BEFORE
When a person dies, we say they have passed on. As if they’ve traveled from their body into another world the living can’t perceive. We say that we’ve lost them. Then we argue what it is exactly we lost them to.
What shape does Death take after it’s taken?
Compelling in the hypothetically and terrorizing in the tangible.
Because what if there is nothing? What if death is the explosion of countless synapses, a light going out, and that’s it? What if Henry and all soldiers trudge through the dark only for there not to be another side?
Human beings are selfish. They don’t accept this because they cannot fathom a world without their existence. As such, there must be an eternal life of some kind. Whether it is found in spirituality, in delusion, or in God, there must be an after. A Heaven.
There is affection in that belief too. When nurses close their patients’ eyes, their sadness is coupled with gratitude. If there’s something everyone can agree on, it is that there is no pain in death. Only an eternal sort of peace.
I know that Sam is not an eternal being as I make him out to be. One day, he will die, and when he does, I will lay beside him in the ground. I will put this stolen body to rest in his embrace.
Selfishly, like a human, I’m reluctant to accept that he will die. He still has so much life to live. He is just a boy and if time has any charity in its heart, it will gift him more.
His medicine will work. He will heal. Even if he can’t stay here forever, he will live his life out there in the world, and despite the laws by which I live, I will go with him…
You must know by now that I am not normal. My flesh and blood are fabrications created to quell my aloneness.
I am not a person. I cannot die. I will never fear death. It cannot touch me. Neither can disease or time. All they can do is take from me.
Do you understand why it is so dangerous for me to live now? Everyone wonders what comes after death, but none can grasp the cruelty of being kept alive forever.
In the end, my curse is simple.
I will remember those I love longer than I had a chance to know them.
—
Nurse Ella dies at the peak of spring. Breast cancer. She was 52 years old.
Flowers surface where she is buried. Her headstone arches from the ground surrounded by them, as if the buds bloomed to read her name.
Sam sits against the unchiseled side facing the trees. He twirls stalks of grass, pulling them out. A single finger digs at the soil.
“Sam,” I say, crouched in front of him.
He opens his eyes, his mask shrouding the bags and ugly color beneath them. I hold out a newspaper I stole from the dispenser.
“Do you want to read to her?” I ask.
Sam shakes his head, moving aside and patting the ground next to him.
“You read it,” he says, his throat sore and tired.
“Alright.”
I sit against Ella’s headstone, a cold and tough thing. It feels like Ella holds us this way. A ghost of her. Grunting in displeasure that we’ll get green stains on our pants and that no sweaters shield our shoulders.
I open the paper and start reading the first headline about the recently constructed bridge uniting the river that split the city in two.
Sam drops his head to my shoulder. He listens till he falls asleep, silent tears streaming down his cheeks.
—
The coming warmth alleviates Sam’s sorrow as time passes.
But not his sickness.
He and I sleep in the same bed every night. Before nightfall, I always tune the radio to his favorite station. I stand on the cot, humming and nudging till Sam stands up. A smile slowly curves his lips and we dance together like we used to.
I tell Sam about the other patients I see when I bring our breakfast to his room. He smiles curtly and kisses me, as is our routine. I ask, as we eat, how he’s feeling. He says he’s alright, but he hardly eats a thing. I ask if he’d like to go on that escape soon, the one we’ve been planning. He says maybe tomorrow as he has been for a lot of yesterdays.
Sam gets bad coughs at night. He spits up blood, gripping his throat. I rub his back and fetch him warm water till the fits ease.
The medicine he’s been pumped full of is meant to keep him alive, but it has the added effect of dulling his senses. When I kiss him, he gains no color. When he eats, his boyish grin never comes.
The simple pleasures he used to rely on for sanity are no longer pleasures. His passion begins to starve the longer this sickness remains.
He looks out the window for hours on end. He closes his books before finishing them. His smiles are fewer. His kisses are lighter. He doesn’t ask about other patients anymore.
I offer that we go to the park, to the bakery, to see our stars, or go read Ella the newspaper. Sam says he is tired. He says, maybe tomorrow.
A few weeks pass and Sam weakens considerably.
He thins. His cheeks become hollow ravines. His legs shake when he walks, frailness in each step. The raw, bleeding patches grow, like countries on a map overtaking a sea of healthy skin. He can no longer bathe without hissing at the pain.
I ask him if there’s anything I can do, but it is a cruel question. Like asking a person holding onto a ledge what you can do from the ground below.
I never leave his side.
When the pain is too much to bear, I read to him, sing to him, talk to him. I tell him I love him. I tell him I will always be here. I tell him all my tomorrows are his.
Late at night when he thinks I am asleep, Sam cries. He holds me, whispering to himself over and over, “Stay alive. Just stay alive.”
More tears fall and he chokes down a suffering sob at the risk of waking me.
“Just be strong. Just live through this. For them. You have to live for them.”
He drags his hands up and down my spine. He kisses my hair, holding in whimpers.
“Just stay alive,” he says again and even if I cannot die with him, I want to tell him that it’s okay. I want to share a final kiss and tell him that it’s okay to let go. That I will be with him till he fades from his body and his soul passes to another world we cannot share.
But I don’t. For all the human I am not, I am selfish and I don’t want to live without him. So I pretend to be asleep and hold Sam tighter to me till he falls too.
—
Some doctors like to call unlikely remissions miracles. I find this a tad insulting. It isn’t called fighting a disease for nothing. Henry was right when he called it a war.
When Sam wins against the illness, he isn’t left unscathed. His skin is permanently scarred, blotted in dark, freckled blemishes. His face is sallow, the upturned lines of past smiles sunken. He will never walk the same again. His organs will never function as well as they did.
The pain is gone, Sam assures me. I smile at that, close to tears with relief. Sam, however, isn’t overjoyed by his victory. His boyish grins and playful manner that fell into hibernation do not wake with him.
Together, we phase into winter, the months gradual, the days long. I spend them all caring for Sam. Our routine is as it always has been. Every day, I ask Sam if he is ready for our escape.
Every day, he says maybe tomorrow.
—
Winter is here. The first day comes about with the wind’s cool breathing and extra blankets for all. I spend the day going to every room, ensuring that patients are being kept warm. Nurse Ella used to do that every first day of Winter, albeit in a harsher, more scrupulous way.
When I finish, it’s nearly nightfall. The old dirt roads are now cobblestone. They freeze over outside. The bakery across the street closes early. Civilians are scarce. All disappear back into their homes, nested with their families for the coming cold.
“Good evening, Sam.”
I walk into his room. The curtains are drawn, the light kept out, unable to kiss its little gardener or the potted plants on the sill.
Sam sits up on the edge of his bed, looking at the ground rather than the window. I undo the curtains and press a passing kiss to the side of his face.
“Everyone gets extra blankets today and no pudding, but I got us sweet bread.” I lay down the treats wrapped in wax paper on the side table.
“Do you want to go outside tomorrow? I’ve never been outside in the winter,” I say. Sam hasn’t either. The air is too dry and pathogens search for a home in bodies this time of year. But now that he’s recovered, if he wears his mask and gloves and I am with him, we can share the adventure, no matter how slight.
“Sam?” I call. He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t react to me. “Sam, are you alright?”
“Do you think the sun rises because it fell?” he asks. He looks through the glass now, at the colors fanning across the sky, each darker than the last.
“Maybe,” I say. “But I trust the sun to rise no matter what.”
“Do you think it ever gets tired?” Sam asks. He talks the way he breathes. As if he is exhausted of it. “Do you think once the sun sets, it wishes it could set forever?”
“I don’t know,” I admit, gazing out at the same colors. Only their fading makes me turn away while it entrances Sam all the more.
I kneel before him, pressing my hands on his knees, smiling the way he’s always done for me. “I think the sun knows that without it, we’d be lost forever,” I say. “I think it keeps rising for us.”
A conflict brawls on Sam’s face. He bites down, his brows knit as if his nerves have been pulled like threads stuck in a needle.
“I’m so sorry, my sweet Sam,” he whispers.
A wallowing sort of worry stirs through me then.
“Don’t apologize to me, you haven’t done anything wrong,” I say. “You’re getting lost in your head again. Let’s play cards and go get some dinner. We can pack your things tomorrow and go on that trip. It can be as short or as long as you want it to be. What do you say?”
I stand up, tidy myself, patting Sam’s legs. I take his hand in mine, only when I try to lead him, he doesn’t move. My body is jerked back to where he sits.
He swallows once, forcing himself to mimic past expressions. A crooked smirk, a little glint of yellow clinging to life like a dying bulb in his eye.
“I never deserved you, did I?” he breathes.
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m sorry, my love. I can’t do this anymore.”
I still completely, a sudden sense of dread pooling in my stomach.
Sam was born during a storm. His mother left him when he was a baby. He grew up without the protection people need to survive. I tried to shield him, protect him myself like armor.
At first, Sam’s life was like any other child’s. His home was what he made of it. The hospital was our palace, we its knights. But the taller Sam got, the more he saw of what lay outside. The more he saw what he was missing.
I remember the look on Sam’s face when he took me to the school dance. He peered at the children on the other side, reminded that he would never have what they had. He told me it was okay. Because he had happy years with our patients, with Henry, Ella, and me. But I see the look on his face now and I know.
It’s spelled out between us.
The only reason Sam fought this hard to survive is that he wanted to live for me. For all the fond memories we share, they are also full of his suffering. From the way Sam stands, and guilt runs across his face, it’s clear that I am no longer enough to overshadow it…
Our palace is a ruin.
Ghosts haunt its halls.
And Sam is too tired to keep pretending his cage is the world.
He holds my hands, waiting for me to say something.
“B-but you’re better now. You healed. You’re okay,” I say, in disbelief. “I know it was hard, and I’m so sorry I couldn’t do more, but you’re okay now. We can escape together like you wanted. We can go. Let’s just go, Sam. Anywhere you want, please.”
“I’m never going to be better. I’m never going to heal. You know that.” Sam doesn’t push me away. Not physically. His words do it for him. “I’ve always been sick, and I always will be and not even love can change that.”
“No.” I shake my head. “Please, don’t do this. Not after everything. You told me to hold on. You told me not to lose hope.”
“You were my hope, my sweet Sam,” he says. His warmth that once bled into me with nothing but our connection ceases to exist. Instead, the light is drained. He kisses my hairline. “I just can’t wait for any more sunrises.”
I cry a quiet wail, the kind that lingers like toxic air in your lungs. I don’t want to lose him like this. Not when we’ve been through this much, not after he fought so hard to survive. He’s no longer hanging from a ledge, he got back up, he made it. And now he wants to jump.
“Please,” I whimper. “You don’t even know who I am.”
“Yes, I do,” Sam whispers. He takes both my hands holding them against his heart. “You’re my first and only love, and that was enough,” he says. “Even if it wasn’t forever, it was enough that all those years ago, you answered a little boy’s prayer and made his wish come true.”
Night falls.
He parts from me.
He walks out into the cold.
I follow him onto the bridge above still, black water.
I tell him who I am.
But I cannot sway him.
I cannot stop him.
Sometimes hope just isn’t enough.
It isn’t meant to save people.
The dark swallows him and I watch him die.
I realize, as my tears fall, that I always wondered if the suns in his eyes would suit the moons in mine till they shut forever and every night left to come, it rained.
