Shades of Simon Gray

by Joyce McDonald

  Behind her she heard her brothers and sisters and their friends shrieking and laughing as they charged around the corner of the house blasting each other with water from their Super Soakers. For just that moment she wanted to be them. Or at least to be that age again, back when her biggest worry had been whether or not she’d be able to get a chicken breast when nine forks simultaneously dove for the small plate of fried chicken in the middle of the table. Rarely did she get a breast. Usually she ended up with two wings, or maybe a leg. You had to be fast in a house with seven kids.

  Devin stared down at the envelopes on her lap but couldn’t bring herself to open them. These were her tickets out of here. There was no way in hell her parents would ever be able to pay for her college education. She knew that, had always known it. But she and Kyle and Danny, none of whom came from families with money, had already thought of that. The scholarships were to be part of “the project.” Now, with Simon in a coma, she wondered how they were ever going to pull off this last crucial part of the plan.

  Her sweaty fingers left damp prints on the envelopes. Her thoughts turned again to Simon. Simon, who had helped all of them, who had never once used his skills to improve his own academic situation, and who might be dying.

  As if that weren’t bad enough, there was something else. Simon was in love with her. Devin had known this from the first day he started hanging around with them, the day Kyle brought him to Rob Fisher’s party. She saw how Simon couldn’t keep his eyes off her. And she knew at once he was theirs, knew she’d be able to get him to do things he might not have done otherwise.

  Now it was eating away at her. She could feel it in her stomach, like a sack full of baby alligators, trying to chew their way out. The only way to put an end to the incessant, painful gnawing was to go to Principal Schroder and tell her the truth. But Devin would never do that. Not to Kyle. Not to herself. And most of all, not to Simon.

  Simon sat on the edge of Stanley Isaacson’s bed while the old man told him about the time he was on a submarine in the Pacific. “Like being in a metal coffin,” he said. And Simon knew what he meant, because that was exactly what had happened to him. Only there was no one else there with him. No submarine crew for company.

  He knew what it was like to be locked inside a dark place. But sometimes he got out. He wasn’t sure how he did it, only that it had happened twice so far. This was his second journey, and it had brought him to Mr. Isaacson’s room, three doors down from his own. Mr. Isaacson, who had thick tufts of white hair growing from his ears but only a few thin wisps on his head, told Simon to call him Stanley. When Stanley talked about the war, about being in the sub with the lights out, feeling the rumble of depth charges only yards away, his withered body stiffened, his knobby fingers clutched at the lightweight hospital blanket. Simon thought he could smell Stanley’s fear. It smelled like seaweed, dark clumps stretched out on the wet sand.

  People walking past the door thought Stanley Isaacson, who was eighty-nine years old, was having a conversation with himself. They weren’t in the least surprised, given his age, that he was suffering from dementia and would soon be going to a nursing home. They did not see Simon sitting on Stanley’s bed. No one could see him. Except, apparently, Stanley Isaacson.

  Simon made this discovery the first time he found himself outside his body. It had taken him a few minutes to realize that the person he was staring down at in the hospital bed was himself. He could make out the shape of the nose, the swollen purple eyelids, the chin. Part of his head was hidden beneath bandages. He could tell they had shaved some of his hair, although the section was now covered in white gauze stained with yellowy-rust-colored Betadine.

  He thought he should feel something—pain, sorrow, a sense of loss—but he was surprised to feel only indifference and absolute calm. He was more interested in the rhythm of the respirator and the colored lines blip-blipping across the screen of the monitor.

  The air smelled of bleach. The room was dim and ice cold.

  He tried to remember why he was in this place. But he couldn’t. All he recalled from the night of the accident was a single, exhilarating sensation: the rush of finding himself suddenly airborne—launched like a rocket—of flying into the night, free as a bird.

  A short time later, although he couldn’t be sure how much time had actually passed, he had found himself outside his room, near the nurses’ station, where two doctors were talking. He stood only two feet from them, but neither seemed to notice him. Simon knew what it was like to be in a room full of people and not have anyone notice you, what it was to feel like a chameleon, taking on the color, any color, of the wall behind you, to have people almost knock you over in the hall between classes and never acknowledge the physical connection. He thought about these things and realized his present situation wasn’t all that different.

  He tried waving his hands over his head to get their attention, but the doctors never so much as glanced his way. They couldn’t see him. That was when Simon realized he must be dead.

  And he would have gone right on thinking that, if one of the doctors hadn’t headed back toward Simon’s room. Within seconds Simon’s ears filled with a strange whooshing sound. He felt himself propelled like smoke through the stem of a pipe, right back into his body. He knew this because it was completely dark and all he could feel was pain, all he could hear was the doctor’s voice hovering somewhere overhead before Simon floated off into blissful unconsciousness.

  Now, sitting on the edge of Stanley Isaacson’s bed, Simon wondered if maybe he could go a little farther than Stanley’s room. He’d managed to come this far. Maybe he could even leave the hospital. Who would know?

  When Simon got up to leave, Stanley pleaded with his eyes. Simon knew, without their speaking a word to each other, that Stanley would give anything to be able to come with him. But Simon doubted this was possible. Stanley was still burdened by his body.

  As Simon passed the nurses’ station, across from Stanley’s room, one of the nurses was dropping two Alka-Seltzer tablets into a glass of water, waiting for them to dissolve while she looked over a list of medications she needed to dispense. She never looked up. But Simon knew that even if she had, she wouldn’t have seen him.

  Somehow he found his way to the lobby, although he had no memory of how he came to be there. He stood by the information desk, watching two elderly women laughing over photographs one was showing to the other. He was almost to the front door, almost out of this place, when he felt the tug, heard the whooshing sound, and knew there was nothing he could do to stop his body from pulling him back into its dark cell.

  THE SUN WAS SETTING WHEN LIZ SHAPIRO GOT OFF the bus out on Route 40. She had at least a mile’s walk to Bellehaven since no buses came through the town, but she didn’t mind. She was in no hurry to get home. Her mother would be waiting, ready to pounce the minute she walked through the door, ready to read her the riot act for being late. Who needed that?

  She had spent almost the entire day at the hospital, sitting with Simon’s sister, Courtney, in a cramped, depressing waiting room. She’d stayed even though no one would let her into the intensive care unit to see Simon, not even for ten seconds. Not that she hadn’t tried. She’d pleaded with every nurse and doctor who came down the hall, did everything but get down on her knees.

  The doctors had not expected Simon to make it through the night, although they never said so to his family. Courtney had told Liz this. She had overheard two of the nurses talking.

  “They’re full of it,” Courtney said. “They don’t know Simon.”

  And Liz agreed. Simon was a lot tougher than most people gave him credit for. His frail appearance was deceiving. But it scared her that the doctors had expected him to die. She could not imagine a world without Simon Gray, could not imagine getting up in the morning knowing he wouldn’t be a part of her day.

  When Mr. Gray came back from walking the grounds outside the hospital and found her sitting with Courtney, he told Liz to go home. He
wasn’t being unkind, just his usual direct self. Liz knew he didn’t see any point in her being there. Her presence wouldn’t change anything. Even she knew that.

  Liz had stared up at his drawn, pale face, shadowed with stubble. She felt bad for him, this large bearlike man with dark hair, his coloring so completely opposite from his son’s, except for the blue-gray eyes. Even Mr. Gray wasn’t allowed more than ten-minute visits each hour, which was why he spent most of his time in the cafeteria drinking coffee or outside walking. But Liz stayed anyway, stayed until Mr. Gray showed up again and this time insisted she go home, saying her family would worry. He assured her that if there was any change, he’d let her know. Then he went back to Simon’s room.

  As Liz was getting up to leave, Courtney reached for her hand, then quickly dropped it. “He’s a real jerk sometimes,” she said.

  Liz looked down at her, surprised. “Who?”

  Courtney shrugged. “My dad, who else?”

  “He’s just upset,” Liz told her.

  Courtney slumped in the chair, rested her elbows on the wooden arms, and linked her fingers across her stomach. “That was all bull about letting you know if anything changes.”

  “Maybe not.” Liz swung her backpack up and slipped the strap over one shoulder. “He knows Simon and I are friends.”

  For the first time since Liz had showed up at the hospital, Courtney smiled at her. “Friends, huh?”

  Liz was so flustered by the knowing look on Courtney’s face, she couldn’t think straight. Without another word she had headed for the door.

  Swirling clouds of mosquitoes, like small tornadoes, spun above the marshy grass beside the road as Liz headed for home. Beyond was the Manunkachunk River, which ran right through the middle of town, joining the Delaware on the other side. Even with the sun sinking behind the trees, the evening was still muggy. Streaks of perspiration snaked down the sides of Liz’s face. She shifted her backpack to redistribute the weight. She was still a good half mile from town.

  When they were in elementary school, Liz and Simon often rode their bikes from town to Route 40, the only main highway that came anywhere near Bellehaven. They’d get that far and then sit on the hood of Mrs. Gray’s old Buick in the parking lot of the A&P where she was a part-time checkout clerk and watch the traffic, although not many cars traveled this route anymore, not since I-80 and I-78 had been built.

  As far as Liz knew, Simon hadn’t set foot inside the A&P since his mother had died, more than a year earlier. He wouldn’t even go near the place, as if the store had had something to do with his mother’s death.

  Sometimes she and Simon had taken the back way home from the A&P, just so they could come up over the hill into town. They would turn off on the road across from the deserted gas station, their feet pumping the pedals, the wind blow-drying their sweaty hair, as they flew past acres and acres of apple orchards, racing to see who could make it to the top first. In the spring the smell of the blossoms made Liz light-headed, and in the fall, the pungent odor of the apples left behind to rot on the ground almost brought tears to her eyes.

  She had lived in Bellehaven all her life, yet she never failed to feel the thrill of cresting the hill and finding the town spread out below with all its houses nestled safely among the flowering trees.

  Even now, as she climbed the hill, having decided to come home the back way, Liz felt that same strange sense of timelessness, of things having stood still for the people of Bellehaven. And if Simon hadn’t been in the hospital in a coma, near death, she might have gone right on believing things would always be the same.

  That night, as she reached the top of the hill, all she saw in the graying dusk were bony branches thick with crows. The only sounds were their caws and the shrill chirps of the peepers.

  At the far end of the yard behind her house, and the other stately Victorian homes along Willowbrook Road, a stream gushed with the spring runoff. Here the chirping grew even louder. It would be like this until the frogs found their mates.

  Liz walked across the backyard. The last two weeks of March had been unusually wet, with long, heavy rainfalls that had created cozy breeding grounds for early-hatching mosquitoes and left the earth soft and spongy. It felt like something living and breathing beneath Liz’s feet, as if she were walking across the belly of a giant. She stood by the edge of the stream, listening. She had heard these sounds every year since the day she was born, but for the first time she realized that the noise the peepers made tonight, the high, then low chirps, repeated and repeated and repeated, had the rhythm of a heart beating. And for the first time since she’d heard the news about Simon over the PA system that morning, she began to cry.

  Later, when Liz came through the back door, she found her mother sitting at the kitchen table, typing away on her laptop. Most likely, Liz decided, she was working on her latest romance novel for her mass-market publisher. Although her mother had a large office on the second floor, she claimed she did her best work at the kitchen table where fifteen years before, when Liz was only a toddler, she had written her first book on a yellow legal pad.

  A nicotine patch was stuck to her mother’s upper arm, and a pack of Wrigley’s spearmint gum was only inches from her hand, just in case. Her mother had been trying to quit smoking for almost a year, had succeeded for months at a time, then fallen back into the old habit. This was her third try and Liz was hoping like crazy she would make it this time.

  Right now Liz was fully prepared for a scene. She was, after all, late, had missed dinner, hadn’t called. She was without question expecting her mother to fly into a rage. What she did not expect were her mother’s arms around her, her hands stroking her hair and her voice whispering how sorry she was about Simon, and how awful about the accident. Liz was not prepared for this unexpected kindness. And just when she thought she had cried away every last ounce of water in her entire body, the tears began all over again.

  Chimes echoed from somewhere deep inside a cave, becoming more and more persistent until, finally, Courtney opened her eyes. She was on the couch in the family room. She was wearing a pair of cutoffs and a T-shirt, which she’d had to dig out of the trunk of summer clothes in the attic, because it still felt like August outside.

  The chiming, she now realized, was the doorbell. The early-afternoon sun coming through the windows was so bright Courtney squinted and staggered, still half asleep, toward the front hall.

  Through the peephole in the door, she could see two people standing on the stoop, a man and a woman. Jehovah’s Witnesses, she thought, and was about to return to the couch when she was startled by a loud knock and someone saying in a firm voice, “Police. Open up.”

  Suddenly she was in some old NYPD Blue rerun. This was a dream. It had to be. Neither the man nor the woman was wearing a uniform. Courtney’s heart was racing so fast she couldn’t think straight. Someone had told the police she smoked pot. Maybe someone from school. Maybe Simon. No, not Simon. “I need to see some identification,” she shouted at them through the door, hoping her shaky voice didn’t give her away.

  Both officers flipped open black wallet-size folders and flashed IDs and a badge a few feet from the peephole.

  “I’m Lieutenant Debra Santino,” the woman said. “And this is Sergeant Jerry Fowler.”

  Satisfied, Courtney eased the door open a few inches and looked up at them with one eye. “What do you want?” she asked.

  Debra Santino had short brown hair and a light dusting of freckles on her cheeks. She looked friendly enough, like somebody’s mom, dressed in gray slacks and an ice blue blouse. Sergeant Fowler was more intimidating. A dark shadow of stubble covered the lower part of his face. His eyebrows were thick, almost meeting above his crooked nose, and he had a deep cleft in his chin. He wore a navy blue suit and a tie, even though rivulets of sweat were running down the sides of his face.

  “I can’t let anyone in the house,” Courtney said. She wondered if she should mention she was home alone, that her father was at the
hospital where her brother was fighting for his life. Her father had been there since the day before, only coming home long enough to drop her off early that morning in time for school. Almost thirty hours sitting in a waiting room at the hospital, and he actually expected her to go to school. If she hadn’t been so upset about Simon, she would have danced the whole way from the car to the door, right in front of her obviously delusional father.

  Lieutenant Santino was looking at her with large dark eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But we have a search warrant.”

  Her partner pulled a folded document from his inside coat pocket and presented it to Courtney, who stared down at it but didn’t open the door an inch farther. Her stomach felt like a blender full of ice cream on high speed. She was afraid she might be sick. They were going to search the house. And when they did, they would find the pint-size Ziploc bag containing almost an ounce of marijuana in the toe of her left black boot in her bedroom closet.

  “Is your father home?” Officer Santino asked.

  Courtney shook her head. “He’s at the hospital.”

  “What is your name?” the woman asked.

  “Courtney.”

  “Well, Courtney, I’m afraid we can’t wait for your father to come home. But you can call him and tell him we’re here, if that would make you more comfortable.”

  Courtney stared down at her socks, light gray with tiny navy blue flowers printed on them. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

  “That’s confidential,” Officer Santino said. “But I can assure you it’s police business.”

  Reluctantly, because she didn’t seem to have a choice, Courtney stepped back and opened the door.

  “Which room is Simon Gray’s?” Sergeant Fowler asked.

  The question caught Courtney by surprise. It hadn’t once occurred to her that the police might be here because of Simon. They had come for her, hadn’t they? “Upstairs, the second door on the right.” She tried not to sound too relieved.