Angela Morrison - Sing Me to Sleep

“It’s not my fault.” I bang the steering wheel with my hand. “You can’t blame me. He doesn’t tell me anything.”

“Oh, sheesh.” Blake doesn’t say anything for a long moment. “You don’t know.”

The cell slips in my sweaty hand. I grapple with it, get it back jammed to my ear. “Tell me what he has, Blake.” My voice cracks. “I’m going crazy.” I’m trembling, trying to control myself from breaking down with the shock that’s starting to register.

“Forget I said anything.” The jerk hangs up on me.

I throw my phone into the passenger seat and pull forward. Three more cars to go. Two more. One more. My turn. I pull up to the Canadian border booth thing and roll down my window.

A friendly looking guy in his twenties puts his hand on my roof and leans over to speak through the window. “Passport, please.”

“Passport?” The Canadians up at our crossing at Port rarely want ID.

“You locals need to learn.”

I fumble in my purse and grab my wallet. “Please.” I shove my license at him. “My boyfriend’s in the hospital.”

“You’re in love with a Canadian?” Oh my gosh—is he flirting?

I just nod.

He gives me back my license. “I hope he’s okay. Godspeed.”

I get a lump in my throat as I drive off. I sniff and rub my eyes. Pull it together, girl. You’ve got to drive. I glance down at my gas gauge. Shoot. All I’ve got are American dollars. I pull off at one of the gas stations in Windsor past the border crossing. They’re happy to take my dollars—rip me off on the exchange. I buy a big bottle of water and some gum. I should eat, but the smell of stale chips, cookies, and jerky blended with diesel churns my tense guts into knots.

As I head up the 401 in the deep cold of a black night, I try to stay calm, but the border guy undid me. Tears attack. Burn my eyes and face. It starts to snow. Dumb snowbelt. Stupid Great Lakes. Stupid winter. I so don’t need this tonight. I follow the signs to London, push Jeannette up to seventy-five, as the snow falls thick and fast, deadening the sound of our passage, but it doesn’t muffle the way I’m crying. Snot runs down the back of my throat and then over my lips. I catch it before it drips off my chin and stains my blood-red gown.

I have to stop this. I’ll scare Derek looking like this. I don’t want him to know—

But I do.

He needs to know.

He should see the destruction. I’ve felt like a ball of hot tears and snot inside all this time. Why not let it out? Let him see. No more pretenses. No more faking it. He has to let me in.

If he loves me at all, he needs to see this. This mess I’ve become.

I curse and cry and yell stupid things at him. He’s sick, and I’m flipping out livid at him. I hit a drift that throws a sheen of snow into my headlight’s beam. Jeannette gets pulled hard to the side of the road, but I crank the wheel, get my old girl straightened out and back up to speed.

Jeannette and I fight through drift after drift, me sobbing, her engine throbbing, the two solid hours it takes to get to London from the border. My voice is wrecked by the time I flick on my signal and take the Wonderland Road exit.

I plan to stop at a gas station and raid the yellow pages for hospitals, but I see it before I even spot a pay phone. Red brick sprawling giant off to the right. I slow down and turn in, follow the maze into a visitors’ parking lot, and shut off the car. I pull my pink choir T-shirt out of my bag and wipe my face with it. I catch a glimpse in the rearview mirror. All the makeup’s rubbed off. I reach for at least a cover stick. Stare at it. A bitter laugh erupts from my throat. I toss the magic wand aside.

I bang through the glass doors, into the florescent-lit lobby, and march over to a chubby middle-aged guy with a red face under an INFORMATION sign. “Derek Collins, please.”

“Derek, huh?” He types in the name. “Only family allowed up.” He notices my dress, and his eyebrows shoot up. “It’s late for a hospital visit.”

“I’m his sister.”

“Another one? My old buddy, Derek, has got to tell me how he does it.” He hands me a map with a room starred on it. Then he notices my face, my ski jacket thrown over a shimmering gown, and compassion fills his eyes. “I’m sorry. You head right upstairs and cheer him up.”

Am I the only girl on earth who’s never been here?

“Tell that boy he owes me three chocolate bars for this.”

I run away from his friendly voice. Get on an elevator. Stare at the map. Crap. This can’t be right. I ask a young red-haired guy who pushes a cart of pills onto the elevator at the next floor for help. I show him the room number, helplessly.

“That’s Derek’s room.”

“Why does everyone here know him so well?”

“We have our favorites. And that kid—the way he comes back and sings to everyone, brings his friends. We’re all pulling for him.”

My eyes are blurring up again. The guy reads my gross red-blotched, puffed-fat face and how I have to bite my lips to keep them still. “Here. I’ll take you.”

He puts his freckled arm out for me to grab onto and leads me down a long corridor, up another, through a bunch of doors into another elevator. He hustles me past the nurses’ station.

I want to hug him by the time we’re standing in front of the door that matches the room number written on my map. He opens the door and pushes me inside and pulls the door closed behind me.

Derek’s there, lying in a hospital bed, with a mask strapped on his face. He has to fight to get each breath in. His face looks blue against the stark-white hospital sheets. His damp hair stands out dark against his pale skin. His eyes are closed. The eyelids are purple, and he’s got dark shadows under his eyes. His long black lashes look wet. There’s a bag of clear liquid hanging on an IV pole. My eyes follow the narrow tube out the bottom of it to where it turns into a syringe sticking into his chest. There’s another pole holding up a bag of yellowish murky stuff. It has a tube, too. A bit fatter. That tube disappears under the sheets. Oh, gross. I think it’s going into his stomach—where that Band-Aid was. I peer at his face. Tiny clear tubes run into each nostril.

I must have made a noise—a sharp intake of my breath. Maybe I sniffed.

His eyes open, and they focus on me. “No, Beth.” He closes his eyes again.

“ No ?” I say it too loud, too harsh.

“Not you.”

“Who else?” I’m losing control.

He pulls down the mask he was breathing into so he can talk better. “You’re not supposed to see this.” His voice is thick and raspy. “Go away.”

“Look at me.” I move to the foot of his bed. “Open your eyes, damn you.” It’s my turn to curse. My turn to scream.

He won’t open his eyes.

I go around to the side of his bed and pry an eyelid open. His skin is hot and slick, but I persist.

He sees me well enough. He turns his face away.

My fingers slip into his dark, damp hair. I lean down and speak in his ear. “This is what you’re doing to me.”

“Go away.”

“It’s not that easy.”

He turns to face me, brushes my face with his fingers. He holds me there with the love deep in his feverish eyes until I can’t bear it anymore.

I turn away this time, stumble over to a chair by the door, and break down.

“Oh, Beth.” He struggles to speak. “Please, Beth. Don’t cry like that.”

I jump to my feet, fear fueling that anger I uncovered in the car. “What am I supposed to do?” I screech in his face. “Tell me, Derek. Whatever it is—I have to know.”

“I didn’t want this to happen.”

“That’s so stupid.” I scream. “I love you. How can you be so cruel?” I whip my head back and forth and keep yelling. “I hate you for doing this. I hate you.” I lunge at him with my fists balled up, screaming, “Stop lying. Damn it, Derek. Stop! ”