A Symphony of Cicadas (21 page)

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 on
ly
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.

“Hello?  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
.
Rushing 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
mak
ing
m
e
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 a
n 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 shirt 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 succumb to whatever was ailing him and cause him to pass 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 on
ly
carried the same ghosts that all of us – John, Sam, me
, and even Aunt Rose
– were trying to escape.

Fourteen

N
ext I knew, w
e stood inside
a
hospital, despite my insistence
I didn’t want to be here
.
I glared at Aunt Rose, who on
ly
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
.
T
hat small concession
was enough for now
.

Aunt Rose turned the corner, and smiled back at
me
.
I could hear
t
he
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 t
he
wall
s
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
space
.
And in the very center under a large light that hung from the ceiling was a man in a white coat,
who I assumed 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
sh
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 buttoned 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
ly
ing 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 exist
s
even in the grimmest of places, I noted
.

Every one of the kids kept a safe distance from the boy, as if his para
ly
zed body and mind of marbles were
catching;
on
ly
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 para
ly
zed boy had no buddy at all,
my only explanation being
he was
neither
able to wander off,
n
or
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 para
ly
zed boy took his gaze from the kids that s
a
ng 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 ha
ve
to endure diseases that
are
far too
ug
ly
for a life so innocent
.
“Don’t worry, she’ll make it out
okay,
” Aunt Rose reassured me
.
“They managed to cut all of the cancer out of her brain, and her body has responded to the radiation beautiful
ly
.”
She shook her head with a smile
.
“The things these humans are capable of, you’d think they were demigods with their abilities in science and healing
.
Tru
ly
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 succumb,” 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 fami
ly
guide, probab
ly
an aunt or distant relative. We all have them, a familiar face that greets us in the first moments of the
afterlife
.
General
ly
we give those who have passed a little solitude before sudden
ly
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 immediate
ly
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 pass 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 on
ly
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, who
m
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
.