Proof of Heaven

worked especially hard to keep her away from the subject.
By now, everyone knew that even if I did make a recovery, recovery
wasn’t much of a word for what it would amount to. I’d need at least
three months of intensive rehabilitation, would have chronic speech
problems (if I had enough brain capacity to be able to speak at all), and
I’d require chronic nursing care for the rest of my life. This was the best-
case scenario, and as low and grim as that sounds, it was essentially in the
realm of fantasy anyhow. The odds that I’d even be in that good of a
shape were shrinking to nonexistent.
Bond had been kept from hearing the full details of my condition. But
on Friday, at the hospital after school, he overheard one of my doctors
outlining to Holley what she already knew.
It was time to face the facts. There was little room for hope.
That evening, when it was time for him to go home, Bond refused to
leave my room. The regular drill was to allow only two people in my
room at a time so that the doctors and nurses could work. Around six
o’clock, Holley gently suggested that it was time to go home for the
evening. But Bond wouldn’t get up from his chair, just beneath his
drawing of the battle between the white blood cell soldiers and the
invading E. coli troops.
“He doesn’t know I’m here anyway,” Bond said, in a tone half bitter
and half pleading. “Why can’t I just stay?”
So for the rest of the evening everyone took turns coming in one at a
time so Bond could stay where he was.
But the next morning—Saturday—Bond reversed his position. For the
first time that week, when Holley stuck her head into his room to rouse
him, he told her he didn’t want to go to the hospital.
“Why not?” Holley asked.
“Because,” Bond said, “I’m scared.”
It was an admission that spoke for everyone.
Holley went back down to the kitchen for a few minutes. Then she
tried again, asking him if he was sure he didn’t want to go see his daddy.
There was a long pause as he stared at her.
“Okay,” he agreed, finally.