Part 3: Final Boss / Chapter 37

___

Three minutes later, I was racing down the hallway to Robbie’s room, clutching what I hoped was a liquid miracle in my fist.

I burst into the room to find a doctor making his exit, a grave expression etched into his features. Margaret was standing by Robbie’s bed, with a fresh tide of tears breaking over her cheeks.

“Where have you been?” she demanded.

Any free pass I’d had in terms of my ill-timed absence had been revoked in light of whatever news the doctor had just delivered. I looked down at Robbie and saw that he’d been intubated. The breathing tube running into his mouth was supplemented by a second, thinner tube running into his nose. I knew that tube was traveling down into his stomach to deliver liquid nutrients from a bag hanging beside the bank of ventilation equipment. I recognized the setup from my aunt’s last days. The familiarity was almost too much for me and I knew it was the same for Margaret.

“What happened?” I cried, leaving Margaret’s question about my whereabouts unanswered.

“After he woke up, he was stable for a while, but now . . . ” she paused to stifle a sob. “They think maybe the effort of waking was too much for him. He stopped breathing. They don’t think he’ll . . . ”

She couldn’t finish.

I eyed the bag full of yellowish paste, slowing draining its contents into Robbie’s stomach. It would be a simple matter to disconnect the bag from its plastic coupling and empty the vial still clutched in my fist into the open line. But to what end? As bad as things were, it was clear that the Kool-Aid could make them worse. Or it could do nothing. Either way, I could end up in police custody trying to explain what my sister had seen me do as Robbie slipped away.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

How exactly was I suppose to get the job done with her there? Even without points getting knocked off my Life-O-Meter, there was no way I could convincingly explain why I was dumping a mystery substance down Robbie’s gullet. She might just tackle me in the act, assuming I’d gone off the deep end. But Darla handled it.

“Coffee!” she declared.

Margaret looked over at her, a little confused.

“You need it,” Darla elaborated. “And possibly a donut. We can ask a doctor for a medical opinion.”

She put an arm around Margaret and aimed her for the door. In her fragile state, I realized Margaret would have gone wherever she was pointed. Darla could have told her that she needed to go get her tires rotated. Still, she looked back at me, forlornly.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m here.”

She gave me a tiny, tired nod, and let Darla steer her out of the room. And then I was alone with Robbie.

I’d already considered the possibility that the Kool-Aid could hasten his decline or have no effect at all. But it was the third possibility that I needed to believe in. It was the third possibility that made me detach the bag of liquid nutrients and position the coupling over the mouth of the vile as I tipped it upside down.

The line flushed with red as the vial’s contents passed through it and into Robbie’s stomach. Then . . . nothing happened.

“Think you forgot this,” I heard Nancy’s mom say from behind me.

I turned to see her holding Robbie’s lucky die in an open palm. She took a step and tucked it into his left hand, squeezing his fingers closed around it. Then she gave me a smile and she was gone.

When I looked back at Robbie, his eyes were open.