The sheriff felt the blood rush through his temple. He saw the girl with the painted nails dead in her hospital bed. He turned to run through the door to find a doctor as he had a hundred times already. He was a hamster on a wheel, trying to outrun a past that was always right in front of him. It had never occurred to him that he didn’t need to run.
Until now.
“You are free now.”
He didn’t know where the voice came from. But there it was in his mind like a seed in soil. The sheriff stopped running. He turned and walked back to the hospital bed. He faced her. His heart in his throat. He knelt down. A bear of a man who suddenly felt so small. The sheriff closed his eyes and held her like a father. He saw light dance behind his eyelids.
When the sheriff opened his eyes, he looked at the girl with the painted nails. But she wasn’t a little girl anymore. She was a grown woman. Maybe thirty years old. With bright eyes and a warm smile. She was in a white hospital gown. She held a baby in her arms. The little baby was sleeping.
“Where are we?” the sheriff said.
“We’re in Mercy Hospital,” she said. “You’re a grandpa.”
“I am?”
She smiled a patient smile. He saw the color in her blue eyes. Little flecks of light stretching into their own universe.
“Don’t you remember?” she asked. “You came back into the room with my milk and you finished reading that story. You took me home for my first real Christmas. You moved me away from the city, so I would be safe. I grew up in that little house in Mill Grove. I went to a real school. I was in the school plays. I even got to be Annie one night when Mary Kosko got sick. I graduated from high school. I went to Pitt. You cried at all of my graduations. You walked me down the aisle. We danced at my wedding. Don’t you remember?”
She slipped her arm through his. Her arm felt warm and soft. Like an angel.
“I do now,” he said. “I remember all of that.”
“Then, you remember when I told you that you were going to be a grandfather. And you remember when I told you he was a boy. And my husband and I decided to name him Bobby…after the man who saved my life.”
The sheriff looked down at his grandson, sleeping peacefully. A lifetime of memories flooded through him. All of the life she would have had. She got to live it every day. Forever. The sheriff looked up at his daughter, who smiled back at him. She put her hand on his. She slowly rubbed his hand where he had scratched himself to the bone. In an instant, the itch was gone. The skin was healed.
“God is not a murderer, Daddy,” she said.
The sheriff nodded and felt the tears wet on his face. He didn’t realize he had been crying.
“Can I stay with you here?” he asked.
“Not yet, Daddy. You have to live your life before you get to live your Heaven.”
The sheriff held her and sobbed.
“We need your help, Daddy. This is a war. And the good guys have to win the war this time. You have to wake up right now. You have to help her. She’s right next to you. You have to open your eyes.”
“They are open.”
“No, Daddy. I’m behind your eyelids. You have to open your eyes.”
The sheriff slowly reached up and touched the thread holding his eyelids closed. He felt the thread keeping his mouth shut. The string in his hand.
“Drop the string, Daddy. She’s standing right next to you. Save her.”
The sheriff nodded to his adopted daughter and smiled. He dropped the string and pulled the thread that held his eyes closed.
“You are free now.”
The sheriff opened his eyes. His real eyes. He looked around the woods and saw thousands of mailbox people stretching to the horizon. They were all moaning and twitching. Trying to find the way to get free. He dropped the string and turned to his right expecting to find Kate Reese.
Instead, he saw a little girl with her eyes and mouth stitched up. He knelt down and gently took the string out of her hand. He slid the stitching out of her mouth and took the thread away from her eyes.
“I’m a police officer, honey. I’m here to help you.”
The little girl opened her eyes and fell into his arms, crying. The sheriff held her. He would have known that little girl anywhere.
Her name was Emily Bertovich.
She held him, the warmth from her hands washing over him. In an instant, he saw the pictures unfold. The man who took her from the driveway. The fear she felt. The pain. The place where her body was buried. And finally, the peace.
“Will you tell my parents all that?” she asked.
The sheriff nodded, his eyes wet with tears.
“Yes, Emily,” he said. “You are free now.”