Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

by Lurlene McDaniel

  Holly slid off her chair and crossed the floor on her knees to her mother’s side. “I think we should go be with him. All of us together.”

  “Yes,” Judy said softly. “Go talk to him, hold his hand, tell him how much you love him. He’ll hear you.”

  Mrs. Gardner wept silently for a moment longer, but finally she nodded her consent. “I guess you’re right.” She rose, and Mr. Gardner put his arm around her waist to steady her. They started down the hall, and one by one the others followed, reminding Carrie of baby ducks trying not to be separated.

  In Keith’s room they took positions around his bed, stations where each could see and touch him. There was a staleness, a stagnation in the air, and she wondered if it was the “smell of death” her father had warned her about. She wanted to fling open windows to chase it away but instead stood woodenly, staring down at his motionless body.

  In the glow of the lamp, he looked peaceful. “Hi, son,” his father said.

  “We love you, Keith,” Mrs. Gardner said. Her voice had become strong, and all trace of her former doubt and fear was gone.

  Jake leaned over his brother, positioning his ear right above Keith’s nose. A moment later his face broke into a grin. “You’re tickling me,” he said. “It makes me feel fuzzy all over.”

  April bent down and kissed Keith’s cheek, and Gwen held his hand. Mrs. Gardner stroked his cheek and kept saying, “I love you … I love you.”

  For her part, Carrie could only watch. Once she tentatively touched his arm, which felt cool, and so she drew her hand back. Mesmerized, she watched his chest rise and fall, fast, then slow. His breath came in gasps, and she held her own breath, willing his to keep coming. His eyelids fluttered open, and he seemed to be staring straight at her, but then they closed, and she realized that he hadn’t seen her at all.

  At some point Keith asked for water, and his father held a straw to his lips, but he wouldn’t drink from it.

  “He can’t swallow,” Judy told him gently, removing the glass from his hand.

  Holly told Keith a silly story, as if she could make him laugh and forget how hard it was for him to breathe air. Jake sang a song about a dog named Bingo. Inwardly Carrie wanted it to be over, then hated herself because once it was over, there would be no going back. Silently she begged, “Please God. Please.”

  Keith’s eyes opened once more. “There’s a light,” he said. His voice sounded raspy. “See the light. It wants me to come.” He stared into a corner of his room. Carrie turned, half expecting to see brightness, but saw instead only a darkened corner.

  His family bunched about him even more tightly, and Carrie squeezed herself against the wall. She felt the solid surface of the bedside table pressed into her leg and looked down. The baseball mitt had fallen unnoticed to the floor, and the terrarium was tilted toward the wall. The dark green leaves glowed in the light from the desk lamp. She saw the water-filled plastic butter dish and the small white clusters that floated on the surface. The frogs eggs. She remembered catching them at the lake. No … not these. The parents of these. How small they were! How hard to believe that the tiny white spheres would turn into living creatures.

  She recalled the squirming tadpoles and the sense of wonder she’d first felt over seeing their legs emerge and tails drop off. “Metamorphosis” her biology teacher had taught her during science class. The changing of one thing into another. Again her eyes returned to Keith’s heaving chest as he fought for air. She saw then that he too was undergoing a metamorphosis.

  His body had become a prison, and his spirit was struggling to break out. Like the tads’ tails, Keith’s body would have to drop away in order to release his spirit. There was simply no other way for it to be free. Tears swam in her eyes, causing the terrarium to blur and squiggle. The green foliage danced, and the voices of the parent frogs could be heard, calling, calling.

  Carrie pushed farther away from Keith’s bed, while his family crowded inward, stroking, touching, exploring with soft touches and softer words. Keith’s chest heaved. Once, twice, then stilled. He was gone. He’d stepped beyond the room, beyond them all into a world without time. A place without pain.

  On the bed his body, his shell, looked empty and abandoned. Keith’s metamorphosis was complete.

  Chapter Twenty

  Carrie circled her bedroom checking and rechecking the boxes, taping some closed and allowing others to remain open in case there were some last-minute items to throw inside. Funny how her lifetime of belongings could be packed away in a single stack of boxes. Digital numbers on her clock radio glowed six-thirty A.M. She had an hour and a half before her dad and Lynda came with the U-Haul trailer. She shouldn’t have gotten up so early, but it had been impossible to sleep.

  Outside, a fine September rain fell. She hoped the overcast skies would clear up. The weatherman had said they would, but then, who could trust what the weatherman said?

  Her mother appeared in her doorway. “Larry will be here to get me at seven,” Faye said. She was fully dressed, and her makeup looked perfect, but Carrie could tell that she hadn’t slept much either. “You know I don’t plan to be here when you leave with your father.” The words were terse, the tone cool and accusatory.

  “We’ve been over it, Mom. You know this is the best thing for us both.”

  “Going to live with your father is good for me? How can you say such a thing?”

  Carrie sighed, not wanting to start the day with an argument. “I told you, I want to finish school at Martin.”

  “So you’d leave your mother for the sake of a crummy school? I don’t understand you at all, Carrie.”

  Carrie wanted to say, I know, but there was no point, because she could never make her mother understand. There was no way Carrie could ever explain that her leaving had very little to do with staying at Martin.

  “I told you we wouldn’t be moving until Christmas break,” her mother said, in the pleading voice she used so well to get her way. “You don’t have to transfer from Martin until January. The new buyers said they didn’t want to move in for another three months.”

  “Mom, let’s not argue.” Carrie stooped to tape up a book box.

  The front doorbell rang. “That must be Larry,” Faye said. “He’s early.”

  “You’d better not keep him waiting.”

  “I’m sorry you don’t like him.” Again the accusing tone came through her voice. “He’s really a very wonderful man.”

  “He’s right for you, Mom. And moving in with Lynda and Dad is right for me.”

  Tears shimmered in her mother’s eyes, and Carrie almost wavered. “You’ll call me tonight?” Faye asked.

  “Every night, if you want.”

  “And the weekends?”

  “Whenever you want, I’ll come over. Dad says he’ll get me a car for my birthday.”

  Faye’s mouth twisted into a sour smile. “He gets his way, after all, doesn’t he?”

  Carrie started to protest, then decided against it. What was the point? Across the space of the room, she studied her mother. She looked pretty, but tense, like a coiled spring. “I hope you’ll be happy, Mom,” she whispered, hearing her voice catch, and hating it.

  “You too,” Faye said. Carrie saw her clench and unclench her hands. “You call me tonight.”

  “I will.”

  Carrie listened to her mother’s heels click down the stairs, heard her open, then shut, the front door. She heard Larry’s car drive away, listening until the sound was washed away by the rain.

  Carrie sniffed and sat heavily on her bed, now stripped of its linen. The house seemed lonely as familiar sounds echoed off her empty walls. She kept remembering when she’d first told her mother of her decision to move. It had been following the support-group party she’d thown for Keith two weeks after his funeral.

  That day she, Holly, and Hella had decorated the small auditorium at the hospital. The banner they’d hung had read: Bon Voyage—good journey. It wasn’t exactly right for the occa
sion, but then there wasn’t much in the stores to help celebrate a death. Yet it had been what Keith had wanted.

  His mother had baked the cake. She said Keith wouldn’t have wanted his friends eating a store-bought cake with yucky bakery frosting. All the Gardners came, as did Judy and Joy from hospice, and so did most of the personnel from the oncology floor and from the clinic and lab. Dr. Fineman had come, and Carrie could have sworn she’d seen tears in his eyes when he’d toasted Keith with a cup of red punch.

  Lynda had brought Bobby too. “Your dad would be here, but they were pouring cement today, and you know he has to be there for that.” Carrie believed her. Had it not been for the job, he really would have come. Ever since the Fourth of July, there’d been a difference in their relationship. Maybe it was because they’d talked and some of his fears had been aired. Carrie wasn’t sure. She only knew that he treated her differently, more like a grown-up.

  The night of the party, Carrie had calmly asked her mother, “What would you do if I got sick again?”

  “Oh, that’s not going to happen.”

  “But what if it does? Would you let me enter the hospice program like Keith did?”

  Her mother had grimaced. “I don’t think I’d like that.”

  “Then who’s going to be with me if I relapse and the doctors can’t help me?”

  “I’ll be with you.”

  “But you hate hospitals.”

  Faye dismissed the comment with a flip of her hand. “Honestly, this whole episode with Keith Gardner has made you morbid.”

  Carrie pressed forward, refusing to let her mother brush her off. “After I saw how Keith died—and how his family all supported him—well, I understand some things about myself I didn’t before.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as, I need someone who’ll support me through whatever happens—living or dying.”

  “I’ve always been here for you. It’s your father who walked out.”

  “You both left me.”

  “That’s ridiculous. What are you trying to say?”

  Carrie drew in a deep breath, hoping it would inflate her courage. “I’m going to move in with Dad and Lynda. And I’m going to finish high school at Martin High.”

  The color drained from her mother’s face. “But I need you with me.”

  “You have Larry.”

  “You’ve always disliked him. I could tell.”

  “And your job,” Carrie continued, as if her mother hadn’t spoken. “You want those things. I’m just in the way.” She longed for her mother to tell her differently, to persuade her otherwise.

  Faye emptied the contents of her iced-tea glass into the sink, and the ice rattled against the stainless steel. “I won’t apologize for liking my life now. I like my job—it makes me feel worthwhile. And I like Larry too. I like traveling and dressing in pretty clothes and going to dinner at nice restaurants. What’s wrong with that?”

  Carrie knew that nothing was wrong with it, but there wasn’t any room for her in that scenario. Especially if she got sick again.

  Her mother asked, “What can your father give you that I can’t? Besides a car?”

  How did Carrie tell her that Dad and Lynda could give her a home and a family, the one thing she wanted most? Not a perfect home. Not a family like Keith’s, but still a home. “I want to go to Martin in the fall,” Carrie said, sidestepping the issue. No—her mother would never understand how her own fear, her own refusal to face reality, had become an insurmountable barrier between them. “It’s what I want, and once we move, I can’t go there unless I live in the Martin school district. That means moving in with Dad.”

  “First Bobby and now you,” her mother said, sounding hurt. “I’ve lost you both. I never wanted things to be this way.” She said other things too, but Carrie didn’t recall them. If once, only once, her mother had said, “I love you. You’re my daughter and I want you with me no matter what.” But she hadn’t. So the next day Carrie had talked to Lynda and her Dad and they’d said they wanted her to move in as soon as possible.

  She’d told her mother that she’d leave after Labor Day, just before the school year started. Faye wasn’t happy about it but she hadn’t tried to talk her out of it again, until this morning. Yet even then, she hadn’t said the things Carrie needed to hear.

  Downstairs, the doorbell rang and she hurried to answer it. Her father stood with Lynda and a guy from his construction crew. “You packed up?” her Dad asked. “Frank is going to help me with the heavy stuff.”

  “It’s ready,” Carrie said. Outside, the rain had stopped and Lynda’s car with a U-haul trailer attached to it was parked in the driveway.

  She led them up the stairs to her room, where Lynda put her arm around Carrie’s shoulders and hugged her warmly. “We’re so excited about you’re living with us. I thought we’d put this furniture in the garage and let you decide what you want to keep and what you want to buy new.”

  “All right,” Carrie said, knowing that her stepmother was trying to make her transition easier. The men worked quickly and Carrie stood against a wall, watching. Her father looked out of place in the house, and although she tried to remember happier times when they’d lived together as a family, she couldn’t. She realized there probably hadn’t been many, but because she was a child she hadn’t known that at the time.

  Lynda picked up a small box and headed for the door. Carrie decided she should be helping too and grabbed her duffle bag and Keith’s guitar.

  “Is that Keith’s?” Lynda asked.

  “Yes. Holly gave it to me after the funeral. She said Keith wanted me to have it. I signed up to take lessons this fall.”

  “I know you must miss him,” Lynda said gently.

  Tears welled in Carrie’s eyes. “I think of him every day. It’s like there’s a big hollow place inside me and I can’t fill it up.”

  Her father had returned to the room, and he paused beside her. Awkwardly, his big, strong hand touched her shoulder. “It gets smaller with time,” he said, “but it never goes completely away. Sometimes, I think about my buddies who died in Nam, and it’s as if I can hear them talking.

  “And I remember them the way they looked in high school, not the way they looked during the war. I often think about what they might be doing now if they hadn’t died so young.” Carrie couldn’t ever remember seeing her father so serious and emotional, but she understood his pain.

  “That’s the way I remember Keith—the way he looked at the picnic or at school, not the way he looked at the end.” Carrie wrapped her arms around the guitar and rested her cheek along the neck. Keith’s scent seemed embedded in the wood and Carrie started to cry softly.

  “That’s about it,” Frank said from the doorway. “I’ve locked up the trailer.”

  Lynda balanced the small box. “I’ll just tuck this in the front seat.”

  “I’ll hold this in my lap,” Carrie managed to say.

  She followed them out to the driveway and climbed into the back seat where she carefully lay the guitar across her knees. Lynda and her Dad got in the front and Frank left in his own car. “Are we ready?” Lynda asked, trying to sound cheerful.

  “Ready,” Carrie answered, staring out the window at the house. The car and trailer backed out of the driveway, and made a wide arc in the quiet street.

  Carrie kept her eyes focused on her bedroom window, thinking that even from the road her old home looked vacant. Lightly, her fingers pressed into the steel strings of Keith’s guitar and as the car gathered speed, she watched the house grow smaller and smaller, until it disappeared altogether.

  You’ll want to read these inspiring titles by

  Lurlene McDaniel

  ANGELS IN PINK

  Kathleen’s Story • Raina’s Story • Holly’s Story

  ONE LAST WISH NOVELS

  Mourning Song • A Time to Die • Mother, Help Me Live

  Someone Dies, Someone Lives • Sixteen and Dying

  Let Him Live �
� The Legacy: Making Wishes Come True

  Please Don’t Die • She Died Too Young

  All the Days of Her Life • A Season for Goodbye

  Reach for Tomorrow

  OTHER OMNIBUS EDITIONS

  Keep Me in Your Heart: Three Novels

  True Love: Three Novels

  The End of Forever • Always and Forever

  The Angels Trilogy

  As Long As We Both Shall Live • Journey of Hope

  One Last Wish: Three Novels

  OTHER FICTION

  The Year of Luminous Love • Red Heart Tattoo • Reaching Through Time

  Heart to Heart • Breathless • Hit and Run • Prey

  Briana’s Gift • Letting Go of Lisa • The Time Capsule

  Garden of Angels • A Rose for Melinda • Telling Christina Goodbye

  How Do I Love Thee: Three Stories • To Live Again

  Angel of Mercy • Angel of Hope

  Starry, Starry Night: Three Holiday Stories • The Girl Death Left Behind

  Angels Watching Over Me • Lifted Up by Angels

  For Better, For Worse, Forever • Until Angels Close My Eyes

  Till Death Do Us Part • I’ll Be Seeing You • Saving Jessica

  Don’t Die, My Love • Too Young to Die

  Goodbye Doesn’t Mean Forever • Somewhere Between Life and Death

  Time to Let Go • Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

  When Happily Ever After Ends • Baby Alicia Is Dying

  From every ending comes a new beginning… .

  About the Author

  LURLENE McDANIEL began writing inspirational novels about teenagers facing life-altering situations when her son was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. Her novels are hard-hitting and realistic, but also leave readers with inspiration and hope. Her books have received acclaim from readers, teachers, parents, and reviewers. Her bestselling novels include Don’t Die, My Love; Till Death Do Us Part; Hit and Run; Telling Christina Goodbye; True Love: Three Novels; and The End of Forever.