Abandoned Sand Castles (4/8)
Lady of the Lillies
I wake up to the smell of cigarette smoke and coffee. At them moment, I
would kill for the latter, if I knew which the latter is. I knock dutifully
on the connecting door. "Are you both decent?"
I hear Maria's dry laugh. "Quick, hide the stripper." It almost brings a
smile to my face.
Opening the door a crack just in case, I peek in. The poster girl of the
smoking community, Maria, sits at the table, tapping her cigarette in an ash
tray full with the rest of the pack. Isabel distastefully watches her from
the far corner sipping on her coffee and talking on the phone. A look in her
eye so I know that whatever battle she is fighting, she is wining.
"Smoking will kill you." I take a cup of coffee and sit down beside her.
Soon, Isabel joins us.
Who says I want to live? Maria's eyes ask. Instead, she sets it down in the
ash tray. "What did they have to say?"
"We can stop by in an hour." Isabel snickers. She adopts a hick accent. "The
sheriff had to shut her down for a bit. Seems his daughter had to be driven
to her horseback-riding lessons."
"The pleasures of small town life," Maria drawls as she picks up her
cigarette.
"Is there a decent restaurant around here?" Isabel asks as she stares
longingly at her cell phone. A small gleam of hope rises in her eyes. "Is
the Crashdown still open?"
"Shut down a few years ago." Maria frowns slightly. Trying to find the
vibrant place of her youth in the boarded up building with broken windows
and chipped paint. No one cares anymore. "I flunked out of parts of Home Ec.
that I was there for. Can't you guys use your powers or something?"
Resignation. I never thought I'd admit it to her what was our mutual and
silent agreement we had seven years ago. But there was never any need to.
I tried, two years ago. A young girl came into the Emergency Room in
Chicago. Five year old who should have been having a tea party with her
dolls instead of dying in front of me. You should never focus on the
patient, was the first thing you learned in the real world. Never think of
them as more or less than that. Instead of the girl, I was supposed to see a
bullet wound to the chest. Profuse bleeding. A lost cause.
But just for a minute, I saw her. A dark haired little girl with pig tails
that she had done all by herself. A pretty blue dress that she had picked
out herself. Because blue was her favorite color, same as her father.
Probably picked out the peanut butter sandwiches that they were going to eat
at the picnic too. Messy eater, she had gotten a stain on her nice blue
dress. But Mom explained that she would wash it out later. They must have
walked down together, hand in hand, across the street looking for cars. But
they never saw this coming. Not even if they had checked both ways.
Merrith Hunter was in Hethrow Park with her family: Maggie Hunter, Peter
Hunter and sister Sarah Hunter, having a picnic when someone let fire on the
whole place. Aimlessly shooting at whatever moved. No one got hit except for
little Merrith Hunter who had been playing near the fountain.
"She loves water," Maggie Hunter explained as she paced the hospital
hallways. "Loves to take baths. Sarah hates to take baths. Peter loves water
too. She loves her Daddy a lot."
Shooter escaped on foot. Caught latter in a bar reading the sport section.
Drunk. He'll get off in two months.
But I and Merrith have to sit alone and try to find the worlds that will
break her parents for the rest of their lives. Their little girl was going
to die. There was nothing that the doctors, or God, or I could do. I looked
at that innocent face, I could help but see the person. And see myself.
If that was my child, would I let her die? Would I just stand by and live
through every day knowing that I could have done something? Selfish as I am,
I saw it as a way to right my wrong.
You can't just get on the bike. You have to learn all over again. You have
to keep falling and falling. I kept failing and failing. The more I tried,
the more my stomach turned cold and soon my sweaty hands were pushing
against the middle of that little blue dress in anger. I was breaking.
"What the hell are you doing to my daughter?" Peter Hunter looked a lot like
his daughter. It was those blue eyes. Those dead blue eyes...
"I'm sorry," I mumbled. Peter looked at me like some caged animal. Needing
pity. "I'm so sorry."
"Max?" Isabel places a cold hand on my shoulder. I jerk up to meet her
concerned gaze. The mask that she wears has melted away from concern. "It's
no problem. We'll have take out."
And in her eyes, I can see the truth that she hides beneath her hate. She
has lost her powers too.