Page 26 of The Beachgoers
“Good.”
“Man, what happened there?” Kyle asks, motioning to where medical gauze reaching around Jason’s back shows through his hospital gown.
“Road burns.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah. The nurse just changed the dressing.”
“You need a pillow there, behind your shoulder?”
“Yeah.”
Kyle lifts an extra pillow off the foot of the bed and gently works it behind Jason’s shoulder. “Okay. Got it.” When he sits then, he folds back the sleeves of his white dress shirt.
“You can go, Kyle,” Jason quietly tells him. “It’s all right.”
When Kyle looks up from cuffing his shirtsleeves, his eyes drop to the prayer card. Jason’s hands are resting on his torso, and he holds the card in his fingers. “Where am I gonna go, Barlow? Huh? Go to the cemetery? Stand next to Lauren there, who just lost the man she left me for? Sit at the restaurant and break bread with your father? He pulled in the driveway the night I had it out with your brother last week. He knows.” Kyle shakes his head, sucks in a breath. “Shit. I shouldn’t have said all that.”
“Sure beats all the bullshit I hear in this room. The pep talks.”
“Well, that’s the truth of it. I got nowhere to go, Jason. Nowhere.”
“Hey, man. Me, neither.”
The reality ofthatchanges Kyle’s tone, then. “Jason,” he says, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “I’m so, so sorry, Barlow. About everything. No matter what. About Neil. And hell, about everythingyou’regoing through.”
Jason looks from Kyle to the photo of Neil.
“Whatever you need, anytime, you tell me,” Kyle says. “In the hospital, once you’re home. Oh, and by the way,” he adds as he sits back in his funeral suit and lifts his foot to his knee. “You’re stuck with me, dude. Because I’m staying right here all morning. With you.”
* * *
And he does.
As Jason shakes his head with a hint of a smile; as he says a few words here and there; as he needs a drink of water; as the nurse stops in to check on him, Kyle’s there. His voice talks about the Yankees, and his steelwork, and the hot weather outside. He mentions the fishing reports, and says what’s biting. He tells Jason how he took a ride to the accident scene to see where it went down. That he rigged together a cross out of driftwood and left it there for Neil.Something from the beach, you know?Kyle insists, too, that with state-of-the-art prosthetics, Jason will be up and around in no time. He puts a straw in a fresh cup of water and holds the cup close for him. He fluffs pillows and straightens Jason’s sheet.
And when Jason falls asleep, Kyle lifts Neil’s prayer card out of his limp fingers and props it on his bedside tray.
