From Ant to Eagle(58)

I couldn’t bear them standing behind me anymore.

“Mom, Dad,” I asked, “do you think I could have a second alone with Sammy? I want to tell him something.”

I waited for their footsteps to leave and the door to close, then sat down next to Sammy.

“Sammy?” I said, but he didn’t move. There was no response.

I shook his shoulder hard, begging him to wake up.

“Please, Sammy, wake up, I need to talk to you.”

I grabbed his hand. It felt like bones and skin, nothing more, and it was cold. I squeezed it hard but there was no reaction.

His head moved up and down each time he breathed and there was a space right under his neck that seemed to suck all the way back each time.

I pinched his arm and he moaned a little, pulling away.

“Sammy,” I said, putting my mouth right next to his ear. “Wake up. Please wake up. I want to give you a Level. Come on, open your eyes, just for a minute.”

His eyelashes fluttered briefly then opened. He looked around the room but it was a vacant stare. Finally, his eyes found mine but I had a feeling like he didn’t know who I was. At least his face didn’t light up like it always used to and there was no knowingness in his eyes. It was a horrible, empty look.

“Sammy,” I continued, “the committee has decided to award you the highest Level possible.” My vision blurred and my cheeks began to burn with hot tears as I spoke. “Based on months of IVs and pain and nausea and bone needles, all without complaint, and years of being the best brother anyone could ever ask for, I…err…we, the committee, have decided to award you the Level of Dragon.”

Sammy eyes focused and he stared at me intently. It was the longest he’d kept his eyes open in weeks. His voice was fragile as he spoke. “I thought Eagle was the highest Level?”

“Eagle was the highest Level,” I replied.

I wanted to come clean. I wanted to tell Sammy that I didn’t deserve the highest Level. I didn’t deserve any Level. I’d never done a single brave thing in my life. While he had lived every day putting up with the abuse, first from his older brother, then from cancer, I’d lived a life of self-proclaimed greatness. It was time to own up to the fact that Sammy, five years my junior, was ten times my superior, and this was the only way I could think to tell him.

“Are you a Dragon?” he asked.

I wiped my eyes on my sleeve. “No, I’m still an Eagle,” I said.

For a moment he didn’t say anything and I was worried he was slipping off into the emptiness again.

Finally, he said something but it was so quiet I couldn’t hear. I leaned in really close so that my ear was right next to his mouth.

“What?”

“Can I be an Eagle, too?” he whispered again.

It didn’t matter to me. Sammy could be any Level he wanted to be. If all he wanted was to be an Eagle, he could be an Eagle.

“Sure,” I said. “You’re an Eagle.”

His lips formed a smile as he rested his head back on his pillow and closed his eyes. Beneath his arm he clung tightly to his Elligator.

Later that night as I lay beside him holding his hand, I heard Sammy’s breathing turn from irregular to regular and then stop forever. And my world shattered into a million horrible pieces.





CHAPTER 36

FRAGMENTS.

My memories of the funeral are only fragments. Probably because that is how they came to me.

Pieces of a church with stained glass windows and white, peeled paint. The church was full of people—more people than could fit inside. They had stood against the walls and in the aisle and outside the doors—they’d had to leave the doors open.

I remember the smell of burnt candles and pine garlands drowning out the familiar stench of farm animals as we sat waiting for Reverend Ramos to start. But I couldn’t focus on the reverend behind the altar. Instead I kept staring at the small, steel-sheet coffin beside him.

I kept thinking about Sammy; kept reminding myself that he wasn’t next to me, that he was in that coffin. I thought back to the time we had gone to Mr. Wilson’s funeral and hoped the casket would be open. We had hoped to see a dead body. Sammy’s coffin was closed and I thanked God for that.

When I couldn’t stand looking at the coffin any longer I turned and started scanning the crowd. I found Aleta sitting four rows behind me, sandwiched between her sister and father. Her eyes met mine and held them. She gave me a slight nod and I nodded back. Beneath her eyes were tiny pools of water. I had seen her cry before; only this time it was different, she wasn’t crying for her mother, she was crying for Sammy—and for me, I think.

I felt my own eyes begin to well so I looked away, scanning the crowd for more familiar faces. There were lots of kids from school, a few more from London, and near the back was a row of nurses and doctors from the hospital. Dr. Parker was among them. He was wearing a grey suit with a black tie. I’d never seen him wearing a suit before. He’d worn ties in the hospital, but they had always had fun things like dogs or Star Wars or cartoons on them, never just black. He looked old and tired and he was no longer smiling.

I got the sense that Reverend Ramos was about to start because people began to hush but before I turned around my eye caught someone else I recognized. They were standing along the side of the church—a tall, broad man with two smaller silhouettes in front of him. The man had a hand on each of the boys’ shoulders—Joey and Tom. It might have been my imagination, I didn’t have time to look for very long, but to this day I’m convinced the two meanest boys in our school had tears in their eyes.