Life Everlasting

by Robert Whitlow

  “Has she gone to the hospital to see him?”

  “Yes, and she says his prognosis is poor. He never started moving enough to build up his muscles, and his body is slowly shutting down. But Sarah thinks we should continue music therapy as long as he’s breathing.”

  “But how can you—” she stopped. There was no use stating the obvious.

  “Of course, I can only play with one hand. But Sarah convinced me that even if I can’t play normally, we should do what we’re supposed to do.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to go back after finding out what Baxter tried to do to Rena.”

  “I didn’t. But after talking to Sarah, I realize that’s not the issue.”

  “You didn’t tell her, did you?” Alexia asked in alarm.

  “No, I’m not that heavily medicated, but her perspective convinced me I was off-base. What I learned distracted me from what I’m supposed to do.”

  Alexia leaned back in her chair. “Okay, I guess. When are you going to the hospital?”

  “Tomorrow night if I feel up to it. Do you still have a copy of the music-therapy prescription?”

  “Let me check.”

  Alexia returned to the drawer and found the authorization from the neurosurgeon.

  “Yes. It’s here,” she said.

  “Good. Sarah says that Baxter has a private room, but it would be good to have the prescription in case anyone questions what we’re doing.”

  “I’ll bring it. What time will you be there?”

  “I’ll call and let you know.”

  Alexia slowly hung up the phone. She didn’t have a tidy descriptive category in which she could place Ted Morgan.

  Rena argued with Sean Pruitt before dropping her demand that he expose the Richardsons’ corruption during her preliminary hearing. Her ears perked up, however, when the lawyer mentioned traveling to Mitchell County a day early and going to the waterfall.

  “I’d like to go with you.” she said into the phone.

  “Why?”

  “I can help you understand what happened, and it will get me away from this place.”

  “I can’t be with you the whole time. I need to get ready for the hearing.”

  “I want you to do your job, but it’s my freedom at stake.”

  Silence crossed the phone line.

  “Okay.”

  Rena gave the lawyer directions to her house. After she ended the call, she glanced out the window. She had not seen any sign of Jeffrey’s men for several days. She opened the drawer in the kitchen and found the phone number for Rudy.

  “Do you have everything ready?” she asked.

  “I’m waiting on the people in California to do their part. I’ll be ready next week.”

  “That’s not soon enough. I’m going to be in Mitchell County on Thursday and Friday.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s not important, but it gets me out of town. That’s when you need to do it.”

  “How can I contact you?”

  “I’ll call you.”

  “Yeah, that will work better.”

  “I thought so too.”

  “I’ll call California as soon as we hang up.”

  Rena set the phone on the kitchen counter and walked into the foyer. Looking into the living room, she saw the back of a man’s head. He was sitting in a leather chair and facing in the opposite direction.

  Rena screamed.

  The head stayed completely still, and Rena knew it was Baxter. She stepped slowly into the living room, aware of the surveillance camera, yet unable to resist the need to confront this ghost. She crept toward the chair, terrified that the figure might turn and face her with a lurid expression. She stopped a couple of feet behind the chair. The head seemed to move slightly, and she clasped her hand over her mouth to stifle another scream. But the head didn’t turn completely. Baxter ignoring her was worse than some of their face-to-face confrontations.

  She lowered her hand from her mouth and reached toward the chair. Her hand trembled as she touched the back of the chair and felt the rich texture of the upholstery. It was solid, not imaginary. Her fingers inched forward to the back of the head. She cut her eyes to the ceiling where she knew the camera was recording her movements. She didn’t care. Let the camera capture what her imagination could see. She looked back at the chair.

  It was empty.

  Alexia fixed a bowl of soup and ate supper at the little table in her kitchen. Looking out the windows to the dusky horizon, she could see the lights of an ocean freighter sailing toward Charleston. Working as a deckhand would be a straightforward life with well-defined parameters in a finite world. Routine would be the order of the day, a predictable life that went about its business under the panoramic night sky without the diffusion of city lights. The ship passed out of sight. Darkness had fallen by the time she finished her soup. It was time to go to the hospital.

  Ted’s hand throbbed in a steady four-four rhythm. He turned the steering wheel of his truck with his right hand and pulled into a parking place at the Santee hospital. He’d avoided taking a pain pill because he wanted to be alert for his session with Baxter. Now he wondered if he’d made a mistake. He saw Alexia walk through the front door of the hospital. Somewhat awkwardly, he managed to pick up his keyboard and prop the instrument against the side of his truck while he locked the door. Alexia and Sarah waited in the hospital lobby. As they walked together to the elevator, Alexia fingered a copy of the prescription for music therapy.

  Baxter’s room was on the second floor. They stopped outside the door while Sarah retrieved his chart from the nurses’ station and read it. She filled them in.

  “He has a common form of bacterial pneumonia. The irony is that his lungs are filling with mucus because the body is trying to isolate and destroy the infection. He’s slowly drowning in the substance intended to heal him.”

  “Is it better or worse than when you came by the other day?” Ted asked.

  Sarah ran her fingers down a list of numbers. “Leukocytosis with a left shift, decreased CO2. He’s slightly worse, and they have him on a CPAP machine to assist his breathing. Pneumonia with a bedridden patient is always serious.” She closed the chart and returned it to the nurses’ station. “But none of that determines what we’re going to do.”

  Baxter’s room reminded Alexia of the ICU unit in Greenville. Tubes and monitors filled every space—a constant reminder of the fragility of life and the efforts needed to sustain it. Baxter, a mask over his mouth and nose, lay motionless in the bed. Ted walked up to him.

  “Hello, Baxter. It’s Ted Morgan.”

  There was no response.

  “I’m going to play, and Sarah Locklear is going to sing.” Ted glanced at Alexia, who shook her head.

  “Don’t mention me,” she whispered. “I’ll sit near the door.”

  Ted placed the keyboard on a chair and plugged it in. He looked at Sarah and spoke.

  “Now that we’re here, I’m not sure I have the faith to play for a healing. I don’t feel very good myself, and there’s no telling how exhausted Baxter must be. He’s been fighting for a long time.”

  Sarah came forward and stood beside the bed. Ted waited for her to disagree and encourage him to believe. She put her hand on Baxter’s head and closed her eyes.

  “You’re right,” she said after a few moments. “He’s dying, and I don’t want to ask for healing. My heart cry is that he be made ready for heaven, not held to earth. This life is about to end. He needs life everlasting.”

  Peace immediately replaced the unsettledness in Ted’s spirit.

  “Yes, but can he hear and respond?” he asked.

  Sarah gave a little smile. “That’s where the faith comes in. We have to believe that the power of the Gospel can penetrate the fog of illness.”

  A nurse opened the door of the room. Sarah went over and spoke to her. The nurse left.

  “We have thirty minutes,” Sarah said. “She’ll make sure we’re not disturbed. They kn
ow how sick he is, and they extend more latitude when someone is near the end.” She again touched the top of Baxter’s head. “I’ve seen seriously ill patients respond to the Lord within minutes of death. As long as there is breath, there is hope.”

  Ted pressed his keyboard’s power button.

  “With only one hand I can’t play anything fancy.”

  Sarah looked directly at him. “Don’t play with your fingers, play with your heart.”

  Alexia watched. With his hand wrapped in a thick bandage, Ted looked like a patient himself. The sight of his left hand useless in his lap caused Alexia’s sadness to return. She quickly dabbed at her left eye to wipe away a tear.

  Ted touched the keys.

  The sound was tentative, searching, unsure. It wasn’t the music of Ted Morgan, whose gift Alexia had come to both esteem and take for granted. She cringed. It was hard to listen to his crippled effort and more difficult to watch.

  Sarah continued to stand silently near Baxter’s head. Ted’s right hand moved over the keys as he searched for a sound in harmony with the moment. Always before, Alexia had listened in amazement and marveled at the divine presence that acknowledged the music. Tonight, nothing happened. No transformation overtook the room. No hint of divine life filled the music. Alexia shut her eyes and began to pray. Ted stopped, and they all sat in silence. Time passed. He touched the keys again.

  And in a few moments, a melody came.

  It was simple, yet profound, unlike anything Alexia had ever heard. It wasn’t borrowed from a classical composer and recycled for contemporary use. The fresh combination of notes flowed across the room with both message and emotion. Alexia didn’t try to stay the tears that streamed down her cheeks.

  Sarah, her hand still resting on Baxter’s head, began to sing.

  Theme rather than rhyme linked her words. They took Alexia back to the evening in Ted’s backyard when the love of God invaded her own soul. Jesus Christ came to earth to save her. He also came for Baxter Richardson. With all her heart, in spite of all his faults, Alexia longed for Baxter to know the same divine acceptance she’d experienced. No matter the past, the eternal future belonged to the God who lived outside time. In that future, enemies could embrace as friends; those separated by hate could enter into glorious unity.

  As if prompted by Alexia’s thoughts, Sarah began to sing a song of forgiveness. Forgiveness for Baxter through the blood of Jesus. Forgiveness for others, because the genuine fruit of the Gospel makes heavenly reconciliation possible. The young man’s opportunity for ultimate freedom opened before him. His body might be wrapped in the chains of death, but Alexia sensed the moment of liberation for his spirit.

  Ted responded with as much emotion in his one hand as Alexia ever heard him display with two. The sounds confirmed the power of forgiveness and transformation. Baxter stirred. His head moved under Sarah’s touch. He wasn’t struggling; he was agreeing. Sarah stroked his sandy-colored hair.

  “Seal it,” she said.

  And the minister transitioned to a new sequence of notes that spoke an emphatic “Amen.” Alexia listened and understood that she had taken part in an event she would never forget. Ted slowly reeled in the music and lifted his hand from the keyboard. The room was the same, the people in it forever different.

  “That’s it,” he said. “It is finished.”

  43

  The more things change, the more they remain the same.

  ALPHONSE KARR

  Alexia drove home with a sense of peaceful euphoria. She didn’t pay any attention to the familiar twists and turns in the roads to her house. Her mind stayed in Baxter’s hospital room and the hoped-for entrance from life into death into life everlasting. She turned onto Pelican Point Drive and onto the narrow driveway toward her house. The headlights for her car cast glimmers across the black water at the edge of the marsh. It was high tide on a moonless night.

  Another vehicle’s headlights suddenly flashed directly in her eyes. She swerved to the right as a car passed by her and accelerated toward Pelican Point Drive. Her heart pounding, she could see the vehicle turn right in the direction of Highway 17. Alexia eased back onto the driveway and pulled close to her house. She saw no other cars. Her headlights illuminated tire tracks left in the sand by the vehicle that had passed her. She pulled under her house and turned off the engine. Getting out, she heard the rustle of wind moving through the marsh grass. Alexia tentatively climbed the steps to the front door and stopped.

  The front door stood open.

  Her first impulse was to rush into the house. Immediately on its heels came the urge to dash down the steps and escape. She stood still, straining to hear a sound or sense movement.

  All was silent.

  No sound of an intruder. No bark from Boris. No sign of Misha.

  At the thought of her pets, Alexia overcame her fear. She stepped forward and flipped on a light just inside the front door. She quickly scanned the living room. Nothing had been disturbed since she left for the hospital. She walked slowly into the house and crossed the living room into the kitchen. It, too, was untouched. She glanced at the soup bowl and spoon she’d placed on the counter. Every nerve alert, she walked down the hallway past one of the two downstairs bedrooms.

  A noise came from the room. Alexia turned to flee but when the noise came again she recognized the sound of scratching. She turned on the light and went into the bedroom. Opening the closet door, she was almost knocked over by Boris, who bolted past her through the house and out the front door. Alexia returned to the front stoop and could hear Boris, invisible in the night, thrashing through the underbrush beside the house.

  Going back inside, she picked up the cordless phone in the kitchen and called the police to report the break-in.

  “We’ll have a car on the way,” the dispatcher replied. “Was anything taken?”

  “The downstairs looks fine. I haven’t been upstairs.”

  “You can check or wait for the officer.”

  “I’ll go up. My dog wouldn’t have left the house if an intruder was still here.”

  Still holding the phone, she walked upstairs and turned on the light in her bedroom. Misha walked around the corner of the bed. Everything appeared normal until Alexia’s eyes reached her computer. It was demolished, the screen broken, the processing unit ripped open and parts scattered on the floor. A few papers were strewn about underneath the small computer table.

  “Wait,” she said. “My computer has been destroyed.”

  Sean Pruitt turned the steering wheel of the rented SUV sharply to the left. The gravel road shrank to one lane, making it almost impossible to avoid a head-on collision with a vehicle coming from the opposite direction.

  “You should honk the horn as you enter the curve,” Rena said. “It’s dangerous up here. Baxter hadn’t driven on narrow roads in the mountains, and I had to tell him what to do so we wouldn’t get hurt.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. How much farther is it to the trailhead?”

  “Not far. We’re almost there.”

  Rena checked her cell phone. “I’m out of range. I called the hospital while you were renting the SUV but couldn’t get a nurse. I’m not very impressed with the hospital in Santee.”

  “Couldn’t they move him to Charleston?”

  “They say it wouldn’t make any difference.”

  Several minutes and two hairpin turns later, Rena said, “That’s it to the left.”

  Sean cut the wheel, and they came through a narrow gap in the trees into an empty clearing large enough for five or six cars.

  “Nobody comes this time of year,” Rena said. “The leaves are gone, and we’ll have the trail to ourselves.”

  Although close to noon, the chilly mountain air prompted each of them to put on a coat and gloves. Sean donned a baseball cap, and Rena wrapped a scarf around her neck. The trail went directly up a small knoll from the parking lot. When they reached the top, Rena turned around and looked down at the car.

  �
�That’s the exact place where Baxter and I parked,” she said. “Do you have the keys?”

  Sean patted his pocket. “Right here.”

  “Same pocket as Baxter.”

  “Why do you remember that?”

  “I had to get them out of his pocket after he fell. I’ll never forget how he looked. I thought he was dead, but his eyes were open.”

  The trail ran along the top of a ridge. They set out at a steady pace. With no leaves on the trees it was possible to see into the gullies on either side of the trail. The autumn’s crop of leaves occasionally rustled along the ground as a breeze brushed against the side of the hill.

  “I’ve been coming here ever since I was a little girl,” Rena said. “I wanted Baxter to see it.”

  “Did you argue after you started walking?”

  Rena shook her head. “Not until we reached the waterfall. I think we even held hands for a while.”

  After several minutes, they veered left from the top of the ridge and began a descent, occasionally broken by a short climb up.

  “It’s easier walking in than climbing out,” Rena said. She stopped and picked up a dead limb. “We each found a walking stick. They were better than this one, but about the same size.”

  They continued on. Rena broke the tiny twigs from her stick as they walked along until it was smooth. They stopped for a drink of water.

  “Didn’t you tell me Baxter brought some wine?” Sean asked.

  “Yes. He carried a small backpack.”

  “What else was in it?”

  “Bread and cheese.”

  “No cups?”

  “Oh yeah. He brought real glasses and a large white napkin we used for a tablecloth.”

  “Anything else?”

  Rena replaced the cap on her water bottle. “Yes, he had a pocketknife with a corkscrew in it. That’s it.”

  “Did he have a gun?”

  Rena laughed. “Baxter? No way. Now, my stepfather always had a pistol in his pocket when we came here, but Baxter doesn’t even own a gun.”

  “Okay. Lead the way.”

  They ascended a long, gradual climb before plunging downward in a succession of switchbacks. Eventually, Rena led Sean to the base of a stairway cut in the side of the hill.