“It doesn’t matter. You must hurry.”
“I’m tired,” I say. “I’m tired of everyone telling me about choices. I’m tired of having to make choices. I’m tired. The choices I make don’t matter. Nothing I do matters. How can it? God can just take everything away whenever he wants, so how the fuck does anything I do matter? It’s just a game, Nina! It’s all just a fucking game!”
She flinches away from me as I finish, but it doesn’t last long. Her gaze filling with steely resolve, she leans over and brushes her lips against my cheek. “Then you fight,” she whispers harshly in my ear. “You fight for what you believe in. You fight for what’s yours. He would do it for you—he already has. The only real person in the world who can know what a father can mean is dying, Benji. He’s dying, and he needs you.”
“I can’t,” I whisper, the fight draining out of me. “I can’t watch that happen. Not after everything I’ve seen. ”
She stands back, the lines around her mouth pronounced in anger. “It’s not always about you,” she says coldly. “You may think it is, and maybe since Big Eddie died it has been, but not now. Not anymore. You’ve allowed yourself to drown in your grief, thinking only about yourself. You’ve been selfish long enough, Benjamin Edward Green. Big Eddie raised you better than this.”
Her words might as well have been a slap across the face. “You don’t have any idea what I’ve been through,” I say with a scowl.
“No? So I didn’t feel pain when Big Eddie died? I don’t feel heartache knowing my Christie was the cause of it? I don’t know grief now that my own sister is dead?” Her voice breaks, and her eyes fill with tears.
“It’s not….” But it is. It is the same. It’s all the same. Every single piece. Every single part. She’s right. This isn’t what my father taught me. These aren’t the lessons I was supposed to learn. Seeing him on the other side of the river as we said goodbye should have been enough. Michael was right. I was given a gift, one that most will never get to have. And I’ve thrown it back in so many faces. I hang my head. If this was another test, then I don’t know if I’ve failed yet or not.
“You haven’t,” Nina says, and not for the first time, I wonder if she can read my mind. I wonder at my little aunt and how she came to know so much, how she can see what others can’t. I wonder just what exactly she is. “There’s still time. Not a lot, but enough. You must hurry.”
“People are going to see how I’m dressed,” I remind her.
She nods. “Thought of that. Couldn’t grab your clothes because Mary would know what I was doing, so I just took this.” Only when she starts to shrug out of it do I see she’s wearing a big coat that almost engulfs her completely. She helps me put it on, and for a moment I smell the heartbreaking scent of earth.
“I thought this went down in the Ford,” I say softly, touching the fabric of Big Eddie’s jacket. There’s a sharp pang in my head and heart because I smell earth again and think I see a flash of blue.
“It was in Little House,” she says quietly, putting my other arm through the sleeve. “Hanging near the door.”
I don’t know how that’s possible, because I’m certain it was in the Ford. As a matter of fact, I know it was. It was sitting on top of the bench seat, behind my neck, when the truck flipped. I don’t remember seeing what happened to it after. Nina says nothing as she waits.
Do you believe in the impossible? Big Eddie whispers.
I do. I do believe in the impossible.
“How am I going to get there?” I ask, easing myself off the side of the bed with a groan. I feel dizzy as I stand, whatever drugs they’ve given me for the pain causing my head to swim.
She stands next to me, puts her arms around my waist, and allows me to lean on her. “Took Mary’s keys from her purse when we got here,” she said, grunting. “I felt bad, but then I whispered I’m sorry and so I think that makes it okay. She and Lola are drinking coffee in the cafeteria, and I told them I had to use the bathroom. We have to hurry.”
“You can’t drive,” I remind her as we move toward the door.
“It’s a good thing you can,” she says.
“Uh, I’m slightly high from the pain meds.”
“I’ll be there to keep you okay,” she says. “And I think God will too.”
I don’t know how to respond to that.
“Plus, there’s coffee in a thermos in the car.”
Great. I’m sure the judge I’ll have to stand before when I get arrested for DUI will be okay with me having drunk coffee while high after breaking out of the hospital to go save my guardian angel boyfriend, all precipitated by my aunt, who has Down syndrome and may or may not be some kind of psychic. Or something.
It hits me again that my life might just be a little strange.
It takes us almost ten minutes to get out of the hospital. Nina is taking her
covert mission seriously and stashes me in empty rooms or supply closets every time someone walks by. She smiles widely at them and hums to herself, waiting for them to pass. As soon as they do, she drops the act and grabs me again, pulling me toward the elevator.
It’s empty when we get in, and the time is displayed electronically above the buttons for the floors: 8:17 p.m. She hits the button for the first floor, and I rest up against the wall, buttoning the big coat up the front so it covers the hospital gown I’m wearing. The coat hangs down to my upper thighs. It should be okay as long as no one feels the need to scope out my bare legs and feet.
The elevator moves down and then stops suddenly on the third floor. We hold our breath as the doors open. There are voices right outside the door, but it sounds like they’re distracted. I move away from the wall and hit the close button repeatedly when I hear someone say “Hey, hold the door!” I don’t, and it slides shut before anyone can see us.