That’s what they wanted from me. Nothing less than to tear my own soul out. Early this afternoon, the doctors would test Ray again. Twenty-four hours, they said, before they can declare brain death. But it was a done deal. Whatever happened to Ray while I was at the court-martial, he no longer had any brain activity at all. Just the machines keeping his heart pumping.
I closed my eyes. What would Ray do, if our positions were reversed?
Well, there was no doubt there. He’d do the right thing for me, and damn the cost to himself.
Very quietly, Julia said, “Are you awake?”
“I haven’t slept,” I responded.
“Oh, Carrie.”
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I said. “I think ... somehow I kept hoping. For a miracle. For something to make it all different.”
I turned and rested my head on my big sister’s shoulder, and said, “I wish ... I wish I could go back and change it. Change everything.”
She ran her fingers through my hair. “If I could take this pain from you, I would.”
I nodded. “I know. I’ll never forget it. But … what will I tell our daughter? Or son?”
Julia whispered, “You tell the truth. That he was the love of your life. That he was a hero. That in the end, he did the right thing, even though it cost him everything.”
I sniffed and put my arms around her.
“I think ... I want to go to the chapel this morning. And ... do some praying. Before I go see Ray.”
She nodded. “Yeah. I think that’s a good idea.”
So we slid out of the bed, and I changed clothes, and slowly, we walked the three blocks up to the hospital. It was another weird, beautiful day—the sky blue, the temperature just right—so much a lie when compared to how I felt inside. We walked past the old row houses, the traffic light for a Monday morning. Julia held my hand for the whole walk.
We walked up the steps to the side entrance of the main hospital building. An old, dirty baseball lay on the ground near the steps. And then we were inside, and I felt like I was walking into a tomb.
I wish (Ray)
It took me ... hours ... to get back to the room where my body was.
I was weak ... incredibly weak. My body shook, shuddering with the pain. And the pain was alive, every part of me felt like I’d plugged myself into a light socket. I knew I didn’t have much time left. But I couldn’t just stop. I couldn’t let it go. Because I needed to see Carrie, if I could. I needed to tell her that I loved her, and that she ... that she needed to go on without me.
The kid was going to make it. I’d given him everything I had ... and then some. And when I crawled away from the pediatric ICU, his parents had fallen apart, collapsed with the knowledge that some kind of miracle had intervened and saved his life.
In the meantime, I had my own problems. I finally got back to my room, and collapsed in a heap next to the bed, not noticing the doctors frantically doing something to my body. There was a lot of noise and shouting and I don’t know what all. But it was hard to care right then. I just wanted to hold on until I could see Carrie again.
About an hour after that, I heard her. Screaming, frantically. I tried to get to her. I don’t know exactly what happened ... I guess maybe the docs told her the condition I was in. But by the time I got my head out of the door, all I saw was Dylan and Julia hustling her away.
I rested my head against the doorframe, and thought how grateful I was she’d still have them to depend on.
I spent the night, staring up at the sky through four floors of hospital and the roof. That was pretty cool really. That I could look straight up and see the stars twinkling. Then the moon rose, and I gasped, because I hadn’t seen it like that, so full and amazing, since I left Afghanistan.
Growing up on Long Island like I did, you don’t appreciate the sky, because it’s mostly featureless. I had no idea there were so many stars in the sky until the Army sent me halfway across the world, to a place where there weren’t any artificial lights for miles and miles and miles. A place where the sky was so crowded with stars you couldn’t see a spot without them, a place where falling stars were commonplace at night, because there were no lights to wash them out and make them invisible.
I drifted. It wasn’t exactly sleep. I don’t know what it was. I just wasn’t paying much attention, until a nurse came through, and not noticing my head in the doorway, stepped right on my face. I didn’t feel anything, but it freaked me out anyway. I was feeling slightly better. So very slowly, I climbed up on to the bed, which wasn’t really any more comfortable, because there was a body there. But better than nothing, I guess.
And I waited. Because I knew she would come.
But it wasn’t Carrie who came first. It was Dylan Paris.
Not long after sunrise, he strolled in the room, all alive and shit. But he didn’t look good. He slumped down into the chair next to me. And he didn’t say anything for a long time. He just watched me. Studying me.
After about ten minutes, he said, “I don’t know if you can hear me, Ray, but ... I’ve got a couple things to say.” He looked down at the floor and ran his hands through his hair, which had gotten pretty long since he became a college boy.
“I just need you to know ... I’ve ... never in my life looked up to anyone like I look up
