"Oh, Francis," she said, "you had us so worried. It has been so long, and now, it is good to see you again."
"Hello, Lucy," I said. "I've thought about you often."
"And I about you, as well, C-Bird."
For a moment, I remained rooted in position, frozen a little like I was the first time we'd met. It is always hard to speak, think, or breathe, at some moments, especially when so many memories are reverberating in the air, just behind every word, every look, and every touch.
It seemed to me that I had much to ask her, but what I said, instead was "Lucy, why didn't you save Peter?"
She smiled ruefully, and shook her head.
"I wished that I could," she said. "But the Fireman needed to save himself. I couldn't do it. Nor could anyone else. Only him."
She seemed to sigh and as she did so, I looked past her and saw that the wall where my words were collected remained intact. The rows of writings marched up and down, the drawings leapt out, the story was all there, just as it had been the night the Angel had finally come to me, but I'd slipped through his grasp. Lucy followed my eyes with her own, and half turned toward the wall.
"Quite an effort, C-Bird," she said.
"You've read it?"
"Yes. We all have."
I didn't say anything, because I didn't know what to say.
"You understand, some folks might be hurt by what you describe," she said.
"Hurt?"
"Reputations. Careers. That sort of thing."
"It's dangerous?"
"It might be. Always a little hard to tell."
"What should I do?" I asked.
Lucy smiled again. "I can't answer that for you C-Bird. But I have brought you several presents that might help you to make a decision."
"Presents?"
"I guess, for lack of a better word, that is what you might call them." She gestured with her hand at a simple brown cardboard box that was pushed up against the wall. I walked over to it and reached inside and took out some items collected inside.
The first was a package of large yellow legal notepads. Next to that was a box of Number 2 pencils with erasers. Then, below those, there were two cans of eggshell white, flat latex wall paint, a roller, a tray, and a large, stiff paintbrush.
"You see, C-Bird," Lucy said carefully, measuring her words with a judge's precision and pace. "Just about anyone could come in here and read the words you've put up on the wall. And they might interpret them in any number of ways, not the least of which is to wonder just how many bodies are buried in the old state hospital graveyard. And how those bodies happened to get there."
I nodded.
"But, on the other hand, Francis, this is your story, and you have the right to tell it. Hence the notepads, which have a slightly greater permanence, and significantly more privacy to them than the words scrawled on the wall. Already those are starting to fade, and pretty soon, they are likely to be illegible."
I could see that she was telling the truth.
Lucy smiled, and she opened her mouth as if to add something else, but then stopped. Instead, she simply leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek.
"It's good to see you again, C-Bird," she said. "Take better care of yourself from now on."
Then, leaning heavily on her cane, dragging her ruined right leg with every step like a memory of that night, Lucy slowly limped from the room. Big Black and Little Black watched her for a moment, and then they, too, wordlessly, reached out, shook my hand, and followed after her.
When the door closed shut, I turned back to the wall. My eyes raced over all the words there, and as I read, I carefully unwrapped the pencils and the pads of paper. Without hesitating for more than a few seconds, I quickly copied down from the very top:
Francis Xavier Petrel arrived in tears at the Western State Hospital in the back of an ambulance. It was raining hard, darkness was falling rapidly, and his arms and legs were cuffed and restrained. He was twenty-one years old and more scared than he'd ever been in his short, and to that point, relatively uneventful life… The painting, I thought, could wait for a day or so.
