Pieces of Hope (5 page)

She
turned her eyes away, but I saw the tears there. “It won’t come to that, I’m
sure. Besides, only your father seems to be talking that way. No one else
thinks so.”

“Maybe
not,” he told her, brushing away the tears. “But if it does, I’d like to know
you’re behind me.”
 

It took
her a moment to find her voice. “Don’t be silly. That war’s between Germany and Great Britain. We aren’t even involved.
It can’t possibly go on for three years.”

“Maybe,”
he said, but it didn’t sound like he meant it. For a while, the boy cradled her
in his arms. When he felt her heart slow, he whispered, “You have half my heart,
and I have half of yours. Nothing could ever keep us apart. That’s my promise
to you.” He drew in a sharp breath, waited until Lu looked up. “You believe me,
don’t you?”
   

She
smiled a little, and the tension in my stomach eased. “I believe you think
that,” she muttered. “But being mule-like seems to run in your family!”

“Takes
one to know one.” The boy laughed, but there was an odd rhythm to it.

Bzz
!
Bzz
!
Bzz
!
The sound was getting louder.

Ethan
shot up, swiftly breaking our connection. I plummeted through the cot and did a
face-plant into the floor. Some part of me wondered what had happened, but I
was too busy struggling to get my face out of the floorboards to give it more
than a nanosecond’s thought. With a tremendous grunt of effort, I rolled slowly
onto my back. It took several rubbery arm tries to push myself into a seated
position. By now, Ethan had finished tying his shoes, and was exiting the room
when he surprisingly stopped to scan the room. He wore a puzzled expression on
his face, as though he sensed he wasn’t alone. Seeing nothing unusual, he let
the door click quietly behind him. I sat immobile for what felt like forever,
unable to even close my eyelids, my head and shoulders poking out of the cot. I
was quite certain I looked ridiculous. Despite my lingering cotton-brain, I
came to two conclusions:

1) I
knew even less about this mysterious Ethan Reid than I knew before. And . . .

2) I was
never going to do that again. Not if I could help it, anyway.

4
Guardian Angel?

Since I
had intruded enough on Ethan’s thoughts for one morning—and recovery was slow,
to say the least—I wandered the ICU for a while after that, mostly passing time
in the hallway. I saw several people like me. I wasn’t sure if they were living
or dead, but I smiled at them like we were old friends. Only one of them smiled
back—a skinny little girl about eight-years old, with waist-length hair that
was black and wavy, and a playful look in her dark eyes that made me wonder
what she was up to.
 

Taking
me by the hand, she led me to a room three doors down from mine. Once we
entered, the tiny girl crawled onto the bed, then lay back into the diminutive
form that was already there. Beside the bed was a young woman. But even if I
could have shouted at her, I doubt the woman would have heard me. Her grief
filled every inch of the room. I struggled to breathe as I watched her—feeling
the terrifying sensation that I could barely keep my head above water, and that
I was somehow inexplicably drowning in the middle of a hospital room. Suddenly,
I realized—the liquid wasn’t water, it was the woman’s
tears
.
  

When the
little girl’s eyes fluttered open, the woman came back to life. She forced a
smile to her lips. “Did you sleep well,
Amora
?”

“I did,
Mommy. I had a good dream.” Her voice was soft, scarcely a whisper. “At first,
I walked around the hospital and teased the nurses for a while.” Her mother
tapped
Amora
on the nose and she smiled. “And then I
met another girl . . .”

The
child in the bed resembled the one who had taken my hand, but this little girl
had no hair, and her features were drawn and tight. When I looked more closely,
though, I could still see the mischief in her large brown eyes.

 
“Tell me about her,” the mother said, twining
her plump arms around one of her daughter’s little sticks.

Amora
seemed to look right at me, but I knew that was
impossible. She tilted her head a little, and bit her lip. “Well, she’s taller
than you and she has pretty brown hair and brown eyes. Sparkly eyes, like
Poppa.”

“She
sounds lovely.” She gave her daughter another tiny smile. “You’ve made a few
friends since you’ve been here. Tell me her name.”

To my
surprise,
Amora
locked eyes with me. “What’s your
name?” she asked.

I
pointed at myself in disbelief. “Um . . . Hope?”

“Are you
sure?” She giggled. “You made it sound like a question.”

“No, I’m
sure,” I said more steadily. “I’m just shocked that you can see me.” I sat down
on the end of her bed, then glanced at her mother. “What about your mom? Can
she see or hear me?”

“No,
only me. But she tries really hard.” Smiling first at her mother, then at me,
Amora’s
eyes lit up with a sudden mixture of joy and fear.
“Oh, no! Is it time? Could it be? Are you . . . are you an Angel?”

“My
sister would tell you I’m anything but.” And I thought of a few choice words
Claire would throw in. “Besides, I may not look like it, but I’m very much
alive.” I pointed at the wall. “My body’s a couple doors down the hall.”

“I see.”
Amora
nodded wisely as if she had heard this before.
Then she explained to her mother what I’d said, and her mother suddenly
relaxed. Somehow, I gathered the reason for their concern. They thought I was
here to take
Amora
back to heaven with me.
                     

That’s
when it came to me, though I didn’t know from where or why, and I hoped I
wasn’t making it up just to make them feel better, but I remembered Ethan’s
words and they gave me courage. Some things you just know.

I
attempted to caution myself, but blurted it out anyway.

“
Amora
, I have a funny feeling you’re going to get well . .
. soon. I don’t think the Angels are waiting for you. My funny feeling says
you’re going to grow up, marry a dark-haired boy named”—I paused for an
instant, and it popped into my head—“Oliver? And have two kids of your own
someday.”

She
stared at me wide-eyed. I guessed it wasn’t every day a ghostly stranger told
you such things about your life, especially prior to puberty.

“Oliver?”
She burst into a giggle. “His name is Juan Olivares, but everyone calls him
Oliver. We’re in the same grade together, and he’s always thumping me on the
back of my head, or tripping me when I walk down the hall. He’s not very nice
to me.”

“He
likes you,” I said, smiling for the first time. “That’s what boys do when they
like a girl. They’re weird like that.”
    

In an
excited whisper, she relayed the news to her mother, and I became more and more
certain that my funny feeling was right. I hadn’t made it up. I was sure of
it.
 

“
Amora
, she must be a messenger!” her mother exclaimed, giant
tears now rolling freely down her cheeks. “How do I explain? Words fail me . .
.” Her mother looked to the end of the bed where I sat. Smiling through her
tears, eyes darting back and forth as if she were attempting to see images in a
dimly lit room, she slowly assembled her thoughts.

“These
last two months, I was told our fight was lost. Even the doctors had given up.”
Her voice broke as the pain came rushing back. “But I refused . . . ‘Bring me
hope,’ I begged. ‘Send me hope.’ And now, I can’t believe it—how did—My prayers
have been answered! You came! You’re here. Hope, Hope, Hope!”
 

I wanted
to tell her it was only a name, and a middle one at that, but she looked so
deliriously happy. She was practically jumping up and down; all we needed was
for June to come in and spoil the fun. A nurse entered the room then, slightly
startled by this dark-haired woman shouting words into the air. She lifted a
sign lying on a side table, and with a look of frustration, left the room,
calling for a nurse named Gloria. I glanced at its message: SPEAKS SPANISH
ONLY, TRANSLATOR REQUIRED.
   

Confused,
I looked at
Amora
. Though I’d squeaked by with two
years of useless high school French, I didn’t speak a lick of Spanish. “That
can’t be true,” I said. “You do speak English, right?”

“I can,
but Mommy can’t. So when it’s just me and her, I usually don’t.” A secret smile
lit up her face. “It must be one of your gifts. They have them, you know . . .
Àngel
de la
guarda
.”

“Guardian
Angel? Yeah, right. I’m pretty sure that job requires you to be dead first. And
trust me, I’m not.” I returned
Amora’s
startling
smile and slid off the bed, amazed that I could understand another language.
Had we been speaking Spanish the entire time, and I hadn’t noticed? Was that
possible? Although I wasn’t dead—and this was a good thing—maybe
Amora
was partially right. Maybe I did have a new talent in
this bodiless form.

Just
then, an elevator appeared inside her room. Carved with ornate figures, the
gnarled wood doors seemed to be hundreds, if not thousands of years old. When I
looked more closely, I saw that the carvings were of ancient people marching in
row after row.

Unable
to hide my excitement, I asked, “Can you see the elevator?”
Amora
shook her head. I searched for a button, feeling along the outer edges where
one would normally be. No sooner had I reached up to scratch my head than I
knew just what to do.

“Are you
leaving?”
Amora
asked. As I looked over my shoulder,
her smile faded.

“I’ll be
back,” I told her. “Do me a favor, will you? Do you know Ethan?” Her grin
returned, and she nodded. Unexpected warmth flooded my cheeks. “Tell him I’ll
see him soon. Give him my love,” I teased.
Amora’s
eyes went wide. “Oh, and be sweet to Oliver. Give him a thump on the back of
his head. He’d probably like that.”
   

I could
still hear her giggling as I tugged through the doors. To my surprise, they
were several feet thick. Once I made my way through, I looked straight down a
narrow, yellow corridor that seemed to go on forever. Every few feet or so, I
spied doors without handles. But beyond them, in the far, far distance,
something held me captive. A light—brighter than the sunniest day I’d ever
seen, brighter than flashes of summer lightning—beckoned me on.

5
Worlds’
Traveler

Those
first few steps were surreal, to say the least. It was like I was zooming down
one of those walking conveyors at the airport—only screamingly faster. With the
end of the long corridor swiftly approaching, and my feet an incomprehensible
blur, I knew that I had covered a great distance in a short span of time.
Eventually, the light at the end of the tunnel became so blindingly intense
that I had to cover my eyes to keep going.

When the
brightness dimmed, I dropped my hands and saw that I was standing in the middle
of a well-kept street that had an old-timey look about it. It was glowing in
the glorious shades of sunrise, or possibly sunset, and although I looked in
every direction, I couldn’t find the sun. Numerous storefronts painted in
cheerful colors lined both sides of the yellow-bricked street, but only one
appeared open for business. It was located a few doors to my right. A
hand-painted sign with a watery blue background that looked like it was in
constant motion (much like the sky itself) hung above the entrance.

 
Liberty
Station and Café
, it read
.
   

Large
windows enveloped the front of the building. I pressed my face against the
glass and peeked inside. The room was massive on the inside, ten times larger
than it had seemed from the outside, and it was crowded with people. Polished
wooden benches like those from an old train depot filled up most of the large,
square room. In the left corner, a long line of customers stood in front of a
sparkling ticket booth. To its right, behind an almost invisible wall of glass,
a shiny, flat-nosed bus awaited passengers.

My
stomach growled as I inhaled the delicious scents of cinnamon and sugar and
chocolate—and I remembered the café. I stepped inside the revolving
door—pausing to admire its perfectly polished brass and glass—but before I
could push it forward, it revolved on its own, granting me easy entrance.

I took
one step inside the station and stumbled sideways. Emotions hung in the air
like candied clouds, leaving my head dizzy and my skin tingly. After steadying
myself, I ambled toward a wide, arched doorway, where a bright neon sign marked
the entrance to the café. The sugary scent was a lot stronger in here. My mouth
watered, and I licked my lips.

 
A notice at the door told me to seat myself,
but I hesitated. I couldn’t believe how enormous it was, nor had I ever seen a
restaurant so glowingly spotless. The décor was straight out of another
decade—red upholstered booths, yellow walls, black and white checkered floors.
Music glided around the room from an old jukebox in the corner. It was a love
song from the forties, a tune by Billie Holiday. I hadn’t the faintest idea how
I knew this, but in my mind it sounded so familiar.
   

I was
still standing awkwardly in the doorway when I glanced to a booth near the
windows and spotted a girl about my age with a huge grin spread over her face.
Although she didn’t utter a sound, I swore I heard her yell excitedly, “Over
here! Come sit by me!”