Don’t Let Me Go(98)

She quietly set the mirror upside-down on the coffee table, hoping Billy wouldn’t notice. She’d begun to doubt whether it was good thinking, presenting him with a mirror.

“Let me see,” he said, pointing to it.

“You sure?”

“Let me see.”

Grace handed him the mirror and stepped back. Billy raised the mirror and stared into it for a long time. Grace wondered what he was thinking, and wished he would hurry up and say.

“Oh, dear God,” he whispered, after a long pause. “How did I get to be so old?”

? ? ?

“I think I should check to see if it’s broken,” Felipe said. “But I gotta warn you. This is gonna hurt like a sonofabitch.”

“Are you going to the hospital if it’s broken?” Grace asked.

“No,” Billy said. “If it’s broken it’ll just have to heal itself.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t even hurt him, then,” Grace told Felipe.

“It’ll heal bad,” Felipe said. “I had a cousin got his nose broke in a towing accident. And he wouldn’t do nothing. He was stubborn like you — no offense — but prob’ly for different reasons. Anyway, it still looks real bad. It healed with a hook, and a big knot. That’s never gonna go away, either.”

“I guess you should check it.”

“OK, now grab hold of my hand and squeeze it really hard. I’m gonna take my other hand and put it on the bridge of your nose and just wiggle it a little bit to see if the part that shouldn’t oughta move moves.”

Grace closed her eyes, because she couldn’t bring herself to watch. She heard Billy yelp. Then she heard nothing, so she opened her eyes. It was all over, thank God.

“It’s not broken,” Felipe said. “Come on, Grace. Let’s get you to school.”

“I need to stay here with Billy.”

“I’ll come back and stay with Billy. You need to go to school.”

Part of Grace had been worried that if she didn’t show up to school that day, and with no explanation, then her teacher might think she wasn’t showing up Monday, either. And Felipe would be good to Billy while she was away.

But then she thought of a really good reason to argue.

“But I can do reiki on his nose all day. And you can’t.”

And that was when Grace heard it. That smooth, nice, calming voice that she liked so much. That everybody liked so much.

“Or I could stay with him and do the reiki,” it said.

Grace whipped around to see that the door to Billy’s apartment was still standing wide open. And in the open doorway she saw Jesse and Rayleen.

Grace literally shrieked with pleasure, and from the corner of her eye she saw Billy stick his fingers in his ears.

“You’re back! I thought you might not get back on time! But you got back!”

She threw herself wildly at Rayleen, startled by how much she had missed her. She nearly bowled Rayleen over when they made contact.

“I’m so glad you’re back!” she shrieked.

Somewhere at the bottom of her mind, she wondered briefly if her mom was downstairs, really clean and awake, sitting up and listening to all this, and, if so, how it made her feel. But her curiosity about Jesse’s mother knocked the thought away again.

She ran at Jesse, and he picked her up so she was just his height, and she rubbed his beard as if it were some kind of lucky charm.

“Jesse,” she said, her voice hushed with respect. “Did your mother die?”

“She did.”

“That’s terrible. I’m really sorry.”

“It wasn’t that terrible,” he said. “It was freeing in a way I probably couldn’t explain. Besides, she was in a great deal of pain. So it was something of a blessing.”

“So…then…is it sort of a little bit OK that I was hoping that, if she had to die at all, she’d die soon enough so you and Rayleen could come see me dance on Monday? Because I felt really bad about that.”

“I think it’s OK,” Jesse said, setting her back on her feet again. “I also think you should let Felipe take you to school now. I’ll stay here and take care of Billy.”

“OK,” Grace said. “That’s good enough. If Jesse’s here to take care of Billy, then I think it’s OK if I go.”

And she marched off with Felipe, satisfied that all would be well in her absence.

It wasn’t until they were nearly halfway to school that Grace noticed she had a good bit of Billy’s blood on one of the sleeves of her sweater.





Billy



“Tell me what happened, neighbor,” Jesse said, leaning over him and touching the ice pack gently to first one of Billy’s eyes and then the other. “Somebody on the street do this to you?”

Rayleen had already gone home, in search of better, non-cat air to breathe. It made Billy edgy to be so completely alone with Jesse, but of course he didn’t say it.

“No,” he said in barely over a whisper. He had entered into a state of utter surrender. “I did it to myself.”

“But not on purpose.”

“No. I was dancing Grace to school, and I tripped on a big crack in the sidewalk.”

“The dangers of crack,” Jesse said.