The Girl in a Coma

by John Moss

  We loved hanging out with Nana Friesen. Gray hair, glasses, and a beautiful smile. What happened, David? Tell me?

  “She was on her way to Philadelphia to visit Auntie Vi.”

  Aunt Violet is her younger sister.

  “It was an indirect flight. Nana was flying from Buffalo to make a connection. It’s awkward for her to travel but I guess they put her in a wheelchair to move around the airport. They look after her. Anyhow, one hundred and forty-two people survived. One guy was killed. A barber from Toronto. He was sixty-five.”

  Did that make it better, that he was sixty-five?

  “People are saying it was a miracle.”

  You’ve got to be kidding.

  “People are saying God saved one hundred and forty-two passengers and crew—isn’t that amazing?”

  Did God kill the sixty-five-year-old barber on purpose? I don’t think he does things by accident. Wonder what the guy did to anger the Almighty?

  If you’re going to take the credit, you’ve got to take the blame. Even if you’re God.

  That’s an Allison rule. Of course, God might have rules of His own.

  Nana Friesen took us to church a few times, but it was mostly for something to do. I don’t know if Nana believes in God, but she’s a good person, a good Sunday Christian.

  God is a puzzle I haven’t figured out yet. I’m working on it. When you’re in a vegetable state but you can think, you’re bound to think about God sooner or later.

  Anyway, David and I aren’t churchgoers, but you wouldn’t say we’re anti-God. We just like to argue. Usually, we take different sides. It makes a better argument if you don’t agree.

  “Nana Friesen is okay. She’s gone on to Philadelphia.” He pauses, like he is thinking of something else he wants to say. Then he announces: “Okay, I’ve got to go. See you soon.”

  I feel little taps on the back of my hand. I’m guessing it’s my left hand, the one closest to the door. I know where the door is because when it’s open I can hear people in the hall. I sometimes think I can feel the air moving when they walk past. Maybe it’s only the shifting light patterns as they go by.

  I’m happy my Nana is alive but I’m also sad. Nana hasn’t visited me since I took a bullet in the head. It’s hard for her to get around. Harder to get here than to Philadelphia. Unless there’s a crash. And I understand, she doesn’t want to see me this way. But when David leaves, I feel so lonely I just wish I could sleep.

  Maddie O’Rourke arrives.

  She walks right past my bed, straight to Doris. Doris is gurgling and wheezing. Maddie stays with her until after the eleven o’clock closing.

  A few other people come in.

  At about midnight, Doris gives one last gurgle and dies. It hasn’t been seventeen days. It was a natural death, if you can think of death as natural. I can’t. Inevitable, yes. But not natural. Not unless you’re really old. Which I’m not. And neither was Doris.

  Lizzie

  Lizzie guided Fleetfire away from Portage Trail and along Chippewa Creek, known locally as The Crick, until they reached a pathway too narrow for wagons or carts. They climbed a narrow ravine through the rocky Niagara Escarpment to reach an overgrown road surrounded by primeval forest. The road dwindled to a rugged trail as they moved farther away from settled farmland.

  By the time they approached a scattering of scrub poplars and alders, it was mid-afternoon. Lizzie looked down at the remains of a stone wall someone had built when they tried to clear a farmstead. They must have abandoned it. Just too many rocks, not enough soil. The heartbreak of their failed labors touched her deeply. Along the Grand River, fences were made from upended tree stumps. Here, stones piled into walls revealed land too poor to yield crops or raise animals.

  The battlefront along the Niagara River seemed far behind her. The burning buildings and the bloodshed belonged to another world. Through a clearing, she could see beyond the river to the green rolling fields of the American States. She had been born there, in Boston. She was American by birth, yet George was her king. She felt restless inside, like she had swallowed butterflies. She wanted to go home.

  She followed along the wall, approaching the place where she had tucked away the saddlebags filled with bank notes and coins.

  Fleetfire had saved her life, now she was determined to save his. If she returned him to Matthias, he would be butchered. There was no shelter and not enough hay to get him through until spring. Her cousin would have no choice but to sell him to the Redcoats for food. Otherwise, if the Americans came through, they would butcher him themselves. One way or another, Fleetfire would be slaughtered unless she protected him. She would fulfill her duty to Brock and his Redcoats and take him home to their Grand River farm. When the fighting was over, she would give him back to her Uncle Matthias.

  Perhaps she should just pick up the money and return home. There was nothing noble about war. It was ugly. She longed for the safety of her family.

  I’m being silly, she thought. There’s business to do.

  She lifted one leg over the horse’s neck, trying not to get her long skirts tangled in his mane, and swung free, dropping to the ground by his side.

  After all, she had walked all the way over in the first place. It had taken her three days. Each night she had called in on a farmstead along the way and stayed with the family members, who were glad for the company. No one had asked about the leather saddlebag she carried over her shoulder and guarded so carefully. They figured it was none of their business.

  Leading Fleetfire by his reins, Lizzie trudged along beside the stone wall, looking for the hollowed-out niche in the rocks where she had hidden her treasure. Rounding a corner she almost jumped out of her skin. There was a man sitting on a pile of boulders not fifty feet from where her treasure was hidden. He smiled.

  Seventeen

  Lizzie

  Lizzie was startled. She was not terrified. Nothing scared Lizzie Erb for very long. Once she recognized the man on the rock pile, her alarm changed to confusion.

  There was no mistaking him, with his bushy blond mustache and his buckskin jacket covered in beadwork and tassels. How could she forget his enormous smile?

  And his eyes were as dark as night, with lines at the edges from squinting into the sun. It was her frontiersman from the burning barn who had saved her from the murderous Captain Blaine.

  “I was expecting you sooner,” he said, rising from the rock pile to take hold of Fleetfire’s bridle.

  Lizzie took a step back. She removed the blue scarf from around her neck and handed it to him.

  “No, you keep it,” he said. “It’s a gift.”

  She wrapped the scarf around her neck again.

  “I was delayed,” she said. “I had to arrest a couple of your soldiers who had lost their way.”

  “They’re not mine.”

  “Well, I arrested them anyway.”

  “You can’t just arrest people.”

  “I did.”

  “They must be very dull-witted.”

  She wanted to say, only one of them was, but instead she observed: “You were with the British Redcoats when they burned down Matthias Haun’s barn.”

  “I was. That doesn’t make me a soldier. You don’t see me in uniform. I’m a born and bred Canadian, same as you. I’m a free man.”

  His declaration thrilled her.

  “But how could you be expecting me?” she demanded.

  He nodded in the direction of his own little horse, tethered beyond the rock pile.

  “I ran into some friends,” he explained. “I’m a scout. I grew up at the trading post down near Detroit on the Canadian side. My family has been in business there with the Indians for over a hundred years. When the Americans crossed over, I had to choose sides.”

  “And which did you choose?”

  He smiled.

>   “I’m here to choose sides, myself,” she said. “I’m from the Grand River Purchase and you haven’t told me how you knew I’d be here.”

  “I had an encounter with General Brock and Colonel Macdonell early this morning.”

  “You know some important people,” she snapped, then added: “But who doesn’t?”

  “It’s a very small world,” he said.

  “Really? I thought it was rather large.”

  “Well,” he said, “they told me you had money for them, but you’d hidden it away somewhere. They told me you’d come from up near Berlin. It didn’t take much to guess you would have passed through the Beverly Swamp and along this trail. It didn’t take a genius to figure you would stash your treasure about here, before descending into the war zone. So I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Really?” said Lizzie with as much sarcasm as she could muster. “You’re quite brilliant, aren’t you? But why wait, if you know where it’s hidden? Of course, you don’t really know, do you?””

  “Not exactly. But I’m here to see it gets where it’s supposed to go.”

  His teeth gleamed white and the stars deep in his eyes sparkled from the sunlight. He seemed to find her confusion amusing.

  “Well, I’m not going to show you. If it is here at all. Maybe it isn’t.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it is.” He rubbed his mustache in satisfaction. He tilted his head back as if he would laugh, then he tilted his head forward and smiled. “After all, it’s yours.”

  “Yes it is.”

  “Well, you get it then and we’ll be on our way.”

  Lizzie pondered her dilemma. She could leave her money hidden but then it would do nobody any good. She could dig it out from the stone wall, but then this man might take it for himself.

  She didn’t trust anyone so handsome.

  But she could see no other option.

  She handed him Fleetfire’s reins and scrambled along the wall until she came to the niche where she had left her saddlebag.

  For a moment she thought it was gone.

  She reached into the shadows and felt around.

  It was there.

  Lizzie walked back to the man with their horses, carrying the leather saddlebag over her shoulder.

  “Here,” he said, “I’ll take that.”

  He reached out and took it before she had a chance to fight him off. She grabbed for it.

  “By the Lord’s sake, girl. I’m only going to strap it onto my saddle. You’ve riding bareback, you have nothing to tie it to.”

  “I hope you are not a thief,” she said.

  “If I was, I’d probably have to kill you before I ran off with your money.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  “I don’t think so. Not yet.”

  “What’s your name, sir?”

  “Will Richardson. What’s yours?”

  “None of your damn business.”

  Lizzie had never sworn before in her life. It was a word she had picked up from Beazley. It made her feel strange. She smiled. Her handsome escort blushed as he boosted her onto Fleetfire’s broad back and prepared to mount up himself.

  It wouldn’t hurt to have a handsome escort.

  Allison

  Today is the seventeenth day. Someone will be murdered tonight. That is a stark and terrifying fact. And I can do nothing to stop it from happening. Even if the victim is me.

  Doris died a few days ago so she doesn’t count in the killer’s pattern. They haven’t put a new guest in her bed yet. I wonder if Maddie O’Rourke will come back?

  Jaimie Retzinger came in earlier in the day. He just sat like he usually does but he didn’t say anything. It was a nice change from the mindless chattering, although I missed the distraction. After a while, he left. Just like that. Maybe we’re breaking up.

  Again.

  With a bullet in my brain, I’m still a handful, I guess. I’m awfully quiet. You’d think he’d like me better this way. But now the bloom has gone off the romance and he’s getting restless. I wouldn’t be surprised if he moves on. One day, he’ll forget to come in. Then the next day he won’t come in again. And so on and so on.

  I’ll miss Jaimie Retzinger. He has a sweet streak. That’s why I fell for him. But he has a mean streak. That’s what kept me interested. I was sort of in love with him but I never really liked him that much. It would be better if he finds someone else. Someone he can handle, a woman who isn’t such a handful and likes Harleys.

  My brother just came in.

  “Allison,” he says. “I’ve got to go tree-planting.”

  What!

  “I’ve been accepted at Victoria College in the fall.”

  My brother! He’s going to university!

  “I’ve got to make some money so I’m heading north for the summer. A good tree planter can make thousands.”

  If the black flies don’t tear the flesh from your bones.

  “The season’s almost half over, but I can still make enough to get me through with student loans.”

  Maybe the black fly season has passed.

  I’m so happy for him, it makes the pain of losing him worth it.

  David makes small talk for a while. He tells me about what he wants to study. I cling to every word, every sound, but I don’t really hear him. It’s like he’s already gone.

  He doesn’t say goodbye when he leaves. He doesn’t lean into my field of vision. He just slips out. I’m lost in mixed up feelings for the next couple of hours. Who will call me Potato?

  Then Maddie O’Rourke comes in. Oh, glory.

  Maybe there is a God and I just haven’t figured Him out. Or Her.

  “Hey, Allison,” she says. “Sorry I haven’t been in. I don’t know if you know but Doris died. Yeah, I expect you’ve figured it out. You were always smart.”

  I feel a weight pressing against me somewhere. It must be Maddie’s makeup case. She’s set it on my chest. I don’t think I’m wearing a bra so there’s kind of a platform.

  Maddie chats like we’re old friends.

  “I remember you walking through the halls of Thomas A. Stewart Secondary School, Allison. Like, you really knew who you were. You were nice, but you wouldn’t take nonsense from anybody. I guess maybe not always nice—but strong. And here you are now. Still strong.”

  As Maddie works away on my eyes, she looms into view. Sometimes I can make out her features, her beautiful face surrounded by gleaming folds of black hair, the flash of her blueberry eyes. I think I can feel her breath. It must be blowing across my face. For a while, I’m happy. Not worried about killers, not lonely, just happy.

  She gently closes my eye with her fingertip.

  “I want to get them the same,” she says.

  After awhile, she appears again.

  “Now it looks like you’re winking. When they’re both closed, you look like a sleeping princess. It must be a drag but at least you’re not dead.” She took a deep breath. “I just did Doris, you know. Working on cold flesh just isn’t the same.”

  I don’t want to hear this.

  “So, I don’t like open coffins,” Maddie continues. “But Doris’ sister from Miami asked me to do her makeup. You know, at the funeral home. I’ve never worked on a dead person before. I just kept thinking, it’s Doris. It’s okay, it’s just Doris. Well, Doris was never beautiful but she turned out looking the best she could. Everybody was really pleased, especially her sister from Miami.”

  Maddie talks like we’ve always been friends.

  “That eye of yours seems to have a mind of its own. But there we go, you’re finished. You’re lovely. We’ll just take your silver medallion from the drawer and I’ll put the chain around your neck.”

  The funny thing is, I thought I was wearing it. I imagine David put it away for safekeeping.

 
“That’s perfect,” Maddie says. “It highlights your eye.”

  The amber glimmers like golden honey in the summer sunshine. I can see it. She must be holding it up to the light.

  “And what about this!” she says. “I can see right through; there are lines cut into the silver behind the amber. It looks like two capital V’s. One of them is upside down. There’s some smaller print, too. I can’t make out what it says. There’s a word stamped into the silver on the back. It looks like it says REVERE. The letters are inside a box of lines.”

  I love my medallion because it’s old, not for whatever it says. And I love it because it’s been in my family for a very long time. And for the clear color of the amber and for the silver that’s smoothed with the fingerprints of my ancestors.

  “I should go now,” Maddie says. She leans close to say goodbye, slides down off my high hospital bed, and leaves.

  I listen. That’s what I do best. The warning buzzer goes off, then the eleven o’clock bell tolls. I can hear two nurses talking in the corridor. A man and a woman. Then someone closes my door.

  I wait. I lose track of time. I wait some more. Maybe two hours go by. I’m wondering about my medallion. Is that what the ordinary man was after?

  My door opens and closes. I think I can feel the air shifting around me. Maybe I imagine it.

  Shuffling sounds. I think it’s a woman, she smells like soap. I can hear her breathing through her nose. She’s very close.

  Suddenly a narrow light beam glares in my face, right through my eyelids. Both of my eyelids. In the midst of terror, a revelation! Both my eyes with their beautiful makeup can see, even if only one eye can open.

  More shuffling. I’m being touched. I feel the weight of a hand, of two hands, of fingers pressing. She’s stealing my silver medallion!

  My left eye flashes open.

  The light beam flails through the air. She’s dropped the penlight. I hear scrambling, then the light beam shines across the ceiling and down in the direction of the door.