A Symphony of Cicadas

Fifteen



“I don’t understand,” I said to Aunt Rose. “All this time I’ve been asking questions about Heaven, and no one seems to know anything at all. And then this kid gets to go to Heaven just like that, and you know exactly what is going on? What about Joey? You didn’t seem to have any answers for me then!” My mind was racing overtime, the world opening up in a whole new light and presenting me with so many questions I didn’t know which to ask first.

We stood in an empty room now, the hospital long faded away. I didn’t know where we were, but it was clear we were in utter solitude. Aunt Rose smiled at me, waving her hand next to her to reveal a plush couch. She sat down and patted the seat next to her. I joined her with caution, still having a hard time trusting this woman who both made everything feel more difficult and was the only one who could guide me to real answers.

I started. “Where is Joey?”

“I don’t know.”

My frustration, never far below the surface, exploded. “What do you mean you don’t know?” I demanded. “You knew where Jacob was headed, didn’t you? So why don’t you know where my son is?” Aunt Rose sighed, giving me another one of her patronizing smiles as if I were but a child and she were about to teach me the ins and outs of the universe. The worst of it was that I felt like a child.

“Rachel, you want me just to say he’s in Heaven, right? Well I can’t be certain he’s there,” she maintained. “I can assume, as can you. It’s likely that’s where he is, being that he’s a child and leaving the world behind just seems to come easier for them. But can I guarantee it? No. Just because we can’t find him doesn’t mean that he’s moved beyond this divide to get to Heaven. He may be doing some exploring of his own or he may be stuck in his own attachments. He could be anywhere.”

“Why doesn’t anyone know anything concrete about Heaven?” I asked Aunt Rose. I was thinking back to conversations with Jane, when she told me she felt like there was a Heaven but couldn’t be sure.

“Because none of us have been there,” Aunt Rose said. “If we had, we wouldn’t be back to this divide. We’d be there to stay for good.”

“Okay, look. My friend Jane, who also exists in this divide, didn’t seem to know much of anything about Heaven. In fact, she seemed to believe in it through faith alone. But when pressed for facts, she couldn’t be sure there was a Heaven, a God, or anything beyond this place we exist now. She just felt it was true. But here you are, speaking with certainty that there is a Heaven, that this is only the resting place before we move on, that Jacob was being led by that spirit to this Heaven, and that Joey may or may not be there. How can you be so sure of these things, and yet you’re here in this world and not there?”

“Now you’re getting to the real questions,” Aunt Rose said, her eyes twinkling at my confusion. “Do you know who that spirit woman was that led Jacob from the room?” she asked me.

“She was his aunt, I think,” I said. “It seemed like he knew her, she looked a lot like him and his mother, and his mom referred to her sister, so I can only assume she passed away and was now there in the room when he passed.”

“Yes, she was probably his aunt. But do you know her purpose there?” Aunt Rose pressed on.

“You said she was a ‘family guide’, someone who guides a loved one through the afterlife,” I said.

“Yes. But with children, their time in this divide is very brief, sometimes serving as just a pathway to Heaven. You saw how Jacob kissed his mother and then left with the guide. He was leaving her for the last time, and he was okay with it. His guide’s responsibility is to help him through the transition of life to death. And when he’s ready, she leads him to the entrance of Heaven where he will stay forever.”

“So he’s trapped there? What kind of Heaven is that?” I asked Aunt Rose, and she laughed at my naivety.

“No, he’ll choose to stay there. Once you enter Heaven, it’s so magnificent you won’t want to leave at all. But the only way to be able to pass through those gates in the first place is to let go of everything that exists on this side of Heaven. That includes the people you once loved and the life you once led. So you have the ability to come and go, but no one wants to come back to the darkness of this world once they’ve let it go and moved to the next.”

“How do you know so much when you haven’t been there?” I asked her.

“I told you before, I’m a guide,” she told me. “I’m your guide, and I’ve been the guide of several before you.” She paused and counted off on her fingers. “Let’s see, there have been four I think. It’s been so long I can hardly remember. I led one of my good friends when she passed on. She didn’t linger much at all, being ready to die in her later years of life. One of my neighbors passed away some time ago and that bitter man had no family or friends at all who he’d be comforted by. So I helped him to get to the peaceful side of death and transition to Heaven. And there were a couple more. All of them, once they were done peering into the window of the living, were led by me to Heaven where we both got a glimpse of what’s to come before they left me and moved on. Let me tell you, darling, what waits for us on that other side is better than anything you’ve ever imagined.”

“But if it’s so great, why are you here and not there?” I asked her.

“Because you have to be able to let go of the living and the world they live in before you can move on to Heaven,” she affirmed. “And, well, you know how that goes.”

“That’s why I’m here, too,” I mused.

“That’s correct,” she nodded, free of judgment.

I was beginning to understand. Her obsession with my sister and me, her inability to detach was being mirrored in my feelings for John. I thought about how I couldn’t tear myself away from being near him and Sam, and how involved I got in the living world even though I was no longer a part of it. All of a sudden, I was having a hard time holding my death against her, having just risked John’s life through my own attachment. I was even having a hard time staying angry over the death of my son. Remembering the intense pull to bring John over, the way I had to struggle to stop killing him, I could get a sense of what Aunt Rose had experienced in my final moments of life. I realized she couldn’t overcome the intense emotions that existed in this world, the feelings we clung to when we were able to grasp onto little else.

Even now I was being tortured by my own longing. More than anything, I longed to see John, to be by his side as he recovered in the hospital. But just as strong was the fear that my presence would put his life in peril. It had taken so much for me to be able to pull away from dragging him down. What if I found myself in the same position I was in before, leading him down a road he could never return from, leaving behind Sam and everything else he held dear in this life? I couldn’t do that to him. And yet, I needed to be next to him again.

“Come with me?” I begged Aunt Rose. “Stay near me while I visit John? I don’t think I can do this alone.” I could tell in her eyes that she wanted to protest this, to persuade me to leave him behind and focus on moving on. I could also tell she wasn’t going to say any of this out loud. Instead, she nodded.

“But darling,” she cautioned, “if you start pulling him back down, I can’t stop you. Only you have the power to refrain from that. And he’s in such a weakened state, any thoughts you may have of him being with you in this existence will surely kill him. So go ahead and visit him, but practice restraint. Keep your mind clear and your intentions pure. And think of his needs before your own.”

I nodded and grasped her hand, squeezing it tight and drawing comfort from the safety net I gathered from her presence. Together we left the empty room and went back to the hospital where Jacob had just passed only moments before. But this wing was different. There were no guitars playing or children singing. No streamers hung from the ceiling, no drawings were taped to the wall. This wing of the hospital had a far more serious air, where doctors and nurses rushed from room to room, family members shuffled in and out with somber faces, and the most prominent sounds were the voices over the intercom and a steady stream of beeps from the nurses’ station and each room we passed by.

J. Hanlon was on the wall outside his room, and I peered in as if I were visible and afraid to wake him. I jumped with a start when I realized someone else was in there with him, a woman holding his hand. A dangerous feeling of jealousy began to bubble up before I realized it was only my sister. I let out a long breath, realizing just how hard this was going to be.

John was sleeping, his appearance fragile in his hospital gown. He was hooked up to an IV at his arm and wires attached to his chest to monitor his heart rate. The machine beeped beside him at a steady pace, almost as if nothing had happened. Sara sat next to him, rubbing the top of his hand with her thumb as he slept. She stared off at a wall, her mind traveling a million miles a minute. I did my best to tune out her thoughts, but captured a few fragments of the troubles she’d been having with Kevin, fears about joint custody, and the terrifying thought of supporting herself on one income instead of two.

John stirred, shifting under the thin blanket before opening his eyes and blinking with heavy lids. He saw Sara and smiled, his murmur so soft she couldn’t hear what he had said. But I heard it glisten through the air to my ears.

“Rachel.”

He opened his eyes a little wider as he woke, and realized with a start where he was and who was holding his hand. “Sara,” he said, praying she didn’t hear him call her by her sister’s name. She smiled and squeezed his hand. “How long was I out?” he asked her.

“Half of yesterday and pretty much all of today,” she said. “But that’s mainly because they’ve been keeping you sedated. I’m supposed to let them know when you come out of sleep.”

“Not yet,” he said. “What time is it?”

“It’s late, about eleven o’clock at night. They allowed me to stay when I said I was your sister.” Her smile held notes of guilt. He chuckled.

“You’re a bit fair to be my sister, but whatever works. I’m glad you’re here. Does Sam know?”

“Yeah, they called your ex-wife first and she told him. He’s the one who called to let me know,” she informed him. John was startled by this, so was I. It seemed so out of character, strange even, that Sam would even think to call Sara. “I assume it’s because he needed someone who wasn’t his mom to be here,” Sara explained, making sense of the confusion. “I think…” she began, hesitating before she continued, “I think, that I just happened to be the closest person to Rachel he could think of to be here with you and with him.” She said it in one breath, hoping that by doing so, John would be unscathed by the reminder that she was just my stand-in. It didn’t stop John from wincing, hiding it under an exaggerated yawn. “He was here earlier today, but needed to get home since he has school tomorrow.”

“It’s nice to know he cares,” John said, and grimaced, regretting the words as soon as they left his mouth. “I mean…I didn’t mean that. I guess I just meant that with him being a teenager and all, and especially now that he lives with his mom, it’s hard to know exactly what he’s thinking. It’s just nice to know…that he cares,” John said, followed by an awkward chuckle.

“He cares,” Sara told him. “He was worried about you. He stayed here for a few hours while you slept, and we chatted about how things are going at his mom’s house.”

“He talked with you?” John asked. As he said it, he tried to sit up with his elbows, only to have his face twist with pain as he collapsed on the bed.

“Don’t overstrain yourself; here, let me help you with the bed.” Sara reached over him and pushed a button on the railing of the bed, and the back of it raised so he could sit in an elevated position with no effort. “You had a heart attack, John, which is not normal for a forty-year-old man. It was likely caused by stress, but the doctors still need to run a few more tests.” She paused, looking uncomfortable. The shift in her demeanor wasn’t lost on John, even as he fought to stay awake under the lingering effects of the sedatives.

“What’s wrong?” he asked her.

Sara gave him an embarrassed smile, and I could hear her thoughts mulling over how to ask the question. She took a deep breath and let it out before speaking.

“I don’t know how to ask this, and hate to even bring it up while you’re just waking up. But your ex-wife was the first person they called. Apparently she’s still listed as your next of kin. You didn’t have Rachel on there?”

It was John’s turn to be uncomfortable. I waited for his answer, though I could hear his mind tumbling over excuses loud and clear. He had Wendy on there instead of me? Aunt Rose touched my arm, and I was reminded to still my thoughts and just be an uninvolved observer.

“I know,” he admitted. “It’s not that I didn’t want Rachel on there. I blame it on laziness more than anything. It’s my downfall, putting everything off until last minute. In the weeks before her death, I had planned on adding her to all that I owned, including power of attorney and next of kin. I just hadn’t gotten around to it.”

“Well, I guess it’s a moot point now. Besides, it was probably a good thing Wendy was still on there since they may not have known who to call otherwise,” Sara said, smiling. He squeezed her hand with a returned smile, and she was reminded that her hand still grasped his. Embarrassed, she pulled it back in her lap.

“So, Sam talked with you about life in Sebastopol,” John said, changing the subject. “What did he say? Does he like it? Is he miserable? Is his mom a tyrant and he realized he made a huge mistake?” Sara laughed at this.

“Well, he seems to enjoy his new school,” she told him. “He’s made a few friends that he already sort of knew from his mom’s neighborhood. And he says there are a few cute girls there, even though he misses one girl in particular from his old school. His mom is okay, not bad but just different. And even though he’d never admit it to you, he told me that he misses living with you. He says you don’t visit him that much, blaming it on you being busy with work and the house in San Anselmo. But I think he’d like the two of you to hang out more.”

“I guess I didn’t…I mean, I didn’t realize… I didn’t think he wanted to hang out. I don’t know. I mean, I feel like a total idiot now. I thought that since he didn’t hang out with me much before he moved out, he wasn’t going to want to see me much after. And…I guess I just didn’t know how to call him up and ask him to go do something.” John moved his arm to run his hand through his hair, wincing at the pain of the simple motion. The wires attached to his arm brushed against his face and rattled the IV bag. Sara reached over and helped him to untangle from the awkward wires.

“I think because he doesn’t live with you, he especially wants you to call him up and ask to hang out. He’s testing you, trying to see how much you care.”

“I know,” John admitted. He made an inner resolution to try harder with Sam. He wasn’t sure how - maybe a phone call or a lunch out, perhaps an afternoon to work on his throw even though Sam’s interest in baseball was starting to wane. But once he got out of this hospital he swore to himself he’d be a better dad. It seemed like he was always making promises like that, something he realized even as he did it again. This time, he swore, he would follow through.

“I should really let the nurses know you’re awake,” Sara said. “They’re going to want to poke you in all sorts of fun places to see how you’re doing.”

“Sounds kinky. Any of them cute?” John asked. Sara grinned.

“You’re such a pervert. I’m going to take off now, but I’ll be back tomorrow to check in on you. Don’t go anywhere, okay?”

“Heck, no. I got ladies waiting to fulfill my every whim. I’d be a dummy to take off now.” Sara grinned, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek. Without thinking, John inhaled, catching once again the familiar scent of my hair in my sister’s blonde locks. It stirred something inside him, just as it had before. Except this time, instead of seeing my face in front of him, he saw Sara’s. The feeling caught him off guard, but he managed to tuck it away. Sara didn’t see it, but the newness of this emotion inside him felt like a slap in my face.

The struggle to keep my emotions at bay became too heavy a burden to control. I felt the bitter acid of jealousy brewing inside of me, the taste of it sparking on my tongue at the reality that John could move on, and my sister could be the one to help him do that.

Before I could jeopardize him any further through emotions beyond my control, I knew I needed to escape. And I needed to go alone. I moved out of Aunt Rose’s reach and focused on a place as far away as I could manage. Only when the room began to evaporate around me did Aunt Rose turn toward me. Her saddened eyes were the last thing I saw before I was cast into darkness.