Page 11 of Raise Up, Heart
The officer shrugs. “Chief said whatever you want. So, whatever you want.”
“I want a copy.” He thrusts a thumbnail drive at the guy who reluctantly takes it.
“All right. I’ll just get this to Erica. She does that sort of thing.”
Cole nods and watches him leave the room. He can tell the guy thinks he’s off. He doesn’t care. He clicks play again.
Yeah, I need an ambulance on Highway 10 close to the mile marker. Left side ditch if you’re headed east. Head injury. No neck trauma. He’s out cold.
Cole thinks that once he has his thumbnail drive back in his hand he should go to Maryville Billiards, order a drink, and then another, because he knows that voice, hears it in his dreams at night, hears it when he’s trying not to fall into a panic; he knows it anywhere, anytime, always.
Instead, Cole drives back to the scene. He pulls over and stands at the side of the ditch. He gazes down at the darkness at the bottom and he says, “I saw you die. Iknowthey put your heart in him. They burned your body. I helped spread the ashes.”
The sun screams down around him, bright and strong, cutting through the air and illuminating the dirt and rocks below.
He bites his lip. “Am I going crazy?”
Cole waits. He listens. There’s nothing. Not a ghost of a wind, just freezing cold air that burns his nose and eyes.
It’s been a few days now since he’s been into his office for work. He knows Michael is waiting on his approval on a few important items for Appalachian Rainbows, and he should take care of that. He shouldn’t be standing on the side of the road talking to ghosts. Ghosts that have voices that are real enough to be recorded and hands that touch. Cole can still feel how gentle those hands were with him.
He gets into his car, starts the engine, and knows he should go to his office. He takes out his phone instead and calls Emily.
“I don’t thinkI have anything like that,” Emily says, bending over the tiny box of Damon’s stuff that she’s kept for Alex in case he ever returns. They were cousins, but more than that, they’d been best friends. Everything else, the important stuff Alex had kept of Damon’s after his parents took what they wanted, she’s already given to Cole.
“Just…a note, or…something he wrote,” Cole says.
Emily sighs, tucks her hair behind her ears, and says, “No—but, you know, if it’s that important to you, then you can try the hospital. Some of personnel files? They should have them still in storage, don’t you think? Surely you could convince someone there to show yousomething.”
There are so many things about Emily that Cole appreciates. Right now, though, Cole appreciates that Emily doesn’t even askwhyCole needs to see some of Damon’s handwriting. Nor does she suggest he make contact with Damon’s homophobic family. She’s too smart for that.
Even if Emily’s made it clear on more than one occasion that she thinks Cole should put the past aside and move on, at least more than he has, she never suggests that he’s wrong to have a sudden need to re-read Damon’s old texts, or to want to see his handwriting, because Emilyknowsthat’s part of losing someone. It’s the desire to prove that, yes, this person truly existed; their fingers pressed the pen against this paper and wrote these very words.
Alex might not have died, but Emily grieves him all the same.
“Thanks, Emily,” Cole says, hugging her and letting her cling.
“Another rough day?” she asks.
“You know how it is,” he says.
“I do.” She sighs. “It comes and it goes.”
Cole takes a few minutes then to act less insane, to focus on Emily, and he asks, “Did you tell him? Michael, I mean? Did you tell him yes? Like you said you would the other day at Southern Grace?”
She smiles and it’s beautiful. “I did. We have a date. Tonight.”
Cole’s answering smile is genuine, and he hugs her again. “I’m glad, Emily. I’m happy for you.”
He can see her standing in the doorway of her house as he climbs into his car and drives away. Another thing Emily hasn’t asked is whether he’s been cleared for driving yet. He has not. So he’s glad she doesn’t.
Despite it being a very good idea, the hospital isn’t that interested, though, in giving him access to any personnel records simply because Cole wants to see his long-dead boyfriend’s handwriting one more time.
Hannah, an old friend of Damon’s who still works in HR, is stalling on him, citing protocol, and Cole’s seconds away from doing the unthinkable and breaking down right there, when Maris, Damon’s favorite nurse says, “Mr. Hart? I’m sorry, I couldn’t help but overhear, and I have…something? Maybe?”
She sounds so uncertain that Cole feels a sudden empathy for the woman. She had cared for Damon, too.
“You have something?” Cole asks, narrowing his eyes and staring at her. “What do you mean?”
