by David Connor
“Yes!” I cheered.
“I wish Goose was here,” Rip said. “Awake. I don’t know. If this is happening, it’d be cool to have him in on it right from the start.”
“I am here at the start,” I said.
“And Carrie.” Shelby touched Rip’s cheek. “I wish she’d call.”
“We’ll try her again on our way to the nurse’s desk to ask about a test.” Rip rose and offered his hand to my sister.
“Good deal.”
“We don’t want to impose,” Maureen said. “But…”
Shelby smiled. “We’ll keep you posted.”
“Good luck. The two of you are adorable. I’ll be hoping for the best.”
“Thank you.” Shelby accepted another hug.
“Now, we head somewhere else,” Jefferson told me.
With no other warning, with a gust of chilly wind, a blur of colors almost like fast-forward on the DVR, a head rush, and some dizziness, I found myself on the move, my new destination reached within a flash.
“Whoa.” I said it again. “Whiplash.” We had, indeed, headed somewhere else. “Patrick…” The moment I realized where we’d landed, I felt my emotion in my throat. “He’s all bruised, and they shaved off some of his hair.”
“Yes.”
“He’s still beautiful to me.” The tubes looked scary and uncomfortable. I hoped they weren’t. Watching the illuminated heart on the monitor flash on and off with every beat of Patrick’s, I wanted to put my head against his chest to hear it for real. “When we spent the night together, he always wanted to wake up first, so he could put his glasses on. ‘I want to be able to see your eyes the moment they open,’ he said. Maybe he’ll wake up before me this time.”
“Maybe.”
“You really don’t know?”
“I really don’t,” Jefferson said.
“If he gets to choose…”
“Sometimes, the body takes that choice away from the mind.”
“Oh. I still wish Tom had taken all of his aggression out on me,” I said.
“I know you do.”
“Did you bring me here to say goodbye?”
“No…not necessarily. I thought this is where you would want to go next.”
“Yes. I wish I could kiss him.”
“I wish that was possible, too.”
“Maybe you can help me,” I said.
“I’d do anything for you, Goose.”
I hummed the song from Oliver—only a second—to stall, in case my idea was crazy. “Then, you kiss him.” I went for it. “You know how to ghost better than I do.”
“You want me to kiss Patrick?” Jefferson asked.
“Me first. If you kiss me, and then…and then you kiss Patrick, maybe he’ll know it’s from my lips by proxy. I remember when you helped me draw that picture, how you…how I could feel you pressed against my back. You can do that for me, maybe. And maybe Patrick could feel it. If Calvin Daniel wouldn’t mind.”
“I believe Calvin Daniel would approve, for love’s sake.”
“Oh. Good. So…so how do we go about it?”
“I think it’s relatively simple, Goose.”
“A kiss, one for me and one for Patrick,” I said. “Three pairs of lips. Yes.”
“Are you ready?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. Count me down. One, two, three, then kiss.”
“Okay. One, two—”
“Wait. That’s not a countdown. Three, two, one. That’s a countdown. Do that.”
“Are you sure?” Jefferson’s tone had a hint of teasing in it.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m sure.”
“Okay.” Jefferson started again. “Three, two, one.” Then, I felt his lips on mine. “Kiss.” He said the word, in case I hadn’t, I assumed.
“Yes. I…I know.”
“Now, I will take it to Patrick.”
I waited and watched, hoping I might see some movement in Patrick to let me know he felt the kiss. I saw nothing. But then, Jefferson counted down again.
“Three, two, one.”
“What…? Oh.”
“Kiss.” Jefferson kissed me a second time. “Patrick would want to kiss you back. His lips that last touched mine, have now, in a way, touched yours.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Goose.”
“Did you feel anything from Patrick…a…a response? Could you, maybe, get a sense of how he might be doing?”
“I sensed how much he loves you.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“Though it should be obvious without me stating so, I’m telling you the truth,” Jefferson said.
“Your mother said you always should.”
“She did.”
“I remember you telling me that. I hope Patrick knows I love him, too.”
“He does. I would swear to that as well.” Jefferson took a beat. “Should we go? We have another stop to make, something else to see.”
“This is like A Christmas Carol, in a way,” I said. “How many stops?”
“Just one more.”
“Three…just like Dickens, just like how many minutes I’m allowed to stay in Heaven each time. I hope my ending is as happy as Ebenezer Scrooge’s.”
“As do I Goose. As do I.”
“Let’s go, then.”
More breeze, more whirs of color, more dizziness, then, the next thing I knew, I was back at the high school parking lot, riding shotgun in Carrie’s car, except we weren’t moving, and I had the sensation of more or less hovering, not sitting.
“Jefferson?”
“Yes.”
“Just wanted to make sure. Good thing Carrie has a four-seater. We even have room for Patrick or Daniel. I got his name right that time. Though I still don’t know how it all came about.”
“You don’t like the unknown, do you?”
“You know me well.” My head finally stopped spinning. How it was doing that when I didn’t even feel a head, well, I didn’t know that, either. “Transcendental travel is no joke. Casper never mentioned the vertigo. Does it get easier in time?”
“Watch this.” Jefferson snickered, ignoring my question.
What was he up to? I knew soon enough, as Justin Timberlake blared, seemingly from nowhere. I loved “Can’t Stop the Feeling,” too.
Carrie tapped her screen to shut it off, but it came right back on.
“She has a letter I phone, too!” Jefferson said.
“She does.”
“Stupid phone.” Carrie hit it harder. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“What in Heaven is wrong with it?” I felt like smiling, but seeing Carrie so glum, I couldn’t. “I don’t think the song’s working this time,” I said.
A breeze came up then, one created by Jefferson, I figured, since Carrie checked her window, which was up. The notebook on the seat where I would have been sitting—if I was sitting—flipped open.
I think everyone would just be better off if I wasn’t around.
I had no idea she kept a journal. “Carrie. No.”
Ashley told me Laura wants to quit the play if she has to have me touching her all the time. Maybe I’ll quit. Maybe I’ll quit school. Maybe I’ll quit life.
“Aww. No, Carrie. Don’t give up…please. Laura is the one who has something wrong with her, not you. Never you.”
Another gust, another page.
It’s my fault Goose and Patrick were hurt. I’m the reason Goose was at the high school. Shelby says he never would have gotten on that man’s motorcycle by choice, but he never would have been here if it wasn’t for me. If the guy had come to the house, we could have called the police. If I would have stayed and waited with Goose, I could have helped him.
“I’m glad she didn’t stay. How could she think she’s…?”
“To blame?” Jefferson asked. “It makes no sense, does it?”
“I wish I could tell her that.”
Carrie’s phone rang. At first, I thought that
was Jefferson’s doing as well, but the Caller ID read Aunt Shirlene.
“She’s the aunt in Tennessee Carrie said is very loving and supportive,” I explained. “They talk a lot. Carrie hasn’t revealed everything yet, but she thinks her parents might have. Aunt Shirlene keeps telling her she’s loved, loved so much, no matter what.”
Except Carrie wasn’t answering.
“She’s afraid, still, though. I wish she wasn’t. Jefferson, do your thing.”
“Charlie?”
“Aunt Shirlene?” Carrie was baffled, understandably so. She hadn’t touched the phone, and yet, somehow, the incoming call had been answered.
“Way to go, Jefferson.”
“I’m getting good at letter I phoning.”
“You sure are. I’d give you a pat on the back, if I could.”
“How are you?” Aunt Shirlene asked. “Is there any news on your friend?”
“No one has called for a while.” Carrie had the phone on speaker and was still staring at it, as if the thing was possessed. “It’s not like I’m family or anything. They don’t have to think about me at a time like this.”
I knew for a fact they were thinking of her.
“Well, I hope they’ll be okay.”
“Me, too.”
“I wanted to tell you something. I got an email today from your Aunt Willa, she’s the one I’ve been communicating with about our ancestry.”
“Yeah.”
“I told her everything you told me about your friend who talks with ghosts, how he drew that picture he thought was someone named Ruth and you thought it was Grandmother Porter?”
Aunt Shirlene had a friendly, deep voice and a beautiful Southern twang.
“Remember all that?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Carrie said, with a hint of impatience.
“Well, she came across the name in her search, Ruth Porter, the whole family.”
I heard the crinkle of paper.
“Ruth, Daniel, Lewis, Moses, and Charlotte.” Aunt Shirlene listed them all off.
“Yeah?” Now, Carrie was more interested.
“It seems there were older children, too.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “Umm…” I had a hard time thinking of the names. “Charles and…”
“Charles and Polly,” Aunt Shirlene supplied, before my brain could.
“Right.” I remembered then.
“I don’t think Goose mentioned them,” Carrie said.
“I should have.” I wished she could hear me.
“There was another one, too. Another boy. His name was Daniel, Jr, according to the information Willa found on the ancestry website.”
Carrie turned some pages in her journal. It was cool she kept one, just like Jefferson. “Goose definitely didn’t mention him.”
“I didn’t know about him,” I said. “Wait. Is Calvin Daniel that Daniel?”
Jefferson didn’t answer me.
“There’s a date of birth for Daniel, Jr,” Aunt Shirlene said. “It’s April 11, 1841. There’s no date of his death, though.”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm.” Carrie was as intrigued as I. “I wonder why,” she said.
“Maybe they lost track of him.”
“Maybe because he was in the war,” I said to Carrie and Aunt Shirlene, neither of whom could hear me.
“Aunt Willa thinks he might have been taken by someone else and raised with another family. Sadly, that sort of thing was not unheard of. A white family would take a black baby boy to raise, knowing he would be free labor in a few years. The child rearing was worth it, they felt, considering how many years they could get out of him, starting once he turned five or six.”
“That’s terrible,” I said.
Carrie agreed.
“Is that what happened to your Daniel, Jefferson?”
“We’re definitely related, though,” Aunt Shirlene told Carrie. “Aunt Willa says Ruth Porter would be your eight times great grandmother.”
“Wow! That’s so dope! So, Daniel, Jr. and all the others would be my, like, great, great, great, a lot of great aunts and uncles?”
“Yes.”
“Wow! I can’t wait to tell Goose.”
“I can’t wait for her to tell me!” I said. “Now, all I have to do is wake up.”
“Wake up, Goose!”
“Huh?”
“Come on. Wake up, Goose.”
“Who’s that? Is that you, Jefferson? Where did you go?”
“Come on, man, it’s time.”
“To wake up?” I asked.
“Wake the fuck up, you little pain in the ass.”
I moaned, all groggy and sore. “Ask me nicely,” I said, and then opened my eyes.
“Bro-ford!”
No longer feeling ghost-like, no longer in Carrie’s car, I awoke in my hospital bed, staring up at Rip’s uneven mustache. The sheets were soft and smelled freshly laundered with bleach. The room was rather dark, one corner aglow in blue and green from a bunch of machines that hummed and ticked. I smelled Rip’s cologne and some sort of food. Someone nearby was eating Chinese. That made me hungry.
“I never realized how beautiful your eyes are,” Rip said.
“You’re not going to kiss me, are you?” I asked.
He did. Right on the mouth. “Yuck. Coma breath.” Then, he had the nerve to wipe his lips with the back of his hand.
“I would have brushed my teeth first, if you’d have asked for permission.”
“How are you? Should I call the doctor? Does it hurt? Do you know who I am?”
“That’s a lot of questions for someone who was dead three times.”
“Don’t even joke about that, Bro-ham.”
“You’re Bro-ham. I’m Bro-ford.”
“You’re okay,” Rip said.
“If I didn’t know who you are, I would have slapped you for kissing me.”
“You’re okay. Even though, last time, you…you slipped away again.”
“I’ll be sticking around, now,” I told him. The promise made my heart hurt a little. “Patrick…”
“Yeah.” Rip brushed my bare arm. “He’s…uh…he’s here, but…”
“I know.”
“You do?”
One of my legs was suspended midair in some contraption, which left me tickled by a draft in a certain intimate space. “I feel like everything’s sticking out down there. Can you pull up my blanket or get me some underwear?”
Rip looked. “Damn, dude. They really put you on display.”
“Maybe, you did when you kissed me, you brute.”
Rip’s smile was everything. “You smashed me in the nads the day we met at age twelve. Now, here I am covering yours over two decades later. We’ve come full circle, Bro-ford.”
“Seems like. What a moment.”
“Though there are still other shapes to make.”
“What?” I had no idea what the hell that meant.
“I was going for some sort of mushy metaphor, alright? Full circle doesn’t mean beginning to end. No end, here. You’re not done living, even without…You’re not done.”
“No. Where’s Shell?” My voice was raspy, but physical pain was at a minimum, considering. I felt woozy but fought it hard. Medication the reason for all of it, I presumed.
“Just in the bathroom. I’ll let her explain. She should be right back.”
“Oh.”
“Stay awake another second or two, okay?”
“I’ll do my best.”
It took barely one for Shelby to come in.
“Guess who’s awake,” Rip said.
“Hey, Shell.”
“Goose!” She nearly collapsed on top of me, but got just the bed, as she threw herself by the leg that wasn’t in traction.
I cringed from the pain from the impact, even just on the mattress. “Easy…in your condition.”
“I’m pregnant, not…Wait.” She stood. “How do you know? I just took the test.”
“Umm…Gramma told me?”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah. It’s been quite a day. It’s nice to get some good news at the end of it…or…to start a new one. I have no idea what time it is.”
“I can’t believe you know!” Hands on hips, she stared at me angrily, as if I hadn’t just awoken from a frigging coma or something.
“Hello! Don’t yell at me. I’m in a hospital bed.”
“Yeah. Sorry. Where can I touch you without making you hurt?”
“See how it’s done?” I asked Rip. “Here is good.” I wiggled four fingers on my right hand, and noticed the bare one in the middle, where my engagement ring shouldn’t have been, but was, last I’d had it on.
Shelby took my hand. “You’re staying?”
“I’m staying. For you…and my little nephew.”
“It’s a boy?” Rip asked. “Yes!”
“I don’t know. It could be a girl.”
Rip pumped his fist again. “Yes!”
“Gramma said we have to be careful, okay?”
“I will be,” Shelby said. “That’s why we decided to ask a nurse last night. She gave me the same kind of test I could have gotten at CVS.”
“CVS? They’re the enemy!”
“Right. The same test I would have gotten at O’Hanlon’s,” Shelby said. “I took three.”
I smiled.
“All positive. One just now, because they all say first thing in the morning is best. We’ll be careful.”
“I have a good feeling,” I said. The feeling was real, otherwise I would have stayed quiet.
“I actually do, too.” Shelby’s eyes were puffy, but so were her cheeks now, because of happiness. I liked that. “You really talked to Gramma?”
“I really did. She called you Birdie. What’s that all about?”
“Birdie…” Shelby said it almost as a gasp. “I haven’t heard that in years.”
“I don’t think I ever heard it,” I said.
“Days off…snow days…holidays…all summer, you’d sleep until noon.” Shelby sat on the corner of my bed. “I was always up before Gramma and Grampa, as soon as it got light outside. A real early bird.”
“Ah.”
“Grampa always went out to buy the paper. Gramma and I would sit at the table and talk…or just look out the window.”
“Aww.”
“She really said Birdie?” Shelby asked.
“She told me to say hi to Birdie.”
“Wow. It was kind of our secret. She’s okay?”