"When I held you in my arms, that last time, I thought you were dying. Actually dying. Blood was pouring from your mouth, and you were pale—like a ghost or something—and so clammy I thought you were going to physically going to slip away from me."
The voice, he knew, was that of his girlfriend, Annabeth Chase. He could recognize that sound in a sea of millions. The antique tapes played back, rolling slowly, lazily, and so the sounds were warped slightly. Big reels, hunks of plastic and vinyl, dinosaurs even in their first year of creation. But he knew that voice. How could he forget it?
It was true, all of it—blood had poured from his mouth, he had been pale, clammy. And she, she had held him in her arms, comforting him, crying over and over how he would be fine—how he had to be fine. He didn't tell her—that is, he didn't get the chance—but looking up at her then, tasting her tears on his tongue, he had never loved her more. The love he felt for her, at that moment, was so intense he felt the urge to write her terrible poetry—a sonnet, perhaps—and recite it on a bed of rose petals. Or, better yet, drop down on one knee and propose, spontaneously. But he couldn't do either of those things. He was too busy dying, choking on his own blood and bile.
The cause? Erosion of the blood vessels in his esophagus. A sign of late-stage liver failure, they told him. He needed a transplant.
But it wasn't that simple. Liver transplantation was in its infant stages in 1974, when he needed one most.
"The nurses had this basin that they used to catch the blood, but you couldn't even sit up enough to reach it. You…you were shaking, jumping, and with each convulsion, more blood would come out. I…" she took a breath, "I didn't even know how you could even produce more. You were so thin, at that point. So…far gone."
He paused the recording, sinking back in his chair and rubbing madly at his temples. It didn't make sense, the recording. He had received it in the mail the week prior, and even listening to it again and again did little to clarify its meaning.
He had listened to her repeat the story of their relationship—their meeting, dates, firsts—including his illness. That part shook him the most—his convalescence. The way her voice shook with emotion, hiccupping and pausing with raw, impotent anger while simultaneously eliciting sorrow, hopelessness. It was haunting, beautiful, so many things all at once. He took a deep breath and pressed 'play.'
"They stuck you with a needle at that point," she continued. "It was a sedative, I suppose. I know you said you don't like being sedated, but I think it was necessary, this time. You stopped convulsing, anyway. They…they were able to get into your throat and stop the bleeding, or so I'm told. You could sleep then—I think you needed it."
"I don't think the doctors meant for me to hear this, but what can I say? I'm nosy. They…Gods, Percy…they said…they said you'll be lucky to make it through the week. They don't know what more they can do, really. You'll never know how much I wanted to storm into the hallway and tell them how wrong they are. To tell them how you're a fighter. It would have been rude, I guess. But I wanted to—I still want to. I…I hope I get the chance. I really do. They've got you sedated now, but I hope they wake you up, if…if."
He knew this part of the tape like the back of his hand. He knew that "if" wasn't her loss of speech, her inability to come to terms with the harsh inevitable. No, it was more than that. It had to be. She—for as much as she did know—she didn't know this, how it would all end up. So she tried her best, labeling her thoughts, emotions, the rational probabilities and statistics—she labeled these with a small, simple word: if. It was a word, he had come to realize, that held a great deal of meaning for her.
Immediately following this, this realization of sorts—this epiphany—was a span of ten seconds, all of which were silent, void of any and all sound. The length of time was heavy, dense, and if one listened closely enough he could hear the light patter of teardrops ricocheting off of a solid oak desk. Percy knew that desk—it was the one at which he sat at now. But the silence—such a pregnant pause, so full of possibility that it made all speechless—was, in a sense, deafening. The ten seconds droned on and on, before the click of the 'off' button was audible and the tapes stopped reeling.
Percy held his head in his hands, releasing a heavy sigh. It didn't make sense, none of it did. The package he had received, the return address bearing Annabeth's name—the tapes, recent photographs, newspaper clippings—none of it. It made no sense. It was improbable, certainly. But more than that, it was impossible. Because he had seen the array of flowers, tears, black clothing. Because he had been there, that awful day, to see that wooden box come to rest among dirt. Because he had seen that face, cold and pale, surrounded by plush satin walls.
Because Annabeth Chase had died four years ago.