ready for you,” he said
gamely.
“Keep in touch, okay?” He reached out and drew Colin
into a strong embrace. He wasn’t at all surprised to
feel Colin shaking. “Take care. If you need
anything--anything at all--you know where I am.”
“Yeah,” Colin said huskily. He pulled away and
hastily wiped his eyes. “Thank you. For everything.”
The last word was drowned out by a male voice
announcing that flight 743 was now boarding at Gate 7.
He sighed, glanced up briefly, and then nodded, brown
eyes dark with trouble. “That’s me.”
“Sure,” Ryan said. “I’ll, uh, I’ll see
you soon.”
“Right.” Colin took two hesitant steps in the
direction of Gate seven, paused, and then turned
around. He dropped his black travel bag onto the
floor and moved quickly back to Ryan, giving him one
last brief, hard hug. “Bye,” he said, slowly moving
away.
“Bye,” Ryan said. He watched until his
blue-and-black-clad friend disappeared into the
throng, and then headed to the window. When the plane
taxied down the runway a short while later, he raised
his hand before turning and heading home.