When I woke again, evening had given way to darkness and night had settled in. My head felt like old leather that had been stretched and then pinned under the sun to harden. I was swollen from the neck up, held together by tape, gauze, and a thin layer of ointment I assumed was supposed to soothe my skin but only made me feel like it was crawling. Kim had said they would change my bandages the next morning. I began counting the hours.
A horrible thought came to me then, one that in the midst of the shock and darkness I had not considered. I inched my hands toward my face. Bandages began at my chin and ended at the top of my head, leaving me with openings at my eyes, nose, and mouth to exercise my senses. Poetic, I supposed, that I would become the invisible man. I pushed down harder on my face. Then my head.
Nothing. I felt nothing.
The fire had incinerated my beard and hair.
There are times in life when so many big things pile up that it takes only one small thing to tumble them all. Realizing I’d lost the hair I’d had my entire life and the beard I’d worn almost as long was that small thing. The guy who torched me had failed to kill me, but he had succeeded in rendering me naked before the world. I would have preferred the former to the latter.
“It’ll grow back, Andy. If you want it to, that is.”
I jerked my head to my left and winced as skin wrinkled around my neck. There in the wooden chair not three feet from my bed sat a woman. A denim shirt rested untucked over her faded khaki pants. Long brown hair was held in a ponytail by what looked like a leather tie. A thin strand of gray had escaped to the front of her right ear, wanting nothing to do with its less experienced kin. She watched me with her legs crossed, exposing a thick pair of nurse’s shoes that hung untied from her feet. The one propped in the air made a smooth circular motion, as if she were waiting for something to happen.
I tried to clear my eyes. “Caroline?” I asked.
“No,” the woman answered. “Who’s Caroline?”
She shifted her weight to the left and scraped against the vinyl seat, watching me with a look of someone who had seen too much but chose to hope anyway. Her gaze then turned downward to a folded piece of paper in her left hand. She pulled a pair of scissors from her shirt pocket and began cutting.
I watched as small white slivers fell onto a wooden keepsake box that sat balanced on her lap. The hinges looked worn and rusted by age, and the wood—I could make out the look of oak even in the shadows—had been worn smooth. Pockmarks and dings decorated the sides and top, marks of use rather than decoration. It was not a large container but neither was it small, just enough for whatever means most. Such boxes were common in the South and often passed down from one generation to another. I had one myself. Actually, one very similar to that one. Very similar indeed.
“Where’d you get that?” I said.
“There now,” she said. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“What?” I asked.
“Talking. From what I understand, getting you to do that has been quite a chore since you got here. But you spoke a little with Kim. That’s a good start.”
I followed her eyes through the cracked door toward the hallway. Kim was sitting at the nurse’s station talking on the phone. I couldn’t tell what she was saying, but her words were clipped and to the point. I heard an exasperated “Owen” and thought of the few dozen young men in town who would love to know there might be trouble in paradise. She looked up in our direction and then down, covering her forehead with a hand.
I turned back to the woman beside me. “You give me that box,” I told her. “You don’t have any business with that. That’s mine.”
“I didn’t peek,” she said. “Promise.”
The slivers continued to fall, one, three, seven.
“Stop that,” I said.
She did. Both the paper and the scissors disappeared into her shirt pocket. She looked at me again, waiting.
“Where’d you get that box?” I asked.
She motioned to the table with her eyes and said, “It was sitting right there when I got here. Someone must have dropped it off for you.”
Jabber, I thought. It had to have been Jabber.
“Well, it was left for me,” I said. “Not you.”
I rubbed my hand against my leg to try and calm the imaginary needles that pricked it. The woman leaned forward in her chair and placed her hands on the box. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry, Andy. I just needed to borrow it.”
“So you could do what?”
“Get you to talk.”
I balled a fist and took a deep breath. The pain of both calmed me. I looked through the door again at Kim. She sat watching us.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“My name is Elizabeth Engle.” She stuck her hand out as she said it. Mine remained at my leg. “You can call me Elizabeth.”
“Well it’s very nice to meet you, Ms. Engle. Now would you please do me the courtesy of returning my property to the table here and explain what you’re doing in my room? Or would you rather I push this here button and have Kimmie kick you out?”
“Oh, Kim wouldn’t kick me out,” she said. “I’m here for you, Andy. You’re my job.”
I snorted through the gauze around my mouth. “And what job is that? Sneaking into patients’ rooms, rummaging through their stuff, and then scarin’ them half to death?”
“I snuck in because I didn’t want to wake you,” she said, raising one finger, “and I apologize for making you jump”—two fingers—“and I said I didn’t peek”—three fingers.
Elizabeth rose from her chair and returned my box to the table. She set it down carefully, almost reverently, and patted the top of it twice. Then she returned to her seat beside me and leaned forward.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“To make you feel better.”
“You a doctor?”
“No, not really.”
Elizabeth left her answer vague. A wave of nausea washed over me. As if being Kentucky Fried Chickened wasn’t enough, now I had to have my brains scrambled, too.
“You’re a shrink,” I said.
“More adviser than shrink.”
“Well I don’t need an adviser, I just need to go home.”
“You will,” she said, “when you’re ready. Which isn’t quite yet. There are wounds no one sees, Andy. It’s the job of the doctors and nurses to mend the ones that are visible, and it’s my job to mend the ones that aren’t.”
“I have invisible wounds, huh?” I asked. “That you’re gonna mend?”
“Yes.”
“And how are you gonna do that?”
“By listening to you.”
“You’re gonna sit there and listen to me and play with your scissors and paper?”
“That’s right,” she said.
I grunted. “You’re crazy, lady. I’m not in the mood for any New Age psycho bull. I don’t share my feelings, and I’m not gonna get in touch with my inner self. I don’t wet the bed, I don’t dream of my mama, and there is no way, no way on God’s earth, that I’m gonna talk to you about why I’m here.”
I expected her to say something smart, something gooey with kindness and understanding, but Elizabeth said nothing. She simply reached forward and gently put her hand on my own.
“You don’t have to talk about any of that, Andy,” Elizabeth said. “You can just talk about whatever you want. I promise.”
When she smiled it was a beam that fell on me like cool rain on a hot day, the sort of shower that makes you lean your head back and stretch out your arms so you can gather in as much of it as you can. A rare smile. Caroline’s smile. And in that moment Elizabeth managed the impossible. She melted me and yet held together what little of my heart was still alive. I had never seen this woman, didn’t know her, and yet I felt as though she had always known me. I would have been frightened to death if it hadn’t felt so good.
But just as quickly as she had drawn me out, my hurt drew me back in. The anger that had gripped me refused to let go and dug its claws into what was left of my flesh, reminding me that I was right to feel its hotness. That I deserved it. That it was mine.
I drew my hand away from hers. “There’s nothing you can do for me,” I said. “I’m not going to talk to you.”
“Yes, there is,” she said, “and yes, you will. Who’s Caroline?”
“That’s none of your business,” I said. “I appreciate you stopping by, Elizabeth, but I don’t want you here. I don’t want me here. All I want to do is be left alone until someone tells me I can leave.”
“Well, see, that’s the thing.” Elizabeth straightened herself and crossed her legs again. “Turns out I have a lot of say in how long you stay here. Those invisible wounds can be pesky.”
“That’s bull,” I said.
“You really think so?” Elizabeth smiled again, teasing me. “Try me. I’ll keep you here until the Rapture if I have to.”
I started to offer the sort of bullish grunt men are famous for, the kind that saves them the trouble of actually having to say Who do you think you’re talking to? But at that moment Elizabeth took hold of my hand again and squeezed, and the snort I was about to offer lodged itself halfway up my throat and refused to budge. A mild panic began to build. Half of me saw her as just someone else to keep at arm’s length. The other half, the half that not only let her take my hand again but keep it this time, whispered that her presence could be all that was keeping me tethered to whatever hope was left in my life.
Then I considered what had happened and whose fault it was. His—the Old Man’s. And God’s by proxy. But I decided that I shared much of that fault, not through my actions but through my trust. For letting Eric inside.
I turned away from her and looked at the wall in front of me. For the next hour neither of us spoke. Elizabeth returned to her paper and scissors. I was tired and angry and hurt. Elizabeth didn’t need to be a counselor to see that. What she didn’t see, what she couldn’t, was why. When I finally spoke, it was more out of surrender than acceptance.
“We talk about only what I want to,” I said without looking at her. “And if you tick me off or try to ask me stuff that’s none of your business, I’ll throw you out of here myself. I wasn’t much of a sharer before, and I ain’t one now. Especially to strangers. I’ll do what I have to just to get back home and away from here. But I’d rather stay mad because I have good reason to be mad, and I’d rather feel guilty because I should feel guilty. Those are my choices to make.”
Elizabeth shrugged. “Deal.”
Silence again. More staring and cutting.
“What now?” I asked.
Elizabeth set her scissors and paper aside and pointed to the box on the table. “How about that?” she asked. “Seems pretty special. Might be a good idea to start with what you think really matters before we go talking about what you think doesn’t.”
I looked at her and shook my head. “No offense, but that’s one of those things that ain’t your business. It wouldn’t make much sense to you.”
“It doesn’t have to make much sense to me, it just has to make sense to you.”
I was about to refuse again but then heard a noise from down the hallway, a small echo that both mixed with and stood out from the calm commotion of chatter and ringing phones. Someone was whistling. I thought at first it was my imagination, a consequence of returning to the world. But it persisted, grew louder as it approached.
“Do you hear that?” I asked her.
“Hear what?”
The melody was both oddly familiar and not, like a memory that had yet to occur. I knew that song. No, I thought, not song. Hymn. One I’d last heard sung by my grandmother nearly fifty years ago—
Shall we meet beyond the river,
In the clime where angels dwell?
Shall we meet where friendship never
Saddest tales of sorrow tell?
The whistling stopped and morphed into a shadow that loomed just outside the doorway. For a moment I thought Death itself had come for me. “Mercydeath” is what came into my head, though I had no idea what that meant. But the face that peeked around the corner was not Death. It was worse.
The Old Man walked through the door and leaned against the foot of my bed, then let out a slow and painful exhale. His faded hospital gown was just one prop among the many I’d known. I supposed he had designed that one in order to offer me some sense of unity, like the people I once saw on television who had shaved their heads in support of their cancer-stricken loved ones. He dragged an IV line behind him, though the pole it should have been connected to and the solution bag that should have hung from it were missing. A visitor name tag was stuck to the gown in the middle of his chest. OLD MAN had been written on it in blue crayon.
“Hiya, Andy,” he said.
Fury that had wedged in a dark place inside me for three days kindled then sparked.
“I’m sorry it had to be like this,” he said, “but I’m not sorry that it had to be. Do you understand?”
“No,” I muttered. “No…I…don’t.”
“Andy?” asked Elizabeth. “Are you okay?”
Her words were mere echoes in my mind, another voice from the other side of the door. The Old Man looked at her and then to me.
“I know you’re mad,” he said, “and I know you’re hurt.”
“Andy?” came the echo.
“I need you to trust me one more time. I’ve never given you cause to doubt me before, have I?”
“Andy, who are you talking to?”
“Everything I’ve shown you from then until now, every little thing, comes down to this.”
“—Andy,” I heard Elizabeth say, “I need you to—”
“—listen to me,” the Old Man finished. “I need you to let this lady—”
“—help you,” said Elizabeth. “Whatever’s happened, you still have—”
“—now. That’s what matters. God sent her.”
“Stop it,” I moaned. “Please just stop.”
Elizabeth took her hand from mine and muttered an echoless “I’m sorry.”
“No,” I told Elizabeth, then I reached out for her hand without realizing I had done so. “Not you. Not…it’s him.” I pointed a trembling finger of my bandaged hand toward the end of my bed. “You did this,” I shouted to him. “This is your fault. Where were you?”
Elizabeth returned her hand. “Andy,” she said, “please try to relax. You’ll bring Kim back in here, and I need you to stay with me. Okay?”
The Old Man said nothing, and in that silence was an absence of more than mere words. His presence seemed gone as well—the humor, the lightness, the sometimes unbearable ease. Instead I saw in his eyes a satisfied weariness, the sort that would come by traveling a long road and finding a peace in the walking. This, I considered, was his final lesson to me—that life was not as much one beautiful lesson after another as it was a succession of hard places that must be endured. What beauty and ease we searched for in this world would be found not in open fields or along peaceful shores, but in the crags and crevices of the mountains we climbed.
“It’s time for me to go, Andy,” he said, “but don’t worry. This isn’t good-bye. You’ll see me soon.”
The Old Man turned away and continued his stroll down the hallway, among the living and the dead and the both.
“Come back here,” I pleaded, but all I could manage was a whisper that could carry no farther than Elizabeth’s ears.
I covered my face with my hand and sobbed. Elizabeth took my head in her free hand and guided me into her shoulder.
“Andy,” she whispered, “tell me who was there.”
“I can’t,” I whispered.
“Yes, you can.”
You still have now. That’s what matters.
No. Nothing mattered. Not now.
Trust me one more time.
Never again.
God sent her.
God.
I felt Elizabeth’s warmth, the soft touch that somehow held me tight. It had been years since I’d last felt a touch like that. Not since Caroline. Lovely Caroline. She was gone now, there but gone, close and yet worlds away. Like everyone else. After all that time, I thought I had accepted that. I thought it was good and I was fine, but it wasn’t and I wasn’t. What I once had had now been taken away. All that was left was the warm embrace of a woman who reminded me of what could have been but never was.
“Tell me,” Elizabeth tried again.
It was then, my soul broken, that I shared my secret. Finally and fully after all those years. Told to neither confidant nor friend, but to a stranger who held my brokenness against herself.
“My angel,” I said.