Page 30 of Edge of Darkness (Night Prowler 4)
Looking up at him, Clare smiled at her grandfather and patted him on the arm with motherly fondness, as if she were the adult and Dante the child. “Don’t worry so much, abuelito. It’s bad for your old man heart.”
“Old man! Ah, I’ll give you that spanking, little monkey!”
Dante was obviously teasing, trying to suppress a smile and failing. This seemed an old threat between them, a game they played, because when Dante made a menacing move for her, Clare squealed with delight and skipped away. She darted inside the apartment, swift as a hare, then popped her head back around the door a second later.
“?’Bye Ember! ’Bye Ember’s friend!”
Ember and Asher waved goodbye, and Clare disappeared for good.
“How old is she?” Ember asked, and Dante’s smile began slowly to fade.
“Diez.” Ten. “But only outside. In here,” he pointed to his chest, indicating the heart, “she’s older than those mountains.” He lifted his gaze to the jutting dark line of the Collserola range rising above the city, and closed his eyes just longer than a blink.
Sensing more to this than simple metaphor, Ember asked, “Is she okay?”
Dante, with a quick glance inside to make sure Clare wasn’t standing near the door to the apartment, slowly drew it closed. He sighed and shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “For now, yes. She’s been out of the hospital for three months, which, for my little gordita, is good. Usually the good times don’t last this long.”
Asher said, “What’s wrong with her?”
“Cystic fibrosis.” Dante spat the words as if it burned his tongue to say them. “God’s curse on innocent little children. Their lungs fill up with mucous, their
bodies don’t grow, they can’t digest food or sleep without pain or run without gasping for breath.” He put a hand to his forehead and Ember noticed it was, very slightly, trembling.
Ember knew nothing about cystic fibrosis, except it was bad. Exactly how bad, she had no idea. “Is there a cure? Can they do surgery? I mean, don’t they have drugs for that now?”
Dante looked at her, his eyes suddenly fierce with unshed tears. “There is nothing to be done. When it gets bad, she goes to the hospital and they can make her a little more comfortable. They have some things they can do to help, some medicine to reduce infection, oxygen to help her breathe. But there is no cure. Children with this disease usually don’t live to become adults.”
His voice grew bitter with grief. “In her case, the doctors don’t think she’ll make it another few years.”
Horrified, Ember and Asher gasped in unison.
“That’s awful, Dante! That must be so hard for you and her parents!”
Asher’s words were met with a surprising reaction. At the mention of the word parents, Dante practically growled. “Ah, my good-for-nothing son drops her off here when he can’t take the pressure of caring for his own child anymore. And that woman who is her mother”—he spat a curse in Spanish, a terrible word for any woman to be called—“I hope she rots in hell! She’s a junkie and a worthless waste of human life. She deserted her daughter and my son, left them both when Clare was just a baby. My poor gordita, God tests her courage every day.”
Tears threatening, Ember covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, Dante. I’m so, so sorry.”
He suddenly looked older. His toupee drooped, his skin was sallow, the light that normally shone from his merry dark eyes grew dim. He shook his head slowly back and forth. When he spoke again, his voice had lost all the anger it held when he spoke of her parents, and now had only sadness, and a quiet sort of wonder.
“Clare has faced death every day since she was a baby. Nothing scares her anymore, not people, not dying. She is kind and happy and open, she is fully present in every moment, every hour for her is big and round. Death is just another door that will soon open for her. Because that’s how she sees it: the start of a new adventure. With rainbows and unicorns and the cat she had when she was five that got hit by a car.” His voice grew even quieter. “I have raged against God for the unfairness of this, I have prayed and cursed and cried. But now…now I believe there is a reason behind her suffering. She is teaching me and everyone who comes in contact with her something priceless, I think. Something holy.”
“What’s that?” Asher asked in a hushed whisper when Dante faltered.
He lifted his gaze straight to Ember’s. “She is teaching us all how to live.”
The three of them stood there in silence for a moment, a silence that seemed almost reverent in its depth. Ember felt a little shell-shocked, a little unsteady on her feet. With new appreciation, she remembered what Asher had said to her only hours before.
How alive do you want to be?
Dante, recovering his smile and looking as if it cost him to straighten and throw back his shoulders, said, “Enough of this sad talk! Don’t let me keep you two! Enjoy the rest of your day!” He turned and was just about to close his door before Ember—now overwhelmed with guilt that she’d been hiding from her obligation—stopped him.
“Dante, about the rent—”
“No worry, no worry, hermosa! We’ll talk about that some other time. Go on and enjoy the rest of your Sunday.”
Just like that, he disappeared into his apartment and closed his door, leaving Ember and Asher staring at one another on the stairs.
“That just happened, right?”
