Part 7 (2/2)

But the sound of the cicadas that surrounded me kept me grounded, letting me know that they were the reality, not John. And I managed to tear myself from John's arms and set myself back on the forest floor, sinking in tears as I cried for all I had left behind.

”Oh Rachel, what have you done?” a voice asked next to me. I looked up to see Aunt Rose looking down upon me with compa.s.sion, mixed with a slight s.h.i.+ver of fear.

”What do you mean?” I asked, forgetting my anger in my confusion. I wasn't sure if she was referring to the voyage through s.p.a.ce, my resolve to stay near John, or just plain failing at this existence in death. But then I remembered that she was the cause of all of this, and I set my jaw in stubborn defiance. ”I'm not speaking to you,” I told her, turning back to the ground and willing her to go away.

”Take my hand, darling,” she said, forgetting that I had forbidden her from using the endearment. I wanted to lash out at her for even daring to come near me again after all the trouble she had caused. But something inside me urged me to trust her. And so I did. I reached up and took her hand, pulling myself to my feet. And with a tug, we were both transported from the forest to the inside of a building. It felt familiar. I took in the hardwood floors and the painted walls, the photos that hung from the walls and the light fixtures that glowed above our heads. I realized with a lurch that this was the house in San Anselmo. How much time had pa.s.sed since that day?

Aunt Rose urged me forward. I walked through the house, sighing with admiration over everything John had been working on in his spare time. The kitchen was just as I had hoped, the checkered floors greeting me like they were part of a diner out of the 1950s, the red from the towels and kitchen gadgets on the sink smiling at me and beckoning me forward. Sunlight streamed through the window where I would have been was.h.i.+ng our dishes, and I ran my hand over the smooth marble that encased a large sink below the curve of a st.u.r.dy faucet.

I moved to the next room, and exclaimed over each detail that John had placed into it with care. The brilliant white wainscoting in the bedroom complemented a light shade of blue on the walls. Large wooden blinds sat within the windows, opened to reveal the garden outside that was blooming with life. Separating this particular bedroom from the master bedroom was a tiled bathroom, the same black and white pattern on the floor below a wide claw footed tub. I climbed into the tub and lay down, the size of it large enough to allow me to stretch out my legs and soak in the imaginary bubbles. In the corner was a large gla.s.s shower encased in blonde stone with a large rainfall shower head above. A pedestal sink was in the other corner, and a large vanity lay between the sink and shower where I would have been able to do my makeup and hair.

”Darling, I need you to keep going,” Aunt Rose said, interrupting my mental escape inside the home I was supposed to be living in. She took my hand once again, but this time did not lurch me away. Instead, she led me to the master bedroom. I gasped when I saw what she had been trying to show me all along, feeling stupid for being distracted by a building. There on the floor was John, crumpled in a fetal position beside the makings of a bed frame. The screwdriver had fallen from his hand and rested a few inches away. As I rushed to his side, I was afraid he was dead. Rather, I was half afraid. Part of me, the part that I hid from my watchful Aunt Rose in the corner, hoped that this meant he would be joining me soon, that I would be able to hold onto him once again and feel his breath on my face. But I also wanted him to live, knowing how he needed to be there for his son, knowing that it wasn't his time to leave earth.

I reached out and touched his face, or at least moved my hand against the barrier that separated us so that my hand hovered just above his ashen skin. In an instant, I was flooded with images of the two of us together, his mind working overtime as he flitted from consciousness and a dreamlike state, fighting to stay on his side of life.

”Rachel,” he whispered, and I realized he was aware of me in this half-conscious state.

”I'm here, sweetheart. I've always been here,” I whispered. I could tell he couldn't hear me, that he was just aware of my presence even if I felt only like a dream. But I lay down next to him, my back against his chest as I curled up into his body, the invisible barrier the only thing between us. And I stayed like that with him for a few moments, holding the same position I had imagined just moments earlier in a forested symphony of cicadas. The song of the winged insects was replaced this time by the sound of John's heart against my back, my ears filled with its irregular beat, the sound so engulfing I was afraid it would beat right out of his chest.

”Now do you understand?” Aunt Rose murmured from where she stood on the other side of the room.

”Understand what?” I asked her, keeping my eyes closed and wis.h.i.+ng she'd just go away.

”How fragile life is, and how it can be broken by just one of our mere whims,” she told me with quiet seriousness. I opened my eyes from the protective sh.e.l.l of John's body and looked at her.

”What do you mean?” I scrutinized her, a ball of fear manifesting inside me.

”If you don't stop wis.h.i.+ng him with you, he's going to die, Rachel.” Her eyes flashed with determination as she tried to get me to see what I was refusing to see.

I had caused this.

I jumped from where I was and stood over John. His breath was slow and he winced in pain. When he could speak, he said my name with each breath. I longed to stop his pain, to bring him away from all that hurt him and comfort him in his fear. I remembered what it was like to die alone, to be cast into a confusing world where nothing made sense and no one was there to show me the way. With silent vows, I promised him I wouldn't let that happen to him, that I would be there when he reached the other side, and together we could figure out what happened next.

”Do you really want to be the cause of this?” Aunt Rose asked me, beside me with her hand on my shoulder. I was reminded of the moment I realized that her wishes had ended the lives of me and Joey, and how angry I had been with this woman I had once loved like a second mother. I looked with alarm at John, realizing that I was in danger of killing him, and that he might hate me for it. I tried to reason within myself that he would have wanted this. But I knew that by bringing him to me, I was also tearing him away from everyone he loved in life, including his son.

”Is it too late?” I asked Aunt Rose with a sudden fear. I remembered the momentum that had continued even after she had changed the course of her thinking, how we had careened off the cliff even as she willed us to continue on in the land of the living.

”I don't think so. But you need to change your thoughts from wis.h.i.+ng he were with you to wis.h.i.+ng with all your heart that his life will continue,” she told me. She moved her hand from my shoulder and took my hand in hers. I squeezed it with determination, glad she was here to guide me in something I still didn't quite understand. How would I have known what to do, or even what was happening, if she hadn't found me and led me here? I closed my eyes and thought about John, this time in a reality that didn't include me. I thought about him with his son, imagining the two of them together in this house, sharing a life of happiness that was filled with the living instead of being haunted by the dead. I created in my mind scenarios that involved him working at his job, taking Sam to baseball games, and even, with hesitation, thoughts of him falling in love again and discovering life beyond me. But as hard as I tried, I couldn't bring myself to see a face upon the girl he looked at with such care in the confines of my imagination. Instead, I saw the back of her head and his face looking down on hers. And I pushed against the feelings of jealousy that threatened to overwhelm, discovering the sweet sensation of comfort that rose up under the thoughts of him happy once again.

From the ground, I could feel him stir. He grimaced in pain as he tried to sit up, the pain forcing him to remain on the ground. My image was gone from his head, filled instead with thoughts of his son and a feeling of hope he hadn't experienced since I had been ripped from his life.

Without warning, a yellow lab trotted into the bedroom and went straight to John. The dog licked at his face and then looked right at me. He saw me, even if it was only as a glowing light. It was strange that he was here, though I decided to thank him in silence rather than question his presence in our home, John's home.

”Is anyone there?” a voice called from the front of the house. I was transported to the entryway where a couple stood at the open door with an empty leash in their hands.

”h.e.l.lo? I think our dog is in your house!” the man called, hesitating for just a moment before stepping into the hallway. The dog barked next to John, and both of them moved forward with less hesitation. ”Sandy!” the man called out as he ventured through the house. He turned the corner and saw his dog next to John. Rus.h.i.+ng forward, he said, ”Call 9-1-1!” to his wife who was already pulling out her cell phone.

I moved back into the corner, melting into the shadows, my shame making me want to be even more invisible than I was. I had caused this. It was my fault. In front of me, the man knelt next to John and checked his heart rate, his breathing, asked him a few questions that John stumbled over in his answers. The time bubble burst as I watched everything happen in both slow motion and in an eerie fast forward, all of it unfolding at the same time. The paramedics came and checked his pulse again, swarming around him like seagulls fighting over an open bag of chips as they poked and prodded him before lifting him on a gurney. The couple with the dog spoke with one of the paramedics, telling them everything they knew about what had happened. They were the last to leave, taking the keys that hung on the hook inside the kitchen and tucking a note with their phone number in John's s.h.i.+rt pocket as he was wheeled away, then shutting the door behind them and locking it behind them.

”Did you want to go with them? Maybe ride in the ambulance?” Aunt Rose asked me. I shook my head, too fearful to speak. ”Maybe you'd like to meet them at the hospital then,” she said. Again, I shook my head. I was afraid to be near him, afraid I'd wish he would just succ.u.mb to whatever was ailing him and cause him to pa.s.s over to the other side. Aunt Rose patted my cheek, and in the sympathy that shone from her sad smile, I knew I didn't need to explain anything. ”Come on darling, let's get out of here.” She took my hand and we were whisked away from the sunlit house that should have held so much happiness, but only carried the same ghosts that all of us John, Sam, me, and even Aunt Rose were trying to escape.

Fourteen.

Next I knew, we stood inside a hospital, despite my insistence I didn't want to be here. I glared at Aunt Rose, who only shook her head with a smile.

”We're not visiting John. I have other plans for us,” she said. She turned and walked down the hallway, and I followed despite the air of suspicion with which I regarded her. Even though I was almost as guilty as she was of ending the life of another, I still held on to a bucket of resentments, faulting Aunt Rose for the pain of all I had lost. I also knew that she could sense this, and accepted it for what it was. Knowing Aunt Rose in life, and now in death, I imagined she didn't mind the blame I placed on her head. I was talking with her again. That small concession was enough for now.

Aunt Rose turned the corner, and smiled back at me. I could hear the strumming of a guitar echoing down the corridor, young voices chiming in with the stringed notes. We followed the sound to a set of double doors that were flung open wide to allow the music from the inside to fill the hospital wing with song.

On the other side of the doors was a large room with linoleum floors and streamers hanging from the ceiling, uneven as if they had been there for ages. Every inch of the walls was peppered with colorful children's paintings. Bookshelves with books of every size and shape stood in a corner next to several bean bags, and a few forgotten books lay on the floor nearby. Beside that was a bin of toys and a miniature kitchen, a tiny frying pan on the stove holding a replica of a fried egg.

The back of the room was dark, unused at the moment, making the room appear even larger with so much vacant s.p.a.ce. And in the very center under a large light that hung from the ceiling was a man in a white coat, who I a.s.sumed to be a doctor, playing his guitar while surrounded by over a dozen children who sang along with him.

I surveyed each child, seeing the various ways they were broken. One child sat on the floor with a blanket wrapped around him, his pale leg peeking out from under the material to reveal how skeletal he was. His face was gaunt and took on a yellowish hue under the fluorescent lights, though his smile made his face s.h.i.+ne with joy as he laughed and sang with those around him. A girl sat next to him, her head void of any hair. She wore a nightgown that b.u.t.toned at her neck and sleeves down to her wrists. Her feet were bare, and I could see bruises in various shades of purple, green, and yellow against the fair skin of her legs. A boy lay in a wheelchair that reclined enough so that he could remain lying down while still able to view the rest of the kids and the doctor playing the guitar. He didn't sing, but every now and again his face would break out into a silent laugh. His eyes darted around the room as he took in all the sights and sounds that surrounded him.

I took particular interest in this one child, how he was trapped in a mind and body he had little ability to control, and yet was so happy among the other children. I noticed how he was set apart from the others, the children around him paying him no attention as they paired up with each other and left him out of their circle. Segregation exists even in the grimmest of places, I noted.

Every one of the kids kept a safe distance from the boy, as if his paralyzed body and mind of marbles were catching; only glancing over their shoulders when a baritone laugh would escape from his lungs. All of them did their best to ignore him as their innocent voices rose and fell in the echoing room, all except one young girl who couldn't take her eyes off of him. I watched from our corner of the room as she got up, her eyes trained on him as she began to tiptoe in his direction. The boy who sat next to her grabbed her hand, shaking his head at her while motioning for her to sit back down next to him. I realized they were paired up in buddies, as younger kids sat next to older kids in a semi-circle around the strumming doctor. This was what must have ensured a sense of order in the room. But the paralyzed boy had no buddy at all, my only explanation being he was neither able to wander off, nor prevent a younger patient from doing so.

The young girl yanked her hand away from her buddy and crept the rest of the way over to the boy on the reclined wheelchair, staring into his face.

”Abby, get back here,” her buddy hissed at her, trying not to disturb the song going on while making himself audible enough for her to hear him and come back. A nurse stepped forward from the back of the room and smiled at Abby's buddy in the circle, motioning that it was okay and she'd keep an eye on them. Abby's buddy turned back around in defeat, focusing once again on singing with the other kids and forgetting Abby and the boy reclined in the back of the room.

The paralyzed boy took his gaze from the kids that sang in the room and looked at the girl in front of him. His mouth hung open in a permanent grin, the drool dripping from his lower lip onto a bib that was fastened under his chin. He grunted at her in an awkward laugh, his head flopping around without any form of control while his body lay limp underneath him. Abby reached forward and touched his cheek, causing the boy to grin wider. She laughed at his reaction and he laughed with her.

”I think Jacob likes you, Abby,” the nurse whispered. Abby gave the nurse a shy smile, shrinking away against the wheelchair with her fingers in her mouth. She couldn't have been more than five years old. She wore a nightgown like many of the other little girls in the room, a much happier thing to wear than the standard hospital gowns the rest of the patients wore in the hospital. Her long blond hair hung against her back, still a bit tangled and messy as if she had just woken up. Part of it was shaved away, and a bright red surgical wound shone out from behind one ear, fastened together with black staples.

”Brain cancer,” Aunt Rose whispered to me when she saw my gaze fall upon Abby's injured head. I sucked in a sharp breath, cursing a world where young children have to endure diseases that are far too ugly for a life so innocent. ”Don't worry, she'll make it out okay,” Aunt Rose rea.s.sured me. ”They managed to cut all of the cancer out of her brain, and her body has responded to the radiation beautifully.” She shook her head with a smile. ”The things these humans are capable of, you'd think they were demiG.o.ds with their abilities in science and healing. Truly miraculous, the things they can do.” She nodded her head towards Jacob. ”Now him, that's a whole other case. There's nothing left for the doctors to do but wait for him to succ.u.mb,” she said, clicking her tongue. ”It won't be long, either,” she added, nodding toward a figure in the back of the room.

A woman stood in the corner, separate from all of us and intent in her observation of Jacob. She glanced over at us and nodded in acknowledgement before focusing her attention back on him. I hadn't even noticed her before, and now her presence was hard to ignore.

”Who is she?” I asked.

”She's a family guide, probably an aunt or distant relative. We all have them, a familiar face that greets us in the first moments of the afterlife. Generally we give those who have pa.s.sed a little solitude before suddenly appearing, allowing you to plot your own course before we come to guide you through the hows and whys of life after living. But with children, we try to be there immediately when they cross over. When that happens depends on the will of the child. For some it's immediate, as they hold little knowledge on how to hang on to life when their spirit begins to move on. But for others, they fight to cling to life, trying to remain in a world with people they love in hopes they can overcome the inevitable. So those of us called to guide them in this existence just hang around until they pa.s.s over. Sometimes the spirit of the living can even see us, like Jacob there,” she said.

Sure enough, I could see Jacob's head roll every now and then toward the back of the room, his eyes straining as he tried to see the woman who stood in the back. She smiled back at him, but made no other movement at all. I could sense that he recognized her, but he was unable to voice his recognition. Instead he focused the rest of his attention on Abby, who had now mustered up enough courage to hold onto his exposed hand, curling her tiny fingers around his to make up for his inability to return the motion. And her soft, angelic voice seemed to rise above the other voices in the room as she shared a piece of the celebration with the boy who was ignored by everyone else.

When the designated music time ended, all of the children left for their hospital rooms. Many of them shared rooms with other kids, but Jacob's room only held one bed and a couch in the corner of the room that was made up with a pillow and blanket. Aunt Rose and I melted into the shadows of the room as the nurses worked together to place Jacob in a hospital lift that helped to transfer him from the mobile reclining chair he was in to the hospital bed. A woman, whom I perceived to be his mother, stood next to Jacob's bed, taking his hand once he was positioned in bed and listened close while a doctor shared a quiet conversation with her. The spirit woman from the music room stood silent in the opposite corner of the room, all of her attention focused on Jacob as he drifted off to sleep despite the commotion of the hospital.

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