Day Twenty Six

There was that sucking sound and they were all transported together to Julie’s bedside.

Beth tried as best as she could to keep Julie warm and happy but in her heart of hearts, she knew it was a losing battle. Tom could no longer bear to be in the same room as her and she had heard on more than one occasion, him begging whatever gods may be to release Julie from the prison that was her body. Beth was not ready to accept this request. She had given birth to Julie, had looked after her in every capacity and surely if Julie were to die then it was only fair that she die with her.

“I can’t bear it,” Ralph cried curling into a small ghostly ball, “I can’t stand by and watch her die!” For all his shortcomings, his easily tempted ways, Ralph was not able to give in so easily to something so inevitable. He knew Julie was going to die as much as everyone else on that side of the afterlife knew but he had not yet developed the means to let go.

“It’s for the best,” Sarah said. “What kind of life does she have?”

“SHUT UP!!” Alfie shouted in her face. “SHUT UP!! You horrible woman! How do you know her life is so awful? Who made you the judge of what life is or isn’t?” Ghostly tears were on his cheeks again.

“Look at her!” Sarah screamed back. “Do you think you have the right to let her suffer in this way?” Sarah glared at Alfie. “You don’t even know what it’s like to be trapped in your own body, unable to communicate, waiting for the next medical text, hearing every awful thing the nurses say about you and your family and about their own families. You’re just lying there like a doll.” She turned her back to him.

“I didn’t even know I was going,” Ralph said sadly. “I knew I was hurt real bad but I didn’t know I was going to end up here.” He looked at Maurice and the birds. “I sure didn’t expect talking elephants and birds!”

“We dance too,” said the penguin, “We dance!”

“I didn’t know I was going to go either,” said Alfie. “I wasn’t even completely sure I was dead.”

“I didn’t know I had bought the farm,” said Ivan. “I didn’t see it coming. I just roamed around for a bit, pissed off because I couldn’t eat anything.”

The birds looked at each other and Maurice shrugged. “We didn’t know either,” said Maurice.

There was another sucking sound and Lucy was with them looking despondent once she saw Julie. She seemed to understand this was the end.

“I can’t bear to watch,” Alfie said.

“Then don’t,” said Sarah coldly. “Take a walk and let this poor girl have peace.”

Alfie took Lucy’s hand as best as he could.

“Can I take a walk too?” asked Ralph. Being newly dead, he didn’t quite understand the rules and he didn’t get it that no one else understood the rules either. “I want to find Janie. Maybe she needs me.”

Ivan looked at him and for a moment considered telling him that he no one could figure out how to move from place to place without a bit of chance being involved. He had just decided to say this when both he and Ralph were sucked out of Julie’s room and plopped into the back seat of a moving car.

Ivan had no idea where he was but Ralph at least knew the driver.

“Janie!” he shouted, trying to touch her shoulder.

“Don’t man,” said Ivan. “She’s driving like a lunatic and you’ll scare the crap out of her.”

“I don’t care if you’ve been injured, Brandon!” she swerved erratically as she spoke on her mobile phone.

Ralph looked at Ivan.

“I’ve been a bad boy,” Ralph confessed looking shamefaced. “I shouldn’t have been messing with a married woman.”

Ivan slowly nodded his head. “This sure is going to be a mess if she tells Brandon she never wants to see him again.”

Janie was listening intently to what Brandon was saying.

Although they had no way of knowing it, Maurice and the birds plus Alfie, Lucy and Sarah had been sucked up and spat out in Brandon’s hospital bed. Brandon was in hospital clothes and was sitting on the end of his bed shouting into his mobile phone. Behind him, a sign clearly asked patients not to use their mobiles in the hospital.

“Shall I bite his butt?” asked the penguin. “Bite his butt?”

Alfie shook his head and motioned for him to be quiet.

“Because Janie I love you. We can forget all about this. Just come back and we can work it out.”

“Sucker,” mumbled Alfie. “Once a cheat, always a cheat.” His words echoed.

After a short pause, Lucy said: “I had an affair once,” she hung her head.

At first, Alfie didn’t react. He just let the words hang in the air. Then he turned to look at his wife.

“I didn’t know,” he said honestly. “But I was such an asshole when you were trying to do a job as well as help take care of the family.”

“It wasn’t then,” she said. “It was when Nathan had his accident.” Again, she looked deeply ashamed. “I could not seem to stop crying and I met someone else who was in a similar situation.”

Alfie sat down and looked up at her. How could he be mad at her now that there were both dead? He understood her need for companionship during that awful time. He had been simply ill equipped to help her through what had probably been the worse days of their lives. Well, the worse besides their own or each other’s deaths.

“Lucy, please don’t think I’m angry or that I can’t forgive you. It’s all the past and we can’t change it.”

Lucy looked at Alfie as if he were nuts. “Do you mean, I’ve been worried about this all this time and you’re not even creating a fuss?”

Alfie chuckled. “I know. Progress, right?”

Lucy looked at Maurice. “Well if I had known this was going to be his reaction, I might have had someone else as well!”

“I wish I had known about this when you were alive because I always fancied that girl at the library.” Alfie’s eyes twinkled mischievously.

The birds chuckled.

Lucy laughed. “I always knew you have a thing for her!”

The laughter between them was easy and gentle. Alfie did not know what a good marriage meant until that moment and he was glad Lucy was going to be with him when his body was discovered.

 

Elliot logged onto his computer to check his emails. He was waiting to hear from Amanda but instead there was one from Bonnie. Without reading it, he deleted it then got up again. As he went to the living room, he took out a small key and unlocked the drink cabinet. He kept a good bottle of whiskey in there. Turning the key, he looked inside and saw that it was completely empty.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “I’m going to kill that kid.”

He took his car keys and went to the shop to get another bottle, reminding himself that he would have to change the lock.

Whistling quietly to himself, he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he drove. It wasn’t far to the nearest liquor store. All he wanted was a quiet drink and an opportunity to forget about Amanda. She was too young for him and she had her whole life ahead of her, unlike him. He had made his bed and now he would have to lie in it. Two messed up kids and a drunk for a wife.

“Ex-wife,” he said out loud. He wasn’t going to take her back no matter what his ex-wife said or did. They could sell the house and spilt the profits and he would go somewhere else and start all over again. His car phone rang and he jumped, surprised. Expecting Amanda, he saw Caroline’s number.

“Ah Jesus,” he cursed. She was near the bottom of the list of people he wanted to speak to. The last time he had spoken to her, she had called him useless to everyone. He was useless all right—until she wanted a bit of cash. He pressed for the answer machine to take the call and carried on driving. What on earth could she want at this hour, he wondered and where was that ridiculous son of his? Probably off with some losers drinking his whiskey he thought. Bonnie had said she thought someone had been drinking his beers but he had just told her to stop blaming the kids for her problems. She had probably lost count of the number of cans she was putting away.

He laughed to himself. He was going to have fun filing those divorce papers.

 

Caroline looked at the phone as the answering machine played. She wasn’t one hundred percent certain but she thought her father cut her off. Nathan was still sleeping and snoring quietly. Not knowing what else to do, she called Clarice.

 

Clarice had gone all the way through her rounds. Alfie’s dinner was always the last she delivered. And it wasn’t because he was her favourite patient. Oh no. Alphie was an impossible and intolerable train wreck of a person who could not understand the simplest acts of compassion.

Just as she was about to pull into Alfie’s driveway, her phone rang. She saw it was Brandon and answered.

“Clarice,” he said, sounding miserable. “She doesn’t want to come back.”

She put the car into park and got out, looking up at Alfie’s front door. Resting the phone her shoulder, she opened the trunk of her car. As she went to reach for Alfie’s dinner, she dropped the phone and could tell by the sound, she had shattered the screen.

“Terrific,” she said, not wanting to look at the phone. She vaguely wondered how much that was going to cost to replace.

Clarice knew before she opened his door that Alfie was dead. There was no sound, no smell, no sight. There was only a grim certainty as she walked up the gravel path that she was going to find him dead behind the closed door.

“This is it, Alfie,” said Maurice. “It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for!”