Keepers by Gary A. Braunbeck

Author:Gary A. Braunbeck
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Dorchester Publishing
Published: 2011-07-04T23:00:00+00:00

My heart is very tired, my strength is low,

My hands are full of blossoms plucked before,

Held dead within them till myself shall die.

I knew Whitey would kick my ass up between my shoulders if he knew I was thinking these things. (“Know what your name would have been if you’d’ve been born an Indian? ‘Dark Cloud.’ Trust me on this. They wouldn’t have had to worry about having their land stolen by the White Man and then being systematically slaughtered, no. You would’ve depressed them to death!”)

I smiled at the thought, wished this sleeping woman pleasant dreams and a happy day to come (I also couldn’t help but smile at the bumper sticker someone had pasted to the back of her wheelchair: I ACCELERATE FOR FUZZY BUNNIES), then headed on down to Whitey’s room.

His door was closed.

I stood there staring at the thing, my poised fist frozen in mid-knock.

Maybe this was part of the new security measures, keeping the doors closed at night—but then why hadn’t Miss Acceleration’s door been closed, as well? No, this wasn’t what it appeared to be, it couldn’t be, I wouldn’t accept it, wouldn’t allow it. Whitey might not be in the best shape, but it had only been three days since I’d last seen him (he wasn’t very talkative and insisted he wasn’t feeling well, though I suspected he was just depressed and wanted to be left alone) and I refused to believe that anything had happened to him. Mabel would have told me. I knocked, then waited for him to shout something insulting.

Nothing.

I grabbed the door handle and began to open it when the rest of it finally registered: his nameplate had been removed from its slot in the wall next to the door, the clipboard that held his chart was no longer hanging on its hook underneath his name, and the lights in the room were off. Whitey always kept the bathroom light on at night so he didn’t have to stumble through the dark to take a leak.

If I don’t turn on the light, everything will be fine, I thought. Right now it’s dark and you’re not looking at anything that confirms what you’re trying not to think about, so for this moment, in the dark, Whitey’s here and sleeping and everything’s the way it was the last time you were here.

The smart thing to do was not turn on the light. I’d lost too many people recently. Dad was chewed up and dead and gone, Mom might as well be dead for all the joy she found in her day-to-day existence, and I’d seen so little of Beth for the last six weeks she might as well have been in Guatemala with the Peace Corps. I would not allow another person to slip away from me. And the best way to ensure that would be to do the smart thing, and the smart thing was not to turn on the light.

I turned on the light.

Two beds, both empty. No television,

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