don't know why it's so bad
this life's been so bad
I'm glad I finally found you here
you're the voice of a dream I had
you're the voice and I'm so glad
you're the weight of a dream of a life come true...
--Toni Childs, Dreamer
April has a house on the beach now, a good job, a wonderful daughter. Most of the
time she can be happy with that. It always makes her nervous when Shadow goes to visit
her father; she's supposed to come back home today, and April's already called the house
twice to see if she's back in. She's reading when she hears the phone; she snatches it up
on the second ring.
"Hello?"
"Mom?"
"Shadow," relief flooding her, "you're home."
"Yeah....Mom?"
"What?"
"I...I...Mom, are you sitting down?"
They send Mike over first...guess they know she'll let her guard down for him.
"Hey," he says. "You know, they let us on the plane? Didn't even give us any...oh, April,
c'mon, don't cry, c'mere..."
"Oh," she says..."Mike, I..."
"Shh," he says, wrapping his arms around her. "I know...it's been a long time, huh?"
"Mike..."
"Almost twenty years...c'mon, April, you're not glad to see me at all?"
"I'm so glad to see you Mike, I just..."
"I know, I know...I'm just tryin' to cheer ya up...oh, April, God it's good to see you...you
wanna come over to Shadow's?"
"Not yet, Mike, I don't think..."
"Ya want me to start sendin' 'em over? Sure ya don't wanna get all the cryin' over with at
once?"
She smiles at him, a little sadly. "Could you...could you send Don over?"
Half an hour of crying; a minute of awkward silence, a smile shared for an
instant.
She gets up. "You want something to drink? I could make some tea..."
"Yeah, sure." He watches her walk into the kitchen, closes his eyes, leans his back
against her couch. Oh, April, I've missed you...
"Ya gotta see my coffeemaker, too, you'll love it, I can call from work and tell it when
I'm gonna be home..."
"I always told you..."
"I know, I know..." she smiles, takes the teapot off the stove, fills it. "Everything that
Donatello predicts will one day come to pass..."
"It's just a matter of time," he finishes for her, feeling his face stretch into a smile again,
almost feels awkward, he hasn't done it in so long...
She leans back in his arms. "Still won't make love to me, huh?"
"In a house fulla my brothers? Just down the street from your mom? You just made it
worse, baby." His beak nuzzles the back of her neck. "Besides, I'm so damn old
this is about what I can do."
"Very funny," she says, and turns her head to kiss him.
"Whatcha gonna do with me when ya find somebody your own age?"
"I'll get ya a tank," she says. "Or maybe I'll keep you in a hot tub or something..."
They hear a knock, and Shadow jumps up. Raph calls, "Yeah?"
"Just me," Mike says. "Dinner's ready."
Dinner goes a little too well. Everyone's nice and calm and it gives them all plenty of
time to notice how well Shadow and Raphael get along, the tiny smiles they give each
other, the way they finish each other's sentences. For a second, when they think no one's
looking, she brushes his hand, and takes it; he squeezes her fingers, smiles, lets go.
April fights her instinct to step in; she of all people shouldn't say anything. Talking with
Don today made her so happy. Even thinking of Rachel...it still hurts, but there's
something there that she hasn't felt before. Maybe it's hope, she doesn't know.
Mike doesn't know what to think any more. He's just gritting his teeth and hoping for the
best. He's noticing the way Don and April are around each other, too, doesn't want to get
his hopes up but it'd be nice if they got together, after all this time, all this pain...twenty
years. Damn. He feels like Rip Van Winkle.
And Don? Don feels like he's seen the sun for the first time in twenty years. "I didn't
realize it'd feel so good to see you again," she'd told him when he left, she'd hugged him,
and it had felt good. It had felt like resurrection...
A few nights later, in bed:
"Are you all right?"
"Yeah," he says. "Yeah. I'm fine."
"What's wrong?"
"I just...I had a dream last night, having a little trouble forgetting it..."
"About Rachel?"
"Yeah....we were at her wedding."
"Oh, Don..."
"It was so beautiful, she was so beautiful...and we were there, and Casey was there, but it
was all right, we were all gettin' along...and Raph was there with Shadow...and I danced
with her and we laughed...it was a nice dream, don't know why it's bothering me so
much..."
She pulls him closer.
"Weird how you can miss what you never even had, huh?"
She blinks her tears back, rests his head against her chest.
Later, when they're almost asleep, she hears his voice:
"She was a biochemist...a Ph.D..."
"Michaelangelo?"
"Yes?"
"This is Susan Yeoh from the agency...you may remember me from when you registered
as a foster parent..."
"Yes, I remember speaking to you." You were real nice too...didn't laugh
directly in my face...
"The staff at Western General says you've been spending a lot of time with the BZT-
positive infants..."
"Yes."
"Then you're familiar with Sophie's case."
Does someone want her? "Oh, yeah, she's just the sweetest little girl..."
"Yes, well, we're having trouble placing her because of her BZT-positive status; so far
she's been asymptomatic but--"
"Look, I'll talk to anyone you want me to--"
"We were wondering if you might be interested in taking her."
"I-- what?"
"We understand that this is a big responsibility, and we're--"
"I-- I'll take her, I'll take her today if you--"
"That won't be necessary--"
"She deserves a lot more than growin 'up in a hospital room."
"Of course, this all needs to go through the proper channels..."
Shit. "Of...of course..."
"But now that we know you'd be willing, we can get moving..."
Mike hardly listens to the rest of the conversation. Eilonwy paddles up, and he starts
stroking her fur, forcing himself to sound enthusiastic on the phone.
When he hangs up he pulls the dog closer, gives in to his tears.
"Mom?"
"Yeah?"
"The hospital called...it's Dad."
"What's wrong?"
"They thought it was a heart attack at first, but...now it looks like his liver's failing.
They've got him in intensive care..."
"Oh, Shadow..."
"He was asking for us. He's fading in and out a lot, I guess..."
"God..."
"Do you think...I know you probably don't want to see him, but--"
"I'll come out with you."
"Mom, you don't have to go to the hospital...I just need somebody to go with, Raph says
he'll go but..."
"I'll come out, Shadow. He...he still...I should go."
Don stands outside the intensive care unit, waiting for Shadow. April had told him
he didn't have to come, but he had to, he knew. Something inside him was telling him he
needed to be here.
It murmured something about fate.
And besides, he couldn't let his wife come out by herself, to try to face down the past they
shared...
"Where's Mom?"
He turns to Shadow. "She's downstairs talking to the doctors..."
"I talked to them this morning," she says softly. "It doesn't look good." She blinks a tear
away, looks away from him.
"Where's Raph staying?"
"He's gonna stay down at the cabin, I guess..."
"And you got a motel room," Don says carefully.
"Yeah," she says. "I...I just couldn't stay at the farmhouse...and..."
"You want me to talk to him?"
"Nothing to talk about," she says quietly.
"You know you forget," Raph says, leaning back in the unforgiving hospital chair. "I
miss him. I miss goin' out and bustin' heads and...shit, Don, how can I miss him this
much and still be so goddamn angry?"
Don looks over at the family that's camped out on the other side of the waiting room.
The little girl's waiting to see her daddy. He's twenty-seven; he was in a car accident.
They're not sure he's gonna make it. But the girl, he can't remember her name, is sure
he's gonna be okay.
She's told everyone that several times.
"I don't know, Raph. I mean...you won't believe this," he says, one of those grim smiles
on his face, "but I miss the stupid wingnut once in a while, too...and then I remember
what he did..."
Raph puts his hand on Don's.
"It's okay," Don says softly. "I'm all right." The little girl's ball rolls over to Don; he
picks it up, tosses it back to her. "You think they'll let him have that little girl?"
"Mike?" Raph shakes his head. "Ya got me. Wish they weren't stringin' him along like
this...I mean, give him the kid or don't give him the kid, ya know?"
"Yeah..."
"So how's the cabin?"
Raph shrugs his shoulders. "Still there."
"Why aren't you staying with Shadow?"
Raphs picks a pink stuffed elephant off the floor, stares at it for a moment, puts it back
on the shelf. "You know why."
"You love her."
"Yeah."
"So why--"
"'Cause that's not enough. Casey and April loved each other, look how far that
got 'em..." The elephant must've been in the waiting room a long time. One of its front
paws is dirty, and its stuffing is starting to come out near the bottom.
"She needs you, Raph."
Raphael's eyes are still fixed on the elephant.
You almost killed her, back when she was yours, Don thinks. And you
destroyed my child...and now, you seem so weak, so diminished by time and by your own
self-destruction...
He knows April has forgiven Casey. She had no other choice, really, they still had
Shadow...and the anger, it hurts you most of all. It eats at you, night and day, never
satisfied...He lifts up the chart at the foot of the bed.
He learned to read them in those long interminable months waiting for Rachel to die,
when they were all coming into the hospital every day, over and over, for test after test,
trying to save her, hoping every time that the next blood draw, the next test, would hold
the key...
They're all electronic now, of course, but they say the same things as they always
did.
They're dosing you wrong, Casey. Poisoning you even worse than you poisoned
yourself. And I'm the only one who's noticed it. It's been a day now, and they still
haven't changed the dosage. I figure you'll be dead by the end of the week.
I'm sorry, Casey. I'm really sorry. It's not your fault that it's come to this, that this is what
I've become.
But every night I dream about my little girl. Every night I see her face.
I can't forgive you.
I don't even know if I want to.
"Still stringin' you along, huh?"
"Maybe I can find somebody else to take her...some nice human out there, ya know? I
know a lot of people at this point...maybe..."
"Aw, Mike..."
"It'd be better than what she has now, darlin'..."
"But..."
"I know," he says. "I know...aw, shit, what time is it out there?"
"About one..."
"I gotta let you go to bed..."
"I wouldn't have slept anyway, Mike."
"Look, give my love to everybody, all right?"
"I will. I love you."
"Love you too, Shadow."
Shadow hangs up, lies on her back and looks up at the ceiling. There's a stain up there
that doesn't look like a water stain...she's trying to figure out where it came from, though
she's sure she doesn't really want to know...
Knock.
"What?"
"It's me." Raph's voice.
She gets up, unlocks the door. He puts an arm around her waist, kisses her, locks the
door with his free hand...
Don wakes up at three in the morning, touches April's arm. "April?"
She frowns. "Huh?"
"Call the hospital."
"Wha--?"
"Ask them to check the dosing on the Crevanin. Tell 'em you had a dream, make
something up. It's too high, April, I'm sure of it. It'll kill him. You gotta call."
She calls, comes back to bed, gets under the covers. After a minute she says, "You didn't
just think of that, did you?"
He looks at her, looks away. "No," he tells her.
"I don't think," she says slowly, "...I don't think she'd want us to be angry."
"I know," Don says.
"You did the right thing," she says.
"I know."
She puts her arms around him, and he holds her, feeling the tears roll down his face, as
she starts crying.
--end chapter three--
