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Moore.”
“Okay.”
Then she’s gone, and my phone slips from my hands.
And I can’t support my weight anymore. I fall to my knees, and as the night darkens around me, as the waves crash on the earth and the stars come out in the sky, I tell God what he has to do. What he needs to do. What he’d better do.
You give them back. You give them back to me because we’re not finished. I’m not done with them. They’re not yours! They’re mine!
And then I’m on my feet, racing for the car, ignoring my heart left back on the sand.
9.
Where Bear Receives
a Poem
HAVE I ever told you how I feel about hospitals? No?
I hate them.
From the antiseptic smell, to the sterile white walls, to the way that everyone smiles at you, like they know what you’re going through, like they know exactly what you’re thinking. They don’t. They can’t know. They’ve been here too long, seen too much death and horror. They’re desensitized.
They’re muffled. But still they smile and nod. A comforting hand dropped on a shoulder. A quiet voice while you sob. They know, they say. They know it can be hard to hear.
They don’t know. They have no idea.
The doors whoosh open, and I walk into the fluorescent white, and it’s blinding, and I wonder if this is what people mean when they say they saw a light when they die, this flash that overwhelms the senses all at once. Is that what it feels like after you die? I don’t want it. I don’t want it to happen.
Fuck the light.
I scan the room, suddenly at a loss as to where I need to go. I don’t know who I need to talk too. I can’t remember the doctor’s name, because all I can think is Otter, all I can think is Mrs. Paquinn, all I can think is the Kid. They’ve taken everything else from me, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing.
“Help,” I croak out. “Someone. Help me.”
But there’s no one. No one looks at me. No one even notices me. Can’t they see I’m breaking? Can’t they see that everything I love is in this place and if only I could just find them? And then. Then, then, then.
I see her. I know her. She’s walking toward me, her head down. I know her. I love her. I’d even loved her once. Her name. Her name.
“Anna?” I call out, my voice high and strained.
She looks up and no. No, please. Oh, please, no. Her face is streaked with tears, and she sees me, and suddenly it’s like she crumples, and she wraps her arms around herself, and I bend over and gag, and all I can think is which one? Which one is it? I ignore that little voice in me that screams the name of the one I hope it isn’t, because that is a dark voice, a selfish voice. A voice that sounds exactly like my own.
“Anna! Which one is it!” I cry out, unable to stand up straight.
She doesn’t seem to hear me as she stumbles toward me, and then her arms are around me, and she cries into me. “How did you know?” she asks.
“How did you know to come here?”
What does that matter? It doesn’t. It doesn’t matter. Give me a fucking name! “Tyson called,” I manage to say.
She pulls back and looks confused through her tears. “Tyson? How would he know? I didn’t tell anyone I was here!”
I don’t understand. “Otter?” I say meekly. “Mrs. Paquinn?”
She doesn’t get it. “I didn’t tell them, either! I just started feeling sick a couple of days ago, and it didn’t go away, so I came in to get checked out and… and… oh, Bear. Oh, I don’t know how or why or what now!” She starts crying again into my neck, and I want her to stop. I’ve got to find him.
I’ve got to find my family. She’s part of it, but I need to find the rest. I want to tell her that she can go with me, that we can look for them together, but I don’t know how to say it.
