The Ferryman

by Christopher Golden

  Grandpa Edgar had died in his sleep the summer between David’s freshman and sophomore years in college, and David had been secretly happy to see him go. That emotion both surprised and disturbed him, which was why he had held it so close. But once his grandfather was dead, David had hated him even more.

  Hated him because he still loved him. Despite everything, he had craved the man’s affection his entire life, and that had built up a kind of love in him. Edgar Bairstow had been his grandfather, and even after his death he still wanted the man’s blessings.

  David hated him even more for that. It was an endless cycle of guilt and sorrow, a trap too simple to become mired in, and so he rarely let his mind wander there.

  Today, in the aftermath of Ralph Weiss’s sudden death, he could not help it.

  Down the hall a door slammed and he glanced up to see one of the janitors, Melvin Halliwell, squeaking by with an ancient metal bucket and broom. Broken from his reverie, David reached into the top drawer of his desk and withdrew the book he had scoured the school library for earlier that day.

  It was his high school yearbook.

  The previous night he had searched his entire house for it but come up with nothing.That morning he had not been able to let the quest slip from his mind, and so had gone to the library. They had an archive of yearbooks from every graduating class since St. Matthew’s inception.

  David had not had time to look at it before his classes resumed, only shoved it into the desk. Now he studied the cover, the blue cloth and the image of the mustang inscribed there. The school mascot, the mustang.

  Surprised to find his fingers hesitating, he forced himself to open the book. He flipped past the early pages at first, went right to the roster of students, the rows of photographs from the eighties that looked so silly now. Though there were a few faces he barely recalled, he was pleased with how many of his classmates’ names popped immediately to mind before he had even read the words beneath their images. Lisa Farrelly. Colin McCann. Chris Franzini. Nicole Rice.

  A tiny spike of sadness shot through him as he saw a picture of Maggie Russell.

  Death, it seemed, was all he could think about today. Too many reminders.Whole months went by without his ever thinking of Maggie Russell, but whenever he did, he still missed her. More than fifteen years gone, and still, when he thought of her, Maggie’s smile was fresh in his memory.

  David Bairstow did not want to die.

  He recognized it as a foolish thought. Certainly it was no breakthrough in human consciousness. Nobody wanted to die. But as he lingered over memories of those close to him who were no longer upon the earth, he could not help but wonder where they were now.

  Where he would one day go.

  He did not want to go. Not anywhere.

  Reluctantly, as to a roadblock, he came to the conclusion that he could no longer avoid the thing for which he had retrieved the yearbook in the first place. Still, he put it off one moment longer, to glance out the window. The sparrows were gone.

  David flipped back to the faculty section of the yearbook and quickly found the photograph of Ralph Weiss. He’d been thirty pounds lighter then, and though in David’s memory of high school Mr.Weiss never seemed anything less than profoundly aggrieved about some matter or other, in the picture he wore a warm, genuine smile.

  Now that Ralph Weiss was dead, it pained David to realize how much simpler it would have been, how much less energy it would have cost him, to just accept the teacher as he was. Ralph Weiss had been officious and barely competent as a teacher, but he had also been a benevolent and lonely soul.

  “You had to go and die on us, didn’t you, Mr.Weiss?” he said to the fifteen-year-old picture.

  With a half smile and a shake of his head, he began to page through the yearbook again. Some minutes later, he was not sure how long, there was a rap on the open door.

  David glanced up to see Annette standing just inside the classroom.

  “Hey, Elf.”

  “Penny for your thoughts?” she ventured, her brow furrowed in an expression of grave concern.

  “Pretty morbid, I’m afraid,” he revealed.

  “Just wanted to say good-bye. I’ll see you at the funeral tomorrow, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Maybe we can get something to eat after?”

  Annette pushed a stray lock of hair behind her pointed ears. “Maybe. Janine’s sort of on her own starting this afternoon, and I’m going to be spending a lot of time with her in the next week or so.”

  David raised his eyebrows. “She’s home already?”

  “I’m actually heading over to the hospital to pick her up now, bring her home.”

  A lengthy silence ticked past. A lone sparrow alighted upon a branch just outside the window and peered in, as if David’s earlier scrutiny had driven them off and this solo bird had been sent to see if he’d left yet.

  “Do me a favor?” he asked.

  “Anything.”

  “Ask her if she’d like some more company tomorrow. Maybe I’ll ride over with you. If she wants me to.”

  Annette smiled a bit sadly.“I’ll ask, but I’m sure she’ll be more than happy.”

  David nodded, pleased with his decision, and with Annette’s reaction. She walked over to him and slid onto his lap to stare into his eyes.

  “You’re a sweet guy, Bairstow. Don’t let anyone tell you different.”

  “Thanks, Elf.” He gave her a short, sweet kiss, and amused himself by wondering what Melvin the janitor would think if he spotted Mr. Bairstow with the cute, blond science teacher on his lap.

  The good feeling spurred within him by this musing dissipated quickly, however, as his thoughts turned back to Janine Hartschorn, and the baby she had lost. Both of them had been touched by death, though Janine’s recent loss was far more tragic and intimate than the death of a colleague. Death was suddenly omnipresent.

  David knew there was no way to escape it, but he hoped he would soon be able to return to the bubble of denial most people lived their lives in. The only way to combat the looming inevitability of death was to live.

  Just live.

  CHAPTER 2

  By the time Annette turned the car into Janine’s driveway, it was after four o’clock. The day had already grown long, but the sun’s rays still streamed through the trees whose branches hung out over Winthrop Street. Janine had her window cracked a few inches, and the scents that were carried to her on the breeze were delicious. The landscape of the world seemed to have changed in the week she had spent in the hospital. Spring had truly arrived.

  As best she could, she tried to grasp and hold on to the hope the season always provided.

  Annette pulled into the small lot beside the rambling old white house and parked. “Home again,” she said, and offered her friend a sweet smile before turning off the engine.

  “Yeah,” Janine agreed. “Home.”

  To her great surprise, the word resonated in her.This was not really her home. Her father had been born in Medford, but Janine had been raised in Elmsford, New York. That was home. Not her stepfather’s house in Scarsdale, and not really her current apartment. Still, ever since college, the Boston area had seemed to wrap its arms around her, to cradle and comfort her in a way that New York could never seem to after her father had died.

  Janine stepped out of Annette’s weathered SAAB holding the cup of Starbucks cappuccino her friend had so thoughtfully provided, and stared up at the house. It had been used as offices once. A dentist and a doctor, brothers. The idea that they had shared the space seemed wonderful to her, so very New England. The family still owned the property, but it had been converted to apartments, one on each of the three floors.There was an enormous barn in back—left over from the home’s earliest days—and Dr. Feehan, the landlord, had a million stories about playing in the barn when he was a child.

  A warmth spread through Janine as she stared up at the house, and she felt a smile beginning to light up her face. Her heart was heavy with
the pain of her loss, and she knew it would not leave her soon, if ever. But for the first time she believed that there was room in her heart for other feelings, other emotions. Home, at least, was something she could hold on to. In so many other ways, she felt cast adrift. Over the course of her pregnancy she had come to mentally identify herself as a mother. Now, without the baby, she wasn’t sure what she was.What her life was supposed to be now.

  “You coming, Janine?”

  Annette had paused at the front steps of the apartment house and turned to watch her. With a nod, Janine followed her into the foyer and they walked upstairs together.

  Her apartment was on the second floor, a two-bedroom with a small but serviceable kitchen and a lovely living room with high windows that caught the sun from three different angles all day long. When she turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open, Janine felt a rush of relief. The sunlight gleamed off the hardwood floor and the windows were open a crack, letting in the spring breeze.

  Inside, she dropped the small bag she had brought home from the hospital and just wandered around the place for a moment. All her plants had been watered, and somehow that seemed important to her. In the corner of the living room, where she could look down upon the trees and the barn in the back, her music stand waited for her. On an antique bench beside it, her violin case lay open, the instrument resting inside.

  Home, she thought again.

  As if sensing she wanted a few moments to herself, Annette had gone into the kitchen. She could be heard banging about in there, and after a short time Janine became both curious and a little concerned.

  “Hey.What’s going on in there?” she called.

  “Dinner. Or it will be.”

  Janine’s eyebrows shot up in alarm. With an ironic grin, she hurried into the kitchen to find Annette on her knees rifling through a cabinet full of pots and pans.

  “Stop right there,” Janine ordered. “Not that I don’t appreciate your help, but let’s face it; in the kitchen, you’re a danger to yourself and others.”

  Annette turned and sat on her butt on the linoleum floor. She shot a baleful glance at Janine. “You know, that whole thing about lesbians not knowing how to cook? It’s a myth.”

  “You make it true,” Janine said bluntly.

  With a sigh, Annette relented. “My mother made lasagna, okay? I just need a pot to heat up the extra sauce.”

  “Whew,” Janine replied. “You had me scared there for a second.”

  They shared a bittersweet moment together then, both of them aware that it was likely the first time Janine had smiled in days, the first glimpse of sunlight breaking through the black cloud of her grief. Janine grimly accepted the knowledge that it was only a momentary reprieve, that the numbness she had felt would likely be her regular state for quite some time.

  But it wasn’t the only thing she could feel. Annette had reminded her of that, and she was more grateful than she could ever have put into words.

  Though Annette tried to scoot her out of the kitchen, Janine stayed and together they quickly cobbled together a salad to go with the lasagna. Both of them wanted music—Janine especially—but it had to be something uplifting rather than the melancholy songbirds they both often listened to. Janine slipped in Barenaked Ladies’ live album, Rock Spectacle, and, at odd times during dinner, they both sang along.

  A bottle of Corvo Bianco had lain dormant in the fridge for months, and they polished it off between songs and servings of lasagna. Annette never brought up the baby.

  After dinner they moved into the living room and Janine put a classical compilation into the CD player. Her violin called to her from the corner as if inspired by the music, but she resisted the temptation to play. There would be time for that. She would rebuild her life one moment at a time.

  Janine studied Annette, there beside her on the sofa, and felt a deep and abiding love for her. She had never had a sister, nor in truth any girlfriend in whom she had ever felt she could confide completely. But the day Annette had first come to teach at St. Matthew’s, Janine had felt a connection. She had known they would be friends. She cherished the other woman’s place in her life, sometimes so deeply as to wish she herself were gay. They had joked about it often enough. And yet somehow, at times to her dismay, she simply could not conjure even the slightest interest in having sex with another woman, even one she loved so deeply.

  “Hey,” Annette protested, squirming under the intensity of Janine’s examination of her. “Do I have sauce on my chin?”

  Overwhelmed by emotion, Janine slid closer to her on the couch and laid her head on Annette’s chest, holding her tight. She bit her lip to keep tears at bay and sighed heavily.

  “Thanks, Elf,” she whispered. Janine turned her face up toward Annette’s, eyes wide, letting all her pain and affection show through.“I don’t think I’d be able to survive this without you.”

  A kind of uncertainty transformed Annette’s face. Her eyelids fluttered a moment, as though she were reluctant to hold Janine’s gaze. Then she smiled weakly, and bent to kiss Janine softly on the forehead.

  “I love you,” she whispered. “You’ll get through.”

  Janine basked selfishly in her friend’s dedication for a moment; then she sat up. Her fingers twined with Annette’s, and they shared a look of deep regret. Though she knew it was arrogant to think it, Janine had the idea that Annette might care for her as more than a friend, and she tried her best never to imply anything she did not feel.

  “I love you, too,” she told Annette, her mouth twisted into an expression of the irony she felt.

  Annette chuckled softly and shook her head as if erasing something from her mind. “So, what’s next?”

  “Ben and Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk?” Janine suggested.

  “Good answer. But I meant for you. Tom Carlson said you could take the balance of the year off, start up teaching again in the fall, right?”

  “Yeah,” Janine replied slowly. Carlson was the principal at Medford High, where she had taught since leaving St. Matthew’s. “I’m torn, though. I don’t know what I’d do with myself, you know? I think it might be worse, having that much time to think. I’m leaning toward going back, maybe in a couple of weeks.”

  “I’m sure your students will be happy,” Annette said.

  “You kidding? They think I’m Attila the Hun. I wish I could have even a fraction of the rapport with my students as David always has with his.”

  At the mention of David’s name, Annette’s eyes lit up.

  “What?” Janine asked.

  A mischievous smile appeared at the edges of Annette’s mouth. “I told you Ralph Weiss died?”

  Janine was horrified. “That’s something to smile about?”

  “No!” Annette quickly protested. “It’s just that, well, I talked to David earlier, and he wondered if it would be all right if he came over with me after the funeral tomorrow.”

  For a moment, Janine could only stare at her. A million thoughts whisked through her mind, leaving her mouth open in a tiny O of confusion. David, she thought. Her gaze and her memories seemed to ricochet around the living room, resting for only a heartbeat on spots where David had left traces of himself upon her life, a dozen artifacts of their time together.

  “Janine?” Annette prodded. “I didn’t want to upset you.”

  “You didn’t,” Janine promised, glancing shyly away.

  “Do you want me to tell him no? I can. He’d understand, you know.”

  Janine shook her head, a flutter in her chest. “No. No, please tell him I’d love to see him.”

  The intensive-care unit was quiet, save for the steady beep of monitors and pumps. Not that there was generally a lot of noise in ICU beyond the conversations between doctors and nurses, but often enough, there would be the sounds of despair. Stefanie Harlow was always relieved when she could finish a shift without losing a patient or hearing someone sob. Though she had chosen the ICU, and she believed that she brought some c
omfort to all her patients, both those who survived and those who did not, it was a constant drain on her emotions.

  Two days earlier she had heard a teenage boy singing softly to his unconscious mother. An hour later the woman had died. Stefanie still could not get the song out of her head.

  But this evening it was quiet. That was always good.

  Then, almost as if summoned by her thoughts, an alarm went off on one of the monitors.

  “Damn it,” she hissed.

  Mr. Haupt was a cancer patient. He had been undergoing radical chemotherapy and had had a heart attack that put him into a coma. Less than two days had passed, and hope for his recovery had dwindled to almost zero. His wife and children had gone home for dinner and a shower, and were due at eight, less than half an hour away.

  Stefanie wondered if perhaps he hadn’t just grown impatient. Despite all they had done for him, she knew that he must be in a lot of pain.

  Chaos erupted in the curtained-off unit around Mr. Haupt as nurses and doctors rushed in. With one look at the patient—and without any need to look at the monitors—Stefanie knew that the man had had another cardiac episode. She also knew that it would be his last.

  It’s not fair, she thought.

  Dr. Pulaski glanced at the monitors, studied Mr. Haupt for a moment, and then held up one hand.

  “Don’t,” he said. “He has a DNR order.”

  As if a switch had been thrown, the chaos dissipated. Though the monitors still showed the man’s fast decline, the alarms were shut off. Stefanie knew that with a do-not-resuscitate order there was nothing more they could do for the man. It just seemed so wrong that his family—who had spent two days in vigil at his bedside—had gone home for a few hours only to return and find him dead.

  The others milled around, beginning in advance the work that would need to be done once Mr. Haupt was dead. Stefanie thought it in exceptionally bad taste. She sat on the edge of the bed and held tight to Mr. Haupt’s limp hand as the old man’s life slipped away.