Saving Meghan(16)

Will reached for his father. The gray of his face, ever deeper, made his red eyes that much more pronounced. His son’s stone-colored fingers were fully outstretched, but he could no longer move them, could not close the short distance that separated him from Zach. It was no use. Hard as Zach strained against whatever invisible force held him in place, overpowering him, he could not move a muscle.

Bits of skin flaked off Will’s face and became a fine coating of dust that fell at his feet like gray snow. Zach searched the park for help, but no one was in sight. Were we alone this entire time? Zach could not remember. He did not even remember going from the baseball field to the park. It was as though they had just appeared there. Where did he buy that ice cream? What was happening to them?

“Goodbye, Daddy … I love you … love you…”

Will’s voice sounded like a faint whisper in his ear. Zach tried to move, tried to snap whatever spell held him hostage, but it was no use. The force that kept him paralyzed was too strong to break. Will’s gray face was now covered in strange cracks, his skin brittle like charred paper. What’s happening to him? Whatever it was—some kind of virus, more like a plague—it had overtaken his son.

“Will … Will … Will…”

Zach stretched until he felt his arm snapping, tendons and ligaments approaching the breaking point. Little by little, the cracks in Will’s face began to fade, but the horrifying gray coloring remained. To Zach, Will looked as though he were made entirely of ash, as though someone had gathered up the remnants of a firepit and molded it into the shape of his son’s beautiful face. Will’s neck, his arms and legs, were made of this mysterious substance. Under his clothes, Zach assumed his boy was nothing but ash, like gray flour.

A strong gust of wind blew from the south hard enough to cause the leaves to show their underside. No! thought Zach. I’m not ready to say goodbye! The wind blew through Zach’s hair, ruffling it like the leaves. But as the wind hit Will, it blew him apart. His head was now a billowing cloud of dust; his body an empty shirt and pants that briefly stayed suspended in the air before becoming a heap of fabric on the ground.

Finally, at last, Zach found his scream. It came out as a loud and mournful wail.

His eyes opened wide.

Zach was bathed in sweat, staring up at the ceiling. It took a moment to get oriented, and when he did, a stab of pain hit him as though someone had plunged a knife into his chest. He was at home, in his apartment on Stuart Street in Boston. Stacy was his ex-wife. Will was dead, gone five years now. He had had the nightmare again; the one his shrink had said was caused by guilt that he had not taken Stacy’s worries to heart, not acted sooner.

“I’m the gust of wind,” Zach once told his shrink as they tried to understand the dream that always began in the park and ended with Will turning into nothing. “I’m the wind that blew him away.”

“You couldn’t have known,” his doctor had said. “And besides, from what you’ve told me, you couldn’t have helped.”

It was true, in fact. Zach could not have saved Will. There was no cure for what Will had back then, and there wasn’t a cure now. But doctors often see themselves as all-powerful beings, like lifesaving magicians. Intellectually, Zach knew there was little to nothing he could have done to prevent Will’s death, even if he had listened to Stacy, pushed harder for a diagnosis and treatment. Emotionally, he took the blame nonetheless. In Zach’s mind, it came down to the simple fact that he was the doctor. It was his job to save lives and, in that regard, he had failed his son. For that failure alone, he would dream of ash.

Zach climbed out of bed and stretched his creaky limbs. In the years since Will’s death, Zach had gone from a house to a studio apartment. From his bedroom, he could see into the kitchen, where an automatic coffeemaker had already brewed a pot while Zach was having his heart ripped out—again.

Checking the time on his phone, Zach computed that he had two hours to shower, shave, and get to work. There’d be no breakfast today; probably no food at all. He could never eat on the days when he had the dream. Rubbing his eyes, Zach thought about his workday, something to take his mind off the pain of memory. He reviewed his schedule in his head. A new patient was coming to the office, a girl who might need his help, another chance at a small piece of redemption.

Her name was Meghan Gerard. And if the parents were right, if Zach was her best hope, then poor Meghan was indeed a very, very sick girl.





CHAPTER 8





MEGHAN


Back at the doctor’s office. Again. Lord help me. This was a new doctor, which wasn’t a shocker for me. I get new doctors the way other kids get sneakers. His name is Dr. Zach Fisher, and he was handsome in that TV dad kind of way. He seemed nice enough, but there was something about him I couldn’t quite put my finger on. He was sort of sad, and I was curious why.

I was more anxious with him than with most new doctors, and I thought I knew the reason. Dr. Fisher was someone that my dad had found, not Mom, which, in all honesty, completely blew me away. My father doesn’t try to come up with answers, because he’s already made up his mind that my sickness is all in my head, put there by ideas Mom planted like I’m a garden she’s tending. Or so I thought.

To my amazement, Dad thought I might have some rare disease. I say “rare,” but I don’t know how many people actually have it. I didn’t bother to read about it, because every time I research something new, I’m told that it’s not what I have, and we have to keep looking. I get attached to my prospective diseases the way I might a boyfriend, and when they’re gone I feel a little let down in that back-to-square-one kind of way. So I’m guarded, not diving into any details, not trying to answer any questions but one: Why did my father suddenly think I might actually be sick?