Razor Ch. 09

Then there was Samuel, Elena, a man called Mike who seemed awfully familiar somehow, and a woman called Sally who seemed to know some of the waitresses. Mike had had the text "simply music" written in his document and Sally was, according to the notes, Mary's "right hand". Mike said that he and Mary were friends from way back, that she'd been his guardian angel more than once. Sally said she'd been saved by that same angel, before she laughed and told us that Mary usually referred to Sally and her team of online helpers as angels, she then asked us to excuse her yawning, she worked the nightshift and wasn't quite used to getting up in the middle of the day.

When all introductions were made I looked at the strange mix of people in front of me and wondered how I should start. I realized it didn't really matter just as long as it got me to where I was headed. I took an especially long look at Elena. She was pale and looked really tired. I wanted to take her hand and tell her to lean on me. I wanted to hug her close and tell her that everything was going to be alright. I pulled my eyes away from her, reluctantly, and was caught by Elena's cousin's angry stare. But that stare was soon forgotten when my eyes found the warm smile and twinkling eyes of Sarah. She gave me a nod and I exhaled and tried to collect my thoughts. I thought about Mary and what I knew about her, and then I knew how to start.

"It feels like I should somehow start this meeting with a song, like 'with a little help from my friends' or something. I guess that's what Mary would do, if she would ever admit that she needs any help from anyone, that is..." I said and added "but lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song and I'll try not to sing out of key, okay?"

Sarah laughed and nodded to me once more and the other persons in the room smiled too, small, wide and wicked smiles in a happy mix.

"Mary asked me to gather all of you because she had a few things she wanted you to know." I said and looked down at the paper in my hand "The first thing on her very thorough list is the most important one. She wants me to tell you all that she loves you very much."

"No, this is wrong," Rose said softly "why would she ask someone else to gather all of us to tell us that she loves us?"

"Yes, that's not logical, at all!" Susan said.

"We all love her too!" Sarah cried "Why isn't she here?"

"She asked me to gather all of you to tell you a few truths," I continued "after she was gone."

"No!" Sean said loudly and that sentiment was chorused all through the room.

"No, she's not dead!" Elena said with an angry look at me.

"Well, she said 'tell my friends after I'm gone'," I said hurriedly, silently cursing myself for making them worry "but I chose to ignore the second part... so she's alive, but she's in the hospital, because she's been in a car crash, and because she's sick."

"What?" the woman called Sally said and stared at me "So that's why we haven't been able to reach her?"

"Yes," I said softly and looked at all of them "if you would all just let me continue, okay? Mary asked me to tell you that she loved you and to give you each a letter that she had written, and it was all supposed to be done after she was gone. But I didn't like it when she told me she wasn't even going to tell her closest friends, and after reading the information she gave me, I decided I was just going to have to do something about it. You might not know it, but after you've all read your letters, you'll see what I mean. I decided to do it the way Mary usually does things, without considering the moral implications."

Sean stood up, angry at my final words.

"You. Are. Not. Allowed. To. Say. Anything. Bad. About. Our. Friend!" he said, his rough bass voice echoing through the room.

"Please, just read the letters," I answered and I could hear the tight tiredness in my own voice "and you'll see what I mean..."

I handed the letters to them, Sarah & John, Susan & Ben & Jerry, Rose & Sean, Elena, Samuel, Sally and finally Mike. I had read them all so many times that I almost knew them by heart, and I was worried about their reactions. They all read quietly, with tiny sounds of surprise breaking the silence here and there. Sarah started crying, Susan's face grew white and Rose kept a tight mask on her face, blocking all knowledge about what she was feeling.

"I know it's all very upsetting," I said "I've been trying to think that at least she did it to make you all happier, although I'm not sure that's..."

"She..." Sarah sobbed "she wanted me to meet a good man, so she made sure that John placed his son in 'my loving care', as she put it. She did that... for me, for us?"

"I thought that... it was my stupid manipulative coworker..." Susan whispered "who tricked Jerry into that secret elevator date thing... but it was she that did it?"

"She sent me those annoying inner beauty e-mails," Rose said, her face crumbling slightly "and she says she's so, so sorry that I ended up in the hands of that... man. But... it wasn't really her fault, was it? Or at least it's as much her fault then that I met Sean...?"

They were all stopped by deep sobs coming from Samuel.

"The things she did..." he cried, clearly in agony "to 'make our dream come true', and I just... complained about her yawning too much and coding too little... and about the bread of her sandwiches being to dry... and..."

Another cry, this time from Sally.

"She saw me, when she was young," Sally said "I didn't know she'd been living on the streets? She says that... what they did to me, what she saw happen... she didn't want it to happen to anyone else. She ran as fast as she could to get help... and she saved me... and I never knew...?"

Mike didn't say anything, he just shook his head in silence, tears running down his face. And Elena just held her letter in her hands, a sad smile on her face.

They started talking about what was written in their letters and I sat and quietly looked at them and listened to them. They didn't seem as upset as I had thought they would be. Then I thought back to my reaction when I learnt that Mary had made sure my daughters' teacher was removed from their school, and I realized that I had been more relieved than annoyed then; perhaps that was why they all seemed to be in a relatively good mood?

"So you're not upset?" I carefully asked.

"Of course we're upset," Sarah answered "it's just that what she did... it's so sweet... and it all sort of ended well, after all, you know?"

I nodded, all is well that ends well, perhaps that was the plain truth of it all? But life really wasn't that easy, was it?

"So," I said to them all "that's basically what she wanted me to do..."

I was interrupted by Sean's whispered "Elena... you have to tell me what kind of a disease she's got..." and I jumped in, my inner protector waking up once more.

"She can't tell you," I said "Mary told her she couldn't tell anyone... but I know too..."

I looked at Elena and when she nodded I continued to tell them everything I knew about Mary's leukemia, no donor found, her refusing medications that might or might not help.

"Doesn't she have any living relatives?" Sally asked "Isn't that the first thing you look for?"

"She hasn't got anyone but us," Rose said, her voice sad "she told us once as a joke that when you didn't have a real family you had to build your own... and that we fit together like different-colored Lego pieces, it didn't matter what color we all were just as long as the sizes and shapes were just right..."

"And we didn't know what Lego was..." Sarah laughed and said "and she got especially upset with me, because I should know, being a kindergarten teacher and all. And come to think of it... one week later we got a big shipment of Lego, I wonder if..."

"Yeah, it was probably her doing," Susan said "you remember that man who always parked in the disabled parking lot outside my office? I've always suspected that she had something to do with the complete disassembling of his car that happened to occur just a few days later. I think... it's very likely that she did a lot of things we never even knew she did..."

I thought about the locked files on the memory stick I had in one of my pockets. Perhaps... it held all of the rest of her secrets?

"Samuel?" I asked "Mary gave me a USB memory, and on it there are two locked files, I'm thinking that perhaps there are more secrets in them? Do you think you can take a look and see if you might be able to... you know?"

"You know, as in... unlock them?" Samuel said "That really depends on how difficult she wanted it to be for someone to crack them. But I can try?"

I handed him the memory stick and he nodded and looked at the tiny blue thing. He then asked us all to download his new messaging app and connect to his name - SamTheMan - and he'd let us all know what he found. Sarah giggled and told us that Sam the man was what Mary had called John's son from the beginning. Samuel muttered in answer, about Mary once telling him he should be SamuelTheManuel instead, whilst giggling her head off. Surprisingly we all laughed shortly at his grumpy reply, before we said goodbye and left to get on with our own lives, all of us probably thinking about Mary, in one way or the other.

When I got home I had to ask Zelena to download the app for me, and she did it whilst giggling her head off and telling me I was much too young to be so thoroughly untechnical. Her giggled speech about age-related technical analphabetism made me think about Mary again, and the fact that she was a just a few years younger than I was, but that death had still found her, or rather would soon find her, and much too early at that. I hugged Zelena, thanked her and told her I loved her, which earned me a strange look and another laugh before she sailed away to her beloved computer.

A few hours later I was woken from my mid-day slumber by an annoying beeping sound from my phone. I opened the new messaging app to a three-line message.

"You're not going to believe what I've found. We've got to meet! Same place, in an hour?"

I answered "Yes" and saw the other ones do the same. I couldn't help the sinking feeling in my stomach. With all the information we had already received, with all the secrets that were already out there, Samuel's reaction could only mean that there was something even bigger or worse to be found out. I didn't know if not knowing was better than knowing, but, fully aware that curiosity probably killed that damned cat, I walked out of my house and jumped into my car, as ready as I would ever be to hear the rest of it.

* * * * *

I woke up in panic once more, this time with a hand on my shoulder. First I had to fight not to scream out loud, but then I realized the hand wasn't holding me down, restricting my movements, it was just softly trying to wake me up. I had obviously been sleeping a bit too deeply. I didn't even think I would be able to fall asleep, because my tears of regret wouldn't stop falling, but apparently sleep had finally found me.

I opened my gravel-filled eyes up to the blurry image of a nurse, an older woman I had never seen before.

"I'm supposed to wake you up and prepare you for various treatments" she said with a warm and friendly tone to her voice.

"What?" I said, my voice as filled with gravel as my eyes.

"They've found a donor," the nurse said "and someone's been pulling strings to get things rolling as fast as possible. Your doctor's here with a team and a couple of experts of some sort. I tell you, I've never seen anything like it..."

"No," I said, my mind spinning "no, because there are no donors..."

"They found a relative it seems..." the nurse answered "which was also strange, all very hush-hush, it seems..."

"No," I whispered "no..."

"Yes," the nurse said "and yes, it's time to start fighting that wicked disease."

I grew silent, but my mind grew chaotic. No, no, William couldn't have, surely? William, the perfect, righteous, moral man would never have gone against my wishes, would he? And he couldn't possibly have cracked the code to open the proverbial Pandora's box could he?

I was shocked to silence, and I could almost appreciate the irony of it. I had trusted William to keep quiet, but in the end I was the one who didn't know what to say.

I closed my eyes and fought back the tears once more. I couldn't do much about it now. I didn't like when things didn't go as planned, but... perhaps... there was now at least a small chance that I could survive this? Perhaps there was a thin sliver of hope, just enough to give me the strength to go on, to fight, to get well. If only I knew who the donor was...?