Free Sweet Jesus by Christine Pountney

weakness and rarely enjoyed reassuring him, but tonight it seemed more urgent. Why would you lose me? she asked and wanted to know. Harlan’s face was grey in the moonlight, a blue sheen around his wet eyes.
    I gotta go to bed, he said. I’m so tired.
    Connie watched her husband stumble out of the kitchen, holding up his pants. Something frightening about this pathetic vulnerability. A serious foreboding set in. She felt the urge to panic, sound the alarm, but she didn’t even know what the matter was. And besides, she had to be strong for the kids. Always everything for the kids. When she got to the bedroom, Harlan was curled up on the bed asleep. She sat beside him andstroked the damp hair at his temple, as she did for her children. Hannah had once told her that a person’s smell is most purely itself at the temples, so Connie bent down and smelled him there. A familiar smell, like salt water and corn husks. And then a sudden wave of love and yearning. Oh, Harlan Foster, you better not be up to something unholy.

 
    T he ward had the oppressive tranquility of an evacuated building. Zeus had arrived and gone to his locker and put on his lab coat and old, brown leather clown shoes. He picked up his props and made his way down the hall, lifting his knees high and peeling his long soles off the floor, the fine orange hair on either side of his head undulating like seaweed. A gentle rap at the door. If a child looked interested, he’d walk into their room and begin the soft magic of distraction. But, lately, whatever courage he had ever possessed seemed to be failing him. Fenton hadn’t come with him for nearly three weeks, and they’d always worked together. Now he was beginning to understand it was Fenton at his side that had ever made the job bearable. It really
was
like standing at the heart of an abandoned building, uncertain as to its stability. He kept waiting for the hospital to collapse in a white cloud of lethal dust, the whole planet falling to rubble and ruin, coming down in carnage.
    Zeus carried a red toolbox and a toy accordion that played the first few bars of ‘The Teddy Bear’s Picnic.’ He stoppedoutside Sam’s room and put his things down. He took a pair of white disposable gloves out of his pocket and wiggled his fingers elaborately into their vinyl sockets. From the same pocket, he removed a hospital mask, raised it into the air, stretched it with his fingers like a cat’s cradle, and slipped it over his mouth and nose. He picked up his accordion and gave it a squeeze. He let the music play to the half-closed door of Sam’s room, then gently pushed it open with his foot. Hey, champ, want a visitor?
    Zeus! The boy in the bed smacked his hands together once and held them there. His joy was like a salve. The children saved him, day after day. They reached him in his solitary orbit and touched his heart. Zeus picked up his toolbox and flippered into Sam’s room like a scuba diver.
    Sam was seven years old and his head looked small on the big white pillow. He had the thin, semi-translucent skin of a tadpole and a clear oxygen tube belted around his face. Zeus held out his hand. Sam shook it weakly and Zeus flopped up and down like a rag doll. He bent his knees and sank beneath the bed, then shot back into the air as fast as Sam could shake his hand. Sam’s eyes shone. He laughed from his belly. His teeth were grey. Zeus loved his playfulness. The attitude that said, I will be happy. I have nothing to lose – except my life.
    When Sam had stopped laughing over the handshake, he grew very serious. When’s Fenton coming back? he asked.
    Fenton’s on holiday, Zeus said.
    A
long
holiday.
    Zeus nodded helplessly.
    I love Fenton.
    I love him too, Zeus said, and as he did, he was stunned again by how much.
    Is Fenton going to die?
    One day, Zeus said, but probably not for a while.
    Will he die before me?
    Well, Zeus said, getting onto the bed beside Sam, careful not to snag or dislodge any of his