“Why didn’t Gran tell me she was leaving? Why didn’t she take me? Maybe I wanted to come too. Maybe I wanted to say good-bye. Just say good-bye.”

“Your grandmother does things her way. Just like you, Nyle. You’re both impossible.”

I reached out and touched Muncie’s arm. Headlights were slowing down at the road, slowing and turning up this way. I heard the whinny of a truck downshifting.

Muncie and I stood, waiting in the blinding headlights.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Twenty-Nine

New leaves uncurled beneath the warm April sun. Gran’s truck bounced along the frost-heaved roads. There was no money to fix them, no more road crews. The state couldn’t afford road crews anymore.

I held a gift wrapped in marbled paper against my chest.

“This isn’t going to be easy, Nyle,” Gran warned.

“It’s all Ripley’s fault,” I said bitterly.

Gran shook her head. “No, Nyle. The leukemia had already taken hold of Ezra before Ripley pounded him. That’s what made him bleed like that, the leukemia, not Ripley. Cookshire caused this, not Ripley Powers. The radiation Ezra absorbed triggered the cancer, sped up its growth. In a way Ripley did Ezra a favor. Who knows how long Ezra would have waited to tell us he was sick?”

Gran found a space in visitor parking and we walked to the entrance of the hospital.

Inside, we stopped at the reception desk.

Ezra was in room 804. My nostrils constricted at the smell as we got off the elevator. The whole place gleamed with cleanliness, but an odor lurked underneath, an odor that made me want to turn and run.

I stole a glance into each room as we passed; patients sitting or lying in their sunlit beds. Some my age, some older, some younger. This was the cancer ward. It was full to capacity.

In room 804 the curtains were drawn. But I recognized Mrs. Trent, even in the dim light. She sat beside Ezra’s bed, staring at the wall opposite her. She wore one of my dresses, and over it a sweater of Gran’s.

Mrs. Trent looked up as we entered the room. She blinked, stared at us. Suddenly she stood, opening her arms. I went to her, like a lamb to a ewe. Her scent closed around me.

Ezra lay on the bed, eyes shut, a bandanna patterned like the American flag tight around his head. His large hands rested outside the sheets.

Stepping back, I stared down at the bed. This couldn’t be Ezra. But there was the scar.

“Ezra,” Mrs. Trent said.

Ezra’s eyes opened partway. Tired eyes, the spark extinguished.

Gran extended a hand to Mrs. Trent. The two stepped out of the room.

I sat in the chair beside the bed.

“A present,” I said, extending the package toward him. He was too weak to take it from me.

“Should I open it for you?” I asked.