Dream Again

Day 331 - 374

I don't get infected from the cuts. Somehow, losing so much blood perhaps, or immediate baptism in the ocean, spares me.
It doesn't spare Luke.
First his wound festers, red streaks, followed by thick yellow pus. Desperate, we do anything clean it out. Citrus is our best antiseptic. We give him ever pill we'd hoarded. Benadryl. Unknown white pill. Tylenol. Nothing. We feed him any citrus we can find for vitamin C. We wash the wound with fresh water as he can't stand the salt. Within a few weeks he can't put any weight on the foot.
"Hold on yeah? One of these nights there's going to be a plane on that horizon. Your mum's going to be waiting, fussing about giving her a scare," I say, holding him up in my arms as we watch the sunset. He asked to come up to the cliffs so we did. I carried him. His body is hot with fever. "Was your mum one to fuss?"
"Yeah, about anything," Luke whispers, licking his lips.
"What about, like?'
"Like, playing outside without a jacket. Or running down the stairs, or walking with scissors carried the wrong way," he says.
We've let him run the length of this island that knife in his hand.
Tears are running down my face. He's burning up in my arms. And my stupid inner voice just keeps telling me he needs a hospital. Call 999. Get him help. Like my brain won't believe how impossible that is.
He winces a little, miserably. I wipe a hand across his sweaty face.
"Shh, it's okay," I say.
"No it's not," River chokes. She's been crying. Her face is blotchy from tears. She's sitting a few feet away, doing nothing. Neither of us have the stomach to eat. He hasn't eaten in days.
"Yeah it is. Because I'm going to be right here holding onto you, all right? you're not alone," I say. I can hear the sound of hospital machinery. Someone telling me my sister was already dead. And i was screaming at my father. And he was pushing me back in the bed. I hadn't seen him since he got her addicted. Five long years. She was dead. And I paid them to tear me apart. And I still couldn't save her either.
"It's not fucking okay. Nothing is fucking okay," River says, voice raw with pain. That's how my heart feels. But. Ever the poker face. Because feelings don't do you any good. Can't let it show.
"What's wrong?" Luke asks, he's delirious with fever.
"Nothing. I'm sore. You rest and keep on fighting for us now," I say, kissing his forehead.
He sleeps. And the brave boy keeps fighting. He wants to see his mum again. He talks about going home. I don't know if it's the fever which we keep feeding. Or if he knows he's never going home again.
"I bet my mom cleaned my whole room. She always did. And I always left my clothes a mess. She said she was going to leave this time. While we were gone. I bet she broke down and cleaned it," he whispers one night. He couldn'T sleep. So I sat up holding him. It's better he sits up. And we've got nothing to prop him on.
"I bet she did, yeah," I say, stroking his hair from his face.
"Did your mom clean things too?" He asks.
"No um—we're not much like that. My ah—my mum was sick," I say, evasively, "And um—you know—I don'T think she really liked me."
"Don't you have a dad?" He asks, "You don't talk about him."
"No um—," late night poker games. A slick leather belt on my back. The smell of cheap beer. A green felt table. Big hands tight on my neck. "No. I didn't."
"You can come and live with me then. My mom won't mind," he says, settling back into my arms, "We've been here so long. They must be getting close."
"Yeah. Yeah, soon I'm sure," i say.
We act like some rescue will make it in time. Time is far too short.
Luke hangs on as long as he can. He loses weight, sweating daily in and out with fever. Finally he's delirious.
"Take me in the ocean. I'm sick of being so hot," he whispers.
"It's so cold now, the water, I'll bring you a wet shirt okay?" River says. We're still hiding on the beach. Nothign has come to bother us here. It doesn't matter. Death haunts us anyway.
"No. I want to be in the water. Please?" Luke begs, he's shaking from fever.
I look at River. Our eyes are bloodshot from crying. We're losing him. And we're so powerless to stop it.
Together we lift him and carry him into the water. My own wounds scream in pain. They're still open ad I feel like I'm bearing them afresh. I don't care. The cold water is numbing to my very senses, and we lower Luke's burning body into the cold waves, River holding his head above them. just us. All of us half naked, standing in the cold dark water under a stormy sky. Praying that he'll live. I dont' know who were praying to. It's not as though anyone is listening.
He can't move or speak his teeth are chattering. We carry him back to shore and wrap him in the dry things we have. But his skin is still clammy. Despite my flicker of hope it didn't even break the fever.
"I'm dying aren't I?" Luke asks, he finally, in some clarity of the fever, sees our face. Or tear stained, miserable, faces.
"No, no," river shakes her head.
I say nothing. That's response enough.
"Bury me with my father. Please? That way my mom can find us," Luke asks.
"I'm so sorry," I say, tears running down my face, hot on my cold skin.
"Tell her tried," Luke says.
"No—do not give up, Luke don't give up on us—we need you, we'll get you home. I swear we'll get you home," River cries, tears streaming donw her face.
He breaths his last in my arms, her hugging us both. I dont' know if the shock from the water sped him along. My guilt aside that was a mercy if so. The wound was infected, a staff infection that even penicillin may not have cured even if a helicopter had landed a week ago.
But as it is it did not. And we did not save him.
We bury him with his father.
River keeps his knife. We're too practical to bury it with him, not when it's our only key to survival. I do take off his father's boots, and place them in the grave with his son. His son who I didn't save, in the end. Luke looks so small in the earth, like the child he was. No hint of the man he never lived to be. We bury him next to his father, weeping as we do it. handful upon painful handful of dirt over his poor broken body, smothering him in the unfeeling earth of this place. We have no words anymore. We've both seen death too much. We can't believe in hope again.