Moses
I GOT UP before the sun rose. I was restless and moody, even more than usual, and I decided to paint for a while. But painting hadn’t eased the prickle under my skin or the knots in my belly, and when the sun rose I made a pot of coffee and decided to spend a little time outside seeing the day break before the rest of the house woke up and made contemplation impossible.
“You look like your thoughts weigh a thousand pounds,” Tag said, his voice rough with sleep, and the French doors to my left closed quietly. He eased down into the deck chair next to mine and faced the sluggish sunrise, his eyes trained forward. He held a cup of my coffee in a mug between his big hands and sipped at it like heaven came in mouthfuls of caffeine.
“Well, well, well,” I said, and I felt my lips twist up in a smirk. I had told myself I wasn’t going to give him any grief about being holed up with Millie for a solid sixteen hours. And here I was, giving him grief the moment he set foot on my deck.
He didn’t smirk back or tell me to shut up. He looked tired. But he looked good. Amazingly enough, he looked good. Content even. I still wasn’t used to his buzzed hair. It looked a little too skinhead for my taste, but Tag worked it. He had the jawline to pull it off, irritating as that was.
“You look like shit, Tag,” I lied, just because it was our way with each other.
“So do you, Mo,” he said amiably.
“It’s your fault,” I said, just like I had in the hospital. I immediately felt bad and wished I could take it back. It was his fault. But it wasn’t his fault.
He didn’t respond and took another long draw from his coffee.
“Do you ever think about Montlake?” I asked him, sipping the surface of the coffee, not going too deep. Kinda the way I was doing now, dipping my toe into a conversation that felt a little like a cauldron.
“All the time,” Tag answered, tipping his mug again.
“I do too. All the time. Especially lately,” I said.
We sat like two old men, sipping away, time slipping away, yet not in any hurry to fight it. Funny how that was. Old folks knew their days were numbered, and yet they rarely rushed to fill them.
“Those were some dark days, Mo,” Tag said softly.
“They were dark. But we had nothing to lose,” I said.
“And now, we’ve got everything to lose,” he said.
“Now we’ve got everything to lose,” I repeated.
“I dreamed about Dr. Andelin’s wife,” Tag said suddenly, inexplicably, and I was distracted from where I was leading the conversation.
“What?” I gasped.
“Remember that counseling session when you saw her?” Tag insisted, his green eyes sharp. “When we met?”
“That time you wanted to kill me?” I tried to laugh, but couldn’t gather enough mirth. My laugh just sounded like I’d been punched in the stomach, which was strangely fitting, because Tag had done just that. I’d asked him about Molly, and he’d punched me in the stomach, slapped me across the face, and knocked me to the floor. And I’d welcomed it and fought back.
“How did you know?” Tag said, his eyes on mine. The din around us quieted slightly. “How did you know about my sister?” The orderlies pulled us off the floor and let us sit, but Dr. Andelin pressed me to answer.
“Moses, do you want to explain to Tag what you meant when you asked if anyone knew a girl named Molly?”
“I didn’t know she was his sister. I don’t know him. But I’ve been seeing a girl named Molly off and on for almost five months,” I said.
They all stared at me.
“Seeing her? Do you mean you have a relationship with Molly?” Dr. Andelin asked.
“I mean, she’s dead, and I know she’s dead because for the last five months I’ve been able to see her,” I repeated patiently.
Tag’s face was almost comical in its fury.
“See her how?” Dr. Andelin’s voice was flat and his eyes were cold.
I matched his tone and leveled my own flat gaze in his direction. “The same way I can see your dead wife, Doctor. She keeps showing me a car visor and snow and pebbles at the bottom of a river. I don’t know why. But you can probably tell me.”
Dr. Andelin’s jaw went slack and his complexion greyed.
“What are you talking about?” he gasped. I’d been waiting to use this on him. Now was as good a time as any. Maybe his wife would go away and I could focus on getting rid of Molly once and for all.
“She follows you around the joint. You miss her too much. And she worries about you. She’s fine . . . but you’re not. I know she’s your wife because she shows you waiting for her at the end of the aisle. Your wedding day. Your tuxedo is a little too short in the sleeves.”
I tried to be flippant, to force him out of his role as psychologist. I dug around in his life to keep him from digging around in my head. But the savage grief that slammed across his face slowed me down and softened my voice. I couldn’t maintain my attitude against his pain. I felt momentarily shamed and looked down at my hands. Then Dr. Andelin spoke.
“My wife, Cora, was driving home from work. They think she was blinded—temporarily—by the sun reflecting off the snow. It’s like that sometimes up here on the bench, you know. She drifted into the guardrail. Her car landed upside down in the creek bed. She . . . drowned.”
He supplied the information so matter-of-factly, but his hands shook as he stroked his beard.
Somewhere during the tragic recount, Tag lost his fury. He stared from me to Dr. Andelin in confusion and compassion. But Cora Andelin wasn’t done—it was like she knew I had the doctor’s attention and she wasn’t wasting any time.
“Peanut butter, Downey fabric softener, Harry Connick, Jr., umbrellas . . .” I paused because the next image was so intimate. But then I said it anyway. “Your beard. She loved the way it felt, when you . . .” I had to stop. They were making love and I didn’t want to see this man’s wife naked. I didn’t want to see him naked. And I could see him through her eyes.
But Dr. Andelin was dialed in, his blue eyes intense and full of his own memories, and something else too. Gratitude. His eyes were full of gratitude.
“Those were some of her favorite things. She walked down the aisle on our wedding day to a Harry Connick song. And yeah. My tux was a smidge too short. She always laughed about that and said it was just like me. And her umbrella collection was out of control.” His voice broke, and he looked down at his hands.
The room was so heavy with compassion and thick with intimacy that if the five others present were able to see what I could see, they would have looked away to give the lovers a moment alone. But I was the only one to witness Noah Andelin’s wife reach out and run a hand over her husband’s bowed head before the soft lines of her inconsistent form melded into the flickering light of the fading afternoon.
Strange. I hadn’t thought about Cora Andelin since I’d left Montlake. And I hadn’t seen her since that day, just as I’d predicted. But the memory was so sharp and specific that I felt a sense of déjà vu, like Tag wasn’t the only one who’d dreamed about her. Dr. Andelin’s face, when I’d told him I could see his wife, was burned into the backs of my eyes. I’d thrown all his precious details, details of her life, of their life together, in his face, simply because I had needed to distract him from looking too hard at my own. I was my own special brand of asshole in those days.
“Remember how you said that she was fine, but Doc wasn’t?” Tag asked.
I nodded, incredulous. “She follows you around the joint. You miss her too much. And she worries about you. She’s fine . . . but you’re not.”
“So that’s why she was hanging around. She was worried about him,” he said.
“I can’t believe you remember that,” I exclaimed in disbelief.
“Some things you don’t forget, Mo.” Tag swore. “I won’t ever forget it.” He shook his head like the images still haunted him. “Do you think the reason you saw Molly—and don’t lie to me, Mo. I know you’ve seen her a few times now. Do you think it’s because she’s just worried about me?” There was a wistful note in his voice that made hope flicker in my heart.
“It very well could be,” I answered softly, coaxing the flicker to a flame.
He nodded and set his empty mug down at his feet. But I wasn’t ready to let Montlake go, not yet.
“Before we left Montlake, you asked me to keep you alive. You told me to knock you down, restrain you, whatever it took. Do you remember that?” I asked, not looking at him. I couldn’t look at him and keep my emotions in check.
“Yeah. I remember,” he said.
“I told you I would.” I had to stop talking for a minute. I took a few deep breaths and a huge gulp of coffee to soothe my burning throat and ease the ache in my chest. “And I intend to keep that promise,” I said, my voice cracking on the last word.
When he didn’t respond, I braced myself and turned toward him.
Tag’s throat was working even though his coffee was gone. He rubbed at his jaw, passing a hand over trembling lips, and I could tell he was fighting for control, just like I was.
“I can’t cure cancer, Tag. And I sure as hell can’t stop the people I love from leaving me. I couldn’t save Gi. I didn’t save Eli. But I’ve got some pull on the other side. And they’re all gonna have to go through me if they want you.”
He was nodding. “All right,” he whispered. “All right. But Mo, if that’s not enough. In the end, if that’s not enough, I need you to take care of Millie and Henry. Millie won’t want to let you. She’s stubborn like that. But make sure she doesn’t stop dancing. I hate it, but she loves it. And that’s the important thing. Make sure she’s doin’ the things she loves. Don’t let her grieve too long. Don’t let her grieve like Dr. Andelin did, making his dead wife follow him around because he couldn’t let her go. Help her let me go, Mo. Tell her I’m happy. Make shit up.”
I choked, laughter and tears warring for supremacy.
“Tell her I’m fighting with legends in heaven, that I am running through meadows of flowers, that I’m being fed grapes . . . scratch that. She wouldn’t like that. Just tell her I’m eating grapes.”
I laughed harder and wiped at my eyes.
“I’ll fight this thing, Mo. I’ll fight as hard as I can until the bell rings. But if the bell rings sooner rather than later, then you gotta promise me that you’ll take care of my girl. We gotta deal?”
“Deal,” I whispered. And we were both quiet for a time, battling grief and gratitude and the irony that there is no sorrow without the sweet.
I heard the door this time and ducked my head, not ready for an audience, but it was just Millie, and Millie couldn’t see my tears. Her face was shiny and pink, like she’d just washed it, and her dark hair was smooth and heavy around her shoulders. She had coffee in one hand—my pot was definitely gone—and she reached forward with the other.
“Where are you, David?” she asked, and she said David like an endearment.
“I’m here, baby.” Tag stood and reached for her hand, guiding her forward and onto his lap. He took her coffee and stole a sip as she dropped a kiss on his whiskery head. Her left arm was wrapped around his neck, and I noticed the ring on her finger. My heart swelled in my chest, and for a moment there was only the sweet, even if I wasn’t surprised. It reminded me of the images I’d been shown the day before.
“I saw your mom again, Millie,” I said gently. Tag turned to stare at me, his eyes blazing in his tired face. Millie turned too, as if opening her mind to the impossibility.
“I saw her yesterday, just for a minute. I think she wants you to wear her veil.”
MILLIE CALLED ME. Her voice was scared and apologetic, and it was so reminiscent of the call she’d made six weeks before, looking for Tag, that I was immediately taken back, immediately seized by fear and dread.
I’d just seen them at their wedding a week ago, and I’d been so hopeful. I’d been so sure that they were going to beat the odds. Not just the cancer, but the odds. They were crazy about each other, and their beauty and devotion was tangible, a rosy-hued pulse that I had itched to paint. They were moving fast, which was Tag’s style, but it wasn’t rushed. It was right. The impromptu wedding and celebration at Tag’s bar made me wish I could marry Georgia all over again, and we’d gotten a sitter and danced together for the first time since our own wedding.
“Moses?”
“What’s wrong, Millie?”
“We were supposed to start chemotherapy tomorrow. But Tag has been running a fever all day. He’s sick, Moses, really sick, and I want him to go to the hospital. He says we should just wait until tomorrow, since we have an appointment anyway. But I don’t want to wait. I could call Axel or Mikey. But he’s their boss. And they tend to do what he says, even if he’s being an idiot.”
“I’m on my way.”
Tag didn’t argue very much, actually. By the time I arrived an hour and a half later, he was too sick to put up much of a fight, although he winked at me and insisted on sitting in the back seat with Millie so he could hold her hand. They hadn’t gotten much of a honeymoon, though Millie said she didn’t care. She was more interested in having her husband. Honeymoons could wait, chemotherapy could not. Henry didn’t want to go back to the hospital again. I didn’t blame him—I didn’t want to go back either—so he stayed with Robin, who wasn’t hiding her fear very well. None of us were.
“I’ll be back, Henry,” Tag promised. “Record the fights for me, okay? I ordered them on pay-per-view. I want the run-down when I get home,” he warned.
Tag’s white count was elevated, but his platelets were still high enough for the first round of chemotherapy to be administered, according to the doctor. They admitted him for observation, but couldn’t find any infection or any reason for the fever, and finally concluded, twenty-four hours later, that the fever was just his body’s attempt to fight the cancer on its own.
With the fever under control and no reason to hold off any longer, they administered the first round of chemotherapy there in the hospital. Tag was resting comfortably, Millie by his side—he even had them convinced that he could go home as soon as he was done.
Then the shaking began. Tag shook so hard the bed shook with him, and he went from resting comfortably to courting death in a very short time. I ran for a nurse who could do nothing for him, and she paged the doctor. The shaking continued. It was like the seizure all over again, but Tag was perfectly aware and racked with pain that seemed never-ending.
“Don’t let them s-s-sa-save me-e, Millie. I d-d-don’t want to be p-plugged in t-t-to anyth-thing someone will e-e-eventually have, have, have t-t-to unplug. I d-don’t want that.” Tag stuttered, grinding his jaw with the effort to form the words. “P-p-promise m-me you’ll l-le-let m-me g-g-go.”
“Okay, David. Okay, I promise. I promise,” Millie crooned, but her eyes were wide open, as if she were straining to see him, as if she were focusing all of her energy on him, as if she refused to have any barrier between them, even her closed eyes. He had turned onto his side, and his forehead was pressed against her chest. She struggled to hold onto him, the rigors shaking her off and making her teeth vibrate with his. But she didn’t let go. He asked for something to bite down on at one point, after his mouth started to bleed from him biting his tongue. But he managed to keep his head pressed into her chest while his body bucked on the narrow bed.
“We see this sometimes,” the doctor said helplessly, when he finally responded. “The chemotherapy is attacking the cancer. There’s a battle going on right now, and his body is just reacting to it.”
What the doctor wouldn’t say was whether or not Tag would win the battle. And for four long hours, none of us knew. I had to step out of the room at one point and get control of myself, call Georgia, and reinforce my walls. If my best friend was going to die, I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to see his dead sister at his shoulder, his great-grandmother waiting patiently for him to cross over. I didn’t want any of it. I didn’t want to know. I refused to know, because hope was vital. Hope was precious. And I would not take that from my friend or the girl who loved him.
At one point toward the end of the night, when the shaking started to slow and the very worst was over, Millie stepped into the bathroom, and I took her place beside Tag. He looked at me and said, “Do you see them, Moses? Is Molly waiting for me? If she’s waiting for me, then we both know what that means.”
“No. She’s not waiting, man. It’s just us—you, me and Millie. We’re the only ones here. It isn’t time yet, Tag.” It wasn’t a lie. I just refused to believe anything else.
He breathed deeply and grabbed my hand.
“I love you, Mo.”
“I love you too.” It was the first time I’d ever told Tag I loved him, the first time I’d ever said something like that to anyone but Georgia, and the words hurt. When I told Georgia I loved her it didn’t hurt. But this? This was excruciating.
“I knew you did,” he whispered. And with a reassured sigh, Tag slid into sleep, and I clung to my friend, determined to keep my promise to keep him earth-bound.