by Tim Green
“Yes, you will.”
The thrill of it all filled Harrison’s mind, day and night, and so when his mother walked into his room after dinner one evening, he looked up from some school math problems completely baffled by the anguish on her face.
Fear raced through his bloodstream and knotted his stomach.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
His mom’s colorless face crumpled and she tried to cover it with one hand. “Oh, Harrison. I am so sorry.”
Somehow, he knew. He just knew, and tears welled in his eyes before he could even speak.
“Marty?” The word choked him.
His mother clenched her teeth and bobbed her head in angry little nods. Harrison hung his head over the desk. His mom threw her arms around him and held him tight.
His breath left him.
An iron fist squeezed his heart, crushing it so tight that no sound could escape his chest.
Chapter Eighty-Five
A CHILLY WIND HISSED through the pine trees above so that they swayed sadly like funeral mourners God had sent in his place. The sun was nothing but a rumor behind the heavy clouds. Marty’s father was much older than Coach and Jennifer and even the major, and with him were two people so ancient Harrison was surprised they could even walk. That was it from Marty’s side of things, a dad and two grandparents. There were no other friends or brothers or sisters or aunts, uncles, or cousins, and no mom. This puzzled Harrison because to him, Marty had been so open and friendly that it seemed odd other people hadn’t felt the same way as he did and shown up in huge numbers to remember the special person he’d been.
At first, Harrison felt angry that the nurses, doctors, and therapists who’d spent so much time with Marty weren’t there. Then he realized that if they did that, those people would spend more time at funerals than they did at the hospital, trying to help people get well.
A silver-haired minister in a black cloak spoke in a gentle voice strong enough to cut through the wind with authority. After he read from the Bible, he said some prayers that he’d obviously said before, then cleared his throat.
“When we lose a child, our burden is doubled.” The minister looked around at each of them with bright blue eyes that glinted behind his wire-framed glasses. “Added to the grief we feel for the loss of a loved one is the extraordinary sense of guilt. We ask, ‘Why did God take this child . . . instead of me?’ But I tell you truthfully, that is not our burden to bear.”
The minister looked at Harrison as if he were speaking to him alone and that he might know the secret part of Harrison that felt lucky it hadn’t been him. Harrison looked at the ground, sick to his stomach with grief and shame.
“I knew Marty well,” the minister said. “I loved him, as you loved him, for the kind, passionate, forgiving soul that he was. And if you think, you’ll remember his words—maybe even hear his voice—telling you to live.”
Harrison looked up at those words. The minister cast his eyes upon the adults. His words were slow but powerful. “That’s what he wanted, and that’s what I ask you to do. If you want to honor Marty, grieve for him, yes, but no guilt. Marty would tell you instead to watch the sun set or the moon rise, eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a cold glass of milk, hug each other, kiss, laugh, cry, run, jump, hold each other’s hands. . . . Think of him, be thankful for it all, and live.”
Silent tears streamed down their faces. Harrison wiped his cheek on the sleeve of his coat but never let go of his mother’s hand.
The minister was quiet for a moment before he said a final prayer. Then he knelt down in the yellow grass to slip the shiny urn into its vault. After that, he covered the vault with the metal plate that would mark the place where Marty’s ashes rested. Harrison toed the grass away from another metal marker and noticed many others beneath their feet, all of them half-covered by the creeping grass and rusted by wind and rain.
Chapter Eighty-Six
MARTY WAS RIGHT. EVEN on the morning of his last chemo, the treatment didn’t seem so bad. When Harrison got to the hospital, he insisted on leaving his cane in the car. His mother started to argue but apparently felt sorry for him and let it go. He held his head high as he marched into the usual room.
He looked at the empty bed next to the window, then at his mom.
Neither of them spoke.
Harrison set his things down on the dresser on his side of the room. The nurse came in and asked him in a quiet voice how he was feeling. Harrison said he was fine and sat on the edge of the bed in a fog as thick as soup. The talking around him was reduced to noises heard on a city street—hums, bangs, roars, and the murmur of homeless people squeaking past with their lives loaded up into broken shopping carts.
He felt the needle plunge into his arm, but as he lay back on his bed to receive the chemical cocktail brewed to save his life, he could only think of Marty. And that, surprisingly, didn’t make him cry. Instead the grief he felt was still so heavy and overwhelming that it simply weighed him down.
Harrison slept, and when he woke, he took a drink and slept again. The pattern repeated itself so many times that when he finally sat up, his eyes groped eagerly for the sight of Marty in the next bed.
It lay clean, neat, and empty.
“Congratulations, Harrison.” His mother smiled down at him. “You’re done.”
“If it doesn’t come back.” Harrison wasn’t going to let her get away that easy. It seemed to him that the entire world was responsible for Marty, and even his new and beloved mother was part of the world, that hateful place.
His mother fought back. “The doctors say your chances are excellent.”
“Better than fifty-fifty, right? Just flip a coin.” He savored the startled look in her eyes. “Heads, you live, tails, you die.”
“Do you want a drink?”
He wanted to deny her that small comfort, but his throat cried out for the cranberry juice in her hand and he took it and drained it without a word.
“They said when you woke up that we could go.”
“Good. I want to go. I never want to see this place again. I hate this place.”
“These people saved your life, Harrison. Please don’t talk like that.”
“These people pump drugs into your body and flip a coin. Anyone could do that. Who cares? They cut my leg off. They didn’t even tell me—they just did it—and I can still feel my toes. Where’s the magic in that? It’s black magic! It’s witchcraft! They should all burn at the stake!”
His mom glanced at the door. “Please, Harrison. I know you’re upset, but please lower your voice.”
A nurse appeared. “Is everything all right?”
“We’re fine,” his mother said before he could speak. “Please, just close the door. We’ll be fine.”
“We won’t be fine!” he screamed.
The door closed. His mother sat down beside him and held him tight. He struggled against her, but her arms cinched down on him like pythons. Three months ago, he could have broken free. Now, with his thin blood, wasted muscles, and hairless head, he collapsed in her grip.
The sobs shook every joint in his body and, finally, he cried out loud.
“He’s dead, Momma! He was my friend . . . and he’s dead!”
Chapter Eighty-Seven
FOR TWO DAYS, HARRISON lay in bed at home, ignoring even the barking, growling major.
On the third day, the major burst through the door not long after the sun came up. He yanked on the cord that opened the curtains. They swished back, sweeping up a flurry of dust to swim in the morning light.
“That’s it.” The major growled and snorted. “You are not going to lie here feeling sorry for yourself anymore.”
Harrison rolled over and pulled the covers onto his head.
“Kirk!” His mother’s shriek cut through the blankets and Harrison peeked out. “What are you doing?”
“Getting him up.” The major yanked the covers off the bed.
Harrison lay in his boxers but
pulled a pillow over his head to shut out the noise.
“Stop it!” his mother shouted.
“No, you stop it!” the major shouted back. “Stop babying him!”
“His friend died. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“Do you know how many friends I’ve seen die? This isn’t about dying. It’s about living.”
“You are out of line, Kirk Bauer. I want you out of his room. Now!”
Harrison stayed still; the silence seemed to last forever.
“Fine.” The major stomped out of the room.
Harrison’s mom replaced the covers and kissed the top of his head. She spoke to him softly. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me, honey.”
Harrison lay there, just breathing.
He dozed off until his mom came back in to see how he was doing and tell him she had to go to the office for some meetings and to catch up on some work.
“I’ll be home before dinner. Call my cell if you need me. I’m just five minutes away.”
Harrison listened to her go. Not two minutes passed before the major knocked softly on his door and came in without asking.
Chapter Eighty-Eight
“HARRISON?”
Harrison stayed still.
“I know you’re awake, and I know you’re not still sick. The chemo is all out of you. I know it, and you know it, so stop lying there. Come on. Get up. We’ve got work to do.”
Harrison held the pillow tight over his head so that his own words were muffled. “My mom said I can stay here. Why don’t you leave me alone?”
“Really? You really want that? After all you’ve done, you’ll just quit now? Throw it all away?”
“Who cares?” Harrison’s voice sounded empty, even to himself.
“Okay,” the major said, “I’ll go, but first I want to say something to you, and I want you to look at me.”
“Just say it,” Harrison said, “or go.”
The pillow disappeared as the major snatched it off Harrison’s head and threw it across the room. The major knelt beside the bed so that his face was inches from Harrison’s.
“Now you look at me, and you listen, mister.” The major put a firm but gentle hand on the side of Harrison’s head and his eyes burned with intensity.
Harrison tried to swallow, but his throat was empty and dry.
“If you lie here like this, if you quit now, I’m going to tell you what you’ll be . . . for the rest of your life. . . .”
“I don’t care what I am,” Harrison whispered, and tried not to sound shaken by the major’s blazing eyes and the angry black-and-white stubble on his chin.
“You either get up with me and work . . . right now, or you’re a quitter, and you know what they call a one-legged man who quits? Do you know?”
Harrison said nothing.
“A cripple. A gimp.”
Major Bauer stared.
Harrison closed his eyes to break the spell, and he waited until the major finally stood up.
“A gimp,” the major said one more time before he left the room.
When the front door slammed, Harrison spoke aloud, defiantly to himself.
“Good.”
Chapter Eighty-Nine
IT WASN’T GOOD.
Harrison couldn’t get the word out of his mind. Gimp. It crawled inside his brain and gnawed away like a furious rat. His blood felt hot and his skin tight, but instead of driving him down, it made him mad. He threw the covers off, strapped on the J72, and paced the room using the furniture and walls to steady himself.
“Gimp? You’re the gimp!” he shouted at the door, then pounded his fist against it so that the bang echoed through the house.
Harrison fumbled with his phone and texted Becky that he needed to see her, right away. At quarter past two, when school got out, she texted him back. She’d be right over.
Harrison went to the garage and threw some weights around, counting out sets and breathing hard and banging the metal plates against each other as loud and as hard as he could. When Becky appeared through the side door of the garage, Harrison sprang up from the bench press he’d been working on and grabbed his coat off a hook by the kitchen door.
“Thanks for coming.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze and pushed past before she could get a single question out. “Come on. I need to get out of here.”
“We can go to my house,” she said, following him down the driveway.
They walked through town together without speaking, but instead of turning the corner at Main Street to head for the Smarts’ big white mansion, Harrison led her across the street.
“Where are we going?”
“The lake.” Harrison grunted with effort as he silently counted out the rhythm the major had taught him.
“Can you go that far? I thought last week you said the major told you to keep anything you do under half a mile.”
“You think the major keeps it under half a mile?” Harrison straightened his back and swung his J72 like the Terminator himself. Becky said nothing. As they walked, Harrison’s stump began to ache. He thought of the way the major would get up every morning before light and run five miles.
Gimp.
He hated the major.
And didn’t the major say to him that in order to be ready to play football he was going to have to push himself? He wasn’t even running right now; he was walking. Didn’t Marty, and the minister, too, say you have to live? Everything told him to push himself and keep going.
The sidewalk soon ended.
“Do you want to talk?” Becky asked. They now trudged along on the shoulder of the road.
“I just need to walk,” Harrison said through clenched teeth, keeping his eyes ahead. “Thanks for coming.”
It was still before most people’s workday ended, so there weren’t many cars, but the ones that passed whipped them with grit. By the time they reached the park entrance, the sun had faded from yellow to orange. The ticket booth stood empty and the parking lot stretched out before them like a desert. Harrison started to hobble.
“Can I help?” Becky asked, touching his shoulder. “Let me call someone to pick us up.”
He shrugged her off. “I’m fine.”
They made it to the boarded-up concession stand. Between there and the shoreline, Harrison dropped down onto a wood bench because his stump had begun to throb. Sweat beaded his forehead and his chest heaved to catch his breath. “Let’s just sit.”
Becky sat down and covered his hand with hers. They looked out over the water, dark enough now to reflect the hills with their barren trees and the fading blue sky beyond with its puffy clouds.
“It’s so peaceful,” she said.
“Like we’re the only people on earth,” he said. The throbbing had died down to a steady discomfort.
A crow laughed at them from some unseen perch.
“I think I need to readjust this.” Harrison lifted the J72 up onto the bench and began to roll up the leg of his dark blue sweatpants.
It felt damp for some reason, and that puzzled him. The titanium shin had a pink cast to it, and he wrinkled his forehead. When he got to the protective sock he wore over his stump, Becky gasped.
It was soaked and crimson with blood.
Chapter Ninety
BECKY BACKED AWAY FROM him and took out her phone. “No, Harrison. Stop telling me. I don’t care what you say, I’m calling for help.”
He growled at her not to, but part of him didn’t mean it. Part of him was scared.
Still, as she spoke urgently into the phone with his mom, he ignored her and tugged the J72 back on, adjusting it so he could walk. But when he stood to go, it collapsed beneath him and he lay in the yellow grass, staring up at those puffy clouds with the shadows of the bench stretched across his face.
Becky was frantic. She knelt beside him and touched his face. “Oh my God.”
“Relax.” He turned his face away. “I’ll be okay. I’m glad you care.”
“Why do you keep doing thi
s to me?”
“What am I doing to you?” Harrison knit his brow.
“You’re glad I ‘care’? It’s like you’re trying to make me not like you, Harrison. The things you say and do.”
“Why would I not want you to like me?” Harrison growled at her. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“You don’t make sense. Stop being mean. I like you for you, Harrison. I don’t care about your leg. What can I do? I like you no matter what. I can’t help it.” Harrison felt thrilled and embarrassed at the same time. He turned his head to the side.
She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Do you believe me?”
The dead grass tickled his nose. He began to feel light-headed. “I believe you.”
“Good.” She sat down in the grass with her back against the bench and put his head in her lap. “Let’s just wait.”
Even with the darkness closing in, Harrison grew drowsy and felt like he could have stayed there that way forever. The sound of two engines grew in the distance until tires crackled on the pavement and then thudded softly as both his mom’s car and Coach’s truck hit the grass and just kept coming.
Coach and the major—was it the major, or was he dreaming? Yes, it was the major—loaded him into the backseat of his mom’s car. His mom saw the blood and cried out. Amid the flurry of his mom’s frantic shrieks, he heard the major trying to assure her that he’d be fine.
“It always looks like more blood than it really is.”
Coach sat in the backseat too, holding Harrison’s stump up, applying an uncomfortable pressure to stem the flow of blood.
Becky sat in front, even though his mom scowled at her as if she were somehow to blame. They rode in silence to the hospital with the major following close behind in Coach’s truck.
Coach and the major carried Harrison into the emergency room and his mom shouted at the nurses to find him a bed. They laid him down and his mom badgered everyone until a doctor came huffing and puffing to examine his stump.
“Okay, we need to get him into surgery.” The doctor turned away from Harrison’s mom, even as she hurled her questions at him.
