Just get to the top and you will see. If you lie here at the bottom, you lose. Aunt Greta always said you were a loser. Only losers wallow in the muck at the bottom.

A small rational part of me knew it didn't matter. That it would be better to lie here and conserve strength.

You're going to die and meet your dad and he will know you're a loser. All your friends will look at you-Danny and Joanne and Cordelia and Alex and Elly-and they will say, "Micky was a nice kid, but she * 285 *

didn't quite make it." Aunt Greta will smirk over your coffin and tell everyone that she had been right about you all along.

"No!" I cried.

One last try, all my strength, everything. I started clawing my way up the slope, ignoring the tearing pain in my leg. A handhold, a foothold, an inch. Repeat it. Another inch. Grasp, spit out mud, ignore the pain. Another inch. I reached, caught a root and dragged myself up a few more inches. My foot caught, held a second, then slipped. One hand was in motion, it clutched, but found nothing. The other hand seized the reedy end of a root. It tore, unable to hold my weight.

The swamp dragged me back into its embrace. I lay at the bottom of the hill, panting, exhausted, shaking from the cold and exertion. I would not try again.

"It's okay, Micky. We're here." It was Cordelia's voice. Or maybe Danny's or Joanne's. I couldn't tell. Edges and seams were blurring.

"Where?" I looked, unable to see them, only the surrounding gray and black.

"Wherever you want us to be," they answered. But they were nowhere.

"Why?" I screamed.

"Why not?" a voice answered. A voice I didn't recognize because it was my own, giving the mocking answer I had been so good at giving.

"Come on, Micky. It's easy." It sounded like my dad. I looked up, but couldn't see him. I was looking for him to be lighter than the surrounding gray. He wasn't. He had been blackened and charred and appeared as a deep shadow against the void of evening.

I screamed. But the shadows still came, whispering and rustling.

Death is a horror and it was coming for me.

Darkness came. It was filled with broken silences, the call and cry of animals, unseen murmurs and the callous whistle of the wind. The swamp had won.

Somewhere, distant or near, I couldn't know, I saw the eyes of a creature. They burned through the dark at me. I wondered about all the stories I had heard as a child of swamp things, chimeras of the night.

Was this one? Would I finally know the truth of those tales, but be left Ca.s.sandra-like, unable to tell?

I heard the rustle of its feet come closer, then its panting, hot breath * 286 *

on the back of my neck. The light of its eyes grew brighter until I could see nothing beyond them.

Make it as hard as you can on your opponents, I remembered. The swamp was still my enemy.

I swung in the direction of its acrid breath and started yelling. It growled and howled back at me. Something gripped my arm. The light got brighter. For a moment I thought I heard voices. But that wasn't possible. Just one final, cruel delusion.

The light went out.

* 287 *

CHAPTER 25.

h.e.l.l was gray. Dim and lifeless. Or if this was heaven, I didn't want to know. Maybe I was in purgatory. Uh-oh, that would mean the Catholics were right. This had to be h.e.l.l. I felt numb and in pain at the same time and that wasn't supposed to happen in heaven.

But you would think that with all the queers they had sent here since time began, h.e.l.l would have a better decorating job.

I wondered if I could move. It was an effort just to make my muscles contract. I didn't budge. I must have grunted with the effort. I heard a voice call my name.

"Micky," it repeated. The voice was familiar but I couldn't quite place it. "Don't try to move yet," the voice continued.

A face came into view. I knew the voice but the face blurred beyond memory. I closed my eyes, willing them to focus when I reopened them.

I looked again. The face wavered and changed. It had changed from my memory of what it had been, but I recognized her now.

"Where are Frankie and Ben?" I asked. I didn't know that h.e.l.l was segregated by s.e.x.

"Who?" she asked. "It's just you and me here. Rest. You'll feel better in the morning."

Morning in h.e.l.l?

"Isn't this h.e.l.l?"

Barbara gave a slight laugh.

"Close," she replied. "The hospital."

"I'm alive?" I asked, incredulous.

"Yes, a little worse for wear, but alive."

"And you're okay?"

* 288 *

My brain was slowly starting to work. Her face had changed because all her hair had been shaved off and she only had an inch of gray-brown stubble. Her cheeks were sunken from the weight loss of illness.

"Better than I was," she answered.

"Oh, Barbara, I'm so sorry..." I started.

"Shh, you need to rest. It's about three in the morning."

"You really are okay?" I said, focusing intently on her wan face.

"Let's put it like this, I'll be in physical therapy for a while. And they say I might have a slight limp for the rest of my life, but I think they're wrong."

"I'm sorry. You shouldn't have been there."

"Don't you dare blame yourself. It's not your fault. And you're in no condition for it, anyway."

"How long have I been here?"

"I'm not sure. They put us together the day before yesterday.

There's a guard outside, and I gather it was more convenient for them to have us both in one room. Maybe it was the day before that."

A nurse entered. She hustled Barbara back to bed and gave me something that caused me to go to sleep. I was so very tired.

I'm still alive. Oh, s.h.i.t, how am I going to pay for this, was my last thought.

When I awoke again, the dim gray of night had given way to the bright gray of a cloudy day, either late morning or early afternoon.

Barbara was sitting up in bed eating something that resembled lunch more than breakfast, confirming my time sense.

"Good morning," she said, seeing me stirring.

"Good morning," I replied, attempting to sit up. Every muscle my body contained was sore and aching. I could feel an intense throbbing in my wounded leg. I have to worry about infection now, don't I, I thought to myself.

"Good afternoon," a nurse entered, correcting us. "How are we today?"

"I'm lousy, you look fine. I would say fair-to-middling is a decent compromise," I answered. My sarcastic streak was obviously in good working order. At least something was.

"Well, you're improved from what you were, we prefer them b.i.t.c.hy to comatose," she replied. "Are you hungry?"

* 289 *

I was. Even the goulash that Barbara was eating looked appetizing.

The nurse did the usual nurse things to me, then went off to see about getting me some food.

"I'm really here, aren't I?" I said to Barbara.

"'Fraid so," she answered. "Sorry I can't keep you company much longer. They're letting me go today. Not much they can do for me here that Mom and the kids can't do better at home."

"When did you wake up?" I asked.

"A few days ago. My memory's not very clear, but I'm sure my mother has all the details and will be glad to tell them to you."

"I'll be glad to listen."

"You must be feeling guilty, if you're willing to listen to all the lugubrious details of my hospital stay," Barbara bantered, "My mother will bend your ear for hours."

"I am. Besides, I like your mother. And your kids. I met them when I came by here," I quickly explained on seeing Barbara's puzzled expression.

"Oh, the nice detective who wasn't police," she said smiling. "My kids did mention your being here. They liked you."

"They're good kids," I answered. We were silent for a moment.

"What about you? What happens when you get out?"

"Well, I don't think I'll be going back to Jambalaya to work. But bless their generous heart, they are paying all my hospital bills and disability until I can go back to work."

"Aren't they going out of business?"

"They are, but their insurance company isn't. That's all I'm interested in."

"Some small good," I said, thinking of my own hospital bill woes.

An orderly brought my lunch. It looked good. I must be starving, I thought, as I started eating.

"How long before you go back to work? How badly are you...?"

I trailed off.

"Stop feeling guilty. Face it, Micky, you saved my life. If it hadn't been for you, Milo would have probably taken me into the back room one evening and shot me and that would have been that," she finished emphatically.

"I guess."

* 290 *

"Like it or not, you're a hero," she added.

"So tell me," I said wanting to get off my dubious heroism, "will you ever play the violin again?"

"No, but I never did before." Then she turned serious. "The bottom line is, I've got a plate in my skull and there was some nerve damage on my left side, kind of like a stroke."

"You limp?"

"A bit. But I intend to get well and have a wonderfully adventurous story to tell my grandkids." She smiled again at me, letting me know it was all right.

Patrick and Cissy burst into the room. "Mom," they both called, only slightly toned down by hospital decorum. Barbara's smile broadened and enfolded them. Mrs. Kelly followed them in.

We went through the standard how-are-you's and polite conversation. Then Barbara's doctor came in to say so long and to go through all the discharge procedures.

Patrick and Cissy moved some of the less wilted flowers from Barbara's side of the room over to mine, but I insisted they take anything likely to grow with them. I knew what Hepplewhite would do to plants.

Barbara kissed me on the cheek on her way out.

"Take it easy, Micky. I'll be by to visit. Guaranteed-I have physical therapy here twice a week," she said, still hugging me.

"I'm glad you're okay."

She nodded. "You answered a prayer when you woke up," she said, then she followed after Patrick and Cissy. At the door, her mother took her arm to help her. She did have a limp. Somehow I didn't feel very heroic.