Just Like the Ones He Used to Know: Part V

Image: Still the Oldie

[Being the fifth installment of Robert J Wiersema's original holiday tale of the ghostly and the miraculous. To read the previous installment go here; to start at the beginning go here.]

Dustin awoke to the feeling of weight shifting near his feet, someone sitting on the end of his bed. It was a sensation that he hadn’t felt since Stan….

He opened his eye, for a moment not sure where he was. His face broke into a smile when he saw his mother at the end of the bed. Beaming.

The bed? No – his bed. His bedroom. His parents’ house.

Home.

“Good morning,” he said groggily, rolling his head on the pillow, stretching his neck. The bed felt so good, so warm, that he wanted nothing more than to burrow deep under the covers, close his eyes and never wake up.

“Not anymore, sleepyhead,” his mother said, one hand coming to rest on his leg, squeezing it through the covers. “More like ‘good afternoon.’”

“Oh,” he groaned. “Sorry.”

She shook her head. “Your dad and I thought we should let you sleep. You got in so late. And we figured that Santa wouldn’t mind if you stayed in bed.”

The previous night seemed like a dream to him now, snug and warm and home. Everything – the bus, the conversation with the bus driver, the walk to the house, the snow….

He sat up and his mother jumped back slightly in surprise. “Is it still snowing?” he asked excitedly, not able to help himself.

She laughed. There was nothing delicate about it: she laughed with her whole body, shaking, the sound rich and pure. He smiled – it had been too long since he had heard that.

She shook her head. “I swear, you’re just like a little kid.” She stood up and crossed the room, throwing open the curtains. The room flooded with bright white-blue light, the window itself featureless, a winter tabula rasa.

“It snowed all night,” she said, coming back to stand beside him. “It’s still coming down.”

He snuggled back down into the bed. Falling snow, a warm bed, home.

“How are the roads?” he asked, thinking of Graham, coming out from the city. If he came.

She shrugged. “We’ve been listening to the radio. They’ve been closing the Trans Canada on and off all day through the Sumas Flats.” He thought of the bus driver from the night before, realizing with a sudden shock that he didn’t know the man’s name.

Something in his face must have given him away. “Are you worried about Graham?”

He nodded.

“I don’t think a little snow will keep him away,” she said, and it was like her words, her voice, punctured his worries, deflating them.

“Okay,” he said.

She pulled the covers up snug around his chin and smiled down at him. He felt so small, so safe.

“We thought we might take a walk this morning before things got too busy, but we decided to let you sleep.”

“Maybe later,” he said. He could feel himself starting to slip away, his eyelids heavy, his eyes sandy.

She must have seen it. “I’m sure,” she said, touching her hand to his cheek. “We’ll talk about it when you wake up.”

“Mmm,” he sighed, letting go. “That sounds good.”

She leaned forward and kissed his forehead lightly. She smelled of powder and cinnamon, shampoo and tea. “I’m glad you’re home,” she whispered, as he drifted away.

*            *            *

Graham brushed past the front desk without saying a word and went straight to Dustin’s room.

He didn’t think for a moment that it could possibly be true: the phone call, the bus station. Dustin wouldn’t.

He couldn’t.

But Graham had still come as quickly as he could. It had been slow going: the snow was still coming down, now in thick, wet flakes that seemed to stick to everything, and the streets were mostly unplowed. “Treacherous,” according to the radio. But it was Christmas morning, so there was virtually no one else out. Graham had crept along, leaning forward over the steering wheel as if that might improve his visibility, straight from Shelley’s apartment in the West End.

It was all going to be a waste, he knew that. There was no way that Dustin could just pick up and–

He stopped in the doorway of his brother’s room.

The TV was off, something that almost never happened. The bed was made, corners tight, covers flat.

Empty.

He almost ran back to the front desk.

“My brother,” he said, not wasting time on pleasantries. “Where is my brother?”

The woman behind the counter just stared at him, and in that moment Graham realized how he must have looked: unshaven, unwashed, wearing yesterday’s rumpled suit, probably reeking of booze, acting crazy.

“I’m sorry,” he said, taking a deep breath. “I’m looking for my brother. Dustin Burch? He’s not in his room.”

“He left,” the woman said flatly, without checking the computer or the file box.

“What? Dustin Burch? He didn’t just–”

She nodded. “Yesterday afternoon. He left.” She said it as if I should have known. She glanced at a younger woman behind the desk, who seemed to be trying to fade into the wallpaper.

The words didn’t make any sense. “So he just got up and….”

The woman nodded. “Yes.”

“And you just let him?” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Sir, this is a hospice, not a prison.” She glanced again at the girl beside her. “Our staff aren’t–”

Graham leaned both hands on the counter, dropped his head between his shoulders, trying to catch his breath, trying to make sense of what he was hearing. “But the last time I saw him he could barely make it to the bathroom. And he walked out of here?”

The woman seemed about to speak, but the girl interrupted her. “He said he was going for Christmas. To your parents’ place. I thought….” She stood up. “I guess I assumed that they were here, waiting for him. Out in the parking lot, maybe. I didn’t–” Her face was tight, and it seemed like she was close to breaking. Clearly she had been hearing about this, likely all morning.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the older nurse said. “We did try calling. We left you a message.”

There hadn’t been any message on his cell. “Did you call my home number?”

“Is there another number we should have tried? That was the only one in Dustin’s file.”

Graham shook his head. His own stupidity.

“I’m very sorry about all this,” the nurse said. “Our staff, especially our volunteers…well.” She paused, as if measuring her words. “To be perfectly honest, we don’t have a lot of patients checking themselves out. Typically.”

Graham’s body deflated, and he nodded. “Yeah, I know. This is more of a…one-way ticket place.”

“I’m very sorry,” the girl said. Looking at her calmly now, more fairly, Graham was stunned by how young she was. She couldn’t even be out of high school. So what was she doing here, volunteering at the hospice on Christmas Day? There was a certain nobility to it. Just enough to make him feel like a complete prick for how he had acted.

“Have you checked with your parents?” the nurse asked.

“No,” Graham said, shaking his head.

“Well, Dustin said he was going to spend Christmas with them,” the volunteer tried.

“He’s not,” Graham said, trying to figure out what to do next.

“But if you haven’t–” the volunteer started.

“He’s not with them,” Graham said, immediately regretting how snappy he sounded. “He can’t be. Our parents are dead. They died in a car accident, twenty-four years ago.”

[Return tomorrow for the sixth installment of "Just Like the Ones He Used to Know."]