Send Down the Rain(73)

That night on the beach with my mom, I’d closed my heart. And yet here I was now, more dead than alive, and I felt everything. I could smell people’s sweat. Excrement. Dried blood. Fresh bread baking. Salt in the ocean. Hush puppies in the fryer. The way the earth smells before and after the rain. My mother’s hair. My father’s aftershave. Engine oil. Burning rubber. The cabin of an airplane. The smell of death. And Allie.

I remembered the smell of Allie.

When I was a kid, I remember feeling with great emotion. My eyes would see and my heart would feel. The line between the two was taut, and when one pulled, the response was immediate and constant. I drank life through a fire hose. Then life dinged me, restricted the flow, and pretty soon the raging river was a dribbling trickle. Then some giant hand clamped down on the spigot nozzle and the trickle was reduced to nothing at all. Not a drop. Did it dry up on its own, or had my life just dammed it up? Either way, the flow of water was gone. Ever since, I’d lived my life through a dusty, calloused piece of lifeless meat.

That’s a pain-filled way to live.

But lying on my back, with all those frantic people fussing over me, I watched the video of my life. And after all the hell and horror and evil and terror I’d known, something cracked through. As I stood there on the dry riverbed that was me, a trickle returned. And the more I watched, the more the flow increased. It swirled around my toes. Then my ankles. Wrapped around my knees. Waist deep, the current tugged at me.

It was both one second and one lifetime. The water around me was clear. I cupped my hand and brought it to my lips. It was sweet, clean, and cold. My body may have been in that courtroom, but my heart was standing in an ocean. I jumped in and dunked my head under the flow. I held my breath and pushed through the water, pulling with long, strong strokes. When I surfaced and sucked in a lungful of air, all the dirty, bloody places I’d carried around for so long had begun to wash off. What was once crusty became soft. What was dirty became clean. I took another breath and returned beneath the surface, kicking deeper. Where the water was cooler. I did that a long time. I don’t really know how long. All I really know is that the water washed over me. It rose up from below. It fell from above.

The storm of my life was over. The rain had come.





45

My eyes opened to a world of white. Everything was white. Including the woman at the foot of my bed. I asked, “Are you an angel?”

She laughed the most beautiful laugh. It echoed off the walls and fell across me like a soft blanket.

I thought to myself, If she’s laughing, then I can’t be in hell, ’cause I highly doubt there’s laughter in hell. I mean, what would people in hell have to laugh about?

My chest wasn’t hurting, so I asked, “Is this heaven?” Before she could answer, I said, “If you know all I’ve done, you’ll never let me in.”

She laughed again. That’s when I was pretty sure I wasn’t in hell. I tried looking around, but the world I’d awakened into was so brilliant and bright I couldn’t look into it. I tried blinking my eyes into focus, but it didn’t help. I’d awakened looking into the sun. Over my left shoulder, the sound of rapid footsteps echoed on a hard floor.

A face appeared over me. Then closer. Then I felt her cheek and lips pressed to mine. Then I smelled her. Allie was holding me.

Heaven had let me in.

My eyes slowly focused as medical personnel peppered me with questions and poked me and prodded me, and all I wanted to do was talk with Allie. There were six people in whatever room I was in and each was doing about ten different things. I held out my hand. “Hold it. Everybody stop.”

Oddly enough, they did. About this time a man walked in. Gray hair. White coat. Stethoscope hanging around his neck. I said, “Other than me, who’s in charge here?”

The man raised his hand. “That’d be me.”

“Where am I?”

He answered, “Regional Memorial.”

“What’s that?”

“A hospital.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m one of your doctors.”

“One?”

“You have about eight.”

“How’d I get here?”

He seemed to be enjoying this game, so he gave me short, staccato answers, hoping I’d keep playing along. “An ambulance.”

“When?”

He glanced at my chart. “Sixteen days ago.”

The word sixteen sank in. “What have I been doing?”

“Sleeping.”

“What’d you people do to me?”

“You’ve been in a coma.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”

He laughed. “We’ve been trying.”

“What happened?”

He spoke slowly. “Takotsubo cardiomyopathy.”

I frowned. “In English, please.”

“It’s also called ‘broken heart syndrome.’ It occurs almost exclusively in women, so that makes your case that much more interesting. You’re a bit of an anomaly.”

I leaned my head back. “That’s one way of putting it.”

I was still pretty foggy, and the pieces of the puzzle weren’t falling into place as quickly and neatly as I’d hoped. Allie was holding my hand with both of hers. She asked, “What’s the last thing you remember?”