Page 43 of Absolution

PartTwo

Beginning

Twelve

*Middlebro*

Christian

The memories of the last few days are blurry at best. Or is it weeks? I wake sweaty, haunted by the usual nightmares where I keep losing something important. The scenarios change, but the lingering feeling is always the same.

Fighting to draw my next breath, I clutch for whatever is wrapped around my chest until I remember there never is anything. The tightness is inside my chest, not around it. I can never get enough air.

The sheets I lie on are dirty and smell of unwashed bodies. I’m not sure how long I’ve been here, coughing myself sweaty, burning up with a fever I try to quell with Advil, crawling between the bathroom and the bed. Ray’s demented mother thinks I’m her son. She’s getting food delivered that she barely touches. I have no appetite either, but I try to chew and swallow a little every day. I have to get my strength back. I have to get help.

She’s thin as a stick, Mrs. McGonaghan, and can’t have much time left in this life, but even so far gone in her dementia, her worry about her son, or who she thinks is her son, is palpable.

I feel genuinely sorry for her. When I leave, if I leave, she’ll lose everything.

For the first time there’s a tiny bit more vigor in me, and I flex my thigh muscles experimentally, wondering if I dare to sit up. I drink a sip of water, fighting the urge to vomit, then roll over on my side and push myself up, swaying, pain searing my chest. I cough. Cough up unmentionable things. Cough until I taste iron, until I spit blood. My attempt at standing fails miserably and I fall on all fours, panting.

She has to have a phone. As I begin to crawl, I pray to a deity I’ve never trusted, all the mandatory church visits in my life a joke, a charade, the confessions to the priest laughable, the tattooed cross on my arm an attempt in my mid-twenties to find him. I never did. But now I pray.

Forgive me father for I have sinned.

I have sinned so fucking much, and maybe this is my penance. If he exists, if there is forgiveness, now would be a good time. I don’t know if I’ll survive this, but fucking hell, I’m not leaving without a fight. Gasping for air, I make my way from room to room. She’s in the same chair as she was sitting in when I literally fell into this house the first time. Next to her on the table is a phone that must have been new in the seventies. It must have been white once. Now it’s grimy from decades of dirty hands gripping the handset.

At first, I think she’s died, but then she slowly turns her head and looks at me, her face as empty as ever. I reach for the phone, clutching it to my chest as I finally allow myself to lie down again, sweating floods, coughing my lungs up.

Thank you, Lord!

With trembling fingers I call the number to my most trusted, most capable brother. He’ll know how to sort this.

“Yeah?” comes Nathan’s voice through the receiver. I might not have heard anything as beautiful in my life.

“Nate,” I croak.

“Who’s this?”

“Chris. I… need help.”

“Damn man, I didn’t recognize your voice. What’s up? What’ve you gotten yourself into now? Don’t tell me you’re about to throw in the towel again?”

“I’m... really ill. I need—” A set of violent coughs renders me unable to speak. Finally I manage to gasp the next word, “help.” I curl up in a fetal position. I don’t know if I can get up from here again today. I’ve used up the little energy I had.

“Where are you?”

Where am I? For a moment my mind is blank. Then I see images, rather than thinking coherent words. Kerry. Her hideaway.

“Middlebro.”

“What? Where the fuck is that?”

“Canada. South… of Winni… peg.” I’m salivating, fighting the urge to throw up again.”

Nathan is quiet, I hear him breathe.

“What’s up with you?”

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