The Fall of Never(148)

A figured emerged from the darkness and staggered over toward him. He stood, adjusting his belt, and hurried over to the figure after telling the young girl to stay put. The figure stumbled into the moonlight. It was a young woman with an injured shoulder. Blood ran down her shirt and covered her hands. When she approached him, he realized her eyes looked a lot older than her face. Looking at her sent a shiver down his back.

“Ma’am, you’re injured.”

“It’s all right.”

“Is there anyone left in the house?”

After a moment’s hesitation, the young woman started to laugh. And after a while, the laugh only grew in intensity, until tears streamed down her face and her chest hitched. It pained her wound to laugh, he could tell, but she didn’t seem to care.

“Ma’am,” he insisted, “ma’am—is there anyone in the house?”

“Sure,” she said finally. “Just some old ghosts.” And collapsed on the ground, sobbing.



Nellie dead, Josh folded the old woman’s hands atop her chest and took a step back to examine her. Behind him, Carlos stood with his arms at his sides, his mind like an empty tract of land.

“It’s done?” said the doctor.

Josh nodded. “She’s okay. It’s over.” He grinned, though Carlos couldn’t see him. “With any luck, Kelly will be coming home soon.”

Carlos spent some time staring at the corkscrew tendrils of hair at the back of Josh’s head. After a while he said, “I don’t suppose you’re even capable of telling me what it was like? Being there, inside her head, I mean. I don’t suppose there’s any way.”

“None at all,” Josh said, turning to face the doctor. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“How did you know to take her hands like that?”

“I don’t know,” Josh admitted. “I think maybe Nellie willed me to do it, just before she died.”

“Does your chest hurt?”

“Sorry?”

“You’ve been rubbing your chest for the past ten minutes. It hurts?”

“Oh.” A phantom smile played on Josh’s lips. “Old war wound.”

“Where you were shot,” Carlos said. He tried, but couldn’t see it anymore, couldn’t pick Josh’s thoughts and memories from the air. Nellie Worthridge was dead; her power had died with her.

“What will you do now?” Josh asked him.

Carlos shrugged. “Go home,” he said. “I feel like I can sleep a million years. Like that guy from the fairy tale.”

“No,” Josh said, “I meant now as in forever. What do we both do? Just forget this and move on?”

Carlos smiled, grabbed his medical bag from the night table beside Nellie’s bed. “You can try,” he said, “but good luck having any success.” He paused to take in one final glimpse of the old woman. He wondered how a mind as powerful as hers could be so useless in death. Yet who knew? Maybe it wasn’t. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish I could have saved her.”

“Wasn’t your choice,” Josh said. “I was there. I heard what she said to Kelly. She saved Kelly’s life. Whatever life was still inside her, she passed it along to Kelly. That’s when I knew she’d be all right.”

“That’s a fine thing,” Carlos said, making his way toward the door. He stood for a long while, looking at the old woman’s body. After a time, he said, “I should do something. I should make a phone call and not just leave her like that. I’m a doctor.”

“You’re a doctor who’s been through too goddamn much.”

“So have you.”

“Just go home. I’ll take care of it.”

“But I should make a call—”

“Doc, you were never even here.”

Carlos felt himself smile. “If you’d like, I can give you a ride to the police.”

Josh shook his head. “No. I think I’d like to sit here for a while with her. I’ll call the police in a little bit.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m good. You be careful going home.”

Carlos nodded once and stepped out into the hallway. He stepped over a busted picture frame. Josh called to him and he poked his head back into the room.

“Just curious if you felt anything more about your son tonight,” Josh said.

Carlos shook his head. “Afraid not.” Again, he turned to leave, his footfalls crunching on broken glass in the hallway. As he passed through the living room, a strong wind forced its way into the apartment through the broken windows, rattling the taped plastic bags like noisemakers at a New Year’s party. He spied the phonograph, the Ellington record, and noticed that the stink of citron had left the apartment as well.

All a part of the same divine creation, he thought. Some mysteries will never be answered.

And it occurred to him that that was the only true answer concerning God as well: that some mysteries simply remain unanswered, and sometimes that’s the best anyone can hope for.

I can accept that, he thought, and moved out of the building and into the snow.



In the moments before her husband arrived home, Marie Mendes awoke from a terrible nightmare, rolled over in bed to feel her husband’s absence, and mumbled lightly to herself in Spanish. Moving slowly, the weight of her belly a constant reminder, she rolled out of bed and tugged on her slippers. She was concerned about her husband’s poor sleeping habits. At first, she was willing to accept that it had to do with their pregnancy, and the trepidation he might feel in becoming a father for the first time. But this had gone on too long and she was beginning to worry that it might be something else, something more serious.