Before I Wake

by Robert J. Wiersema

  “What happened?”

  She dabbed at his feet with the towel. “He walked through the glass to get Sherry out.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s in the family room.”

  “Is she hurt?”

  “Little cuts. She’s okay.” She took another look at his feet. “They’re really badly cut. And there’s glass embedded in them.”

  “Let’s—”

  The front door burst open. “Karen? Ruth?” Dr. McKinley almost tripped over us as he came through the door. He dropped to his knees. “What happened?”

  SIMON

  I awoke on the floor of the foyer with shocking suddenness. One moment I was standing on the front porch, catching the glint of something coming at me, then I was flat on my back, looking up at Karen and Ruth.

  “What—” I struggled to rise, but the weight of hands on my shoulders pressed me back down.

  “Just rest a moment,” Ruth said, from what seemed like a long distance away. “Almost done.”

  I felt the softness of a hand on my cheek. Karen’s. I let my eyes close.

  Sharp pain in my right foot. I flinched and pulled away.

  “That’s got it,” Stephen said, swimming into view. “I’ve bandaged…Oh, I see our patient is awake.”

  “He’s been in and out,” Ruth said.

  “How are you doing?” Stephen asked, leaning over me.

  It was hard to talk. My lips felt thick, and my face seemed stretched taut. “Sherry. Where’s—?”

  “She’s okay. The doctor checked her.” That was Karen.

  “What happened—?”

  “You got hit.” He lifted my left eyelid with his thumb. “With a bottle.” A bright light flashed into my eye, and I tried to look away. My left eyelid closed and there was a gentle pressure on my forehead before my right eye was forced open and the light flashed again. “Ruth, can you give me a hand?”

  “I can do it,” Karen said.

  “We’re going to move you into the kitchen,” Stephen explained. “I want you to try to sit up, and Karen and I—”

  “I can walk,” I protested.

  “That’s one of the things we’re going to check,” he said as he shifted me to a sitting position. “But right now your feet are probably a little tender.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about until I tried to stand up and my knees buckled with the pain. I would have fallen if he and Karen hadn’t been there to support me.

  After we had hobbled to a chair at the kitchen table, Stephen ran a series of tests—vision and reflexes and memory and cognition—as Karen explained again what had happened. It took me a moment to realize that she was holding my hand. Ruth brought me a glass of water, cautioning me to take small sips. When Stephen took his stitching kit from his medical bag, Karen blanched and offered to get me a new pair of socks.

  The tug of the thread through the tight skin of my forehead made me feel like I was going to vomit.

  “You’re doing fine,” Stephen muttered in what had to be automatic reassurance. I didn’t feel fine.

  “Just a couple more.”

  “So do you travel everywhere with a needle and thread, doctor?” I asked him. I hoped that it sounded like a joke—I meant it as a joke.

  “What did you think I was around here for, my good looks?”

  I smiled, with some difficulty. “No, I think that’s my job description.”

  He finished up, snipping the thread, and took a long look at me. “You may need to find some other employment, at least for a while.” As he repacked his bag, he said, “It’s quick and dirty. You’ll need to get it looked at. Maybe a cosmetic surgeon.”

  “Thanks, Stephen,” I said.

  “Are you okay with these?” Karen asked. She held up a pair of white cotton socks.

  I nodded and bent over to slide them on.

  “Do you want me to?” Karen offered.

  I shook my head, then reconsidered. “Please.”

  She was careful, but I had to close my eyes against a sudden dizziness.

  “Are you okay?” Stephen asked.

  “Woozy.”

  “Take it nice and slow.”

  I nodded. “I’ll be fine.” I took a deep, cleansing breath and opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was the concern on Karen’s face. “I’ll be fine,” I said, to her alone.

  She tried to smile.

  “Is Sherry…?”

  “She’s okay. A few cuts, but just minor ones. Stephen checked her over.”

  “That’s good.”

  I looked up at Stephen and Ruth behind Karen.

  “You all should get back to work, though,” I said. “No need to worry about me.”

  “No,” Karen said. “We can’t. Sherry’s room is a disaster.”

  “But what about the pilgrims?”

  “Simon, we have to think about ourselves, about Sherry. It’s not safe.”

  “That’s what he wants,” I said. “That’s what he’s wanted from the beginning.”

  “He’s still out there,” Ruth said. “Watching the house. Most of his people ran when you got hit, but he stayed.”

  Bracing myself against the table, I stood up.

  “What are you doing?” Karen asked.

  “I’m going out there,” I said, walking slowly out of the kitchen.

  “What?”

  My feet were throbbing, and the walls seemed to inhale and exhale around me. “I’m going out there,” I repeated. “We can’t just let him—”

  “What if they start up again?”

  I stopped in the foyer to force my feet into my shoes. I was shocked to see the smears of blood on the floor, and a small pool of congealing red near the front door. My blood, staining the cold tiles of my home.

  Karen was staring at the blood. I couldn’t read her expression.

  “I have to,” I said. “If we just let this go, then…” I didn’t know how to finish, so I just opened the door.

  “Wait,” Karen said. She was putting on her shoes, and pulling a jacket down from the hook. Her face was hard, determined.

  I thought of telling her to stay in the house, that it was too dangerous. But I realized I wanted her to come with me, I wanted us to be together. I needed her strength and her fierce determination.

  I held the door for her.

  KAREN

  The air was crystalline and cold, the silence so profound it felt like the world might shatter with a single word. It was still early; there were no reporters or television vans on the street.

  Father Peter looked as if he was expecting us. Alone on the sidewalk, he played with his coin and didn’t move as we crossed the lawn past the pilgrims who followed us with their eyes.

  “You look terrible,” Father Peter said to Simon with mock concern.

  “I have you to thank for that, don’t I?” Simon asked.

  “Me? I threw no stones. But this is what happens when you put your family directly in harm’s way.”

  Simon ignored the comment.

  “I want to tell you what’s going to happen next.” Simon took a deep breath. “In a few minutes, Karen and I are going to go back into the house, and while I clean up the blood and the broken glass and fix the window, Karen is going to invite these people”—he gestured at the pilgrims—“in to see our daughter.”

  He took a step toward Father Peter. The priest stepped back.

  “And that’s what we’ll do every day. If you or your friends spray-paint obscenities on our walls, we’ll scrub them off, and the people will come. If you break our windows, we’ll fix them, and the people will come. If you hurt us, we’ll wash off the blood, slap on some bandages and the people will come.” He pulled his hair back with one hand to show the priest the gash with its row of stitches. “Do you see this? That’s what we’ll do. Every day. Any wound you inflict, we’ll stitch up. We’re not going to stop, no matter what you do. This work is too important. Too many lives are at stake.”

  I stepped forward, lend
ing Simon whatever strength I could.

  “Including your own, Mr. Barrett,” the priest whispered. “Do you think it was an accident that you were struck by a bottle this morning?” His eyes were bright, unblinking. “Do you actually believe that God didn’t guide the hand of him who threw it?

  “One such as yourself,” he hissed, “ignorant of the Lord’s work, of the teachings of the faith, can perhaps be forgiven for not understanding. Perhaps someone who has chosen to ignore those teachings,” his eyes flicked to me, “might tell you what happens to those who oppose the Lord’s work.”

  He waited a long moment.

  “They burn, Mr. Barrett. They drown. The Lord drowned a whole world when it displeased him. He burned cities full of sinners. Are you willing to burn for something in which you do not even believe, Mr. Barrett? Are you willing to consign your daughter to the flames?”

  He folded his hands piously in front of him. “I’ll let you go back to your work, as I go back to mine.”

  He turned and walked away down the sidewalk. He didn’t look back.

  Simon swayed on his feet. “I think,” he said, his face white as chalk. “I think I need to sit down.”

  SIMON

  “You should see a doctor.”

  “What?” I lifted my head from the pillow as Karen sat next to me on the bed.

  Our bed.

  “I did see a doctor.” Moving made my head swim, and I lay back down.

  “You’ve been out all day. Stephen actually checked on you a couple of times.”

  “All day?” I struggled to sit up. The effort set off fireworks behind my eyes. “What time is it?”

  “About 4:30. Everyone’s gone home,” Karen answered.

  “Oh, shit, Karen, I’m sorry. I only meant to lie down for a second.”

  She smiled and put her hand on my leg. “You’ve been through a lot.”

  “How did everything go?”

  “It went fine. It took us a while to clean up the mess, so we didn’t start letting people in until noon.”

  “How’s Sherry?”

  She stopped rubbing my leg. “She’s fine,” she said, then paused. “But something strange has happened. Can you make it down the stairs to see her?”

  I followed her with tentative steps, trying to figure out if there was any way I could walk to avoid the cuts on my feet. I couldn’t find any, but it wasn’t as painful as I had feared.

  Sherry was back in her own bed.

  “You got the window fixed already?”

  She shrugged. “I called, some guys came, the window got fixed. But that’s not what I wanted to show you. Here….”

  I couldn’t see what Karen wanted me to see. Sherry looked like she always did, her lips parted in sleep, her breathing regular, her cheeks smooth.

  I glanced sharply at Karen. She nodded.

  Not trusting what I was seeing, I traced my daughter’s cheeks with the tips of my fingers. Perfectly smooth.

  “She was—”

  “Yes.”

  Before I had stepped onto the porch, my daughter’s face had been cut in a dozen places. And now…

  “When did this happen?”

  She was about to answer when the doorbell rang. She glanced up sharply, and I knew exactly what she was feeling.

  But it was Jamie, standing on the front porch with an older woman and a bearded man with a camera. “Karen, Simon, this is…Listen, this is Amy Moore. She’s a medical consultant for the Globe and Mail. And Don Neale, a photographer who is working with us today.”

  “Working with us? Jamie, what’s this about?”

  Jamie reached forward and squeezed Karen’s upper arm. “Over the last week or so I’ve been doing some follow-ups with some of the people who have been coming to see Sherry. I didn’t want to say anything until I had it nailed.”

  Karen said, “You’d better come in.”

  Jamie kept talking, “I’ve spent the last two days interviewing doctors to confirm what people were telling me. I’m working on a story for the Monday paper, and I’m wondering if you’d like to comment”—she reached into her folio and extracted several file folders—“on these reports from five doctors confirming spontaneous remissions and inexplicable recoveries in patients who have been to see Sherry in the last ten days?”

  The Globe and Mail

  Monday, December 23, 1996

  Spontaneous Healing

  Sick, dying go into remission after

  paying visits to comatose girl

  ~Jamie Keller, special to The Globe and Mail~

  Doctors in Victoria, B.C., confirmed late last week that five patients with chronic or terminal conditions who visited four-year-old Sherilyn Barrett, comatose since a car accident last spring, have demonstrated clear and remarkable recoveries.

  “Of course I’m not going to use the word miracle,” said oncologist James Gibson, who spoke to The Globe and Mail with the permission of his patient Tanya Ross. “What is clear is that there has been a remarkable spontaneous remission that I am at a loss to explain.”

  Other doctors confirmed…

  LEO

  “It was supposed to be over,” Father Peter said, looking at the newspaper again.

  We were in the van in the alley by the church. We weren’t going yet, but I had the motor running so the heater would work.

  “It’s too soon,” he said. “I thought I had enough time—”

  I had no idea what he was talking about, but he looked angry. Angrier than I had ever seen him.

  “Spontaneous remissions. How can that be? How did it get this far, Leo? From where do they draw their strength?”

  “From hell,” I said, without even thinking about it. I looked at him to see if I was right.

  He was smiling at me. “Of course,” he said. “Of course. That’s it. And we know what the righteous do with devils like this, don’t we, Leo?”

  “We fight them,” I said. I tried to remember what he had said at one of the meetings. “We bring the light of the Lord, the flaming sword—”

  My watch beeped. “We should go,” I said. “It’s almost ten o’clock.”

  “And we can’t be late,” Father Peter said. “Not today. There will be too many questions. From this.” He rattled the newspaper. “Those weak of faith and limited of vision will be doubting—”

  “Like Thomas.”

  “Like Thomas. But not you. You’re one of us, aren’t you, Leo? One of the righteous. The pure of heart. No doubts, no reservations.”

  I nodded and stepped on the gas.

  “And what do the righteous do, Leo? They fight and they keep fighting. Even when the battle seems lost. Even when the devils seem to have won. They fight until they drop.”

  I nodded. I didn’t know exactly what he meant, but I knew that I would keep fighting. I would never give up.

  “This will be the last day, Leo. The last day at the house, I promise you that. This story says that they’re shutting down for the holidays, that after today they won’t allow anyone in to see Sherilyn until the twenty-seventh.

  “That gives us three days, Leo. Three days to ensure that they never reopen that house. Three days to bring the wrath of almighty God down on that house of sinners.”

  When I looked over at him, he was smiling.

  Christmas

  KAREN

  The telephone on the bedside table rang well before seven, but I was already awake. I don’t think I had slept at all, just watched the red digital numbers on the clock change.

  I already knew who it was. “Hello?”

  There was some whispered shushing and laughter, and I smiled. I could picture what was happening on the other end of the line. “We wish you a merry Christmas,” came the massed voices of my family, two time zones away. “We wish you a merry Christmas…”

  I could see them all, tatty sweaters and unbrushed hair, clustered around the telephone in the kitchen, the living room a blizzard of torn paper and candy-crazed children. My family did this every Christmas:
called all of the relations who couldn’t be home. When we were teenagers, my brother Barry and I had started calling it the Cunningham Tubercular Choir. Nobody in my family could carry a tune; Simon’s rudimentary folksinging had really stood out.

  Simon.

  “And a Happy New Year!” The song dissolved into a round of cheering and shouted Merry Christmases before Mom claimed the receiver for herself. “Merry Christmas, honey. And Merry Christmas to our Sherry too.”

  “Merry Christmas, Mom.” Tears filled my eyes despite myself. “Is everybody there?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “Everybody and their dog.” I could see her sitting at the table. She would have brought out the Christmas dishes for the holidays, and the table would be covered with a red cloth, a little the worse for wear after Christmas Eve dinner. “I wish I was with you in Victoria, though.”

  “You’ll be here next week.”

  “But it must be so hard for you—”

  “I know how important it is for everyone to be home for Christmas, Mom. We’re fine.”

  “I just worry about you, that’s all.”

  “So who’s there?”

  She let me change the subject. “Well, Chris finally brought that Heather girl he’s been seeing.”

  “And how’s that?”

  “She seems very nice. A bit quiet. He’s wandering around like he just won the lottery, though.”

  I could imagine. “Did Stan’s kids come?”

  “They’re with their mom. He’ll pick them up at the bus in time for dinner.”

  “That’s good.” I snuggled deeper under the blankets.

  She waited a moment. “And how are you?”

  “Just waking up,” I lied.

  “You shouldn’t lie to your mother.”

  I smiled.

  “You could never sleep on Christmas Eve. I hardly think you’d start this year.”

  “I used to listen to you and Dad putting the presents out. Arguing. Remember that year you guys had to put together that air-hockey table for Stevie?” My room had been right above the living room, and I heard every word of the argument.

  There was a burst of crying in the background. “That’s Franny,” my mother said. “She’s a bit overwhelmed.”