By the next morning I had gotten the doctor's promise that I would be discharged that evening. So there was only the rest of the day to get through. Just a few more hours surrounded by hospital things.
Out of sheer exhaustion I had almost slept through the night. When I did wake up, disoriented (according to the clock, around three), I lay still, afraid that if I moved or rustled the covers too much I might disturb Kara in the next bed. But I couldn't get over the urge to tell her about what had happened to me, about my stitches, and why I hadn't come home for Thanksgiving, how I had stopped to pick up a motorist in trouble for the first time ever, and how I had met Victoria.
And when I did turn over, away from the windows, I only saw Ben, who had been allowed to sleep on his back. He lay there, free of all the tubes and machines I had expected to see attached to Kara, his chest expanding and contracting strong and independently under the blanket. I watched him for what seemed like a long time, until I felt the desire to get up and walk over to him.
I did, and standing beside him I willed him to heal, to be free of this place. Maybe I was sleepwalking, but it seemed like the right thing to do to lay my hand on his shoulder, lightly, so as not to wake him, and to ask that he would get better, that he would walk again.
Despite my efforts to be quiet, his eyes came open at the touch, and he started. "Dad?" he asked.
Startled myself, I apologized.
He bit his lip and asked the obvious. "What are you doing?"
"I was saying a prayer," I said, not knowing how else to explain what had carried me out of my bed and to the edge of his in the middle of the night.
"I thought you were a ghost," he answered, though the idea didn't seem to distress him.
"I thought you were too," I said. "I guess I was tying to keep you real."
"Oh, you don't believe in ghosts?"
I looked at his face, still retaining some of the peacefulness of sleep despite my interruption, and I wondered if he could be serious. His expression was so mild, yet I could see he was curious, trying to figure out why I would choose him to say a prayer over, and whose ghost it was that I had taken him for.
I turned and walked back towards my gurney. Did I believe in ghosts?
I wanted to believe. To believe anything that would make people permanent--anything to eliminate loss and loneliness. I stalled at climbing into bed, trying to keep my back to him so that he wouldn't see I was ready to cry. I hoped the window's angle wasn't right to produce a reflection of my face.
"The dead are dead," I told him, though I hoped the opposite. "Why would they want anything to do with us?"
