Cody McFadyen: Shadow Man

The doctor holds one of those instruments everyone has seen but can't name--like a revolving spur on the end of a handle. He is poised to run those sharp points across the bottom of her feet, and he looks up at Callie. "Ready?"

Elaina grips her hand on one side of the bed, I on the other. Marilyn stands to Elaina's left. Bonnie looks on, a worried expression on her face.

"Tickle me, honey-love."

He runs the spur across the sole of her left foot. Looks at her. "Did you feel that?"

Her eyes widen with fear. Her voice is small. "No."

"Don't panic," he tries to reassure her. I can tell this is not working, because her hand is crushing mine. "Let's try the other foot." He runs the spur across it, we wait . . .

And then a twitch. The big toe moves. Callie holds her breath.

"Did you feel that?" he asks again.

"I'm not sure . . ."

"That's okay. The toe moving is an excellent sign. Let's try it again."

He runs the spur across the bottom of her foot. This time, the toe twitches immediately.

"I--I felt it!" Callie exclaims. "Not a lot--but I did."

"That's very, very, very good, Callie," the doctor says, soothing.

"Now I want you to try something else for me. I want you to try and move that toe for me, the one that twitched."

Callie's hands are sweating. I can feel the smallest tremble.

"Come on," Elaina soothes. "Try it. You can do it."

Callie is looking down at her big toe, an intensity of concentration that an Olympic runner couldn't match. I can feel her mental strain as something palpable.

The toe moves.

"I felt something that time!" Callie says, excited. "More of a . . . connectedness. Does that make sense?"

The doctor smiles. It is a big smile, a huge smile. None of us have allowed ourselves to relax into relief yet, but I can feel the possibility building. We need to hear the words from his mouth. "Yes. That makes a lot of sense. And it is very good news. There is only a five percent chance that you'll experience some impairment. Nothing that physical therapy can't handle, but I don't want you to worry if it happens. If that occurs, it'll be a matter of retraining your body to accept the messages between brain and legs." He pauses. "But I feel confident in saying this: You are not going to be paralyzed."

Callie's head goes back against her pillow and she closes her eyes, the room is filled with a chorus of "Thank God"s; it's a hurricane of relief. Then we all stop.

Because we hear the wail.

It is the sound of someone releasing something crippling and huge and awful, a keening, and we all turn to see where it is coming from. Bonnie. Little Bonnie is against the door of Callie's room, face red, tears practically bursting from her eyes, fist against her mouth. Trying to hold in a volcano of grief that is demanding release. I am shocked into speechlessness. I feel as though someone has cut my heart in half with a straight razor.

Of us all, it is Bonnie who feared for Callie the most, and the sheer unexpectedness of this makes her grief all the more overwhelming. That, and my understanding of it. If Callie had been crippled, he would have won, in Bonnie's eyes. She is wailing for her mother, for me, for Elaina, for Callie, and for herself.

Callie's voice cuts through the air, a soft arrow. "Come here, honeylove," she says, with a gentleness that makes me want to stagger. Bonnie rushes over to her bedside. She takes Callie's hand and closes her eyes and weeps against it as she rubs her cheek across the knuckles, over and over and over. Cherishing Callie's life and crying for her own world, all at the same time.

Callie murmurs to her, wordless, while the rest of us remain mute. We couldn't speak if we wanted to.

Callie had asked to see me alone, for just a few moments.

"So," Callie says, after a space of silence. "I suppose just everyone knows about me and Marilyn now?"

I grin. "Pretty much."

She sighs, but it doesn't sound like a sigh of regret. "Ah, well." She's quiet for a moment. "She loves me, you know."

"I know."

"But that's not why I asked you to stay in here with me," she says.

"No? Then why?"

"There's something I need to do, and . . . well, I'm not quite ready to do it with Marilyn yet. Maybe never."

I look at her, puzzled. "What?"

She motions me closer. I sit on the edge of the bed. "Scoot in a little bit closer."

I do. She reaches out with her hands and gently grabs the sides of my arms, pulling me into her, until she is hugging me. It takes me a moment to get it, and then I do, and I close my eyes and hug her tight.

She's sobbing. Silent and wordless, but with everything she has. So I hug her and let her cry, and I don't feel sad. These aren't those kind of tears.

I T IS FIVE O'CLOCK,and James and I are the only ones left in the office. This is a rare moment. All the monsters have been put to bed, for now. We can leave on a schedule. I plan to take advantage of it. I watch as my report prints out. The last page will come, and that single piece of paper will stand for the end of the Jack Jr. case. All its blood and misery and life snuffed out too soon.

But not really. The things he did, and how those things affected us and others, will resonate and echo for years to come. He cut with a broad sword, indiscriminate and deep. Scar tissue may be nerveless, but it's still visible, and sometimes during the wee hours, it can tingle like a phantom limb.

Like Keenan and Shantz. That limb does not just tingle, it aches.

"Here are my notes," James says, startling me. He drops them on the desk.

"Thanks. I'm almost done."

He stands there, watching the printer as well. It's another rare moment: James and I sharing a comfortable silence.

"So I guess we'll never know," he says.

"I guess not."

We share the dark train, and so we both share the same wonder, without needing to put specific words to it.

Was there someone before Peter Hillstead's father? Was there a deadly grandfather, or great-grandfather? If you could follow it back, before the days of true forensics and cross-referenced computerized data, would you take a trip across the ocean and find yourself in gaslamplit cobblestone streets?

Running from a faceless man holding a gleaming scalpel and wearing a top hat?

Would you finally put a face on a legendary terror?

Probably not.

But we'll never know for sure.

It is the ability to let questions like this go unanswered, to walk away from them without looking back, that lets us keep our sanity. The last page prints out.

I HAD ANNIEburied next to Matt and Alexa. That way Bonnie and I can visit our families together.

It's a beautiful day. That California sun, the kind my dad loved best, is out in all its glory, tempered by a cool breeze that keeps you from getting too hot. The grass in the cemetery hasn't been cut yet this week, and it waves every so often, all thick and lustrous green. Looking across the cemetery, where the gravestones go as far as the eye can see, I can imagine this as the bottom of the ocean, covered with seaweed and row after row of wrecked ghost ships.

I see other people, single or together, young or old. They are visiting their own wives or husbands, sons or daughters, brothers or sisters. Some died peacefully. Some died in violence. Some were comforted, while others died alone.

Some graves have no visitors. They grow old and cracked with neglect. Though it is filled with memories of death and haunted by ghosts, it is a peaceful place. And this is a perfect day.

Bonnie has been planting flowers on Annie's grave by hand. She finishes, standing up and brushing the dirt off her palms.

"You done, honey?" I ask her.