Waking Anastasia (35 page)

@TheTaoOfJerr: “The only truth is music.”

~Jack Kerouac

BY THE END
of the block, Jerry was soaked and shivering. “This is getting to be a habit, buddy.” He looked ahead, left and right, down streets he was only vaguely familiar with. He glanced over his shoulder. He was alone. No fellow pedestrians, no taxis, no horse-drawn carriages, no Ana chasing after him. The frigid rain pounded down on his cap, ran down his back, soaked him from top to bottom, bottom to top, inside and out . . . and it washed away his hurt, his frustration, and most importantly, it scrubbed him clean of the fear that had been threatening to overwhelm him.

He turned around, slipped a bit on the cold, wet cobblestones. It was time to face the world, and he would start back in the warmth of the loft. He went home. At the front door to the building he jammed his hands into the coat’s pockets and found his keys buried at the bottom of the right one, under a layer of fast-food napkins and plastic-wrapped restaurant mints. He looked Heavenward. “Thank you.”

The freezing cold caught up to him and he stumbled up the stairs, fumbled with the keys and lock, and would have broken in the door if he’d had the strength. Eventually the key fit the lock and turned. He shuffled into the loft, placed Ana’s book carefully on the mantelpiece, then shed his rain-soaked coat and shuffled into the bathroom where he peeled off his soaked pyjamas and the hat, dropped them on the floor, stepped into the tub, pulled the plastic curtain around himself, and turned on the shower. He didn’t wait for it to warm up and really didn’t need to since he was much colder than even the cool spray that preceded the hot. He sat there, curled up under the spray, numb.

WHEN THE SHOWER
began to cool after he’d used up all of the hot water, Jerry shut it off and climbed out, ready for nothing more complicated than sleep. Sleep, and more painkillers. The frigid rain and the hot shower had washed away the headache, but his soul ached and throbbed and was numb, all at once. He went through the motions of drying off with the big bath sheet. Eventually he tossed it over the shower rod and wandered out into the heat of the loft proper.

Standing naked by the bed, he couldn’t find his pyjamas at first. Then he remembered the wet lump on the bathroom floor, and instead grabbed sweatpants and a hoodie from the ever-present pile of clothes on the chair next to the dresser. He swallowed two more capsules and curled up in a fetal position with the pillow hugged close. Once again, sleep found Jerry, and he welcomed it.

A CHIME SOUNDED
in Jerry’s dream and he reached for the old, black dial phone on the desk next to his dream self. He picked up the receiver. “Hello?” No one answered. “Helloooo? Is there anybody out there?” The chime sounded again and he concluded that it wasn’t the phone. He looked around the vintage office of his dream but it slipped away, revealing the walls and framed photographs and dim light of the loft. “What?”

The chime sounded a third time, and he finally clued in. “Skype?” Who the hell would be calling him? Not his mother, that’s for sure. Maybe Carole. By the time he got to his desk and the laptop, the chime was silent. The caller ID was still on the screen, and although he had to squint, he could see that it was Isis’ number. With a couple quick taps of the laptop’s touchpad, he called her back. While it rang, he dropped his butt into the desk chair. Isis couldn’t have gone far from her computer because she answered quickly.

“Jerry! You’re there!” She signed rapidly. “I love you I’m sorry I hung up on you Mom is mad as shit at me for doing it!”

He waved at her to stop, and signed with strong gestures to get her attention. “Isis! Slow down! You’ll melt your nail polish you’re talking so fast. It’s okay. My mom almost hung up on me, too, when I told her last night.”

“So it’s true? You have cancer?”

“Yes, it is. It’s not something I would joke about.” He found himself comforted by talking with Isis. His anger at being awakened thinned and dissipated.

“You’re dying?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Probably within the next month or so. The doctors think I have longer but I’m not so sure.”

“Am I going to get to see you again, before you go?”

“I’m not sure. I’m flying my family out to see me this weekend, while I’m still healthy enough, but I hadn’t planned on doing any travelling, because of the seizures I’ve started having.”

“Oh. Can I come visit you?”

“I don’t think your parents would be too impressed with their fifteen-year-old daughter flying out to see an old man.”

“They’re cool with it. It was Dad’s idea. He cried as hard as me when you told us you were sick. That big tough cop is just a softy inside. If he can come, he will, but he says Mom and I can come out if you let us.”

He thought about Ana and how much she would have loved meeting Isis in person. “I’d love to see you, but let’s see how the next week or so go. I may need some recovery time after my mother’s visit.”

“Is it okay with Ana if we visit? I’ll ask her myself, if you think that would be better, more polite.”

Shit. “Um, Ana isn’t here anymore, Isis. She’s gone.”

“
What did you do?
!” Her signs were sharp and angry. “I could tell by the look on both your faces that she is the best thing to ever happen to you! I don’t care what you do, you get her back!” He tried to say again that he had no idea where she went, but Isis didn’t let him get a sign in edgewise. “Call her number every ten minutes, go pound on her door, email her, text her . . . I don’t care what you have to do. You need to have someone there who loves you and, most important, you deserve to have love in your life. Haley is a bitch and I’m glad you got away from her, and I’m too young for you, so find Ana and be in love.” Her hands slowed down so that he could make no mistake in the translation. “Or I will fly out there and kick your ass myself. Is that understood?” She folded her arms over her breasts and waited for his answer.

Ana was never coming back but he didn’t need to argue with Isis over it. “Yes. Clear as glass, Miss Bossypants.”

“You can call me all the names you want, Jerry, but at the end of the day I will
still
kick your ass. Now, tell me about your cancer. Brain cancer?”

“Brain cancer. Glioblastoma multiforme.” He spelled it out for her because he didn’t know the signs for the proper medical name, if there even were any.

“It’s growing in your head?”

“Yes. It’s the cause of my headaches and lately it’s making me want to throw up, my eyesight sucks, I’ve started having seizures, my memory is like Swiss cheese, and my moods are swinging like crazy.”

“Can they operate on it? Chemo? Radiation?”

“They haven’t decided, yet. I just told them to cut my head off because I don’t use it that often anyway.”

She smiled for the first time since they’d started chatting, but it didn’t last long. “Is there anything else you can do? Acupuncture, psychic surgery, leeches?”

“Leeches? You’ve been watching too much History Channel. I do have a Hindu swami who has aligned my chakras and is going to do more energy work to make me more at peace, but even he reluctantly agrees that I need a real miracle to get through this alive.”

“Even more reason to find Ana and make up. If you have to die, at least don’t be a lonely idiot when you do.”

“Yes, boss.”

“Good. Mom and Dad are out at a Lincs game, but I’ll tell them that we talked and everything is cool. I mean, except for you dying soon.
That’s
not cool.” She wiped away sudden tears with the sleeve of her sweater.

“I know what you mean, Kiddo. I’ll call next week after my family has left, but in the meantime, tell your folks I love them, and tell your dad to be safe.”

“Always. You, too. I love you.”

“Right back at you.”

“Now go find Ana.”

“Yes, boss.”

“Later, ’gator.”

“On the flipside.”

“Isis out.”

“Jerry . . . out.” They disconnected simultaneously. He sat, staring at the screen, but was interrupted from forming any great, world-changing thoughts when his stomach rumbled. He squinted at his watch. “Six o’clock? I’m sleeping what life I have left away.” Getting up, he whipped up a simple microwave omelette, made toast, and chased it all down with a couple of painkillers and a glass of thick-pulp orange juice, before returning to the desk. He stared at Sushi, who probably wondered where the strange floating lady who fed him had gone.

“I’m sorry, buddy. She completed her mission and moved on. We’re back to just you and me.”

JERRY WAS HALFWAY
through his second attempt to watch the fake Anastasia deal with the doubters of high society when his phone buzzed with an incoming message. It was from Mika, wondering how he was doing.

Not sure he wanted to talk to her, he replied with a text. “Not at all good. Ana is gone, forever, this tumour is kicking my ass, and I’m losing. Good news is my mom and sister are arriving Friday.” Once the text was sent, he turned on the laptop, started the music, then shuffled into the kitchen and started cleaning up the mess, careful not to cut himself on the shards of the plate and mug. She’d only been in his life for two weeks, but he kept expecting Ana to pop up and do something silly, to make him laugh and distract him from, well, from
dying
.

The sixties playlist he’d selected buoyed his mood, brushed off some of his funk, and gave him a little more energy. When the kitchen was relatively clean, he moved on to the bathroom, where he wrung the rain-soaked pyjamas out over the tub, then hung them up to dry. A passing glance in the mirror startled him and he realized that he hadn’t shaved in a day or so, his hair was sticking up at odd angles, the bandage over his stitches needed changing, and he had dark bags under his eyes. “I can’t do much about the baggy eyes, but I can manage an electric razor and a comb without hurting myself. The bandage may be a bit tricky.”

He managed to shave, comb, and awkwardly re-bandage, then made his way out to the couch when he was done. On his way past the computer he shut off the music. By the time he was settled into the couch, he was ready to stay there for the evening. He called up Netflix on the big screens again and scrolled through until he found BBCTV’s
Sherlock
. “Not too dark, not too cheesy, just what Doctor Watson ordered.” The intercom buzzed, indicating that someone was down at the street door. “Ana?” He rushed to the speaker mounted on the wall and pressed the “Talk” button.

“Hello! Ana!”

“No, Jerry, it’s me, Mika.”

That’s when it truly hit Jerry. No matter how many times he answered the door or picked up the phone or opened a book, it would never be Ana. He buzzed Mika in and slid to the floor, so great was the weight on his soul. Even if he weren’t dying, he would have wanted to after losing Ana.

MIKA FOUND HIM
sobbing, just inside the door, and helped him up and onto the couch. She tried to get him to talk, but he just couldn’t get the words out past the sobs, so she held him close. She hoped that when his tears ended she’d be able to get him to explain what had happened, but instead he fell asleep. She shifted their positions on the couch a bit, lay Jerry down, nestled in behind him, and pulled the afghan off the back of the couch and over them both. She didn’t know what else to do.

“SHE FORGAVE HIM
and then faded away? There’s no sign of her anywhere?” Mika handed Jerry a cup of tea and sat down beside him with her own cup. The afghan wrapped Jerry like a cocoon with two pale hands poking out to hold the cup and saucer.

“Nothing. There’s the bullet hole, the bloodstains, and the inscription from her mother . . . but no Ana.” He sipped the brew slowly, careful of the heat.

“She didn’t go into something else? Another book, a photograph? Your fish?” She nodded her head toward Sushi’s tank.

He almost smiled. “No. She just faded away. I can feel her absence. I can’t explain it, but it feels like there’s something missing, like I’m standing in front of a crowd of people and my zipper is undone. There’s something wrong, but I just can’t pinpoint it until someone glances down at my crotch and
then
I can feel the breeze. Except that there’s no breeze here. She’s gone.” He stared at the floor.

“Like Uncle said, she shouldn’t have been here in the first place. That book wasn’t a place of safety for her; it was chains and a prison. She’s free now. She should have moved on a long time ago. Maybe your last words to her were brief, but you gave her the greatest gift you ever could—your heart. She’s gone where she’s supposed to be, and you helped with that. You can spend the rest of your life—”

“My
short
life.”

She slapped his leg reproachfully, but left her hand there. “The rest of your life beating yourself up, but in the end you woke her up and loved her. You gave her the chance to have happy memories close off her existence here before moving on. You gave her a chance to fulfil her destiny and put old sins to rest.”