ALOUDcrash jolted Paul from his bed, and he skidded to a stop in Alfred’s bedroom a moment later, dashing to the bedside and frantically tearing through the nightstand for a nitro bottle. He popped a pill under Alfred’s tongue like he’d been instructed to do in case of an emergency.
Alarmed when no color returned to Alfred’s pasty complexion, Paul reached for the phone and dialed 911. Next he called Isaac, telling him to open the gates for the paramedics.
“Hold on, please, hold on,” Paul chanted, finally noticing the disaster that had woken him from a sound sleep. A bookcase lay on its side, dozens of heavy, leather-bound tomes littering the floor. He couldn’t spare a thought for how it could have toppled, too busy hoping he’d arrived in time.
“What the hell is going on? I was going to the kitchen when I heard….”
Paul gazed up at Alex with fear in his eyes, clutching Alfred’s hand.
“Oh, dear God!” Alex shouted, rushing to the bedside. “Uncle, talk to me!” A faint rasp was Alfred’s only response. “Paul, did you…?”
“Yes, I gave him nitro and called 911.”
As if on cue, a clamor arose in the hall and William’s seldom-heard voice urged, “This way, gentlemen, last door on the left.”
A gurney and two paramedics rushed in and Alex stepped aside, gently pulling Paul away from the bed to allow the emergency workers room.
The blue-clad technicians took Alfred’s vitals and asked a few questions. Then they hoisted him onto the gurney, strapped him securely in place, and hurried down the hall and out of the house. The entire process took only a few minutes and then they were gone, along with Alfred.
Alex manhandled Paul into the Jeep’s passenger seat before climbing under the steering wheel to follow the bright strobes of the ambulance.
“HEY, lover, what are you doing here?” Alfred muttered. “You’re not supposed to be here, are you? Didn’t you go away somewhere? I’m supposed to meet you, aren’t I?”
Byron beheld the man who’d stolen his heart only to cherish and protect it for so many years, torn between wanting his lover alive and happy and the overwhelming need to be reunited. “I never left,” he answered.
“You’ve been here ever since….”
Seeing in his lover’s gaze the moment he remembered the gulf separating them, Byron watched the lines around Alfred’s eyes and mouth ease, streaks of gold creeping into his lovely silver hair. “Ever since you asked me to wait for you,” Byron finished for him.
“You can do that? Stay, I mean?”
With a tender smile, Byron explained, “Everyone gets one final wish.”
In a voice slowly returning to its once youthful vigor, Alfred asked, “Anything?”
“Well, not anything. It has to be truly important to you; important enough to fight for.”
Alfred’s pale cheeks slowly regained their color.It won’t be long now.Although Byron eagerly anticipated being with his love again, he silently mourned for their nephews, who’d doubtlessly take Alfred’s death, following closely on the heels of his own, hard. He prayed they’d turn to each other for comfort instead of letting despair rip them apart.
Apparently considering the possibilities, Alfred ventured, “What becomes of you if I want to stick around? I’ve been without you long enough.”
“Don’t worry about me, love, I asked to wait for you. If you’re here, here I’ll stay also.”
“Well, you know what I truly want: to see the house filled with Alex and Paul’s children.”
Byron quietly listened to the voices that’d helpfully guided him thus far, smiling at their answer. “I do believe you’ve picked a winner, babe.” By this time, the vestiges of silver had fled Alfred’s hair, and thirty years disappeared from his features, though the vision sat superimposed over the image of an elderly man with gray skin, lungs struggling for breath in a death rattle. Byron’s smile faded. Although it meant they’d be together again, watching the love of his life slipping away spiked a dagger to his ghostly heart. “Just a little while,” he whispered, fading into the shadows to wait.
“BYRON? Byron!” Alfred screamed as his lover disappeared. A deafening alarm shrieked in the background.
“We’re losing him!” came someone’s frantic cry, the last thing Alfred Anderson heard with his mortal ears.
WITHa white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, Alex tailed the ambulance. If he hadn’t already accepted the truth, the litany of heartfelt, pleading prayers murmured from the passenger seat would have proved Paul’s love for Alfred. Alex pushed his own fears aside to get them to the hospital safely, believing in his heart they’d never arrive in time. Alfred was a fighter; if he chose to, he’d beat his illness and live years longer, though anyone could see his heart wasn’t in it. With Byron gone, he didn’t want to continue, regardless of how much he loved his surviving kin. Some might call it selfish, but the man didn’t have a selfish bone in his body. Alfred simply loved Byron that much.
Following the ambulance to the emergency room receiving doors, Alex instructed Paul to get out while he parked the Jeep. With a terrible sense of foreboding, he watched the paramedics pull the gurney from the vehicle, wheeling into the building and disappearing into an area marked “No Admittance.”
The sliding glass doors slid open to the sound of Paul’s indignant voice arguing with a uniform-clad nurse. Both appeared relieved by Alex’s approach. Paul, clearly frustrated, exclaimed, “Alex, you have to fill out the papers! They won’t let me admit Alfred because I’m not his family!”
“I’m sorry, sir; it’s hospital policy,” the nurse blurted.
