Mercy

The wait­ing room out­side the children’s LTW was shrunk­en in direct pro­por­tion to the hope that dis­si­pat­ed the fur­ther you got from the intake ICU. The long couch­es, reclin­ers, mag­a­zines, and cof­fee tables com­mon to the pri­ma­ry wing of the hos­pi­tal were nowhere to be seen in the shad­owy mint hall­ways of the LTW. The bright col­ors of hill­sides, uni­corns, and super­heroes paint­ed on the walls in the children’s facil­i­ty had been replaced by the insti­tu­tion­al col­ors of calm for fam­i­lies fac­ing “deci­sions.” Two chairs crammed into a tiny alcove out­side the finan­cial offices dis­cour­aged despon­dent par­ents from “wait­ing” too long while mak­ing their “deci­sions.”

Helen Veihl was a tiny woman who sat crum­pled in one of the “wait­ing” chairs wear­ing an over­sized and some­what thread­bare ver­sion of what was once an expen­sive, mid-length, brown calf-skin win­ter coat. There was nev­er much traf­fic in this part of the hos­pi­tal, and the morn­ing of November 22^nd found the wing emp­ti­er than usu­al. The upcom­ing hol­i­day week­end had kept most of the usu­al vis­i­tors at home with their more ambu­la­to­ry relatives.

Godiya was at once pleased and dis­mayed to see that this morn­ing, Joseph Veihl had returned to the seat next to his wife in the wait­ing alcove. She was pleased to see Mrs. Veihl have some sup­port from Max’s father, but she was dis­mayed because his pres­ence was a clear indi­ca­tor that “deci­sions” were going to be made today. A part of her had hoped the admin­is­tra­tors would wait until after the hol­i­day. But “time is mon­ey,” they said, and around here, “time waits for no one.”  She was sur­prised to notice how much Mrs. Veihl remind­ed her of the old man in the house today, like some­thing heavy was drag­ging all of her fea­tures toward the floor.

“Max is doing just fine, Mrs. Veihl,” Godiya com­fort­ed as she approached the couple.

“He’s had his bath. The teleme­try shows that all the machines are work­ing cor­rect­ly. We talked about his pic­tures, his art, and his house. He rolled over eas­i­ly today. I swear it was almost like he was help­ing me. His eyes are fine and moist. They show no signs of scratch­es or dis­com­fort. I trimmed his nails. His teeth are brushed. He’s still sit­ting up from our talk, if you want to vis­it Mr. Veihl. I’m sure Max will be hap­py to hear your voice.”

“Did the insur­ance com­pa­ny tell you that you need­ed to come in today?”  Godiya asked the ques­tion, fish­ing for a “no.”

“The old one did, but I start­ed call­ing some oth­ers last week,” Helen responded.

“There’s a new one com­ing in today. Garrison… some­thing, I think. He wants to go through our paper­work again. Max’s his­to­ry,” she said, pat­ting the black brief­case at her feet. Joe Veihl was look­ing at the floor, but Godiya could see his face begin­ning to flush.

“You’ve got to stop hurt­ing your­self with this, Helen,” he mut­tered, turn­ing his face toward her over slumped shoulders.

“You need to start pray­ing for his soul, Helen, and for your own heal­ing, hon­ey. How many doc­tors have to tell you this before I’m no longer the bad guy for telling you that you have to let him go? How long…”

“He’s still in there, Joe!” Helen cut him off with a hissed whisper.

“He’s your son, and he’s still in there, and if you’re so wor­ried about his SOUL, shouldn’t you be pray­ing that he will get up out of that bed so he can redeem him­self IN HIS FATHER’S EYES?!!!” The whis­pers became breathy shouts before Mrs. Veihl could finish.

“He told us, Joe. He warned us. Not just of what was hap­pen­ing to him, not just of what he was going to do, but what the result of those actions would be. That’s the part you real­ly should have noticed, Joe, what with your love of prophets and their mean­der­ings. He told us in his sto­ries. He told us in his poet­ry. He told us in his pho­tos, and his draw­ings. But you were too busy to be both­ered. He didn’t do right by you. Wasn’t like you were grow­ing up. Wasn’t like the oth­er kids. You couldn’t find a way to be proud of who he was. So then he told us exact­ly what was going to hap­pen, and since we nev­er lis­tened, he showed us instead. He built that glass house, and he left it on the kitchen table with the mag­ni­fy­ing glass and a note that said, ‘Look’ and ‘Please.’ He said, ‘Please look,’ Joe. Very polite, like you always asked of him. But you didn’t look, did you? And by the time you called the police the next day, it was too late, wasn’t it, Joe?”

Mrs. Veihl’s lec­ture of guilt for her hus­band dis­solved into sobs.

“So don’t you tell ME what to pray for, Joe. My phone, and my brief­case, and me are pray­ing we can find some­one in a suit who will under­stand that our son is a real boy, not a soul­less chunk of meat that can be thrown away to pro­tect the bank accounts of oth­er fathers who don’t pay atten­tion to their boys because they aren’t made of dol­lar bills, sports scores, or Biblical quotes.

He told us what would hap­pen, and then he trapped him­self inside that glass house with noth­ing but ghosts, so you would final­ly have to look for him hard enough to notice your son. When I’m fin­ished pray­ing for our son, Joe, I’m going to start pray­ing for you. For your vision, in fact. That you might have eyes that can see.”

Joe Veihl’s gaze returned to his shiny black office shoes, and he turned from Helen word­less­ly, flushed with both red and pale shame.

“Hi, uhh­mm, Nurse, uhmm…”

Godiya spun to face a tall man with dark hair and hazel blue eyes stand­ing uncom­fort­ably behind her.

“Lambro,” she responded.

“I’m Nurse Godiya Lambro, children’s ICU.” She extend­ed her hand to the man in the crisp black suit.

“Hi, sor­ry. I’m Tony Garrison from TelpEm Insurance. Nice to meet you, Ms. Lambro.” Tony shuf­fled his feet.

“You must be here to talk to the Veihls.” Godiya ges­tured to the atten­dant parents.

“I’ll show you to the office as soon as they’re ready.”

Helen Veihl sucked in her breath, stood up from the stiff hos­pi­tal chair, and col­lect­ed her brief­case in her arms. She elbowed her husband’s fin­gers away when he tried to take her arm and turned from the group, point­ing her­self in the direc­tion they would be walking.

Godiya motioned for Tony to fol­low. The noise of the group’s foot­steps echoed as she led them down the hall and around the cor­ner to the finan­cial offices. It seemed unavoid­ably dis­re­spect­ful to the vig­il she held over her silent clients, yet anoth­er reminder of all the twen­ty-third days since she start­ed at the hospital.

“Yes,” she thought again, “I have become much too good at good­bye.” She grasped the door han­dle and ush­ered the cou­ple and the insur­ance agent inside the cramped office.

“Mr. and Mrs. Veihl, TelpEm flew me all the way up here from Nevada because we think we may be able to offer you some hope. Max’s case is unique, and this won’t be easy or quick, but if you can agree to work with us…” The words cut off as the door swung shut, and Godiya made her way off the LTW and back into the land of the liv­ing and the hopeful.

Max’s room was silent but for the hiss­ing and clack­ing of the res­pi­ra­tors and the beep­ing of the teleme­try mon­i­tors. It was an odd­ly noisy kind of silence but rhyth­mic and calm­ing, like a metronome of foot­steps and horns in their stac­ca­to march to the great beyond. Wheels squeaked, and heels clacked in the hall­way out­side the room, the scuf­fle of life cacoph­o­n­ic around the LTW’s mau­soleum of depart­ing guests. Max didn’t notice any of this. These were things he had hard­ly noticed when he was con­ven­tion­al­ly aware. Max also didn’t notice the unac­com­pa­nied shad­ow that flicked across his room to con­geal as a per­fect­ly still spot of grey­ness in front of his dress­er. The shad­ow hov­ered there for a moment, shift­ing in shapes from a spiky ball to an angu­lar poly­gon to a vague­ly humanoid but pri­mar­i­ly amor­phous blob. The shape zipped to the visitor’s chair in the room’s oppo­site cor­ner and occu­pied it for a moment. Back in motion, the shad­ow flick­ered like sta­t­ic as it moved from point to point through­out the room. When it final­ly approached Max’s bed, the shapeshift­ing fuzzi­ness sub­sided, and the fig­ure began to take a more rec­og­niz­able form.

She was a translu­cent whis­per of noth­ing­ness, a two-dimen­sion­al sil­hou­ette of a diminu­tive girl. Slightly under five feet in height, the arch­es of what must have been wings poised a few inch­es above the shad­ow of what could only be a pony­tail. She was just tall enough to reach Max’s ear where he lay prone in the hos­pi­tal bed.

“Hello, Max. My name is Mercy.” Her voice was a low fem­i­nine vibra­tion, ancient and youth­ful at the same time.

“We are almost ready, Max. It will hap­pen tonight.

“It will be a long time before we get to talk again, Max. You have a very dif­fi­cult jour­ney ahead. It will be worse than you can ever imag­ine. You will wish your moth­er had failed. You will be unable to see the light until you under­stand the dark­ness, and it will get very dark, indeed.

“But through all of what comes next, these things shall remain.

“I love you, and I am always watching.

“Most impor­tant­ly, Max, until we find each oth­er again, remem­ber these ques­tions. They are my spir­it, my com­fort, and my guid­ance. Remember it was I who asked you so that you will remem­ber my name, for these are the words of Mercy, Max, and that is my true name.”

With that, the appari­tion began to hum a low sound, and in a voice as qui­et as a new moth­er to an infant, she recit­ed the following.

“What if you believed you could change the world?

“What if you believed you would succeed?

“What if you believed you were impor­tant enough to be heard?

“What if you loved your­self enough to know that you were wor­thy of that love?

“What if the world inside of you was as impor­tant as the world out­side of you?

“What if you believed every won­der­ful, beau­ti­ful, unique aspect of your­self that you knew to be true so much you could ignore every hate­ful, hurt­ful, neg­a­tive thing you were told about yourself?

“What if you so clear­ly believed in your own vision of beau­ty you knew you could make real?

“What if you believed you could be a hero just by being yourself?

“What if you believed that being your­self made you stronger rather than weaker?

“What if you believed you were enough?

“Now, Max, after you have answered all of those ques­tions, the most impor­tant one is this last…

“What if you believed your own story?”

When the beep­ing of the mon­i­tors resumed three sec­onds lat­er, the shad­ow was gone.

Godiya was very sur­prised to see Max when she start­ed her rounds on Thanksgiving morning.

My eyes opened lazi­ly to find Grace’s gaze patient­ly await­ing mine.

“I remem­ber the name Mercy.” My voice is the low grum­ble of a Harley from a block away, but it feels awkward—too big for me—like I’m wear­ing my father’s din­ner jacket.

“Mercedes is a co-work­er of yours, Jack. Though, that night you would have seen her as a pro­jec­tion of Ashli. Ashli was run­ning sev­er­al projects for I.C.K.O. at the time. Mercedes was on loan from us for that trans­mis­sion. What you wit­nessed is a mem­o­ry implant process. It will be a key ele­ment of Max’s extrac­tion when that is accom­plished. Do you remem­ber any­thing about Max?” 

Grace’s voice had returned to its deep resonance.

“He was a res­cue, wasn’t he?” The ques­tion star­tled me even as I asked it. It was non-sequitur, apro­pos of nothing.

“He still is,” Grace returned.