Poster Boy (18 page)

“I understand,” I said, feeling more ashamed than he could know. “I'm really sorry. It was totally stupid and thoughtless of me.”

“You take these straight to the compost bin and dig them in deep so Nacie doesn't see them.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then start packing. You need to go home to your family. Being with them at a time like this is a thousand times more important than this publicity stunt of yours.”

He was right. I wasn't helping Maggie. I was running away from her. Because Maggie, I suddenly knew as sure as I knew my own name, was not going to get better.

22
An Open Window

I arrived home on Saturday, tail between my legs. As I stepped inside the house, I saw more letters addressed to me on the table in the hall.

Those were going to stop real soon — in fact, as soon as people tuned into the six o'clock news. “Poster Boy Sells Out,” would be the headline. Or “Nature Boy Goes Commercial.”

The only letter I'd be writing was to Mr. D. and Nacie. Thanking them for taking me in and apologizing to Nacie for leaving so abruptly. I had to be with my sister, I'd tell her. Which was true.

Dad was coming down the stairs, a tray in his hand.

“Home for the weekend?” he said.

“No. Home for good,” I smiled weakly. “Thought I should help you out. And be with Maggie. I really am sorry I was… so stupid about that dome that I didn't realize — ”

“No worries. We've all made mistakes here.” He looked me right in the eye, gave me a sad but warm smile. “I'm glad you're back.”

I felt like crying suddenly, like some lame little kid. I forced the feeling down.

“How is she?”

His smile dissolved. “Her pain level seems to have made a dramatic leap. I don't know if the tumors have all grown that one centimeter more to press on various nerves or what. I've upped her pain medication. So, well, she's more tired. And her feet and ankles are swollen. I was actually just going to call the doctor to find out what that might mean.”

“Can I see her?”

“Sure.” He continued past me to the kitchen, then stopped. “She had a really good time at the farm. Told me all about it. I'm glad you two spent the time together.”

Me, too, I wanted to say, but I couldn't get the words out because my throat had closed right up, my eyes pricking again.

I knocked and went in. She was lying in bed, her face an off color, her breathing even more strained than before.

Though her eyes looked to be closed, she smiled and said, “Gray.”

“Yeah, it's me.”

She opened her eyes. “You look sad,” she wheezed.

“Lost my job.” I wanted to tell her the truth.

“How come?”

“Mr. D. found Davis's dope plants up in the woods.”

“Graydumb,” she said, shaking her head.

“That's me.”

* * *

Dad and I took turns waiting on Maggie who, though kind of dopey on medication, was in okay spirits. Dad and I got along all right. It was like we'd forgotten about all the crap that went down over the past few months and just focused on Maggie.

I took over the recycling and composting. Even dug up the garden. I'd gotten used to physical work and my muscles were itching to do stuff. Dad let me put up a laundry line since I offered to hang out wet clothes so we didn't use the dryer. And together he and I cleaned up Mom's studio. At night we watched TSN together, talked about baseball stats or some hockey trade.

Dad called Grammy and Aunt Judy every day to get an update on Mom. I didn't realize how bad off she was. Apparently she was as drugged up as Maggie, only for a different kind of pain. I only wished I could take back what I said.

I slept upstairs in the guest room — my old room — because it shared a wall with Maggie's room and I'd be able to hear if she rang the emergency bell Dad had put beside her bed.

I touched in with Davis and told him about the tragic end of his girls. He was pretty bummed but then made a bad joke about it in the next breath. “Chuck Norris doesn't smoke weed. He gets high roundhouse kicking the THC out of it.”

I was hoping I'd hear from Ciel again. Maybe she'd seen the news and decided she'd been right all along. I was a loser. And because I was a prick to her on the phone that time, I couldn't blame her.

* * *

“Take your picture?” I said, hauling out my camera. I'd just helped Maggie to the bathroom and then back to bed.

I aimed the camera and she stuck out her tongue. It was a darkish red with pale white dots along its edge. It looked like a strawberry. Even after brushing, her breath was foul these days, but I didn't say anything.

I took her picture. She posed again, making bunny ears over her head.

Looking at Maggie through my camera lens, I suddenly felt all the tension in my muscles let go. That restless edge of wanting to hurry life along, make it different, better, brighter… to be cooler, smarter and more dope than the next guy was gone. I'd never felt so relaxed yet at the same time so alert and clear-headed.

“Hurry up, Gray,” said Maggie. “My arm's tired.”

The feeling disappeared and I took her picture.

That night, as I lay in bed listening for sounds from Maggie's room, I tried to recapture the feelings. But it wasn't something I could just make happen.

What the hell did it mean, anyway?

I rolled over, tugged the covers up over my shoulder, and Maggie's G2L popped to mind.

That was it, I thought. That was what it felt like. Two parts gratitude and one part love.

* * *

I'd been home for nearly two weeks. Mom was due home in two days. She was doing much better, Grammy said when we called. It was the first time we got to talk to her, including Dad. He took the phone in the other room to talk in private, and came back out all nervous looking as he passed me the phone. I was nervous, too.

“Hey, Mom. How are you feeling?”

She said she was better and getting some much-needed rest.

I hardly recognized her voice, it was so shaky, like an old person's.

“Grammy and Aunt Judy have been spoiling me rotten. Won't let me lift a finger around here. But I hear you've come home. I'm so so glad, Gray.” She sounded like she might cry, so I quickly told her that I'd been sleeping upstairs in my old room and that Grammy and Aunt Judy could have my suite when they came. “I've changed the sheets and cleaned the bathroom and stuff.”

“Okay, that sounds good. Thanks for looking after that.”

Grammy and Aunt Judy were flying back with Mom to help out. I was relieved to hear it and looking forward to seeing them. Aunt Judy was really upbeat and funny. Grammy was big into manners and pretty bossy but we could probably use her right about now.

Mom wanted to talk to Maggie so I took the phone upstairs and stayed outside in the hall long enough to hear Maggie say in an unusually strong voice, “I'm feeling fine. Dad and Gray are doing everything perfect. You don't have to worry at all. I've missed you, too. I love you, too, Mom.” Then she added, “Don't be sad.” She said it like it was an order. “It's going to be all right.”

* * *

That afternoon, after hanging out some laundry, I was lying on the bed beside Maggie. Dad was out shopping and filling her prescriptions. She'd been going through the pain pills pretty good.

I had just taken a few “artistic” shots of her. Had arranged her troll collection, about twenty-five in all, in circles around her head so she looked like some freakish flower person. I was feeling creative and she didn't seem to mind. I had her frown, looked scared, surprised, etc. I think they came out pretty good.

Now her head rested heavy against my shoulder. The oxygen box roared in the corner and, as usual, I had to be careful not to lie on the tubing. I was reading aloud her science-nerd mag, some article about creatures that live out their lives encased in ice floes in the Antarctic. Maggie, her voice a raspy whisper, was asking a bunch of science-nerd questions that I couldn't answer, like, “What do they eat?” “How do they keep from freezing themselves?” “Can they mate in ice?”

I was almost finished the article when she grabbed my arm with the kind of strength I didn't think she had left in her any more. Her eyes were wide with what looked like surprise, her mouth open.

“I can't see,” she said. There was awe in her voice.

“You can't see?”

Her eyes looked perfectly normal. She was staring straight ahead. Seeing nothing? Only blackness?

“White,” she whispered, as if she was reading my mind. It was a spooky moment.

“Should I call Dad? Or maybe an ambulance?” My adrenaline had kicked in and I was trying not to panic.

“No,” she said so soft and sure that I didn't move or say anything more. Her hand tightened on my arm like she wanted to keep me there, keep me with her.

Then she touched an ear.

“You can't hear?” I asked. She didn't respond.

I recalled something from biology class on aging and death. Mrs. Kaliba had said that the senses of the dying person leave them one by one. The crudest ones first, the subtler ones last. Smell, she said, was supposed to be the last.

I watched Maggie there beside me. She seemed alert, watchful, her lips slightly parted. Together we waited, my heart beating hard enough for us both.

When her hand loosened its grip on my arm, I slipped my arm around her shoulders to hold onto her. Which was a little different than holding her. I stroked her head where it lay on her pillow.

“I'm here. It's all right, Mag,” I mumbled, not believing a word of it.

I should call 911, I told myself. But somehow there wasn't time, wasn't room. The only right thing to do, it seemed, was to focus on Maggie.

“Just relax,” I said, talking more to myself. I watched her blind eyes slowly close, a permanent kind of shutting. Holy shit.

“Maggie?” I said and held on tighter. “Open your eyes.” My breath was now louder than the oxygen box.

Then I felt a shudder go through her body. It seemed to start from her legs and continued up to her head, as if something was trying to shake itself free. A second later, a puff of stinky air rushed past her lips and her hand slipped from my arm. Her body seemed to deflate down into my side.

No. No way! I had an overwhelming urge to jump up and get away from her. From it. But I was more afraid of disturbing. The surreally relaxed weight of her body contrasted my own, which was frozen. Life, I realized, is not physically relaxing. Death, on the other hand…

My heart lurched around in my chest. Was she really dead? She was just here a minute ago. We were just here. Could it just happen, like that?

I wanted to snap my fingers. Snap us both out of this weird dream. It was the middle of the day, after all. People didn't die at two in the afternoon. Not on a Saturday.

I gently tugged the oxygen tubes from her nose and put my hand under her nostrils. Then up to her mouth. I stared down at her chest, fooling my eyes into thinking that I saw it lift and fall. Even with the warmth of her body against mine, I felt cold.

After I don't know how long, I eased myself out from under her and gently laid her head back on the pillow. I put my ear against her chest. Nada. Then I stood on what felt like truly hollow legs and looked down at her.

I was thankful her eyes were closed. And no blood. The muscles of her face were so slack, I now saw the outline of several small tumors under the skin on either side of her nose, more along her jawline.

Her body was perfectly still, yet the air all around me felt charged. I was freaked to think that Maggie's consciousness, her “soul music,” was unleashed in this very room. Maybe I'd seen too many horror flicks, but a part of me waited for things to start flying around the room.

I took several loud, deep breaths and had to admit that the feeling in the air wasn't scary or bad at all. In fact, it felt all right. It felt like Maggie.

Suddenly I remembered what she'd asked me, the thing about opening a window. Hoping my timing wasn't way off here, I quickly went and opened one. A wet breeze billowed the silkscreen curtains. It was raining lightly, a warm rain.

“Okay, Maggie,” I whispered. “Off you go.”

Maybe I should have been frantically making phone calls. But I didn't want to. I didn't think Maggie wanted me to, either. I waited, watching the wind whip her curtains around and the rain leave shimmery dots on the wood floor.

Outside, the clouds shifted so that the afternoon sun hit Maggie's upper body, her skin as pale as her silky white pajamas, La Senza Girl written in hot pink across the breast pocket. The light made her look transparent, like an empty chrysalis, as if she really had taken leave of her skin.

My camera was there on her dresser. I picked it up and took several quick pictures before the clouds shifted and the light changed.

Death wasn't what I'd call pretty, but it wasn't ugly, either. It was just what it was. But the thing that was most clear to me after taking those pictures was that this human form was definitely not Maggie anymore.

I don't how long it had been since what they call the time of death — maybe fifteen minutes, maybe more — before I called Dad on his cell.

“Gray, what is it?”

“It's Maggie.” I said this slowly, calmly, because, well, the time for panicking had passed.

No response. I meant to say the words, but they wouldn't form in my mouth. Maybe he knew by the tone of my voice.

“I'm coming,” he said and quickly hung up.

As I waited for him to arrive, I forced myself to sit in Maggie's room. It didn't feel right to leave her body alone. Even though she may have escaped out that window.

I placed a chair beside the bed and I held her hand, which now felt weirdly heavy, cold, too.

But I held on.

23
Endings and Their Opposite