“You’re just going to take my word for all this?” she asked Hogan.
He unfolded his fingers, then strung them back together again. “I’ve seen some folk around town do things you’d think a person can’t do. Maybe some of them were a little more than human, and I think that’s okay. That’s not such a bad thing, us being different but still all fitting together, don’t you think? It might even be its own kind of beauty.”
And yes, even drugged up and hurting, I could tell this was a continuation of a conversation they’d been having.
I pressed my lips together so anotherawdidn’t escape.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay. So that’s what it is. The secret I’ve been keeping. And now you know it, and now you have to help me keep it.”
He nodded. “How about I just keep treating everyone the same and keep my mouth to myself?”
“Well, notalwaysto yourself,” she said.
That got a big grin out of him, his entire body smiling, from relaxed shoulders to open hands, to bright eyes.
“Wouldn’t want to be stingy,” he agreed.
“Yeah.” Jean was looking at him like there was no one else in the room, and that word came out mostly breath and want. I was pretty sure I was about to see more of my sister’s love life than I’d bargained for.
“Maybe you two could go get dinner, or lunch, or whatever time it is meal,” I said. “Talk it over, kiss it over, whatever, somewhere private where I don’t have to watch.”
Jean nodded, barely sparing me a look. “We’re done with this for now?” she asked Myra.
“No,” Myra said, “but you should probably take your meds and get off your feet for a while.”
“Good idea. I need a bed. Breakfast in bed.”
“It’s dinner time,” Hogan said.
“Dinner at the drive-thru, breakfast in bed.”
He stood and walked over, helping her up onto her feet and handing over her crutches. “Your wish, my pleasure.”
I opened my mouth, and slapped my hand over it again before any more sappy sounds came out of it.
They made their way out of the room and Myra waited a whole half-second before turning on me.
“This ends here and now, Delaney.”
I fished around on the bed and made a point to hold up the morphine button so she’d clearly see it as I depressed it.
Click.
“We’ll make some new rules,” I agreed. “I’ve got my law-and-order boy right here to help us out.”
“This isn’t a joke.”
I knew it wasn’t, could see the cruelty of what we had been through, what my choices had put her through in all the micro-fine lines of her face, as if grief had been painted beneath her skin and had permanently changed her.
“I know. I hear you, really hear you, Myra. And it’s not just the morphine talking.” I smiled, but was pretty sure it came out goofy and didn’t do anything for my case.
“You can’t,” she said, “you can’t…the list is so long, I don’t even know where to start.”
“I can’t put my life on the line like it isn’t attached to anyone. I can’t leave us like Dad left us, like Mom left us. I can’t think my pain is a small price to pay for other people being safe. I’m required to live out as many decades as possible here, until you and me and Jean are old ladies in rocking chairs, smoking cigars and arguing over bowling games and fences.
“I’m not allowed to die again. Not for a very long time, and when that time comes, it will be because I’m ready for a new adventure, not because I’m cutting this one short.”
She opened her mouth, shut it, sniffed, then blinked.
