The Messenger

33

He awoke before she did, showered and dressed, and took a phone call from a doctor he had worked with in the past. He returned to the bedroom in time to see her stirring into wakefulness. She smiled up at him and stretched in a feline way-uncurling to extend her arms, back arched, toes pointed. He felt his mouth go dry.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Good morning.”

Her eyebrows drew together. “You’re dressed. Do you have to leave?”

“Not right away, but yes.”

“Can I go with you?”

“Sorry,” he said. “For my own part, I wish you could. But for this gentleman-”

“It’s okay,” she said, a little too quickly. “I don’t want to suffocate you.”

“It’s not that at all,” he said, trying to rid himself of images of certain wonderful ways to find himself “suffocated.”

“Do you have time to have breakfast together?”

“Yes, that would be great.” He called Ben on the intercom and asked that they be served in the private parlor off his bedroom.

When he took her into it, he said, “Having sitting rooms off bedrooms is something from another era, I suppose, but it’s a feature of the past that I find comfortable.”

If Ben was surprised to be serving a young woman who was dressed only in a nightgown and a robe, he did not betray it by so much as a smile. But when Tyler passed the kitchens with Shade on his way out of the house, he heard Ben whistling-as much a first as the breakfast arrangements.

He drove to a hospital near downtown Los Angeles. As arranged by the doctor who had called, he was taken to a ward where a homeless man lay dying.

The dying man’s breathing was irregular. His gray hair lay in long, thin strands on his pillow. His frame was thin and covered by wrinkled, leathery skin. His cheeks were hollow and his open mouth revealed that his few remaining teeth were badly decaying.

Tyler had never seen him before in his life.

“Dr. Riley said you might know who he is?” the nurse asked hopefully.

“Yes,” Tyler said, taking the dying man’s rough hand in his own.

Horace Dillon, and I’ve got family in Orange County. He gave Tyler the name and phone number of a niece who lived in Newport Beach. She doesn’t know I’ve been living like this-haven’t seen her in about three years-but tell her I got enough saved to pay for my own burial.

“His name is Horace Dillon,” Tyler said, and repeated the contact information for the niece, along with a warning that she would have no idea that her uncle was homeless or had been ill. The nurse hurried away to make the call.

Kind of you to be here with me. My niece won’t get here in time, but that’s all right. We weren’t all that close, but she’ll see I get a headstone and she’s welcome to anything left after that. She’s married to a wealthy man, but a burden is a burden, and I never wanted to be one to them.

There was, Tyler noticed, no rancor in this. Horace gave Tyler the banking and burial plan information his niece would need.

Before you go, though, Mr. Hawthorne, I got a little information to give to you.

Thank you-please feel free to call me Tyler.

Always hard for me to address my seniors by their first names, but all right. First, I must say I pity you.

He was not the first of the dying to say this to Tyler, but today it rankled.

There’s no need, Mr. Dillon. Right now, I’m the happiest I’ve been in centuries.

Because of the young woman, you mean. But that’s why I pity you. I wouldn’t want to have to make the decision you’ll be making.

Tyler nearly let go of the man’s hand.

Don’t blame the messenger! Shouldn’t have to say that to you, of all people. Now, I only have a few seconds here, so listen. It’s up to you. You’ve longed for a way to be where I am, but you know you have to pass this work on. She’s the one, if you’re ready. Give her the ring. Then let Shade find the other dog.

Other dog?

You already know what I mean. The question is, will it be her or you?

What?

She’s the one, Tyler. The next one to do your work. If you want to give her the job-up to you. Oh, and beware of an old enemy. That’s all I can say, except, thanks again for being here with me. I wouldn’t have wanted to be alone. Keep the faith, Tyler.

“Wait!” Tyler cried out. “No! No!”

The nurse and a doctor came rushing in, and after a flurry of effort that no one expected to revive the patient, the nurse gently told him what he already knew, that his “friend” was dead. Tyler knew she mistook his stunned reaction for grief. With shaking hands, he gave her the bank and burial plan information for Horace Dillon’s niece.

“Don’t you want to wait for her?” the nurse asked.

“She doesn’t know me,” he said, and left.

He was never sure afterward how he found his way back to the van, because he was lost in a fog of disbelief. He crawled into the back of the van, knowing it would not be safe-for others-if he drove in this state. Shade watched him anxiously.

“Did you know?” Tyler asked as Shade moved closer. “Did you know from the start that I was supposed to hand this-this misery on to her?”

Shade made a soft keening sound.

Tyler put an arm around the great dog’s shoulders, burying his face in his fur. “I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t damn her to this.”