Endgame
       Chapter 7
 

Her memorial service came and went without him.

For three weeks he had been tied to a hospital bed by tubes, wires, and monitors.

For three weeks he been lying on his side because of the excruciating diagonal burn

across his back that took the form of a smoldered wooden beam.

For three weeks he rejoiced at the arrival of the bandage-changing nurse; for she

precluded the sensations that were his single tangible evidence that he was alive, that he could feel anything. He was told it was mostly a 2nd degree burn with an area of 3rd degree at the middle of his spine. The nurse told him how lucky he was that it occurred there because, otherwise, the burn would have destroyed any muscle lying underneath.

Oh, how lucky, indeed, he had thought sarcastically. The nurse tried to assure him that the scarring wouldn’t be too bad. As if he cared. He wanted to bear a perpetual reminder of his loss.

And then the day came to step out into a life without Michelle.

Ray came through the door with a pair of shoes, socks, slacks, and the loosest shirt he could find for Danny to change into before checking out.

Ray had been his sole link to reality. For the duration of his hospital stay, Ray had been the first thing Danny saw with every awakening from horrific dreams. His mother had not so much as stuck her head in the door after that first night.

Danny had one last act of passion to deliver before he let his heart became as the scar tissue forming on his back; calloused, unfeeling, and permanent.

"Ray?"

"Yeah," Ray quietly replied as he helped Danny into the shirt.

"Would you bring Ma-ma in please," he requested, wincing from the pain of moving his arms.

"Are you sure you-" Ray stopped as he looked into Danny’s eyes. He turned and

walked out the door.

Carmen looked up as Ray entered the waiting area.

"He wants to see you," he said with a tone of warning.

"Thank you, Ray," she replied trying to deceive Ray, yet again. But he saw the

apprehension in her eyes she was trying to hide. She paused, expecting Ray to accompany her, but instead, Ray said,

"I think it would be better if I wait out here."

Ray didn’t want to be purposefully cruel to his aunt, but he knew Danny would hold back if he went in with Carmen. He knew that Danny would not want his priest-cousin to witness this side of him.

And so Carmen walked alone into her son's room.

Danny had never seen his mother actually look fearful. It reminded him of the look in

Michelle’s eyes-

Oh, God..... her eyes--

when she had to meet his mother for the first time. It was the look of expectant,

impending, dooming judgment.

Good.

Noticing the look on her son’s face as she entered his room, Carmen wasted no time, "Daniel, I swear on your father’s grave I had nothing to do with this," she pleaded approaching him with outstretched arms. " I-"

He held up his hand to warn her off, "Shut up," he said devoid of emotion. His stare hardened. "Whether or not you pushed the button--it doesn’t really matter, does it? You wished her dead a thousand times over, didn’t you Ma-ma," Danny bitterly questioned, circling her now. "I bet the last prayer you uttered every night to whatever saint would listen to you was for her death," he hissed through his teeth, stopping only inches from her face. He stepped away from her, looked at the ceiling, and drug his hands down his face, transforming its countenance to a sardonic, twisted smile.

"Well somebody likes you up there Ma-ma."

Danny watched his mother’s expression change from fear to pity. He quickly advanced towards her, and before she could shrink away, he grabbed her by the face.

"Don’t you dare come to me with any of your fake compassion, your sorrow, your pity, ever! I want nothing, NOTHING more from you. You have given me plenty, Ma-ma...

and you have taken plenty from me." He let go of his mother’s jaw and, turning his back to her, he walked over to the window.

Carmen was amazed at her body’s relentless trembling. She knew to only await her son’s next words.

"I’ve had three weeks to think mother," he finally continued, "that is, when you weren’t having some nurse pump me full of drugs." He turned to face her, his tears spilling over. "You would have wanted her to suffer wouldn’t you, Ma-ma? Isn’t having her burned alive a little too quick and painless for you."

"Daniel, please, I would have never-"

He grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her, stopping her reply. "What? Are you

actually going to be so stupid as to tell me that you never wished Michelle dead, mother, never?" His eyes bored into her own.

At her answer of silence, he pushed her away.

"How does it feel, Ma-ma, to know that the sight of you is nothing more to me now than a reminder of how cruel you were to her, of how this life you brought me into, your life,

killed her," Danny shouted at his mother’s now indignant face.

Before she could brave a reply, Frank Cooper knocked on the door while opening it.

"I heard your son was checking out today, Carmen. I think the both of you should be

ready to answer some of my questions."

"No, Detective Cooper, we are not, not without an attorney present, and even if one was here, my son is still in no condition to be interrogated by-"

"Who said I would interrogate him, Carmen? It‘s no secret that there wasn’t any love loss between you and your daughter-in-law, right?"

Carmen paused, attempting to form an unincriminating answer, "No, there was ‘no love loss,' but I would never done th-

"I doubt that," Frank retaliated before she could finish. Pointing at Carmen’s face, he

warned with a voice absent of objectivity, "I swear to you, if I find even the slightest, the

most remote piece of evidence linking you to this, I will make sure you rot in prison

before you go on to rot in hell!"

"Careful detective," Danny offered in mock defense. "Don’t worry, Ma-ma," he said

turning to face his mother, "I promise you...

I swear to you...

I won’t let you go to prison."

Frank, hardened cop that he was, nearly shuddered at the weight, the implied threat, in Danny’s words, in the stare he had fastened onto Carmen as he spoke these words.

Madness was what came to mind. Madness and vengeance.

Carmen looked as if she was being prodded down a plank where an ocean of sharks awaited her arrival. No hope, no escape. The look of true fear, desperation in her eyes would have normally amused Frank; instead, he nearly pitied her. In fact, if it were not Carmen Santos on the receiving end of Danny’s words, Frank would have felt compelled to protect her. He shook himself from these thoughts and pursued,

"No matter what we uncover, you, your family, did this," he said as he pulled a plastic ziploc bag from his coat pocket. "Do you see this," he asked, tears welling in his eyes. "This is all that’s left of her," pointing to the content within.

Danny’s heart stopped.

Within the bag--

her wedding band.

"The one thing that got her killed. This damn ring, it survived." Frank threw it at Danny and walked out the door.

Danny caught the bag as if it were the thinnest, most delicate piece of glass ever created. He held the bag staring at its content,

How, how could this be all that was left of her?

His tears began again.

Carmen instinctively reached out to her son, "Daniel, please, I-

"GET OUT!"

"Please let me help y-"

"Help me," he screeched, "Do you want me to kill you now?" Brutally grabbing Carmen by the arm, slinging her out of the room, he screamed "I don’t want to see your face again until I come to you, do you understand?"

She was too deep in shock to reply.

"If you know what’s good for you, Ma-ma, you better understand." And with that, he

slammed the door in his mother’s face.

He knew it was time for him to leave this room. But as childish as he knew it to be, he could not bring himself to set foot outside the door. If he stayed here, Michelle wouldn’t be gone. If he left, Danny knew he would be coming face to face with the reality of the complete and total absence of her. He did not know how to fathom that..., this... at all.

Ray began to open the door to Danny’s room when Carmen stopped him. "Please, Ray, no matter what you think of me, please, you must do one thing for me."

"And what would that be?" An undisguised note of bitterness pervaded his tone.

"Please, don’t let Danny out of your sight. He is dangerous. I am not talking about

myself, Ray, he is a danger to himself."

As much as Ray wanted to believe that no truth could come out of his aunt’s mouth, he knew she was right. He acknowledged her request with his eyes only and opened the door to Danny’s room. His heart broke for this man before him.

"You ready," Ray asked softly.

"Yeah," Danny said trying to keep his voice steady.

"Where to?"

"The Bauer’s."

Ray thought about arguing with Danny, telling him that he should take Danny straight

home to rest. But he knew his cousin. He knew that Danny would walk there if he

didn’t take him.

Three weeks after the carnage, the police tape was still there, battered now, still blocking off the property. But no police were there to enforce its warning. Ray helped Danny out of the car, and they walked the same path they had sprinted directly after the explosion.

Together, they stood facing the threshold of the charred foundation. No amount of

priestly schooling could have prepared Ray for the expression on Danny’s face, or on how to comfort the expression away.

Just as Danny was about to speak, a hand came down on his shoulder and spun him around.

Jesse.

"You son of a bitch. You said you’d protect her. You said you would never let anyone hurt Michelle, never," he yelled, pushing until Danny fell onto his back.

Danny's reaction was utterly frightening; tears falling, his scream of agony mixing with laughter.

"What the hell are you doing, Jesse," Drew screamed as she bent down to help Ray pick up Danny, "You know he’s hurt. What were you thinking? Look at him! Can’t you see? He wants you to hurt him; he wants you to kill him!"

"Oh, I wouldn’t kill him, Drew. I want him to live for a long, long time so everyday he

has to think about this," he said pointing to the destroyed home.

"Go! Just go," Drew yelled, "I’ll be there in a minute."

Jesse gave one last hateful glare to Danny before he turned to walk away. But when he saw the hopelessness in Danny’s eyes, he came far too close to feeling sorry for him.

"I’m so sorry, Danny, I’m so sorry," Drew said, her tears coming.

Danny did not see her; he did not hear her. His body was still reverberating with the

indescribable pain from his fall to the ground. This was all too much...too much. He turned to face Ray,

"I want to go to the lighthouse...alone."

"Danny, I can’t let y-"

"Ray, I’m not going to do anything stupid. I wouldn't cheat myself of the pain of

living," he said yanking the car keys from Ray’s hand. "Take Ray with you," he said to Drew, walking away from the scene.

Ray began to go after him, but Drew grabbed him by the arm.

"Let him go, Ray....let him go."

Ray sat in the back seat of Drew’s car. If he wasn’t so distracted, he would have been studying Jesse and Drew, wondering what she saw in him. If Ray wasn’t a priest, he would have beaten Jesse Blue until he cried out for mercy.

But Ray was distracted. With everyone reeling over the loss of Michelle, it seemed no one was thinking too rationally. Something about the entire disaster was bothering him. Danny would have picked up on it by now , too, if he weren’t so blinded by his despair.

It was obvious that the bomb was set off by a remote, by someone watching the house. But if it was Michelle they were after, why didn’t they set off the bomb as soon as she went back in the house. She was in there for over half and hour before the explosion. It made no sense. And also, nothing, nothing was left of her. He asked Frank for details; there was no hair, no tissue, and yet her wedding band was found 100 feet from the home. Ray didn’t believe Michelle would have had any reason to take it off while she was writing her brother that letter.

Frank was also too emotionally involved to see all of this as odd. Fighting back tears, he bitterly told Ray that she had probably stood at the epicenter of the explosion. Ray wouldn’t pursue anymore details with Frank; it was obviously too painful. But Ray, no expert arson investigator, knew that since the fire was not confined, but was able to spread out, there should be some physical remnant of Michelle. She couldn’t have been completely incinerated.

Something was not right, and Ray was afraid that he knew all too well what it was, or

rather, who it was.

As surly as someone sitting beside him was whispering in his ear; The Holy Spirit, an angel, Ray didn’t know, but he heard, so audible--

He’s here.

It is time.

He has come back for what he believes to be his.

Oh please, God, not this way. Why would he do this? Why?

Ray knew; This was the second coming of his father.