Every Bright and Broken Thing

Chapter Forty-Two - Ezra

Bright.

The astronaut and his sea of stars.

Bright.

The spark of gold in Elaine's eyes.

Bright.

The sudden realization that I am being held.

Bright.

This foreign sense that the same something inside of me that was, only moments ago, breaking is now waking.

Bright.

Mama Gracie's silent prayer and the knowledge that Papa Wilbur is going to be okay.

I think of Mom who told me, in the middle of church hurt and cancer and all the problems we faced, that the future is bright. I wondered how she could possibly know that the future would be bright. I wondered how she could possibly see that far ahead. But now I wonder if it wasn't that she knew the future would be bright. Maybe it was simply that she chose to believe that it would be. And she fought for that belief. Until her very last breath, she fought.

My little fighter.

Waking within me is a call to arms, a call to fight for my future.

I almost laugh thinking that even the fluorescent lights that hang above me are beautiful. Not because all of the sudden, the harsh realities of my addictions and my mistakes have disappeared, but because the moment that I chose to let go of those things I realized that I am not the extent of my failure, that it is within my ability to choose who I will become.

Bright.

The astronaut and his sea of stars.

In my head, an image begins to unfold like a moving story. My fingertips start to itch and my first impulse is to reach for the bottle of pills that is now gone, but then I realize that this itch is not a longing for violent ends, but the far-off feeling of a burst of inspiration.

This could be it. Maybe I finally found the answer to Mom's question. A painting to save my life.

Reaching into my jeans pocket, I pull out my phone to write down every detail of the image in my head before it's gone forever. Four missed calls. Four voicemails. All from Dad. Just as I'm about to click play on the most recent one, desperate to hear his voice one last time, my phone comes alive again. It's Dad.

My finger hesitates over the screen before I answer.

"Dad?"

His voice erupts, fast, furious, almost indecipherable. "Ezra, I've been trying to reach you for weeks. Months. You need to come home. Something happened. Liam's in the hospital."

All the breath is stolen from my lungs.

Liam's in the hospital.

"What happened?" I croak.

"I'll explain it all later. Right now, I just need you to come home. Wherever you are, son, just... come home." His voice cracks and it sounds like he's crying.

Emotion grips my chest, a lump forming in my throat. "Okay," I whisper, blinking back my own tears. I stare down the hospital hallway. My phone slips from my hand and clatters to the linoleum.

"Is everything okay?" Elaine asks, shifting in the chair next to mine.

"It's my brother," I say, looking over at her. "He's in the hospital."