Then he felt the knob turning in his hands and the door began to open and he was pulled into a dark room that he knew, at once, was cavernous. He felt the temperature change before his eyes could adjust. It was as warm as a sauna. He could hear waves crashing from an open window. He could hear the clink of metal against metal. But Danny’s screams had stopped.
The lights began to come up as someone on either side lifted him off the floor. He smelled perfume and coffee and salt air. He felt himself being lowered and relaxed into something plush. Felt something soft and damp against his wounded forehead. And then his vision was restored, though the light was cobalt blue and railroad lantern red. In the dimness, he could see Danny about ten feet away. The boy was lying on an operating table, his head on a thin pillow, his body covered up to the chin by a sheet that reflected the comic book colors of the room. The boy looked tired but his eyes were open and he was smiling at Sweeney.
Danny’s mouth opened and closed as if forming words, but no sound came from his lips. Sweeney tried to make out the words anyway.
“I knew you’d come,” he repeated to himself and started to slump a bit.
A hand pressed against his chest and pushed him back in his seat. He looked to his left to see Nadia Rey, dressed in her nurse’s whites, her hair pulled back and secured. He looked to his right and saw Alice Peck, in her three-quarter lab coat, with pearls around her throat and a stethoscope hanging from her neck.
Sweeney let his head loll back and touched glass. He sat up and surveyed the room and realized he was in the main turret at the top of the castle, a circular chamber, like the top of a lighthouse, with a peaked ceiling and narrow windows all around. He was on a section of the window seat that circled the room, which was, he now saw, a surgical theater. There were boxy metal carts everywhere, their tops covered in green sheets upon which rested all manner of bowls and basins, scalpels, scissors, chisels, retractors, bone saws, hypodermics, and roll after roll of cotton gauze.
A new kind of panic began to flood in and Sweeney attempted to get up, to go to Danny. But his legs couldn’t seem to bring him to standing and each time he tried, Nadia and Alice restrained him. They did so in a gentle and easy manner, with soft shushing and patting of arms and legs. But they kept him held in place.
Danny, watching his father struggle, gave another smile and mouthed what Sweeney took as, It’s okay, Dad.
And that was when Dr. Fliess appeared on the scene, as if out of nowhere. Suddenly he was standing on the far side of the operating table, his hands on the guardrail, lowering it. He was stationed halfway down the table, near Danny’s waist, wearing green surgical scrubs and latex gloves. To Sweeney, he looked as he’d been depicted in the various Limbo mediums — the comic books, trading cards, posters, TV cartoons, and films. He had the mad eyes that were somehow both bulging and beady. He had the terrible posture that made him seem humpbacked. He had the oversized ears that sprouted the wiry strands of white hair. But when he lowered the surgical mask, his face was that of Dr. Micah Peck.
He addressed Sweeney directly over his son.
“I’m honored to have an audience,” he said, “on a day that will live in medical history.”
Then he spoke to the two women in a sharp voice.
“Has the patient been prepped?” he snapped. “Where’s my assistant?”
Nadia and Alice leaned out from either side of Sweeney and looked at each other. But before they could answer, the room filled with the sound of heels on tile. And out of the darkness came Kerry, the lost wife and mother. She was dressed in scrubs, but unlike Dr. Peck’s, these were soiled. The front of her gown was saturated with blood. She ignored Danny and Peck and walked directly to Sweeney. She was carrying something in her arms.
When she reached her husband, she placed her burden in his lap. His legs and crotch began to burn and he made himself look down from Kerry’s face and saw a fetus, swathed in blood and afterbirth, squirming and making heavy, breathless sounds. Sweeney brought the fetus to his chest, saw that it wasn’t fully developed. Kerry took her husband’s face in her hands, wiped blood and tissue down his cheeks, and moved back to the surgical table to join Dr. Peck.
Peck was nodding, impatient to begin the procedure. Still staring at Sweeney, he reached down to a table, grabbed a sleek, black-on-black bone saw, and slapped it into Kerry’s hands in a theatrical gesture. As Kerry stepped to the head of the table, Sweeney tried to scream and run to her. But voice and legs both failed him, went numb and useless. And so he sat, embraced by Nadia and Alice, embracing the fetus, watching, unable even to close his eyes, as Kerry cut into Danny’s skull, made a small, round hole, and removed a covering of bone as if it were the top to a cookie jar.
What saved Sweeney was the fact that Danny remained fully conscious during the sawing and that he did not cry out. His eyes blinked and glazed, but there were no screams, no convulsion.
Kerry ran her fingers along the edge of the new cavity, and then, in a calm and clinical voice, she said, “We’re ready, Doctor,” and Peck took a long breath and once again addressed Sweeney.
“I know,” said Peck, his words clearly rehearsed, “that you question my methods. And that is appropriate. Many have doubted me before you. But I am here to lead, not to follow. And when the doubters have turned to ash in some forgotten boneyard, my work will live on.”
Without looking, he reached down and lifted a cup into view. It was clear plastic and oversized and decorated with line drawings of the Limbo freaks. The kind of thing given away as a promotion at a fast-food joint. It had a purple, crazy straw protruding high above its rim, twisting and looping to its end. For a moment, Peck lifted the cup above his head, like a chalice or a trophy, then he passed it to Kerry. When he spoke again, there was no sense of a prepared speech.
“Do you know why you’re here?” he asked Sweeney, staring.
“I’m here to help my son,” Sweeney said.
“Do you think you’re a good father?” Peck asked.
“I’ve tried my best,” Sweeney said.
“But your best wasn’t good enough,” Peck said. “Was it?”
Sweeney shook his head.
“Where do you think you went wrong?”
Sweeney tried to wet his lips but found his tongue void of fluid.
“I didn’t protect him,” he said, and Peck yelled, “Speak up.”
“I didn’t protect him,” Sweeney repeated. “I couldn’t keep him from harm.”
Peck nodded. Sweeney brought a hand up and covered his mouth.
“I had a son once,” Peck said. “I understand your troubles.”
Sweeney nodded, unaware that he had begun to weep.
“You want to be forgiven,” Peck said. “You want the boy to forgive you.”
Sweeney’s head was bobbing faster now, his throat on fire and his lungs forgetting any sense of rhythm.
“But to be forgiven,” Peck said, “you must forgive. That is an absolute.”
“I forgive you,” Sweeney yelled.
Peck bit down on his bottom lip, then said, “You have no reason to forgive me. I’ve done nothing to you or your boy.”
“You have to forgive Kerry,” Alice whispered.
“And Danny,” Nadia said.
Peck wasn’t pleased by their interruption.
“Do you know what grace is?” he asked, his voice too loud, and Sweeney nodded. “I’m giving you a gift today,” Peck said. “You didn’t ask for it and you’ll never be able to repay me.”