Life's Golden Ticket (2 page)

“She's conscious?” I asked, breathing hard.

“Yes,” Linda said. “She can talk, but she's very weak and not making much sense. She keeps muttering something about a miracle. And she's asking for you.” Linda was pale, and the fine lines on her face looked deeper. “Talk to her. . . . Tell her you love her. It might be the last . . .” She paused in the doorway, smiling sadly. “Just tell her you love her.”

I
t was dark except for a dim light over Mary's head. I'd been in the room several times in the past few hours, but still I had to fight back the tears when I saw her lying there. Her head was swathed in bandages, and her cheeks looked fat, pushed up by the collar of a neck brace. Her right leg was elevated, frozen in place in a thick cast. A half-dozen machines sighed and beeped around her in a terrifying, tuneless chorus; her breath came in short, painful rasps. Every inch of her soft skin seemed to be bruised and bloated.

I just couldn't understand it. She had been standing on an old roadway up in the mountains when the truck hit her. What was she doing out there?

“Honey,” I whispered, leaning over the bed rail. “Honey, it's me. . . .”

Nothing.

I brushed her cheek. “Honey,
please.
. . .” I choked back a sob. “I'm so sorry.”

She opened her eyes.

“Hey, you,” she said through cracked lips. “It's okay.” Her voice was so delicate I could barely hear.

The words gushed out in a torrent. “Mary, I'm so sorry. I love you so much. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, honey.”

Her lips crooked up into half a smile; her quick, alert gaze surprised me.

“Everything's going to be okay,” she said tenderly. As if
I
were the one lying in bed, about to die.

“Mary, you've been in an accident. You're in the hosp—”

“I know. It's okay.”

I looked at her with wonder.

She spoke softly and slowly. “I have something to tell you. . . . I have to ask you to do something for me.”

“Anything,” I said, trying desperately to keep the tears at bay. “Anything.”

She drew a deep breath. “Bowman's Park. I need you to go back there for me. For
you.
”

I shook my head. Bowman's Park?

Her eyes fixed on mine. “Yes, Bowman's. You need to go there.”

My mind reeled. Bowman's was an old amusement park up in the mountains. They shut it down twenty years ago after a small boy—Mary's eight-year-old brother—fell to his death from the Ferris wheel.

A few years after the park closed, rumors had floated that it was haunted. The rumors rose and subsided every few years with the incoming freshman classes at the local high schools. A year and a half ago, though, the allegations took a strange twist, and suddenly the place went from haunted to holy. A bunch of crazies started saying
that miracles were happening up there. The local news stations scrambled to investigate but, of course, turned up nothing. No one who claimed to have witnessed any miracles would talk about them.

“Mary,” I said softly, still shaking my head, “you weren't at Bowman's Park. I know that's where your brother died, but it's closed, remember? You were miles from there, all the way on the other side of the mountain.”

“I know. . . . Listen,” she said, the strength in her voice waning. “I
was
there. And now
you
have to go, or you won't understand. Find my coat. There's an envelope in the pocket.
Don't open it.
Take it to the park gate. Give the envelope to my brother.”

Tears stung my eyes. She was obviously delirious. She even thought her brother was alive. How could our last conversation on earth go like this? The doctor had warned me that she was heavily sedated, likely to be drifting between reality and dreams, but this was madness. I turned so she didn't have to see me cry.

“Wait,” she said, straining. “Look at me.”

I turned back, tears flowing freely now.

She took another long breath. “You remember the rumors? About miracles at the park?”

“Yes.”

“That's why I went there—we needed a miracle. . . .”

How could I have let it get so bad between us that she was reduced to grasping at such straws?

Her eyes widened. “The rumors are true.”

She paused. Her face strained, and her eyes blinked. I worried that she might pass out. “Miracles . . .” she repeated. “Get the envelope . . . go . . . find out what happened to me . . . experience what I did . . . Go. . . .”

Her slender fingers grasped my arm with as much strength as she could muster, which wasn't much. “Promise me you'll go there . . .
right now.
”

“Mary,” I cried, hot tears running down my face, my chest constricting in pain. “Honey, I'm not leaving you.”

She gave a soft cry, as though something hurt her deep inside. Her hand fell back to the bed. “If you don't go now . . . you'll never know what happened. . . .”

She paused, closing her eyes tight. “Promise me you'll go—the second you walk out of this room.”

I shook my head. “I won't leave you.”

Her body tensed; her breath came in shallow pants. “Go . . .
now!
”

I stood silently stroking her hand, not knowing what to say. My tears splashed silently off the thin hospital blanket. A tear struck her hand, and her brow wrinkled. She took a long breath in and pushed out a soft whimper: “
Promise,
” she whispered, her lips quivering and her voice trailing away.

That was it then; I had no choice—this was her last wish. I closed my eyes and tried to think of what to say before she was gone.

“I promise,” I said softly. Still holding her hand, I leaned in and kissed her forehead. My voice cracked. “I'll love you forever.”

Her lips curved into a faint smile as she mouthed, “I love you.”

Then her eyes closed, and the tension left her face.

The bank of machines around her beeped and whirred loudly.

W
hat do you mean, you're leaving?” Linda looked at me in disbelief. “Now?”

“Yes,” I said sheepishly. I didn't know how to explain what Mary had said, or what I had promised her I would do.

A nurse had given me Mary's jacket—it was crusted with blood. Linda and Jim looked at it fearfully as I fidgeted with it.

“Are you sure you should be going anywhere right now?” Jim asked, giving me a look of concern.

“I, uh . . . I made a promise to Mary. I have to do something for her right now. I'll be back in a few hours. I know it's crazy, but I gave her my word. I've got to go.” I couldn't tell them where I was going. How could I tell them I was going to Bowman's Park, where their first child had died?

Linda's mouth parted slightly to speak, but neither of them said anything. I kept wringing Mary's jacket in my hands.

After an awkward moment, Jim said, “Okay, son. If Mary wanted you to do something, go do it.”

Linda looked surprised. She looked at Jim, then back at me. Shaking her head, she said, “I don't understand. I mean, right now? I just don't see . . .”

Jim turned quickly, hugging her. He looked back at me. “Do what you have to do,” he said. “We'll handle things here. We'll see you at the house?”

I nodded, then embraced each of them.

As I opened the exit stairway door, I heard Linda crying, asking God why all of this had happened.

I wanted to go back and explain. But then, I didn't understand either.

I sneaked out the back of the hospital to avoid the news cameras.

T
he pickup jolted as I pulled off the highway and onto the gravel road leading to the park. The white, dollar-sized envelope from Mary's jacket slid along the dash as I wheeled around a curve. The crinkled paper was blotched red with drops of her blood.

A cloud of dust billowed in my rearview mirror. I drove fast, anticipation making my foot heavy. The sun was sinking in the sky, and I wanted to get in and out of the park before nightfall. I had been thinking on the trip up—maybe I should visit the old Ferris wheel where Todd was killed and bury the envelope there. She wanted him to have it.

As I approached the park, I drove under a thick canopy of pine branches that hung above the road, blocking the last rays of sun. The narrow lane, pocked with potholes and littered with dead branches, looked as though no one had traveled it since the flurry of news features had caused all the speculation a year and a half ago. Before that, almost no one had come out here since Todd's death, nearly twenty years ago.

I pounded over the rutted road for four more miles until I reached the broad clearing at the end. Squinting through the dusty windshield, I saw an enormous, overgrown field of grass bordered by pine trees. A few hundred yards away, the entrance archway still stood. A rotting fence ran from the pillars supporting the archway all the way out to the woods bordering the field. From the archway hung a laminated wood sign:
BOWMAN'S PARK
.

Beyond the entrance stood six dilapidated ticket booths, a listing flagpole, some rickety park benches, and, a hundred yards farther in, the circular skeleton of the old Ferris wheel. I remembered that soon after Todd's accident the Bowman company went bust and wasn't even able to clean up the site. I also remembered Jim once telling me he had requested that the Ferris wheel be left standing as a memorial. Bowman obliged, though they removed the carriage seats so that no one would get hurt climbing on them after the park closed.

I eased my foot off the brake, letting the pickup roll softly onto the field of grass and out from under the canopy of pine and fir. The fading sun warmed the left side of my face, and I turned toward it. Then I froze at the sight, about fifty yards away, of Mary's car.

I parked next to the Honda and got out. The mountain air was crisp, and the sounds of birds and insects filled my ears. I got out and tried her car door—locked. Odd. Maybe she had locked herself out and tried to walk home.

I grabbed her jacket from the truck and went through the pockets. Her keys were there. Maybe her car wouldn't start.

I unlocked the Honda, slid into the driver's seat, and put the keys in the ignition. It started right up.

Why had she left her car here? How had she ended up on the other side of the mountain?

As I got out of her car, the birds stopped singing. It was quiet for a moment—unnaturally so. Then the sounds of children and laughter filled the air.

I scrambled out of the car in surprise and peered back toward where I had entered the field.

Four little boys played tag just in front of the archway leading into the park.

I looked for other cars in the clearing. Nothing.

“Hey!” I shouted. “Kids! Hey! Where are your parents?”

They kept playing as though they had never heard me.

I ran around to the truck cab, threw Mary's jacket inside, grabbed the envelope from the dash, and shoved it into my back pocket. I trotted to the archway. The kids didn't seem to notice my approach.

“Hey!” I said again as I neared them. “Where are your folks?”

One of the boys looked at me and smiled. Then he and the others ran through the arch and vanished.

I stopped dead.

The boys' laughter echoed.

I spun around, scanning the field. I was alone. I stood in surprised silence for a few moments.

“Hello?
Hello-o?
Anybody around?”

No reply.

I took a few steps toward the archway, looking up at it as if it were going to tell me where the boys had gone. Two steps. Three. Four. I stepped under the archway and was hit by a cacophony of sound: kids laughing, rides whirring, cars honking, barkers shouting.

I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut. When I opened them, I couldn't believe it. All around me were hundreds of people, surging and streaming into six lines, one for each ticket booth. The booths looked freshly painted. Past the booths and rising above them, the Ferris wheel spun, lights twinkling brightly. Large red-and-white-striped tents flapped softly in the evening breeze. Clowns walked this way and that, selling cotton candy and balloons. A Loop-de-Loop rattled in the distance, its riders screaming with glee. Barkers hollered to young men, encouraging them to win a stuffed bear “for the little lady.” “Step right up, folks, to the greatest game on the planet!”

This couldn't be.

I shook my head in disbelief, but nothing changed. Turning about, I was met with another inconceivable sight: the parking lot was full of cars, parking, pulling out, honking, waiting. The entire empty,
overgrown field was packed. I strained to see my truck. It was still there, next to Mary's car, in a row of thirty or more vehicles.

I staggered backward, awestruck. Several people walked past, looking at me with concern—as if
I
were the one out of place. I took a few more steps back and tripped on something. I crashed to the ground, landing on my tailbone for the second time in a matter of hours. A knifing pain shot up my back.

“Hey, mister, are you okay?”

I looked up to see an elderly man with a long, kind face. He wore faded blue zip-up coveralls and beaten brown work boots. He leaned on a broom.

“I didn't see you there. I'm sorry, son. Let me help you up.” He extended a hand and pulled me to my feet.

He asked again, “You okay?”

I couldn't speak. My tongue was trapped in a mouth stunned with surprise. The groundskeeper looked a little like my grandfather, only older. Grandpa had passed away when I was twelve. He was seventy-six when he died.

“I . . . uh . . . I'm sorry I kicked your broom, sir,” I mumbled. “Are you . . . do I know you?”

“Don't think so. Name's Henry,” he said, drawing his left forefinger across the name patch on his coveralls. He smiled at me and bent down to pick up a dustpan and a small garbage bag. “Oh, and don't worry about the broom—people are always in a hurry to get inside. I'm used to getting bumped.”

Then he turned and, with an arcing swoop of the broom, called back, “You have yourself a good time, sonny.”

I watched him go back to sweeping, then cried out, “Wait—Henry!” I was immediately embarrassed by the desperate tone in my voice.

Henry turned back with a puzzled look.

I took a few steps toward him. “So, uh, you say everyone's always in a hurry. You . . . work here long?”

A smile stretched across his face. “Oh, long enough, I suppose.” He held up his callused hands.

I continued to stumble along. “Is this place . . . uh . . . is it . . . are you for
real?
”

Henry laughed heartily. “Ha! For real! Well, tell you what, the missus used to tell her friends I was too good to be true, but she'd always tell me something different when the dishes weren't done!” He slapped the leg of his coveralls with delight.

I smiled politely, so confused and stunned that I couldn't feel anything resembling a laugh anywhere within me.

Henry picked up on my confusion. “Now, why the long face? We all want a return to the summers of our childhood, don't we? Here's your chance,” he said, waving toward the park. His voice was deep, rhythmic, and warm.

I glanced at the smiling faces of people passing by. “I'm afraid I'm not here for fun, Henry. I'm here to find out what happened to my fiancée.”

“Oh,” Henry said. “What do you mean?”

“Well, she was here. Her car's parked outside. But something happened. She was in an accident. She's in the hospital. She made me promise to come here. She told me to find out what she experienced, and give her brother an envelope.”

Henry's brow furrowed with compassion. “An accident? What happened?”

“I don't know. All I know is, she must have been here. She ended up on the other side of that mountain,” I said, gesturing at the wooded mountain rising behind the park. “She wound up on a highway road over there, and she was . . . she was hit by a truck.” I paused, and my eyes started to burn with tears. “Anyway, she made me promise to come here.”

Henry seemed genuinely saddened. He said softly, “I'm so sorry.” He looked to the ground, as if searching for the right words, and then shot me a look of confusion. “I just realized what you said a second ago. Let me understand something, son. Are you saying you
don't know
what she experienced here?”

“No, I don't understand. She just told me to take an envelope from her jacket, come here, find out what happened to her, and deliver the envelope to her brother.”

Henry looked at me intently. “What was your fiancée's name?”

“Mary. Mary Higgins.”

“Do you have the envelope on you now?” Henry asked, holding his gaze on me tightly.

“Uh, yeah. I do.”

He held out his hand. “Can I see it?”

It seemed an odd request, but I pulled the envelope from my hip pocket and offered it to him.

Henry took it and said, “Oh, my. She never opened it.”

His words unnerved me. “What?”

“Something went wrong,” he said uneasily.

My mind raced. “What went wrong? Do you know Mary? Did you see her here? What happened to her?” As I blurted the questions, Henry didn't take his eyes off the envelope.

“Hold on,” he said, “let me think.”

A painful minute of anticipation went by.

“You were engaged to Mary?” Henry asked.

“Yes.
Do you know her?
”

“I do not,” he said flatly. “I don't know Mary, and I don't know exactly what happened to her. Everyone comes here for different purposes, and everyone experiences something different. But I do know something went wrong. If she never opened this envelope,” he said, turning it over in his hands, “then something inside the park went badly wrong.” He looked at me and shook his head, as if deciding something. “I'm going to help you find out what happened,” he said. “There's just one problem.”

“What?”

Henry stared at the ticket booths and asked, “You don't have an invitation to get in, do you?”

T
he sky's amber hues faded into the heavier colors of dusk. The lights of the park blinked on, and each soon had a squadron of moths orbiting it. A faint strip of blue still bordered the tree-lined horizon. The night brought a pleasant coolness to the air. I stood behind Henry in the ticket line, hoping his plan would work.

“Just remember,” he said as the woman in front of us walked to the booth window, “you can't get in here on your own. So keep quiet once I start talkin'.”

The woman in front of us passed something through a hole in the ticket booth. I couldn't see the booth attendant, but the woman smiled at the person inside. Then she walked through the metal turnstile that separated us from the inside of the park.

“Next, please!” a booming female voice called out from the ticket booth.

Henry motioned me forward. I stepped up to the window and, on seeing its occupant, stopped immediately. She was massive, occupying almost the entire booth. Her jaw was working on a hot dog, and her left hand held a gigantic Slurpee. Ketchup and mustard leaked out of the hot dog, staining her tentlike yellow sundress. The window of the booth was clouded with steam. A small fan blew inside, but beads of sweat still formed on her wide brow. She grunted as she shoved more of the hot dog into her mouth.

“What can I do for you, kid?” she said around the mouthful of hot dog.

I couldn't remember the last time I had been called “kid.” I continued to gawk until Henry gave me a gentle nudge in the ribs.

“Oh. Hi. Uh, I'm here to enter the park.”

“That's novel,” she said sarcastically, more interested in her Slurpee than in me. “Where's your invitation?”

Henry gave me another elbow, this time to move me out of the way. He centered himself in front of the glass. “Betty, my dear, how are we today?”

Betty stopped chewing at the sound of his voice. “Henry? What are
you
doing here?” She put the hot dog down and tried to wipe the condiments from her mouth and dress. By her tone, I got the impression Henry had some pull at the park.

Henry slid Mary's envelope to Betty and waited for her to examine it. He also positioned his body so I was out of her view. Standing to the side of the booth, I couldn't see Betty's face anymore, just her puffy white hands as they turned the envelope over.

“This is serious, Henry,” she said.

Henry stared at her intently.