“Snug as a bug in a rug,” he said.
“Don’t joke, Scott. Please.”
She went behind the wheelchair and put her hands tentatively on the jutting handles. There was no need of the rope; her weight stayed. She pushed him toward the door, onto the stoop, and down the ramp.
The night was cold, chilling the sweat on his face, but the air was as sweet and crisp as the first bite of a fall apple. Above him was a half-moon and what seemed like a trillion stars.
To match the trillion pebbles, just as mysterious, that we walk over every day, he thought. Mystery above, mystery below. Weight, mass, reality: mystery all around.
“Don’t you cry,” he said. “This isn’t a goddam funeral.”
She pushed him onto the snowy lawn. The wheels sank eight inches deep and stopped. Not far from the house, but far enough to avoid being caught under one of the eaves. That would be an anticlimax, he thought, and laughed.
“What’s the joke, Scott?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Everything.”
“Look down there. At the street.”
Scott saw three bundled-up figures, each with a flashlight: Missy, Myra, and Doctor Bob.
“I couldn’t keep them away.” Deirdre came around the wheelchair and dropped to one knee in front of the bundled-up figure with his bright eyes and sweat-clumped hair.
“Did you try? Tell the truth, DeeDee.” It was the first time he had called her that.
“Well… not very hard.”
He nodded and smiled. “Good discussion.”
She laughed, then wiped her eyes. “Are you ready?”
“Yes. Can you help me with the buckles?”
She managed the two holding the harness to the back of the chair, and he rose at once against the lap strap. She had to struggle with that, because it was tight and her hands were going numb in the January cold. She kept touching him, and each time she did her body would rise from the snow cover, making her feel like a human pogo stick. She stuck with it, and finally the last strap holding him to the chair began to slide free.
“I love you, Scott,” she said. “We all do.”
“Right back atcha,” he said. “Give your good girl a kiss for me.”
“Two,” she promised.
Then the strap slithered out of the buckle and it was done.
He rose slowly from the chair, the coverlet trailing below him like the hem of a long skirt, feeling absurdly like Mary Poppins, minus the umbrella. Then a breeze caught him, and he began to rise faster. He clutched the coverlet with one hand and the SkyLight against his chest with the other. He saw the diminishing circle of Deirdre’s upturned face. He watched her wave, but his hands were occupied and he couldn’t wave back. He saw the others wave from where they stood on View Drive. He saw their flashlights focused on him, and noted how they began drawing together as he gained altitude.
The breeze tried to turn him, making him think of how he’d slued sideways on his ridiculous trip down his snow-crusted lawn to the mailbox, but when he partially unwrapped the coverlet and held it out on the side the wind was coming from, he steadied. That might not last long, but it didn’t matter. For the time being he only wanted to look down and see his friends—Deirdre on the lawn by the wheelchair, the others in the street. He passed his bedroom window and saw the lamp was still on, casting a yellow stripe on his bed. He could see things on his bureau—watch, comb, little fold of money—that he would never touch again. He rose higher, and the moonlight was bright enough for him to see some kid’s Frisbee caught in an angle of the roof, maybe tossed up there before he and Nora had bought the place.
That kid could be grown up now, he thought. Writing in New York or digging ditches in San Francisco or painting in Paris. Mystery, mystery, mystery.
Now he caught escaping heat from the house, a thermal, and began rising faster. The town disclosed itself as if from a drone or low-flying plane, the streetlamps along Main Street and Castle View like pearls on a string. He could see the Christmas tree that Deirdre had lit over a month ago, and which would remain in the town square until the first of February.
It was cold up here, much colder than on the ground, but that was all right. He let the coverlet go and watched it drop, spreading out as it went, slowing, becoming a parachute, not weightless but almost.
Everyone should have this, he thought, and perhaps, at the end, everyone does. Perhaps in their time of dying, everyone rises.
He held out the SkyLight and scratched the fuse with a fingernail. Nothing happened.
Light, damn you. I didn’t get much of a last meal, so could I at least have a last wish?
He scratched again.
“Ican’t see him anymore,” Missy said. She was crying. “He’s gone. We might as well—”
“Wait,” Deirdre said. She had joined them at the foot of Scott’s driveway.
“For what?” Doctor Bob asked.
“Just wait.”
So they waited, looking up into the darkness.
“I don’t think—” Myra began.
“A little longer,” Deirdre said, thinking, Come on, Scott, come on, you’re almost at the finish line, it’s your race to win, your tape to break through, so don’t blow it. Don’t choke. Come on, big boy, let’s see your skills.
Brilliant fire burst high above them: reds and yellows and greens. There was a pause, then came a perfect fury of gold, a shimmering waterfall that rained down and rained down and rained down, as if it would never end.
Deirdre took Missy’s hand.
Doctor Bob took Myra’s hand.
They watched until the last golden sparks went out, and the night was dark again. Somewhere high above them, Scott Carey continued to gain elevation, rising above the earth’s mortal grip with his face turned toward the stars.
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