The Last Day

THIRTY

Ward stood in the doorway to Barney's room disbelieving his eyes. The dresser drawers had been dumped out onto the floor and leaned haphazardly against the wall. His son's toys were piled on the twin beds; the sheets and pillows had been balled and cast into a corner. Looking at the model cars he was sickened at the thought of the scratches that would be left from their rough handling. The searchers’ actions had defiled Barney's bedroom. Natasha sat on Barney's bed looking crestfallen, a model car in her hands. Ward could hear Leslie in their bedroom straightening up the FBI's mess. She looked up and saw Ward looking in.

“How could anybody leave a child's room like this?” she asked sadly “Where do we start?”

“Maybe we shouldn't put it back like it was,” Ward said, surprising himself as much as what he'd said seemed to surprise her.

“What do you mean? We have to clean it up,” she said.

He thought about what Barney had said to him when he'd been unconscious earlier. “Barney will never be here again. I guess it's time to face that.”

Ward stepped into the room and sat on the other bed and stared at his wife.

She said, “Ward, I don't think you are responsible for the virus. I was just so angry that it happened I said things I didn't mean. Call it… displaced frustration. When I said you weren't the man I married last night, I was serious, but whatever else happens between us, I know that inside you are still that man.”

“I want to be him again,” Ward told her.

She looked at her hands, balled tight in her lap. “There's something else I haven't told you. Lately my hands have been shaking. It's probably nothing, but I'm going to see a neurologist and find out what's causing it. My colleagues have had to take over my surgery and I'm sidelined until I get it figured out. I'm sure it's just stress.”

Ward took her hands in his and held them. They trembled gently in his.

“See?”

“Why didn't you say something? Dear God, I…”

“It's all right, Ward. At the moment there's no point in wasting time worrying over that. If Dr. Edmonds tells me there's something to worry about, we can worry about it then.” She frowned. “I think there's some boxes we can put Barney's things into in the storage room.”

“When did it start?”

“Two or three weeks ago. Been getting worse.”

Ward said, “We can decide what to do with his things when we feel up to it. One step at a time.”

“Even the cars?” she asked.

“Even the cars.”

Ward knew that he had to do it before he had time to think about it, or he might change his mind.

Natasha bent over and picked up, from among Barney's clothes, a small black box about five inches long. When Natasha opened it, she gasped loudly, and dropped it to the floor and backed away as though it were a rattlesnake.

Ward knelt down and looked at the replica of a casket complete with gold handles fashioned from wire. Lying inside the casket was an effigy-a Star Wars action figure of ten- year- old Anakin Skywalker-with bold black lines crossing out each of its little blue eyes.