CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

December 10

Patient Number 0548

Buzz, crackle, shivery light. Fear. It was up ahead, she sensed it as much as she saw it, the pulse of light and dark, light and dark , the way nothing else existed in this black landscape except the pulsing gas station, somehow pulling her toward it. No, oh no, don’t make me go there. Not there.

That’s when she felt the brush of something against her leg, warmth flooding her body as she reached down and petted his head. A Saint Bernard, his fur warm and soft. She continued stroking his head, back, forth, back, forth . And when the animal began to walk, toward that pulsing light, she didn’t hesitate; she moved with him.

The dog was wearing a thick collar, and Lennon gripped it, finding strength in the canine’s sure movements and the fact that she was not alone. She felt the love of the animal radiating through her hand and down her limbs and knew that he would not leave her side, no matter what happened.

The gas station was deserted except for one lone car, the red Mazda that Tanner had been driving since high school. Oh. She heard a brittle noise, as though her heart were made of glass and a crack had just zippered down the middle. She’d forgotten that car. Where had it gone?

The dog nudged her thigh, and she kept moving, toward the door to that convenience store where her world had split in two. She was currently in the before, but when she stepped inside, she’d be in the after. She wanted to stay here, in the place where young men with their whole future in front of them didn’t die, in the place where life happened just as you’d planned it. Oh, it hurt. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt, and she couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t bear the feeling of standing in the shoes of the girl she’d been, such hopeful surety in her heart. An ache rose inside so massive that it threatened to sweep her away. Back, forth, back, forth. She gripped his collar as the Saint Bernard who loved her rubbed his head on her leg, soothing, comforting. You can do this. I’m right here.

But I don’t want to. Why must I?

Because you must be able to tell your story. All of it. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. You’ve forgotten the middle, haven’t you? The middle is the most important part.

The dog nudged her, and so she moved with him, pulling the door open and entering the store. The lights were soft in here, no buzzing. Just a quiet store on a quiet night, the clerk sitting behind the counter, reading a textbook and singing along to the Muzak playing on the speakers overhead. The music became louder, blaring in her head for a moment, about pi?a coladas and walking in the rain. Then as quickly as it’d blared, it lowered, and that’s when she saw him. “Tanner,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. Oh. Her heart squeezed and dipped and expanded. “Tanner.” He was laughing, and his hair had fallen over his forehead the way it did. She hadn’t remembered so many things about him, and she felt terrible about that. But she could memorize them now because he was here, right in front of her, alive.

Barely visible rays of light moved from her to him and back again, some energy she didn’t know how to describe because she’d never experienced it before. Oddly shaped numbers glowed everywhere in that same elusive light, bouncing off each other and changing into other numbers.

She reached for Tanner, but suddenly she was blown back, and she screamed as she flew through the air, the blast of the shotgun so loud that it felt like a bomb had exploded between her ears.

Someone ran past her, the man who’d robbed the store, the one who’d come in behind them while they laughed and sang about pi?a coladas in the potato chip aisle. The one with the bloodshot eyes who’d shot Tanner. Tanner had dropped the bottle of iced tea he’d been holding, and it’d crashed loudly on the floor. She sat up, watching blearily as a girl in jeans and a white sweater went down on her knees next to him. Me. That’s me. She watched the horror in her own eyes, and then she watched as that horror increased when her past self looked out the front door.

She knew what the girl who was her was seeing. She was watching the other men who’d been in the car with the robber get out and move back toward the store. Why? Why? Oh no, oh God. What did they want? She asked the question then, but she knew the answer now. They were part of a gang, and they’d been taking part in an initiation that went awry. They were supposed to rob the clerk, but they’d accidentally shot a customer. And there’d been a witness. Her. The other members had decided that they had to kill her and the clerk so the murder wouldn’t come back to them. And so they’d headed back into the store to clean up the mess. All this knowledge was contained in one short string of numbers that flashed in the air in front of her.

The girl who was her shot to her feet, picking up Tanner under his arms and dragging him toward the back. He moaned. He was still alive. Her breath came out in ragged pants and she could barely feel her limbs, but that small sound gave her the hope and the courage to pull him around the corner and toward the back. She felt the feelings of then mixed with the sorrow of now, and though it was terrible and tragic and hopeless, there was a bright pulse underlying it all, numbers and light smashing and colliding and dancing in a way that was so beautiful her mouth fell open. It was love, love so bright and profound that it made her gasp in wonder. She’d acted in love for Tanner, and she knew through the sight of the light and the numbers that he felt it. Her love was flowing into him despite the fear and the cold and the panic. It was brighter than all those things and more powerful than anything she’d ever felt.

The light lulled her, and for a moment she drifted, but then something sharp poked her ribs and she groaned, moving away from it and opening her eyes.

Come back. The middle is waiting for you. I’m with you. Let’s go.

Cold. God, she was suddenly so, so cold. She lifted her head, blinking around. A freezer. She was in a freezer. She’d pulled Tanner inside and his head was cradled in her lap. She shivered, hunching her shoulders against the chill. Next to her, the warmth of the Saint Bernard pressed in, his thick coat giving her comfort and warding off the worst of the cold. He rubbed his head against her shoulder. Back, forth, back, forth. Lennon looked down and pulled in a sob. Tanner’s lips were curved in a smile, his eyes just beginning to shut. He wouldn’t open them again, the her of now knew that. But so did the her of then. “No,” she said. “No, no, no.”

She heard the robbers in the store, yelling at the clerk. Then she bit down on her tongue so she wouldn’t scream when she heard the blast of the shotgun. He’d been killed but only after he’d told them he hadn’t called the police. She learned later that his cell phone was dead. He’d been heading for the office to call for help when they returned to kill him. There was no alarm. No one on the way. And Lennon was in the freezer with the dying boy she loved.

“Hey, Picasso.” She pulled in a breath, gasping when she looked up to see that Tanner was no longer in her lap but standing, leaned against the wall, one foot crossed over the other. So casually handsome, full of life.

“Picasso? Why do you call me Picasso? I play the piano.”

He grinned, completely unfazed by the sounds coming from beyond the door, the sound of something heavy being pushed against it and what she now knew was a broom handle being jammed under the lever. Why make things bloodier when two people had sealed their own doom by locking themselves in a commercial freezer? Or maybe they were sociopaths. Maybe knowing their victims would both suffer, and for longer, excited them. “Are you sure?” Tanner asked with a lift of his brow. “I’m almost positive he’s a musician.”

“He’s an artist.” She could visualize his paintings even now. Abstract. Disturbing as far as she was concerned and not at all her style.

“No, I’m pretty sure he plays the piano.”

She rolled her eyes. He loved to pretend to be wrong about something and get her nineteen-year-old self riled up. The Lennon of now pulled in a breath of despair. “Your sense of humor would have gotten better,” she said. “I was counting on it.”

He laughed. “No, it wouldn’t have. And no, you weren’t. But by the way, I still have a sense of humor.”

“You’re dead, Tan.”

“Whatever you say, Picasso.” He smiled again. “But there’s a lot you don’t know.”

“Like what?” She turned toward the sound of another object being shoved in front of the door. She’d known later what they used but she couldn’t remember now. It didn’t matter, she supposed. She’d finally found the courage to get up, then, and she watched as her panicked, horrified, tearful self moved Tanner gently and then stood, pushing uselessly against the door. She went over to her then-self and took her hand. The girl looked up, startled, eyes blinking as Lennon pulled the girl that was her away from the door. They sat on the floor again, and Lennon put her arm around the girl and pulled her close, the Saint Bernard taking the other side and warming her chilled skin. It’d been so cold. So hopeless and so desolate. So filled with indescribable grief. She could never stand the cold after that. It was the temperature of horror and despair. The mildest chill would send panic dripping through her. She carried blankets and sweaters everywhere she went, refusing to ever be cold again. Trying desperately to ward off the wintry winds of mourning.

The misty numbers split and divided and twirled toward her through the air, disappearing through her skin, marking her, even if she didn’t know exactly how.

A second scene rose up in front of her, that moment she’d driven by Ambrose standing in the rain. He’d looked to be shivering, and she couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t drive by and leave him there in the cold. Not after the story he’d told about the sea lion and the man who’d realized the value of his life in a four-second fall.

In some ways, her freezer had been her four-second fall. But she’d carried such guilt for wanting so badly to live, to come out alive, when Tanner would not. Lines of light and opaque numbers split and jumped and rose and fell, and for the flash of an instant she understood it all. How the universe was made of math and vibrations and everything affected everything each moment of every day. And as soon as that vast knowledge blossomed, it faded away, ungraspable. Gone.

She drew the girl that was her closer, letting her know she was going to be okay. She was going to live, and she was going to heal, and she was going to be pulled from this freezer, almost dead but not quite, her will to live strong and fierce. For herself and for Tanner, who she’d held in her arms that long frigid night, stroking his frozen cheek even after he’d died.

She’d asked him a question a moment ago— what is it I don’t know? She looked up at him now, and he was watching her, a small smile on his face. “Well, you might not know that classical music very literally lowers blood pressure and reduces anxiety. You should remember that, Picasso. And you should start playing again.”

She shook her head. “I can’t, Tan. It hurts too much. That was the old me and I can’t be her again.”

“You can’t be me, either, though. So where does that leave you?”

She sighed. He was right, and she had no answer to his question. When she looked back up at Tanner, he still had that gentle smile on his face, and this time, he had a bundle in his arms. He nodded down to what she could now see was a baby. He approached and squatted next to her, holding the baby so carefully. Her heart squeezed tightly in pain. “Is it our baby?” she asked. The one they would have had but now never would?

“No, silly,” he said. “It’s your baby. He’s beautiful. He’s going to be a healer.” Then Tanner tipped the baby, and Lennon gasped as the baby rolled forward and then disappeared into her. Tanner smiled. He stood and went to the door. “Open it, Lennon.”

“I can’t. It’s locked. It’s barred from the outside.”

“No, it’s not. Not anymore. It hasn’t been for a long time. Open it.”

She came slowly to her feet, pulling the girl that was her along, the dog following behind. She put her hand on the lever and pushed at the door, opening it easily. Oh. Tanner stood outside now, reaching his hand out to her. “I’ve been waiting for you to leave that freezer,” he said. “Come on out. It sucked in there. It’s time to leave for good.”

She grasped his hand, hot tears leaking down her cheeks. “I don’t want to say goodbye to you again,” she said.

“I’m not gone for good. But you still have a lot to do here. Use your gifts. Go live, Picasso.”

“I love you.”

“I know. I love you too.”

She stepped forward, through the mist, putting one foot in front of the other, her hand held tight to the Saint Bernard’s collar. The mist grew thicker, swirling, the light and numbers dissolving into it as it, too, faded. Outlines formed, and she became aware of soft sounds. Whispered voices drawing closer. She felt something beneath her. A soft chair. She felt so sleepy, but also somehow wide awake. There was this deep feeling of ... joy flowing through her. Her heart was so full . She squeezed her fist. She was no longer holding the collar. That was okay. She wasn’t alone.

She felt softness on her cheek, brushing her tears away, and raised her heavy lids. Ambrose. He was right there, peering at her, his expression worried but also hopeful. His gaze went to her lips, and then he smiled, returning what must be her own expression. She swallowed, trying to find her voice. “Hi,” he said. His voice was gentle, so gentle.

Those soulful eyes. She’d gotten lost in those eyes the moment she’d met him. Some part of her had recognized them. Perhaps it wasn’t only his soul she’d seen, but also her own mirrored there. She lifted her hand and brought it to her stomach, where she knew the tiny flicker of a brand-new heart beat beneath her skin. A son she’d met for an instant, a baby boy who had his father’s eyes.