Coming Home(147)

He’s my pleasure, he’s my boy.

If he ever went away, lonesome I would be

‘Cause he’s my angel, my baby.

Those words had soothed him so many times, but today they rolled off him like drops of rain down the window—fleeting and futile.

Danny squeezed his eyes shut as a barrage of images assaulted him. Bryan’s life, flashing before his eyes—he wasn’t the one dying, but he could feel it happening. He could see it all unfold, as if Bryan were sharing the last few moments of his life with him.

Danny under the deck with a broken leg as Bryan held his hand, reciting batting averages with him to help keep his mind off the pain.

Bryan hanging over the fence of the dugout, shouting and cheering as Danny scored the tying run in their high school’s championship game.

Danny helping Bryan sneak out of his bedroom window to go meet up with his girlfriend on Valentine’s night.

Bryan and Danny sitting on his bedroom floor, laughing hysterically.

Hanging out in the garage, talking into the night under the hood of car.

Trick-or-treating in their matching Batman costumes, because neither one of them wanted to be Robin.

Sharing their first beer in the alley behind the grocery store the summer before eighth grade.

Standing in the middle of the vacant building they’d just purchased, toasting with embarrassingly cheap champagne to the shop they envisioned within its walls.

And then, two little boys. One sitting on the steps outside his house and the other stopped on the sidewalk.

“Hey,” he said curiously. “Why are you sitting outside by yourself?”

The one on the steps shrugged. “‘Cause my mom’s not home.”

“Oh. Well, when will she come home?”

The boy scratched his knee. “Dunno.”

After a few seconds of silence, the other said, “Well…you wanna come to my house? I have a new video game, but it needs two players. My gram doesn’t know how to play it.”

The boy on the steps looked up. “Um…okay.”

“Cool. I’m Bryan.”

“Danny.”

“Do you have any video games?” he asked as Danny approached.

“Not a lot.”

“That’s okay. You can bring what you have next time. We can play every day.”

And for the first time since he woke up that morning, Danny smiled. “Okay.”

“You saved me,” he whispered into the sheet, his forehead still pressed against Bryan’s arm. “You saved me, and I didn’t save you.”

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.

He gritted his teeth until he felt pain in his jaw, chanting the words like an incantation, until they lost all meaning and form and sounded odd in his ears, like indecipherable words from some foreign language.

“Time of death, one nineteen p.m.”

Danny whipped his head up; the monitor was still, the long green line smooth and placid.

Final.

Amanda was hugging Gram, rubbing her back gently as she said something in her ear, and Danny felt a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Dr. Racine said. “Please, take as much time as you need.”

Danny didn’t move as the doctor and the nurse left the room. He didn’t move as Gram tucked the blanket around Bryan, as if she really had just sung him to sleep. He didn’t move as she leaned over and kissed his forehead before brushing his hair out of his eyes.

“My angel boy,” she said gently. “You always had my heart, and you have it still. It’s how I’ll find you when it’s time for us to meet again.”