by Selena Kitt
Hope hanging by a thread. The doctor left it there, dangling, like a carrot on a stick that they would follow as long as they were able. Until they had to face the fact that their son was gone, and they were once again all alone in the world.
Muriel looked at the dark bag of blood hanging from the metal hook above the boy’s head. It was only halfway through. Maybe it really would help?
Muriel knew better, and still she clung to hope, just like they did.
The look on Lucy’s face as her husband came back into the room after talking to the doctor made Muriel turn hers away from the sight. She felt Char’s arms encircle her and she pressed her cheek to his torso.
“What did he say?” Lucy asked. She had refused to leave her son’s side, had told Jack to go into the hallway to talk to the doctor, because she didn’t want any negativity surrounding her little boy. She didn’t want him to hear the words “out of remission,” or “infection,” and especially not the word “death.”
“They don’t know yet.” Jack sat on the other side of the bed, taking his wife’s hand across his son’s chest. It was still rising and falling with every breath.
“Jack, I can’t.” Lucy took a shuddering breath. Her usually made-up face was streaked with mascara, her eyes red-rimmed from crying. “I can’t do it. If he… if… if…”
“Shhh.” He stroked her hand. “He’s not going anywhere.”
But he was.
Little Henry wasn’t going to open his eyes again. He wasn’t going to play “parachute” or get help from his friend, Bonnie, onto the swing so his guardian angel, Zeph, could push him, higher, higher! Muriel looked over at the guardian, standing in the corner, holding vigil. He couldn’t see them, Char and Muriel, where they stood clinging to each other, but she could see by the look on his face, he knew the end was near.
They couldn’t interfere. The Maker had a plan. That’s what she’d always been told, what she believed. But how could that plan include the death of a five-year-old boy? But how could she stand by and let it happen? Was she supposed to have the strength for that? The seraphim holding her in his arms had taken thousands of souls, hundreds of thousands, returning them to their source. He was far stronger than she was.
“He can’t die.” Muriel’s voice shook, looking at the bent heads of two souls whose lives had been entwined by one of her own kind. The bond between them was a thick, golden braid. “Please don’t let him die.”
“I’m sorry,” Char apologized, arms tightening around her. “I’m so sorry.”
“Please.” Lucy whispered the word, head bowed, praying. “Please, God, please…”
Muriel couldn’t stand it. She knew there were thousands of souls dying this very moment. She knew The Maker had some sort of plan that even angels couldn’t see or understand. She knew that it wasn’t just Henry—there were souls leaving and entering this existence every moment. Babies were dying. Babies were being born. Right down the hall. The soul was ageless, timeless. The human lifespan was nothing, the blink of an angel’s eye.
Henry would go on forever, even when his body was dust. He was just one tiny light, one speck of gold in a sea of eternal luminescence, a part of the whole. He would be reunited with that source, and would experience a peaceful sort of bliss humans spent their entire existence trying to recapture.
She knew all of that, and still, she was filled with despair, looking at the two souls who would miss his presence the most. It was as if she could feel their pain as her own. It stabbed her in the middle, making her double over with it. He lifted her into his arms, nuzzling her as he held her in his lap, whispering how sorry he was, so sorry. But sorry didn’t fix anything, even if it wasn’t his fault.
“Muriel.” Char whispered her name, his arms strong, solid, his wings enveloping them both, a cocoon. “Oh my sweet Muriel.”
He cupped her face in his hands, searching her eyes. Wetness leaked from them, rolling down her cheeks like water.
“What is this?” She touched her own cheek in wonder and alarm.
“Tears.” He touched them too, wiping them away, but they didn’t stop coming.
“I don’t understand.” She shook her head. “Why? Why, Char, why?”
“I don’t know.” He rocked her, like a child, in his arms.
“Why death? Why pain? Why?” Muriel wept. There was no explanation. How could there be?
“I don’t know, I don’t know.” He sounded as pained and confused as she did and she put her arms around his neck, rested her wet cheek against his shoulder.
“You have to stop this.” Muriel turned her tear-stained face up to Char, pleading with him. “He can’t die.”
“I can’t.” Char looked pained, shaking his head. “I wish I could.”
“Can’t… or won’t?” She searched his face, looking for the truth. It impaled her like a spike through her middle. He really couldn’t stop it. He didn’t have the power to keep Henry here. He didn’t take life, he just collected it, gathering it and returning it to its source.
Henry was going to die, no matter how much she begged and cried, no matter how much it hurt. She couldn’t save him, Char couldn’t save him. She didn’t even know if The Maker could save him. There was nothing to be done. She was utterly helpless in the face of death and she knew it.
But there was one thing she could do. A small gift, perhaps, but it was something.
“You have to tell them.” She pulled back to meet Char’s eyes.
“Tell them?” he repeated, incredulous, staring at her with those dark, gold-rimmed eyes.
“Tell them he’s going to be okay,” she insisted, the idea growing, gaining momentum, a snowball of hope rolling downhill. “Tell them that death isn’t the end.”
“Muriel…” He shook his head and she knew he was going to deny her, deny them. But why? He could offer them this one small consolation, couldn’t he? Give them hope, prove to them that their son’s light wasn’t really extinguished.
“You can appear to them if you want to,” she went on, trying to at least delay his refusal. “Henry could see you.”
“You don’t understand…”
“He’s all they have!” she cried, feeling those strange tears falling again. They left her weak and trembling, as if her very essence was leaking slowly from her eyes. It overwhelmed her. “Char, please. Give them that little bit of comfort. Isn’t it the least we can do?”
He cupped her face again, wiping thoughtfully at her tears, and she waited, quivering in his arms, for his answer. If she could have done it herself, she would have, but she couldn’t make herself visible, not the way he could. He was the only one she knew who could give them what they so clearly needed.
Hope.
“Is this really what you want?”
“More than anything.” She nodded, feeling that flutter of hope in her chest, like a caged bird. “Please.”
“For you.” He pressed his lips to her forehead and Muriel gasped, her limbs turning to liquid, like warm honey seeping through her. “I’ll do it for you.”
“Thank you.” She hugged him, arms tight around his neck. “Oh thank you so much.”
Char approached the bed, standing silently for a long moment. Muriel watched, hands clasped against her chest, her own silent prayer. She knew that Lucy and Jack needed this—almost as much as she did.
Lucy startled when Char put his hand on her shoulder, gasping out loud.
“Don’t be alarmed.” His tone was soft, soothing.
“Who are you?” Jack half-stood, protecting his son with his own body, as if he knew, as if he could keep Char from taking him.
“My name is Chariel.” There was something in his tone that soothed. Jack slowly sank back down into his seat, reaching over to clasp his wife’s hand. “I want to tell you something.”
“Chariel,” Lucy murmured, a flash of recognition crossing her face. “Char? Henry talked about you...”
“Yes.” Char nodded, glancing at the little boy, so still. Muriel
was afraid he was lost to them already.
“He said you were coming to take him…” Lucy whispered. A low, guttural moan escaped her throat. “Oh, please, no… please don’t take him.”
“I’m sorry.” Char looked over, meeting Muriel’s eyes, and she knew then that he really was doing this for her. “I wish I could do more for you.”
“I can’t live without him!” Lucy cried, her eyes roaming over her son’s face, as if she could memorize it, as if doing so might keep him safe, keep him there with her, forever.
“Henry knew he was going to have to go,” Char said softly. “He loves you both very much.”
At that, Lucy began to sob. She took her son’s small hand, kissing it again and again, tears falling on his pale skin, wetting the sheet. Jack stared at the angel of death, no disbelief there, no anger either. Just a question, burning in his eyes, and Muriel knew she’d been right to ask Char to do this, to give the only thing they could to provide them a bit of comfort.
“Are you taking him to heaven?” Jack asked, his hand stroking his wife’s dark hair.
“I’m taking him to a beautiful place where all souls go,” Char replied.
“He’ll be ok?” Lucy lifted her head at this, frowning. Char nodded his agreement. “Please, tell us… can you tell us… will we see him again? Some day?”
“Yes,” Char hesitated only a moment before giving Lucy the reassurance she was looking for, the comfort Muriel had hoped to bestow through him. “You will go on, just like he will. You’ll always be connected.”
“Thank you,” Lucy whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks. Muriel touched her own, feeling tears there too.
“How long do we have?” Jack asked, looking from his son to the angel. “Do you know? Are you taking him now? Will he—?”
But Jack was talking to thin air. Char was no longer by the boy’s bed. Instead, he was pulling Muriel into his lap again as she hugged him close, whispering her thanks.
“You gave them such a gift,” Muriel murmured against his neck. She couldn’t help the tears that fell.
“You’re my gift.” He stroked her wet cheek.
“They’ll never forget this,” she choked, seeing the couple sitting across from each other in stunned silence, as if speaking might break the spell. Hope hung in the air, almost palpable. They didn’t know when their son was going to die—she knew they likely still held out hope that it wouldn’t be today, although Muriel knew that was false—but they had both experienced something that would reassure them. Someday they would all be together again.
That had to be some comfort, she thought. It was the best she could do for them, and she prayed that it was enough.
The room was quiet. Even the bustle of the nurses up and down the hall had ebbed, dinner having been served to those patients in ICU who weren’t getting their nutrition through a tube. The couple sat by their son’s side, whispering words, to him and to each other. Muriel couldn’t hear them but it didn’t matter. She knew they were whispering love.
“Muriel.” Char’s lips brushed her forehead and she startled in his lap.
“No.” She lifted her head, knowing, but hating it. She wanted to deny it, still.
He just sat her quietly in the chair beside him, moving toward the boy on the bed. They’d been sitting quietly for so long, both Jack and Lucy had slipped into sleep while their son’s breathing grew more labored. His fever had risen to dangerous levels, in spite of the medication coursing through the new blood in his veins. His lips were dry, cracked, raw, the skin around his eyes dark as bruises.
Lucy sensed Char’s presence and stirred. She couldn’t see him, not anymore. The sight of her son’s still face, jaw slack, drew her attention.
“Henry?” Lucy whispered, touching his cheek. Muriel knew it was still warm. Char had just collected the boy’s essence. He held it in his hand as he came back to stand beside Muriel.
“Jack!” Lucy’s voice rose when she put her hand on the boy’s chest. It no longer rose and fell with his breath. “Jack! Wake up! It’s Henry! He’s not breathing!”
Jack’s head shot up, his eyes wild, panicked.
“I’ll get the doctor!” He ran, but it was too late.
“Noooooo!” Lucy wailed as Char pressed the boy’s soul into Muriel’s hands, as if his mother could feel death’s touch, death’s hand reaching in to squeeze the life from her own soul. “Henry! Henry! Wake up! Henry!”
The boy’s head wobbled on his neck like a newborn as his mother gathered him into her arms. Muriel looked down at the soul in her hands. She could feel him with her, even if his mother couldn’t. This was the essence of him, the thing that had made him Henry. It was gone from his body, plucked too soon. Lucy wailed, rocking him in her arms.
“Keep him safe.” Muriel handed the little boy’s essence back to Char, who tucked it, as he did every soul he collected, under his wing. “We promised her.”
Lucy sobbed, refusing to let his lifeless body go when Jack returned with both the doctor and a nurse. It was Clara, the one who had been on duty that first day, Muriel remembered.
“Mrs. Thomas, please,” Clara cried, trying to hold Lucy back as the doctor pressed a stethoscope to the boy’s chest. “Let the doctor do his job.”
“Lucy, sweetheart, easy, easy…” Jack soothed, trying to hold her, but the woman thrashed, howling her grief. It was something raw, animal, a kind of soul-wrenching despair that Muriel had never seen before.
“Do you want to go?” Char asked, a wing around her shoulder.
“No,” she whispered. She was trembling, afraid, but she couldn’t leave them. She just couldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” the doctor apologized, taking the stethoscope out of his ears and draping it around his neck, verifying what they already knew. “Mr. and Mrs. Thomas, I’m so sorry…”
“Nooooooo!” Lucy pounded her husband’s chest with her fists. He tried to contain her, but it was impossible. She was like a dervish, lashing out against anything and everything standing in her way.
“Nurse, get help!” the doctor ordered as he and Jack tried to restrain the woman. “And a sedative!”
Muriel watched in horror as Lucy thrashed, screaming over and over, “Bring him back! Bring him back!” until her voice was hoarse.
It took two more big orderlies, along with the doctor and Lucy’s husband, to finally subdue her, and by then, the I.V. pole had gone crashing to the floor, the hanging glass shattered, the remnants of Henry’s blood transfusion spattering like red paint, everywhere.
The doctor gave Lucy a shot, and even then, through her haze, she didn’t want to let them take Henry’s lifeless body. She fought them for it, although not quite as vehemently as she had before the sedative. She was in and out of consciousness, curled in a ball in one of the chairs, her face and dress still streaked with blood.
“I thought, if you told her, if you comforted her…” Muriel whispered, shaking her head at the devastation.
“Losing a child is one of the worst losses there is,” Char said softly. “There are human words for losing a parent, a spouse, but the pain of losing a child goes so deep, there are no words.”
Muriel let that realization sink in, seeing the truth of it in Lucy’s vacant stare. Her son was gone, his body growing cold.
“I want to do something for them,” she said. “Can’t we do something?”
“You did,” he reassured her.
It didn’t seem like nearly enough.
It was Jack who signed all the paperwork, apologized for the bloody mess—literally—and walked Lucy to the car. She was barely conscious but she did manage to walk, with his help.
Char and Muriel watched him put her into the passenger seat before getting in on the driver’s side to start the vehicle. He’d put her coat on but she was shivering anyway. The sun was just starting to set, turning the horizon a bruised shade of purple and orange.
That’s when Muriel saw Jari.
It came back to her in an instant and if
she hadn’t had wings, her knees would have gone out from under her.
The competition.
It had been hours. Almost a whole day. She’d already missed it. She knew it, from the look on Jari’s face.
“I thought I’d find you here.” Jari glanced at the car as Jack pulled away.
Muriel didn’t know what to say, how to even begin.
“Jari,” she managed. “Oh Jari, I’m so sorry…”
“Stop.” Jari held her hand up, shaking her head. “I came to tell you—I got a summons.”
“A… what?” Muriel glanced up at Char, panicked.