Where I Belong (16 page)

“It might have been anyone, Shea. You mustn't leap to conclusions. You have no evidence Sean Barnes is behind this. I know he's a mean kid, but—”

“But? But?” Shea turns to me. “Tell him, Brendan. You know it was them.”

I don't look at her or Mr. Hailey. Why didn't I let Mrs. Clancy call the police? Why didn't I tell them who beat me? If I had, maybe this wouldn't have happened. Maybe it's all my fault the Green Man is in the hospital. I stare at the gray linoleum floor, too ashamed to speak.

“Brendan.” Mr. Hailey bends slightly to look me in the eye. “It's not your fault. Even if you'd given the police Sean's name, they wouldn't have had much of a case. No one saw them beat you up. They would have denied it. Your word against theirs. Without a witness, I doubt they would have been charged with anything.”

I stare at him. He's read my mind as if my head is transparent.

“Come on,” he says. “I'll drive you home and come back at six thirty to take you to see him. If it's okay with your parents, that is.”

Without another word, we follow Mr. Hailey to his car. Shea gets in the front seat. I get in the back. He takes me home first because I live closer.

Mrs. Clancy is watering her flowers. She stares at the car as if she's expecting bad news.
He's cutting school again, he's not doing his homework, he's failing summer school
.

Shea waits in the car, but Mr. Hailey crosses the lawn to talk to Mrs. Clancy. He tells her about the Green Man. She knows already. She read it in the paper this morning, but she didn't tell me.

“Since the man means a lot to Brendan, I'd like to take him and Shea to the hospital after dinner this evening. If that's all right with you.”

“No, it's not all right,” Mrs. Clancy says. She's gripping the hose as if Mr. Hailey might yank it away from her. “I told Brendan he's to have no contact with that bum.”

“He's not a bum,” I say. “He fought in Vietnam and he has two medals, the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star for bravery.”

“Lots of men in this town have been in a war,” Mrs. Clancy says. “They don't live in the woods, they don't sit in the park and drink. They raise families and go to work and live a regular, normal kind of life.”

She doesn't get it. Some people can't live in the world she's talking about. They aren't comfortable there, they don't believe in jobs and houses and cars. They can't do what you have to do to get them, and if they try, they make themselves miserable. It's like a train when it switches to another track and goes full throttle down the main line but there's this rusty little spur line that curves off into the woods. Only a few people ride the train that goes down those tracks.

“He's a good person,” I tell her. “He's hurt, he's in the hospital. You have to let me see him.”

Behind me, I hear Shea say, “Please let him go, Mrs. Clancy. Please.”

“Brendan's right,” Mr. Hailey says. “Mr. Calhoun is a good man. I wouldn't take the children to see him if I thought otherwise.”

Mrs. Clancy knows when she's defeated. She shrugs and says, “All right, all right. He can go.”

“I'll pick him up at six thirty,” Mr. Hailey says.

Mrs. Clancy turns her attention to the garden. She's not happy about the situation and she doesn't want to talk about it. I wave to Shea and Mr. Hailey and start to go inside, but Mrs. Clancy stops me.

“Give me a hand with the weeding,” she says.

 

At six thirty, Mr. Hailey pulls into the driveway. Shea sits beside him. We look at each other but we don't say anything. We're both scared, I think, of seeing the Green Man in the hospital.

Shea's wearing a denim skirt and a pink T-shirt with a big butterfly on the front, an outfit I've never seen before. She looks different, older or something. She must think visiting the hospital is a dressy occasion. Maybe it is. I climb in the back seat and hope my jeans are okay.

It begins to rain. Taillights shine on the wet road, and the traffic lights blur red, green, and yellow. No one talks. We sit and listen to the music on the radio. It's an oldies station. I recognize Bob Dylan singing “Don't Think Twice, It's All Right,” which reminds me of the Green Man's T-shirt and the years when he was young and a soldier in Vietnam.

Mr. Hailey parks in the hospital lot. We dash through puddles. The sliding glass doors open as if we're expected. People hurry inside with dripping umbrellas. Some carry flowers. Others carry balloons with smiley faces. A departing woman says to her husband, “He doesn't look good.” “He looks better than I expected,” her husband says, and unfurls his umbrella with a snap.

After we get visitors' passes at the front desk, Mr. Hailey leads us down the hall to the elevators. While we're waiting, a nurse comes along. She must be Mrs. Hailey's friend, because she stops to say hello to Mr. Hailey.

“What brings you here on a night like this?” she asks. “Your wife's shift doesn't start till eleven.”

Mr. Hailey puts his hands on our shoulders. “Brendan and Shea have come to see Ed Calhoun.”

The nurse looks puzzled. “I didn't expect him—”

Mr. Hailey must have given the nurse a look Shea and I couldn't see, because she stops in midsentence and says, “I hope you find him feeling better.”

After the nurse walks away, Shea looks at Mr. Hailey. “What didn't she expect?”

“I haven't the foggiest idea.”

She probably didn't expect him to have any visitors, I think.

The elevator doors open silently and we get in quietly. Nobody says anything. On the fourth floor, the doors slide open and we step off, still saying nothing.

We walk down a long hall, past trash cans labeled
HAZARDOUS WASTE
, a cart stacked with dirty plates, a wheelchair or two draped with blankets, a couple of gurneys, and medical equipment on rolling stands. It smells like medicine and something undefinable. It's as if the normal air has been used up and we're breathing something else. Fake air, maybe. Every once in a while someone pages a doctor or calls for a nurse. Things buzz and beep.

People cough. TVs flicker, but there's no sound. Nurses pop in and out of rooms. Through an open door, we see bare feet sticking out of the bedcovers. “Gross,” Shea whispers.

A man comes along hunched over his walker, trailing an IV stand. He's wearing a skimpy little hospital gown that doesn't quite cover his skinny backside.

“Gross,” Shea whispers again.

I don't answer. I keep my head down so I won't see anything. I wish I had earplugs and a nose clip so I wouldn't hear or smell anything.

The hospital is the scariest place I've ever been, worse than a haunted house, worse than a graveyard. I want to run outside into the rain and dark before someone decides I have to stay here.

At last, Mr. Hailey stops at Room 412B. Edward Calhoun's name is on a card under the number. Shea grabs my hand. Hers is small and warm, and I'm afraid to hold it too tightly.

I stare at the man in the bed, his eyes closed, lying so still, connected to tubes and blinking, beeping machines. His beard is gone. His head is bandaged. One arm is in a cast. His fingernails are clean. He doesn't look like himself. Maybe we're in the wrong room.

“What did they do to him?” Even though Shea whispers, I can tell she's angry, partly because she's squeezing my hand so hard it hurts and partly because she has that dangerous look on her face.

Mr. Hailey shakes his head. “He was badly beaten, Shea. On top of that, he has pneumonia.”

Shea releases my hand and tiptoes to the Green Man's side. “Are you awake?” she whispers.

His eyelids flutter and open. “Lady Shea, my little princess of the woodland.”

His eyes find me and he beckons me closer. “And here's Sir Brendan.”

I look into his eyes, as blue and clear as ever, and I know it's truly him. “I hope you feel better soon.” It's such a stupid thing to say. So trite. I might as well have told him to have a good day. But my mind is numb, and I can't come up with anything else.

“Will you come home soon?” Shea asks.

The Green Man gazes into space as if he sees something beyond the walls of the room. “Ah, yes,” he says, “I'm on my way home now. Should be there before dark.”

His voice turns into a cough, a deep, horrible chest-wrenching cough that leaves him gasping for air. Mr. Hailey bends over him. “Lie back and rest, Ed.”

“Don't worry,” the Green Man says. “I'll soon have all the rest I need.”

His eyes begin to close. His chest rattles with every breath as if something inside is choking him.

Mr. Hailey takes Shea's and my hands. “We should leave now,” he says softly.

The Green Man opens his eyes. “Thanks for coming,” he tells us.

“I love you, Grandfather,” Shea whispers, and kisses his pale cheek.

He touches her curls and smiles. “Love you too, little maid.”

He turns to me and takes my hand. “Brendan, my lad.”

There's so much I want to say, but his eyes are closing and his grip on my hand loosens.

Neither Shea nor I want to leave, but a nurse arrives and says we must go. As Mr. Hailey leads us toward the door, Shea and I look back at the Green Man, lying in his pure white hospital bed, surrounded by machines. His eyes are closed, but he raises one hand in farewell.

In the corridor, Shea begins to cry. “He's not going to get well, is he?”

“No,” Mr. Hailey says softly. “He probably won't make it through tonight.”

Shea grabs my hand again, and we walk slowly away from Room 412B. My head is a jumble of thoughts and fears and sorrow. I can't find a way to express how I feel. I can't cry, either. It's over. The Green Man is leaving, he's going home, and the forest will never be the same. Nothing will.

W
HEN WE LEAVE THE HOSPITAL
, the rain pours down. Even though it's only seven thirty, it's almost dark. The road is practically deserted. In Price Chopper's parking lot, streetlights shine on scattered shopping carts. Every now and then the wind gusts and sets them rolling across the asphalt. The traffic lights sway.

“It's the hurricane,” Mr. Hailey says. “It swung inland off the North Carolina coast. We're in for a lot of rain and wind.”

When Mr. Hailey drops me off at my house, I see Mrs. Clancy at the door. The living room glows with warm light. Buffeted by the wind, I run though the rain and dash inside, wet already.

“Get your pajamas on,” Mrs. Clancy says, “and we'll have a cup of hot chocolate.”

We sit together at the kitchen table. The rain sluices down the windows, hiding the darkness outside.

“He's dying,” I whisper.

“I'm sorry to hear that,” Mrs. Clancy says.

“He's a good man,” I tell her.

Mrs. Clancy sips her hot chocolate. She doesn't look at me or say anything. Outside the wind rises and the rain falls harder. I look at the window and see our reflection in the glass. This is how we'd look to a stranger. A woman and a boy sitting in a cozy kitchen, drinking hot chocolate.

After I go to bed, I sense the Green Man's presence in my room, sitting in the shadows, watching over me. I'm afraid he's died and his ghost has come to say goodbye. I burrow under the covers and press my face into my pillow.

“Please don't die,” I whisper to him. “Please, please, please.”

When I wake up, it's so dark I can't believe it's morning. The sky is black and rain batters the house, the yard, the garden. Trees whip back and forth in the wind, blurred as if I'm looking at them underwater. The side yard is flooded ankle-deep, and branches litter the grass.

“No power,” Mrs. Clancy tells me. “They don't know when it will be restored. Lots of trees are down.”

We eat cold cereal. Mrs. Clancy can't fix coffee. She drinks a soda instead but complains that it doesn't have nearly as much caffeine as coffee. After breakfast, we stand at the back door and watch the rain come down. It pours over the eaves like a waterfall. The wind puffs the screen door inward. I smell rust and wet grass and water and mud.

“My poor flowers,” Mrs. Clancy says. “Just look at them. The rain has flattened them.”

I wander back to my room and pick up
Riddley Walker
, a book Mr. Hailey thought I'd like. It takes place way in the future after nuclear bombs practically end the world. Even though the words are sometimes hard to understand, I like the book a lot, probably because I'm always expecting “the one big one” to destroy civilization.

The phone rings and I jump, startled by the sound. “Lucky we have a landline,” Mrs. Clancy says as she goes to answer it.

She speaks in a low voice and then calls me. “It's Mr. Hailey. He has something to tell you.”

From the way she says it, I know what he's going to tell me. I don't want to hear it. I stare at the receiver as if it's dangerous. Mrs. Clancy moves it closer, her face sad. Slowly I lift it to my ear.

“I'm so sorry to tell you this, Brendan,” Mr. Hailey says, “but Ed Calhoun died in his sleep early this morning. My wife was with him. She says it was very peaceful. He just slipped away.”

I hold the phone so tightly it hurts. My old beliefs about him rise in my mind. “He's the spirit of the forest, the Green Man,” I say. “He can't be dead. Not him.”

I hear Mr. Hailey say, “He was a man like everyone else, Brendan. Mortal.” His voice is calm. Accepting.

I shake my head. Mrs. Clancy puts her arm around me.

“Are you okay?” Mr. Hailey asks.

“Yes,” I say. “Thank you for telling me.” Very quietly, I lay the receiver in its cradle. I am not okay. My legs shake. Something is gone from the world. Something is missing.

Mrs. Clancy hugs me. “I'm sorry, Brendan.”