DAISY
Uncle Ron. You fucking piece of turd.
Who knew that we were related? I certainly hadn’t. Well, at least, not until I was dead. Apparently, my father’s brother had been banished from the family years ago, and despite living in the same town, they rarely spoke.
“How’s that coma treating you?” I asked, slowly floating toward him, though of course I knew he wouldn’t reply. He’d fallen into a coma two days after his bone marrow was retrieved and transplanted to Sarah. Thank God Doctor Burke was smart enough to check hospital records to see whether he was a match for Sarah. And thank God Carter was smart enough to plant the idea in his head.
“What’s that you say? You’re too hot?” I scanned over his unresponsive body, wondering whether I should give that heart of his a few pumps so that he’d wake up.
“Nah, not yet.”
I pushed the window open and waited for the cold breeze to sweep through the room. It might had been a hot day outside, but Mother Nature and I were pretty tight. And she promised me frost on his hands and toes. I blew a ghostly breath to push the covers aside. His feet were the grossest I’d ever seen.
“Don’t worry. No one will care about your long toenails when you’re six feet under.”
I floated around the room with my hands crossed over my chest, wondering about the best way to help him transition to the other side. My parents had never spoken about Ron Fowler. They’d never mentioned his connection to Uncle Sid, Sarah’s father. Now that I knew what kind of a man he was, I wasn’t surprised, and I was grateful to my family for staying away from him, though ungrateful that they hadn’t helped Clare, Molly, and Nathan. How could they have turned a blind eye like that?
Well, they did, and it was time to make amends. It was time for both families to heal, without any further fear. It was time for the families to unite in peace.
I blew another breath, and the window shut with a thud. Ron finally jolted awake on his own.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“You’re in a hospital. About to die,” I said.
He stiffened, taking in his surroundings, sweeping his frozen hands over his arms as the first shivers enveloped his body.
“Who’s there?” he asked.
“Oh, you can’t see me? Let me fix that.” And so I appeared in my ghost form, and the heart rate on his monitor jumped up.
There was the reaction of utter fear I’d been waiting for.
“Who are you? What’s this?”
“I’m here to take you to hell,” I said in a deep voice, holding back my chuckle. He might have survived Molly’s gunshot to his chest, but I’d die before I let him walk out of this room alive. Wait – I was already dead.
Fowler reached for the red button and pressed it over and over again.
“The call button’s not working today. It won’t work tomorrow either.”
“Help!” If he thought his lousy attempt at a scream could be heard, he was wrong.
“Nobody’s coming, Ron. You’re going to die in the next thirty seconds, and they won’t find your body for at least a week,” I lied again, and watched the heart monitor as his heart rate sped.
Come on, you can do better than that, Daisy.
“Satan’s been asking about you.”
“What?”
“Do you know how much it hurts when you die?” I floated closer and watched his eyes bulge with fear. I didn’t need to say anything else because with each inch I moved, his pulse quickened. It beat faster and faster until Ron Fowler took one last desperate breath, grasped his chest, and froze before collapsing to his bed.
I opened the window and floated back to Hope Bay, where I lay down on my grave and could finally rest in peace.
