The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley

by Shaun David Hutchinson

  But I also understand why it’s more important than ever for him to tell Lexi how he feels about her. All of Trevor’s very special days may be behind him.

  I don’t remember how I got here, but I’m standing in the chapel. There are a couple of people sitting in the pews—an older woman with her head bowed low and a man my dad’s age just staring at the wall. I’m not sure how long I’ve been loitering in the doorway, but Father Mike sees me and waves me in.

  I drag my feet. Father Mike is busy lighting candles on the altar. He’s wearing a welcoming smile, but he’s moving quietly, so as not to disturb the people seeking comfort in the silence. Still, his smile says enough.

  “How are you, Drew?” He points to the front pew, and we sit together. He isn’t in his robes today, just black pants and a black shirt and one of those little white collars.

  “My friend is dying.” The words spill out of my mouth. “I don’t want Trevor to die.”

  Father Mike’s smile fades when he realizes that I’m not here to seek advice about Patient F’s next great adventure. I don’t even know why I’m here. But it feels like one of the few safe places left in the hospital.

  “Do you believe that God has a plan for Trevor?” he asks.

  “I . . . I’ve always believed in free will.”

  “Having a plan doesn’t mean that you can’t make choices.” He folds his hands, exuding a radiant calm. Gone is the funny man, the man who knows a shocking amount about comic books. In his place is the man of God.

  I look down at my own hands. Still shaking. I can’t erase the afterimages of Trevor from behind my eyes. But I focus on Father Mike’s words and let him guide me back from the precipice. “I don’t understand. Either God plans out our lives or he doesn’t. We’re trains on a track or we’re pinballs.”

  Father Mike rests his hand on my arm and tilts his head so that he’s looking me straight in the eyes. There’s so much serenity there. His inner calm is contagious. I wonder how the mountains of tragedy don’t wear him down. How supporting others doesn’t leave him with a crumbling foundation of his own. I’m grateful for it, either way.

  “It’s more complicated than that,” he says. “Think of God’s plan like a road trip. You can follow I-95 all the way from Florida to Boston, or you can explore the back roads. You can get lost in a big city for a while, or you can spend your days stopping at antique stores in every small town you pass through. The choices you make on the way to your destination are yours. But where your path ends is in God’s hands.”

  Tears gather on the edges of my vision. I can’t stop them from falling. Don’t want to. “So you’re telling me that Trevor’s going to die whether I pray for him or not?”

  Father Mike takes my hands and folds them between his own. “Just pray, and I’ll pray with you, and we’ll leave the rest to God.”

  I close my eyes and slide to my knees. Father Mike kneels beside me.

  “Father Mike?” I ask softly. “What does God want to hear?”

  “The truth, Drew. Tell the truth.”

  Moving around the hospital becomes difficult.

  No matter where I go, people stare at me; they take snapshots of me with their eyes so that they can file reports with Death. Somewhere, she sits on her throne of bones, waiting for me to make one more mistake. Then she’ll snatch me up and take me away. Take me out there.

  I’m not even sure what’s out there anymore. I remember that first night. After I watched Death take Cady and my parents. The paramedics lost me in the confusion. Listening to Emma and Jo and Steven discuss the accident from my hiding spot in an empty exam room. I hated them then. The callous way they treated my baby sister as meat and not a little girl who loved to sing. The way they continued on about their nights like my family was little more than an interlude, a blip in their routine. The first chance I had, I ran. I found the unfinished ward of the hospital and tried to cry alone in the dark. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t cry.

  The next night, I snuck out and found my parents in the morgue. I couldn’t look at them. But I did cry. I cried so hard that I forgot my own name. When I was done, I realized that my parents were still here. And that as long as I was here and I remembered them, then they wouldn’t be dead. Out there, time would pass and I’d forget, but here in the hospital, they’d always be alive.

  Eventually I realized that Death had meant to take me, too, but that she’d been late. I know she’ll find me in the end, but I’ll evade her as long as possible. Her resources are not infinite. Death is a busy woman. But still, I spend a lot of time hiding out in my room, working on Patient F. He’s continuing to move through the names on his list. The names of the dead. If a name is on his list, they die. He kills them. It’s the way it works.

  But since he met Ophelia, he’s begun to think about things. Not about whether the people whose names are on his list deserve to die—they do—but about whether he deserves to live. When he’s with Ophelia, Patient F feels the way he felt before, when he was a man in a suit with a boring job and a house and a family. He begins to wonder if he could maybe be that man again, for her, with her.

  Except he’s got too much blood on his hands to ever be happy again. It never washes off, that blood. It becomes part of his skin. It is his skin. It’s all he knows.

  I blink under the incandescent work light hanging from the wall and rub my eyes with my fists. An afterimage of the room floats on the backs of my eyelids. I don’t even know what time it is. The battery has died on my iPod, and I haven’t bothered to steal a new one. Doctors have bad taste in music anyway. So much country and gangster rap.

  Since I can’t remember when I last left my sanctuary, I decide it’s time to visit Rusty. I know that I should check on Trevor, but I can’t bear the thought of seeing him convulse again. Or of finding his room empty.

  Instead, I head toward the ICU. When I exit my unfinished prison, the flood of sunlight momentarily blinds me. It’s high noon, and the hallways are alive with people in motion. I alone stand still. It takes effort to find my way into the stream of people flowing by, but I do it, and I keep my eyes down and my steps quick. Death’s minions are everywhere.

  My stomach rumbles, and I figure I can make do with a snack. I grab some chips and mints out of the vending machine and then do a hair check in an empty room’s bathroom. I’m starting to look terrible. I’ve never sported much of a tan, but these days I’m pallid; my cheeks are sprouting the beginnings of a scraggly beard, which both impresses and repulses me; and without a brush, the best I can do is wet my hair, now hanging in my eyes, and slick it back. The only good thing about my appearance is that I look less like the boy in that sketch with each passing day.

  When I approach the ICU, I follow an orderly through the doors, but I’m stopped before I make it two more steps.

  “I’m sorry,” a nurse says as she scrambles out of her seat and rushes toward me. “You can’t be here.” She’s young and energetic, like Emma, but she doesn’t smell like sugar cookies.

  “I’m here to see Rusty.” I haven’t done this before, seen him during the day. Officially.

  The ICU looks different filled with people. ICU patients are on the precipice of life, staring down into the abyss, waiting for that one miracle to fend off death a while longer. And at night, you can feel the desolation drowning them, when they only have their own thoughts to grapple with. But during the day, there’s a slick of hope that floats on top of all that fear. I don’t think it’s enough to save them, but it helps them want to save themselves.

  The nurse is about to tell me to get lost when Nina trots over. “It’s okay, Shari. He’s okay.” Nina puts her arm around my shoulders and smiles at Shari.

  “Family only,” Shari says, but she’s already retreating.

  “He’s a cousin,” Nina assures her. “Cousin Drew.”

  Shari cocks her eyebrow at me. “Rusty’s got a lot of cousins.”

  Nina says, “Thanks, Shari,” and drags me toward Rusty’s room. “Rusty�
��s going to be so thrilled to see you.” She wasn’t exactly the last person I wanted to see, but she wasn’t the first, either. It should have occurred to me that she might be here, given that it’s daytime, but I wanted to see Rusty so badly that I didn’t think.

  “Sorry for running out on you the other day,” I say. “I really had to pee.” Pee? I don’t know where that excuse came from, but I already feel the tips of my ears burning, my cheeks turning red. “TMI.”

  “It’s all copacetic.” Nina herds me toward Rusty’s room, and I stumble through the door. “Look who I found.”

  Rusty looks up and smiles. It’s the greatest smile in the entire world. The dregs of horror from my episode with Trevor just dissipate in the air the moment I’m in the orbit of Rusty’s bright, lopsided grin. I take in his face, every inch of it. The way his red hair falls naturally to the left side, the way his right eye doesn’t open fully, the way the freckles down his unburned arm look like braille that I wish I could read.

  “Heya, Rusty.” My voice comes out shy.

  “You left me hanging,” he says. “Frankenstein’s brother is dead, his father’s maid is accused of the murder, and you left me hanging!”

  I’m about to explain, but he’s still smiling. He’s joking. It’s all I can do not to run over to his bed and hug him. I’m drawn like a magnet to his smile, his laugh, his everything.

  “Rusty, are you going to introduce us?”

  I turn around so quickly that I lose my balance and stumble into the door frame. Rusty’s parents are sitting in the corner, eyeballing me curiously.

  And just like that, Rusty’s smile evaporates. “Mom, Dad, this is Drew. Drew, my parents.”

  I’m frozen. My limbs refuse to respond to the signals from my brain. Mr. and Mrs. McHale stare at me like I’m an invader, the enemy. I’m a fiend come to kidnap their son, to steal him away to my underground lair.

  “Drew’s great,” Nina says. Her voice is an octave higher than normal, and it startles me back to reality. “He’s an artist.”

  “Nice to meet you both,” I mumble, waving at them weakly and trying to smile.

  Mrs. McHale smiles like her son. “Nice to meet you, Andrew. We’ve heard so little about you.” She gives me a wry grin.

  “Rusty doesn’t tell us anything.” Mr. McHale coughs in Rusty’s direction.

  Rusty’s parents look more alive than I’ve ever seen them before. They don’t look like the haggard people I’ve spied on so often. I think it must be an act they’re putting on for Rusty.

  “Oh,” I say. I figure they’re waiting for me to explain my existence in Rusty’s life. “Well, I’m working in the cafeteria for the summer, and my grandma is here too, so, yeah, I just spend a lot of time around the hospital. I was here the night Rusty came in, and I thought he could use a friend.”

  Mr. and Mrs. McHale examine me with curious eyes. But they’re not the only ones. Rusty is staring at me too. I forgot he didn’t know that I’d been there that night. I never told him.

  “It’s nice to meet a young man who visits his grandmother,” Mrs. McHale says. “Rusty could learn a thing or two from you.”

  Rusty groans. “Jesus, Mom. His grandmother’s in a coma. Noni Jean smells like cabbage, and all she talks about are her stupid dogs and their poop. Stitches pooped three times last I was there, and the way she talked about it, you’d think the stupid dog shat a log in the shape of the Virgin Mary.”

  “Rusty,” snaps his father. “Language.”

  But I can’t help laughing. Nina joins in, and soon we’re all chuckling, except for Rusty’s father, who doesn’t seem to like me much. He keeps glaring at me with this permanent scowl.

  “Why don’t you join us, Andrew?” Mrs. McHale says. “We’re about to play Trivial Pursuit.”

  “Yeah!” Nina says. “You totally have to play.”

  I look at Rusty, and he’s wearing this look that says I’m sorry. Nina grabs the box and starts arranging the Trivial Pursuit board at the foot of Rusty’s bed while babbling about how she’s horrible at Trivial Pursuit but how Rusty is a phenom.

  Rusty’s parents drag their chairs closer and chime in with stories about how Rusty once came from behind to beat them all because he knew some obscure answer to a question about Antarctic animals. Their voices become a buzzing in my ears, and the corners of my vision blur.

  I’m back in the car with my parents and my little sister, and we’re driving down a dark two-lane road. Mom wanted to stop for dinner an hour ago, but we were only a couple of hours from the hotel and I begged them to keep going because I needed to get out of this stinking car. Dad had a headache and I offered to drive.

  Cady was trying to get us all to sing this song that she’d learned from the FitzBuzzies, a group of dancing and singing bumblebees who go on grand adventures to find the prettiest flowers in the world, but I didn’t want to sing. Singing was for babies. My friends kept texting me from home; I was missing one of the best parties of my life to go on a lame trip to Florida with my family. We’d talked about going to Disney for years, but that was before I had friends, before my friends started throwing parties. I just wanted to get to the hotel room so I could find out if Nate Miller had shown up and who he’d brought.

  My phone buzzed again, and my mom yelled at me not to look at it, but I already had it out—and Nina snaps her fingers in my face.

  “Drew? Are you all right?”

  Mr. and Mrs. McHale are staring at me, probably wondering if I’m on drugs. Rusty’s got an inquisitive look on his face. He knows I went somewhere, but he’s not sure where.

  “I’m fine,” I say. “I don’t think I’m up for a game.” I back toward the door.

  “Why don’t we go get some lunch?” Mrs. McHale says to her husband. He grunts something but stands without hesitation. “Sweetie, can we bring you back anything?”

  Rusty shakes his head. I catch him exchanging a look with Nina right before she says, “Mind if I play third wheel? I’m starved.”

  “Let’s shove off,” Mr. McHale says. He nods at Rusty and stares at me—hard—as he passes by. I flatten myself against the door frame. I think maybe I should try to shake his hand, but Mr. McHale doesn’t appear amiable to touching.

  “It was very nice to meet you, Andrew,” Mrs. McHale says. I get a sly smile from Nina as she skips out of the room.

  Rusty waits until Nina and his parents are out of earshot before sighing. “I thought they’d never leave. I love ’em, right, but they’re tiring.” Rusty smiles at me again, that same brilliant smile.

  I collect the Trivial Pursuit pieces and return the game to the box. “Sorry about earlier. I kind of zoned out.”

  “I get it,” Rusty says. “You miss your family.”

  Rusty catches me off guard, like he’d seen inside my brain. But I don’t miss them the way you miss a friend during the long summer months, while you’re away visiting different parts of the country and they’re stuck at home working at their parents’ flower shop. I miss my family on an atomic level. The bonds that held us together were shattered, and now I’m incomplete. Radical.

  I avoid Rusty’s father’s chair and sit down in the seat vacated by his mother.

  “How you been?” I ask. It’s not the kind of thing we normally talk about, but I’ve met his parents, and it’s daytime. I’ve become part of his waking life. It feels like nothing is off limits now.

  “Got some skin grafts scheduled,” Rusty says nonchalantly. “They’re going to peel some skin from my back and slap it on my legs.”

  I shift uncomfortably in my chair. The seat is fine, but Rusty’s challenging me. It’s in the way he looks at me, his eyes narrower, his hands curled into little fists. I should let this go, but I can’t. “Good thing your back wasn’t burned, then.”

  “Yeah,” Rusty says. “I suppose.”

  “Nina having any luck finding the guys who attacked you?”

  Rusty shakes his head. “Soon, a few days, maybe, they’re moving me out of ICU in
to a regular room. A couple of weeks after that, maybe home.” Rusty stares down at the gulf of blanket between his knees. “I don’t want to go, Drew. I don’t want to leave.” He peers at me through dewy eyelashes. “I’m afraid I’ll die out there. I really am.”

  I scoot my chair to the side of his bed, take Rusty’s hand. It’s clammy. “No one’s going to hurt you,” I tell him. “A promise is a promise.”

  We pull away from each other when Shari comes to hang a new IV and record Rusty’s vitals.

  “You’ll never guess what I’m doing tomorrow night,” I say once Shari leaves, to change the subject. Fear is still weighting Rusty down, but the truth is, I’m not sure that I can protect him from Death. I mean, I couldn’t stop her from taking my parents or my little sister. I’m beginning to doubt that I’ll be able to stop her from taking Trevor. Or—eventually—myself. I’ve lost my confidence. All my promises may come to nothing in the end.

  Rusty’s smile returns. It’s not nearly full form, but it’s waxing. “What are you going to do?”

  “Remember how I told you about Trevor and Lexi? And how Trevor won’t ask Lexi out because he’s afraid of dying on her, and how Lexi’s too blind to see that there’s a really awesome guy right in front of her?”

  “Yeah,” Rusty says, though I’m not entirely certain he’s following along.

  “Tomorrow night, I’m setting them up on a date.” I say the words out loud and feel immensely proud of myself. “I haven’t worked out the details yet, but I’m going to make this happen.”

  Rusty touches the tips of my fingers. He’s staring at me in this dreamy way, as though he’s sleeping or his pain meds have increased. “Why is this so important to you?”

  I shrug. “People deserve to be happy,” I say. The real reason is less romantic. The real reason is that the sight of Trevor seizing reminded me how fragile his life is. The real reason is that, if I wait too long, Trevor will die.