Authors: L.L. Muir
He drove fast, but not too fast. She left his memories alone, suggested nothing. That last hour to Flat Springs dragged like two. He never looked her way. She kept her hands in her lap. It was dark when they neared the first Flat Springs exit.
“Home or the hospital?”
She jumped. He’d surprised her, finally speaking.
“Hospital.” Cool and aloof. No apologies. It was her duty to see to Kenneth, she didn’t need to explain herself.
Jamison turned north. When he parked the car there was the tiniest of hesitations, as if he wanted so much to say something before their road trip ended. But before he could, she grabbed the handle and opened her door. He did the same.
She walked quickly to the doors. He fell behind.
He still hadn’t caught up when the elevator doors closed.
A few seconds later, she hit the stop button and backed against the mirrored wall. Deep in the core of her, a shudder began, built, and rolled through her soul. If she were mortal, she’d be howling in pain. Her chest would contract over and over again as she sobbed the air from her lungs and tried to suck it in again.
But she wasn’t mortal.
She stood perfectly still, watching her own reflection, seeing nothing redeeming to speak of, except for a flicker behind her eyes. Maybe, she thought, it was someone waving, pounding, begging for help.
Maybe, she’d make sure the girl inside got what she wanted.
Someday.
Jamison had no idea how he’d beaten Skye to Granddad’s room. Mom was asleep on a short couch, clutching the old man’s worn plaid blanket. He knew what the wool would smell like, feel like. He knew it represented more than just the smell and feel of home; it was family, ancestors and offspring alike.
Granddad’s eyes opened a slit, then widened along with his smile when he saw Jamison standing there in gloves, yellow gown, and a mask. After a quick look at the couch, the old man put a finger to his lips and waved him over.
“Dinna wake yer mum. She’s had a right hard day, she has.” The old voice was muffled by the plastic tent that covered him from mid-chest up.
“And what about you? Has your day been hard, too?” Jamison reached for the man’s hand, but it was pulled away.
“Dinna touch me, Jamie. ‘Tis the truth, my very skin screams.” His breathing was labored, as if he’d run up the back stairs and jumped into bed just before Jamison had stepped inside.
He held up his gloved hands. “I won’t touch you. I promise.”
“Auch, my own day’s been a wee rough, as weel, laddie. I don’t ken how folks survive all this healin’.”
“I’m sorry, Granddad. I’m so sorry.”
“Never mind, now. Never ye mind. I’m near to sleep again, Jamie, but I’ll have a promise from ye first.”
“Anything.”
“I’ll have your promise that you’ll forgive yer mither. I ken you’re blaming her for keeping you away, but if she can forgive me my sins, you can forgive her hers.”
Jamison forced a smile, but said nothing.
“I’ll have that promise Jamie. Don’t make me beat it out of ye. I don’t care to show off in front of Skye.”
Jamison stiffened. He hadn’t noticed her entrance. He didn’t like her hearing their conversation, but there was no way he could avoid it.
“I promise, Granddad.”
The old man made him say the whole thing; that he’d forgive his mother.
“There’s a good lad. Ye’re the man I knew ye’d be, Jamie. Remember that. Now, let my wee angel closer.”
Skye stepped forward and took his granddad’s hand in both her gloved ones. He didn’t even flinch!
“Trying to control everyone from the grave, Kenneth? You aren’t in it yet.”
Grandad frowned. “Tell me, angel. How will they fair without me?”
“Without a Bossy Kenneth Jamison? How do you suppose?”
The beautiful wrinkles rolled back to make room for a pleased smile and his eyes closed. As she stood and started to pull her hand away, he dragged it under the plastic tent and gave it a whiskered kiss. “Tell them, Skye. Tell them they sent me the finest.” He let her hand go.
Jamison leaned over. “The finest what, Granddad?”
“The finest angel. The very finest.”
No one moved until they heard a soft snore.
Still snoring. Still alive. Still fighting.
“He’s only doing it for you. You know that,” Skye whispered.
Jamison frowned, tipped his head toward the door, and went out into the hall. Once the door was shut, he unloaded on her as quietly as he could.
“What do you mean, he's only doing this for me? Doing what? Fighting it?”
“Yes, fighting it. He doesn't want to let you down. He thinks you see him as this big tough man and he doesn't want you to realize he can't kick a little thing like cancer.”
“People kick cancer all the time, Miss Somerled. Some of us think life is precious enough to fight for as long as we can!”
“Of course it's precious, Mr. Shaw. I wouldn't be here if it weren't.”
“Really? But you Somerleds think you're too good for it. Can't get your hands—or clothes—dirty with it.” He picked up a cold cup of coffee that someone had left next to a box of tissues and tossed it at her perfectly clean raw clothing. The coffee seemed to stick to it just fine.
“Too good for it? Snobs or cowards? Make up your mind. You can't have it both ways.” She folded her arms, ignoring the coffee dripping everywhere. “Don't much like the sound of it, though, do you? Coward. Does it leave a bad taste in your mouth?”
“Don't.” Jamison looked at his granddad's door and grabbed Skye's arm, dragging her down the hall and into a consultation room.
“Tell me, Mr. Shaw.” She tore her arm free and backed away. “What happened back in Texas that makes your nose turn up like that? Is it because you can smell yellow?”
He took a quick step and she scurried around a chair, to put it between them.
“Did you sit by and let someone drag a friend away? Did you try to save him? Or did you hide on top of a tree house and keep your mouth shut?”
The verbal slap shocked him, left him swaying from the impact. He leaned a knee against a table.
She thought he was a coward? After all they'd been through in the last week, hadn't he proven he wasn't one? He'd tried to make up for that night, for letting them take his friends away. He'd done everything he could think of to find out what had happened, to stand up to the Somerleds and call them murderers when he didn't know what might happen to him, whether or not the sheriff would pat him on the head and walk away. He'd made the tape, in case something happened to him. He'd committed all kinds of crimes taking Skye hostage to get the truth. He'd taken her to the other Ranch, stood up to whatever they had in store in order to get her away from there.
But maybe it wasn't enough. Maybe he'd never be able to put Texas behind. Maybe the blood on his hands would never wash away. He knew there were unforgiveable sins. Maybe cowardice was one of them.
A cold tear dripped down his cheek and leapt off. Then another.
The angel knew him for what he was. Hopefully she wouldn't say anything to his granddad. If the man could just remember him as a good boy who once gave him a nice afternoon ride in a pickup truck, he'd settle for that.
“Skye, please.” He reached out to her, and when she frowned at his hand, he dropped it. “Please don't say anything to my granddad about Texas. I never told him anything and I don't want him to worry now. He shouldn’t waste his strength on pointless crap, you know?”
“Just tell me Jamison. Let me help you get through this before I have to leave for good. I've still got time to help you, if you'll just tell me what happened.”
He wanted to sit with her, on the couch, lay his head on her lap and tell her all of it. But she’d changed. She was no longer the girl who’d comforted him that night in her car. She wasn’t the girl he’d kissed. She was only a spirit.
A spirit.
Would telling her what had happened hurt anything? Writing it down, in the essay for Mr. Evans, had made him feel a little better. Maybe saying it out loud would be better still.
He wanted to get out of there, to go where she couldn’t look at him. But he wanted to get it out, so there was nothing left unsaid between them.
He’d just tell her quickly and go.
“Not much happened that you haven't already guessed, I'm afraid. A kid was shot. No, not just a kid...he was my friend. Brody.” He hadn’t said the name for years. “We were just playing basketball at the park. It was still light enough to see the hoop, but barely. We should have just gone home.”
Skye walked around the chair and sat down in it. He couldn’t sit. He needed to be close to the door, just in case.
“We heard a shot. I saw Brody start to go down in front of me. I was hoping he just collapsed ‘cause he was scared, you know? Like he was ducking. But then blood started seeping out of his back and onto my jeans.”
He remembered the stain, wondering how he’d get it out before his mom saw.
“It just kept coming. I couldn't do anything to stop it.” He looked at Skye. “Who knew you couldn't live without blood? It's like a glass isn't a glass if it's empty, you know? Why is that? Why do we stop being just because we've spilled?”
He turned his back on her, checked the distance to the door again. There was nothing blocking his way. He’d never said the rest out loud and he had to keep the exit clear, in case he needed it. The room was teeny. What had he been thinking?
He faced Skye again and sat on the edge of the table where he could see both her and the door. She was the danger now. He was handing her a knife she might decide to put through his heart. But he forced himself to keep going—to test her, and himself.
“Brody shook, before he died, like he was cold. I couldn’t make him warm. I wasn't paying attention to anything else, see? Then there were three guys standing there. I knew them, too. The one with the gun raised it, like he was going to shoot me, but another one said, “Don't bother with The Ghost, man. He ain't worth no bullet. He won't squeal, neither. I know his momma, and he knows what I'll do with her if he talks. Ain't that right, Ghost?”
It was if the kid’s voice had come out of him, and he wanted to throw up until the taste and feel of it was gone.
“And you didn't talk.”
“I didn't talk. Even when Brody’s mother looked into my eyes and asked me who killed her son, I told her I didn't know. I told the cops I didn't know. I told my mom...I was very convincing for a thirteen year old.”
“Why did he call you Ghost?”
“When we moved there, I didn't want to make friends. I was just killing time, waiting to move home again. I tried to blend in and not be noticed. Some idiot called me a ghost once, and it stuck.”
“Could have been worse, I guess.”
“Yeah. Granddad went to school with a kid named Stinky Cunningham. After a while no one remembered what his real name was.”
“So you didn't tell anyone.” She brought him back to the subject.
His eyes felt puffy, dry. He blinked a lot.
“No, I didn't tell anyone. Fear and hide, that's me.”
“I'm sorry about what I said, about you hiding on the tree house. I wanted to push you, see if you could get Texas out in the open. I didn’t touch your memories, I promise.”
“Is that what you were doing? I thought you just wanted to remind me that I'm a coward and I've ruined your...life.”
“You're not, and you haven't ruined anything. You didn't fear and hide in Texas; you feared and protected. There is a big difference. Lost Horizon is not the only book ever written on the subject, you know. The only thing you were wrong about, besides thinking we were murderers, was thinking we are all either hiders or fighters.”
***
With his mom still at the hospital there was only one place Jamison could stand to go. The tree house.
And when he got up inside, he didn't think about anything that had happened up there since he'd moved back to Flat Springs. He went inside his head, opened up what was left of the box he kept his treasures and secrets in, and sifted through the days when his granddad had helped him make the tree house his own.
There had been so few gray hairs then. The famous T-shirt was new and legible—”God answers a Scotsman's prayers, the rest of ye are on ye're own.” He and Grandma had giggled over that for days. She'd had it made along with two others that read, “A Scotsman has God’s ear, so don’t piss me off,” and “Gaelic is spoken in Heaven, English in Hell.”
Jamison rolled himself up in the Indian blanket, closed his eyes, and took that last ride with his granddad, over and over again. They’d talked about Grandma and the scones they would never taste again, the things Jamison’s mom did just like her.
Granddad had lived a good life, except for the lonely years at the end. He’d loved a good woman and she’d loved him back. Even now, in the coma he’d slipped into before Jamison and Skye had left the hospital, he was probably dreaming of a walk in some misty Scottish glen with his sweetheart.
Dreaming. Wishing. Praying.
He’d forgotten to ask Skye what his granddad had prayed for. Maybe he was ready to handle it now, whatever it was. First thing in the morning, he was going to ask her. Then he’d go to the hospital and tell Granddad it was all right if he stopped fighting, that he shouldn’t suffer any longer just for a selfish grandson.
Wind combed steadily through the branches and rocked him to sleep, and he dreamt of plaid wool blankets and sweet warm scones. Like music in the background of his dreams he heard the rustling of dry cornstalks...
Skye donned her ceremonial garb, then looked at the clock on the wall. 2:45. Almost time.
Kenneth Jamison would never wake from his coma. He had the peace he’d prayed for. Her assignment was finished and she needed to get out of Flat Springs in the fastest bandaid-ripping mode available.
She’d made her choice. She’d stick to The Agreement. After all, if she couldn’t have a life with Jamison, no other life could tempt her to reach for the golden ring Lanny insisted was waiting for her. And she couldn’t very well face him again; not because she might be tempted to change her mind, but because she’d just proven to him that he’d never been the coward he’d believed himself to be. How could she possibly look him in the eye when, of her own free will, she was choosing the cowardly way out?