I had no role in this new realm, so I went first to the character creation screen, a chance to shape a new identity. My old character had been a human warrior, bold and brawny with a prominent forehead and a shock of golden hair. This time, I chose something gentler. For my race, a Draenei, one of the exiled ones, blessed with an unshakeable faith in the Light. For my class, a priest and healer like the archangel-I'd had enough of damage dealing. And for my name, I chose RichieW.
I took a minute to fine-tune my character. I fiddled with the hair and skin color, tried out several funky beards and settled on none at all, switched briefly to female and back to male. When I was finished admiring my new creation, I slid the cursor over the "Enter World" button and clicked.
At once, I found myself at the crash site of the satellite ship Exodar on Azuremyst Isle. I brought up my stats by habit, checking armor, strength, and stamina. Then remembering I was no longer a warrior, I reviewed the more priestly virtues of spirit and intellect. I checked the contents of my spell book and bag. Not much there. I hadn't been this weak in a long time-like in the real world. I shook my head, closed down everything, and set off to explore.
My choice of character had been a good one. The home of the Draenei was a calming place, a proper setting to roam around in during an unsettled period in my real world. The mist that gave the island its name rose up from the river and gave a blue tinge to the pines that lined my path. A purple haze veiled the mountains in the distance.
As I wandered through the landscape, searching for quests and hoping to find gold, weapons, spells, or anything else that could ramp up my experience, I ran into another player character, a female human mage. This avatar had soft blue eyes, full red lips, and arched brows that disappeared under a mane of auburn hair-an image beautifully rendered. In one hand she gripped a staff with a golden orb on top. Her other hand was open, delicate fingers extended to me in greeting.
I laughed, knowing how role-playing could be. That lovely avatar could easily have been Chuck or Ralph. Nevertheless, I stopped to admire her. When I got no immediate reaction, I clicked to move on. But before I could step past, the chat window popped opened in the lower left corner of the screen.
"Where are you going in such a rush?" she whispered so only I could hear.
I positioned the cursor over the text box and typed, "I seek oblivion."
"Bad goal," she replied. "Believe in the future instead."
My mouth opened and I almost said "Becky," even though my voice chat wasn't enabled. I slid the cursor beneath her words, intending to respond, but my fingers froze over the keyboard. After a moment, I yanked the cursor away, clicked open the menu, and exited the game.
I was done with fantasy. My decision was made.
***
I grabbed my jacket and rushed outside, pausing only long enough to check if the walkway to the main building was free of ice. Halfway across, a crow circled and landed at my feet. It had a sleek head feathered in black and talons that clacked on the pavement as it hopped about, gaping at me with that strange round eye on the side of its head. I watched it with suspicion. An omen? I shook off the mood and shooed it away with a flick of my cane. It squawked once, spread its wings, and flew off to the horizon without looking back.
Once inside the lobby, I punched the call button six times, trying to make the elevator come faster. On the ride up, I held my breath as the cab bumped and rattled against the sides of the shaft. When the bell signaled my arrival on the fourth floor, the doors took forever to open. As I waited, I almost expected to see the candlelit wall of a castle. Instead, I found the familiar green tile and fluorescent lighting of a hospital. I advanced deliberately down the corridor, counting the doors to PT. The same as always.
But when I got there, the door was closed and locked. I tapped with the eagle's beak on the window to no avail.
No Becky.
It had been almost three weeks since I saw her last. Had she finally given up on me?
I stared through the glass into the darkness, trying to see if the flowers were there. All I could see was my reflection. Then a thought occurred to me. Ralph would know.
I rushed back to the elevator only to find it gone. I checked the lights above the door. Someone had summoned the elevator after me. All the numbers from one to twenty were dark. Only the topmost floor was lit, the mysterious "RA." I wondered if it led to the tower with the arched windows. I punched the "up" button and waited. No whirring, no motion. The light stayed stuck on "RA."
Out of a combination of impatience and stubbornness, I headed for the stairs. Eleven flights up to my old home on the fifteenth floor. Nothing my cane and surgically repaired leg couldn't handle.
The stairway was gloomy, with concrete block walls and prison-style handrails, a place for emergencies and exercise. I leaned out over the handrail and glanced up the well, trying to see to the top. Then I began to climb, counting stairs as I went. Nine stairs to a floor. Ninety-nine to my destination. Plus one to get into the landing and one to get out. A total of a hundred and one.
Despite all my rehab, I was winded by the fifteenth floor. Before exiting the stairwell, I stopped to catch my breath, not wanting to seem desperate when I found Ralph. At least that's what I told myself. More likely I was procrastinating, hesitant to cross a portal into what might be a different world.
I opened the door.
On the far side, the usual scene, nurses and health aids bustling about, patients with walkers and canes. I waited for a break in the flow before merging in. When I reached Ralph's office, I hovered at the threshold, trying to assimilate what I saw. A man sat at Ralph's desk, wearing hospital scrubs and tapping at his computer. But he was too slight to be Ralph, shorter by a foot or more.
"What are you doing here?" I blurted out, courtesy be damned.
"Just using the computer," he muttered without turning around. "Mine's on the fritz."
"Where's Ralph?"
"Don't know. Haven't seen him today." He swiveled around in his chair and took stock of me. "Can I help you?"
"No, thank you," I said, then whirled around and left.
I was starting to get frantic. No Becky. No Ralph. And the exertion of the climb had made me lightheaded. I found myself circling the corridor, the click of my cane on the floor getting faster and faster. I poked my head into patient rooms. I peered into offices. No one I knew. I thought about taking the elevator to the "RA" floor. What if Becky had gone there, up to the turret, and was keeping watch through the arched windows, warding off evil from the world?
Then as I raced around a corner, I nearly wiped out Dinah.
She stretched out a hand for protection and steadied me.
"My, aren't we getting mobile?" Then when I didn't answer, she straightened her glasses and looked at me through those Coke-bottle lenses. "Everything okay, Freddie?"
"I'm looking for Ralph."
"He's with a patient," she said. "Anything I can do?"
"Yes. No . . . I'm not sure."
"I'll tell you what, Freddie. I was just heading for a break. Why don't I get us both a cup of coffee, and we can catch up in the solarium."
Moments later, the two of us sat blowing across the top of our steaming cups, staring out over the golf course and the cemeteries.
"So, why were you looking for Ralph?" she said.
"To find out what's happened to Becky. I went to look for her. Her room was dark and the door was locked."
"She's on vacation this week, Freddie. We do get time off, you know. Most of us love our work, but it isn't easy."
"I know that."
"She'll be back on Monday." She studied me for a good five seconds, then tried out the words like easing onto thin ice, wondering how far she could go. "You two haven't seen each other in a while."
I nodded.
"Ralph told me about the kid who might be Richie. Is that why you're looking for Becky?"
"It's one reason."
"But you are going to check him out?"
> "I . . . think so."
"Well, Dr. B. always says the first step in a diagnosis is to understand the problem. Is this about Richie? Or is it about you and Becky?"
A good question. I'd made up my mind to try and find Richie. But what about Becky and me?
Dinah patiently watched me with the same kindness I saw when I first awoke from the coma.
"Maybe you can help," I said at last.
She took a sip, wincing when she found the coffee still too hot, and waited for me to continue.
"Becky once told me she had scars like me, but wouldn't tell me how she got them. She's always been so positive, like she's coasted through life. I know her parents are doing well and she had no siblings, but-"
"No siblings?" Dinah said. "That's not right. She had a sister."
"Had?"
"Yes. She died when Becky was a kid."
I blinked twice. There'd been storm clouds in Miss Sunshine's life.
"Do you know what happened?" I said.
"That's all she told me. I didn't think it was my place to pry."
A thought struck me, a way to find out more. "Do you remember how old Becky was when her sister died?"
"Fifteen, if I remember correctly. Yes, I'm sure she said she was only fifteen."
Fifteen. The same age I'd been when my father died. I pictured a teen-aged Becky dressed in black, standing in a receiving line in the basement of a church, surrounded by plates of chocolate chip cookies and well-wishers assuring her everything would be fine.
I got up and looked out over the landscape, thinking of the first time Becky brought me here, the day she told me her simple goals-a home, a family, someone to love. And I wondered where she was now, and what the view from the watchtower was like from behind those gray-green eyes.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Sand in an Hourglass
Late that night, I sat alone at a computer in the common room, playing a different kind of game: find out what happened to Becky's sister. I still had passwords to the sites I'd used to search for Richie. I knew her sister's last name and the year she died. The rest was just work.
After two hours, the screen's glow had become oppressive, sucking in what little light was left in the room. My eyes began to water, but I wasn't about to give up. Finally, I located an obituary giving me the first name, date, and place of death. Next, I went to the hospital records. Nothing.
I found what I was looking for among the police reports.
I stared at the words until the letters started wriggling across the screen. When I'd seen enough, I dragged the cursor over to logoff. But I was squeezing the mouse so hard, I overshot the button. It took three tries before I managed to steady my hand and click.
The screen went dark and as it did, all the light in the room seemed to fade.
***
With Becky not due back until Monday, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I contacted Mr. Shapiro to get the phone number and then called the halfway house. From the social worker in charge, I learned the boy they called Andy had been taken in off the streets six years before-the right timing to be Richie. But he'd been found wandering around with no identification and always refused to give anyone a name. The only way to find out was to set up a meeting. I located Ralph and asked if his offer of a ride still stood. It did.
We left the hospital at ten on Saturday morning. It was a gloomy day with a low gray sky and just enough snowflakes to force Ralph to fuss with the intermittent wiper control, trying to keep the blades from squeaking across the glass. As we approached the bridge over the canal, its supporting arches were hidden in mist. Not exactly a day for miracles.
Ralph and I talked about a lot of things on the hour-long drive. Of the war and the veterans he'd worked with. Of his parents who were looking forward to retirement. Of a new patient he'd taken on recently, a kid only eighteen years old, whose mind and body had been shattered in an IED attack not so different from mine. When I began to question why I'd been so lucky, he switched the subject to the future-to my upcoming discharge and my application to grad school. But we didn't discuss Richie. Not until we rounded the rotary with the welcoming topiary in the shape of the words "Cape Cod."
"It's gonna happen, Freddie," he said. "I can feel it."
I clasped the cane between my legs and smiled at the eagle.
"I hope so, Ralph. I'm due for a wish come true."
He chanced a glance away from the road to look at me.
"If I had the power," he said, "I'd grant you this one."
For the next ten minutes, we stayed quiet. I tried to count the snowflakes that landed on the windshield and match them to my breathing. Only when we exited the highway and veered onto a winding back road did my unspoken fear rise up from my chest and become words.
"What if we're each born with a certain amount of happiness, like sand in an hourglass? And once that sand runs out, that's it. What if I drew the short straw, too few grains, and they all ran out when I was a kid? And that's all there is."
"It's not a video game, Freddie. Bad things happen, worse for some people than others, and you've had more than your share. But your future's not cast in stone. This kid may not be Richie. You may never find him. But whether there's more happiness in the cards? That's up to you."
A few more turns and we pulled into the small dirt driveway of the halfway house. It was a two-story wooden structure that looked like a World War II barracks, though someone had taken the trouble to add a splash of color to the paint and flowered curtains to the windows.
We stopped. I opened the door and planted my feet on the ground, wiggling my shoes on the loose gravel to get a stable platform. Then I stepped out, after asking Ralph to wait in the car. This was something I had to do alone.
Inside, the entry hall was empty with no formal reception, nothing to greet a visitor but a folding bridge table with a circular stain in the center-residue of some long-gone plant over-watered. Along the wall, radiators with peeling paint popped and steamed like miniature dragons. A narrow hallway extended out the back with doors on either side, and at its end a staircase spiraled its way up to a second story.
I called out "hello" and when only an echo answered, I took out the cell phone Ralph had loaned me and called my contact. A few seconds later, a man climbed down the stairs and stepped smartly along the hallway toward me. He had long hair and a beard, at a distance looking like he could be the boy in Mr. Shapiro's picture.
I watched him like a ghost approaching but could see no hint of Richie. He was too tall and at least twenty years older than the boy who would be my brother. The lines of his face curled upward, making the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes crinkle. It was a face that bore witness to the work he did-a mix of caring and concern. Like Becky, Ralph, and Dinah, one of the good people in the world. When he reached me, he extended a hand.
"Lieutenant Williams, I presume. Pleased to meet you. I'm Bob LaGuerre, the guy in charge of our little world. Can I get you anything? Something to drink?"
I said an abrupt no and then more tactfully explained that I was anxious to meet the boy who'd seen my picture in the newspaper. My new friend Bob said he understood and headed off to fetch him. I listened to his footsteps clomping down the wooden hallway and waited.
It was probably no more than a few minutes but felt like forever. Finally, Bob LaGuerre came back, escorting the boy in the picture. He was dressed shabbier than my mother would have allowed but was the appropriate age and height, and his gait looked about right. But it wasn't until he came closer that I knew.
He cocked his head to one side in that funny way he had and looked me up and down. But he stopped and stared when he noticed my cane with the handle in the shape of an eagle head. I looked too, at its polished surface marked with the names of those who had died-the men of my squad, and Mom and Dad and Joey. No need to add one more. Richie was alive.
"What's that?" he said.
"It's a cane. I need it to help me walk." And then when he ke
pt staring at the eagle, I explained, "I hurt my leg in the war."
I braced for the question he'd asked every day when I'd come home from basketball practice. But he worded it differently this time.
"I guess you'll never dunk now, huh, Freddie?"
I nodded. I'd long since given up that dream and was worried not for me but for him. Just like when we were kids. I didn't want him to feel bad. But he'd changed too.
He broke into that special grin I knew so well, that magnificent innocence.
"That's okay, Freddie. It's only a game."
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The Dreaded Day
Still well before dawn, I returned to my bedchamber to wait out the heat of the day. As I lay atop the quilt, swimming in my own sweat, I replayed my first meeting with the gardener. I recalled the butterfly lighting on her wrist, the raven-shaped mud on her face. How she removed the torn apron to reveal a summery dress. How its fabric rustled against her skin. But as exhaustion from the restless night overwhelmed me, I began to drift off. And so, thinking of Rebecca surrounded by hydrangeas, I fell into a deep sleep.
I dreamed I was returning to the crypt for the final trial. But on my way, I heard a tumult coming from the main gate. I mounted the parapet, taking the stairs two at a time, and leaned over the wall to see what was happening.
Below, the people had begun to celebrate, assuming I would triumph and be anointed king. Many had raced out to line the road to the castle. As I watched, a squire led a white horse through the crowd toward the drawbridge across the moat. The horse bore no armor, but instead had a wreath of white roses about its neck. And on it, the gardener rode side saddle, a sprig of baby's breath in her hair. Overhead the dark clouds had flown, replaced with the bluest of skies. And the sun shone as if there were no death.
Along The Watchtower Page 21