For Brad (2)

Brad waits with me in the hospital as our brother dies, and the light crystallizes to something translucent and ghostly through the filaments of the fluorescent bulbs.  We are there long enough to begin to see the dust bunnies in the corners, and the frayed edges of the curtains, and the circular mop patterns on the floor. 

We are there long enough to know the buttons on the remote that no longer work for the television, and we slide through the walls, to the bright blue sky of the pediatrics ward, where they have taken him again for being sick and not knowing why, although I know it’s because he is drinking mixtures of things under the bathroom sink to get Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright to remove him from school. 

We are there long enough for me to be wheeled down to obstetrics where I am forced to kill the baby we accidentally made together, and he holds my hand and gives me Saltines while everyone asks who the father is and I say I never knew his name but they all know I’m lying. 

We are there long enough it’s Mrs. Cartwright who is dying of cancer, and he waits for her to die coldly, picking his fingernails with his switchblade, and talking to me about nightmares. 

I grow up in the hospital as an outsider forced inward on an institutional world, where savvy is born of the comfort that all memories of this time will fade, given luck.  I grow up with Brad in the hospital, and when it’s time to leave, he tells me. 

I wake up in the hospital, and it’s bright outside, and there are magazines on the tables.  Brad’s eyes are clear and cruel.

“It’s time to go,” he tells me, and I snuggle against my purple sweater.

“Okay,” I tell him.  “Are you sure?”

He takes my hand, and squeezes it.

“Evie, look around.  There’s nothing left here.  This place has been closed for years.”

I look around the waiting room.  It’s bright white, the furniture covered in sheets, and a layer of white dust that floats in the air like snow.  We’re alone, and the sky is searing and gray-white like the ocean when the sun hits it. 

“You stayed here?” I ask him, suddenly confused, suddenly emotional, and suddenly understanding what’s happened.  I start to hyperventilate.  Not only has he stayed, into the decay of the hospital falling into disrepair, but he’s stayed until it became a ghost of itself, the rust stains and black mold turning into the shells and silt that wash up clean onto the beach.  He stayed through the hospital sinking green into the earth’s ecology, through the explosion of a nuclear bomb, and through the dusty wind blowing away all the possible life inside.

“Brad?” I ask the white room, and he clutches my knuckles hard in his. 

“I’m here, Evie.  I’m always fuckin’ here.”