Or Not to Be (34 page)

56

Eddie

In the early morning
on the second day of April, many decades later, I
awoke with a sharp pain in my right arm. Oh, I thought, heart attack. What a
cliché way to die. How clever.

I didn’t call for help. I remained on my
back and let death take me. Take me to Anna, I thought. It was an agonizing
process to wait for my heart to stop, for the pain to stop, for my last breath.
I was impatient to have it over so I could get on with the death I was sure to
enjoy. I’d looked forward to it for too long without Anna. I expected she’d be
my guide.

While I waited to die, I flashed onto
memories of my life, good times and bad. I’d helped my children survive without
their mother, attended their graduations, and helped move them out of our
house. I’d walked Bethany down the aisle and delivered my five grandchildren.
Those were the best times. I recognized that I’d lived a good long life, yet I
hadn’t done and accomplished all I’d set out to do. I’d been fearfully
anticipating the fall of our country. It never happened. I never walked in fear
on a city street beside Bethany. I’d never fought for her life. That future
scene, which haunted me from my death, never came to pass. With so many humans
making choices every minute of every day, the future I saw from the dead side
was a series of what-if scenes. Not to be feared or anticipated. The one thing
humans know for certain is that life is not eternal. Only death is.

I looked forward to my final death. I let
my body slowly die. Because it took a long time, the scientist in me agreed
with the doctor in me that I was living in my own time hitch. If I wanted to
return, I knew my body would take me back. But I knew I wouldn’t come back.
Once I found her, I would never leave my Anna again.

In the instant that I passed through my
space-time gap, I was wrapped in a feeling of peace, so much like coming home.
I was annoyed to find my guide was Anna’s mother.

Not the best
welcoming committee, she greeted me with, “Oh, it’s
you
. Hello, Mr. Ed.”

“Dr. McElveen, you may call me Dr. Wixim.”
The woman was always so crotchety to me.

“Right, Ed. Had a good heart attack, did
you?”

“So it seems.” Could I ditch her? I didn’t
need a guide anyway.

“Can’t go back to that body—no heart, no
life. You’re stuck on the dead side this time.”

“I think you’re wrong,” I told her. “But
I’m staying. No need to hash it out. I understand how things work here, so I’ll
just say it: I’m ready to depart.”

She chuckled. “Know-it-all. I know
everything, and you know nothing. There was no hitch, Ed. It just took you a
long time to die. No choices for you. When you die with no choices, you’re
departed as soon as you arrive here.”

“I don’t want choices. I’m done with my
life. Why are you my guide?”

“I was sent to give you the news.”

“News?”

“Yes, but I can’t give it until you ask
The Question.”

“I have lots of questions,” I insisted, a
bit peeved by her unfriendly tone.

“Ask the big one, Ed. We already know what
it’ll be. The same one Joey asked you in the car after Anna died. Go ahead.” The
bitch was gloating. Something was wrong.

“Why isn’t Anna my guide? Where is she?”
Maybe Anna didn’t want to see me, even on the dead side.

“Anna isn’t here,” her mother revealed, somewhat gleefully.

57

Anna

The sun is coming up
on a house that I don’t recognize.

“Annie!” a woman screams. “Wake up! Oh, my
God,” she wails. “No!”

When Joey gets to her, she’s on her knees
holding the tiny infant in her pink blanket.

Every single time I watched this scene in
my nightmares it was different. Sometimes, the woman was me and the baby girl
was Bethany. Another time, Bethany was the mom. Every time it changed. But
every single time, at the end of the dream, the baby died. There was never a
thing I could do about it.

“No!” Joe is in a rage. He pushes the
woman aside and begins CPR. I watch for endless minutes as he breathes into the
baby’s tiny face.

Nothing.

Just as expected, we’ve lost another one.

| | | |

The light
. The bright whiteness of it. I haven’t seen this
since I departed.

A tiny soul is with me. My granddaughter.
I know it’s her, and I want her to go back. Her space-time gap is still wide
open. It’s a gigantic, gaping hole that delineates the link between her life
and her death. I can feel it. I nudge her toward it, and she bounces back to me.
She is feeling the pull of the universe to take her away.

I wrap myself around her and give a push.

It takes all of my energy to make her move
toward the gap, but together we make some progress. Then there’s a perceptible
shift, and I don’t have to push anymore because she is being pulled back to her
life. The attraction of her matter for her antimatter exceeds the pull of the
universe once she gets close enough to the passageway.

With a whoosh, she is gone. With another
whoosh, as if the edge of a black hole had been formed to add to my momentum, I
get pulled in, too.

And then the feeling of earthly love
surrounds me. I look up through the eyes of my granddaughter into the loving
eyes of her father, my son.

It is, of course, November eleventh.

This story was written over many years in multiple
layers and would not exist without the love and support of my family and
friends. My infinite appreciation goes to all of these people.

My daughters, Lea Lanni Buck and Kate
Lanni, were the first souls to whom I fearfully confessed that I’d written a
novel. They were my first brave readers so many years ago that they might not
remember the story. Linda Klebanow loved the story of Anna and Eddie in its
rawest form and never hesitated to point out when revisions veered from the
original journey, which she cherished. Meg Murphy and Jim Malone read early
versions and encouraged me to revise, seek publication, and share with readers.
A special group of writers at the Chapin section of the South Carolina Writers
Workshop never tired of listening to chapters, queries, rejections, and offers
during my rollercoaster years of submissions.

Judy Arabian, Caryn Karmatz Rudy, and
Candace Johnson all worked with me through more revisions than I’d ever
imagined, and tirelessly offered insight to tighten the story, reorganize,
revise, delete parts, and develop the characters.

And finally, I thank my husband, Mike
Lanni, for always supporting and believing in me, forever showing his love, and
for never laughing aloud when I marched away from my writing desk and announced
dozens of times that my book was finished, again.

By
day, Laura Lanni teaches organic chemistry and oversees her undergraduate
research laboratory. When not teaching or writing, she can be found working
with writers in her critique group, running, hugging her grandchildren, riding
a jet-ski, blogging, and baking.

Visit
Laura’s blog at
www.lauralanni.com
or chat on Twitter @lauralanni.