The Trouble With Dying Read online

  THE TROUBLE WITH DYING

  By

  Maggie Le Page

  When Faith Carson wakes up on a hospital ceiling looking down on her body in a coma, it’s a bad start to the week. A very bad start. She has no idea who she is or how she got there or why, and the biggest mystery of all is why she married the schmuck who wants her ventilator switched off.

  As if that’s not enough Faith has a dead gran haunting her, a young daughter missing her, and one devilishly delicious man making her wish she could have a second chance at life. And maybe she can, if she finds a way back into her body and wakes up by Friday. But if she doesn’t, this will be her last bad week—ever.

  Nate Sutherland decided long ago he’d settle for friendship if he couldn’t have Faith’s heart. But now, as she nears death, he’s going to have to listen to his feelings in a whole new way—and act. Because if he doesn’t, this week will be the worst damn week of his life. He’ll lose everything he’s ever loved.

  Connect with Maggie

  http://www.maggielepage.com

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  For Mum and Dad

  For teaching me the alphabet—

  and so much more.

  For having the foresight to pass down those good-but-bad traits of

  perfectionism and persistence

  (aka bloody-minded determination).

  Yes, I blame you!

  Chapter One

  It’s one of those falling-to-your-death moments; the sort where you hope it’s just a dream but have a nasty feeling you’re going to wake up dead.

  I plummet down through endless blinding light, wind roaring in my ears, panic roaring in my veins, waiting for that final, bone-shattering end.

  A brief flash of agony, then silence. It’s over.

  I wait, shuddering, flesh crawling, every sense on high alert. Am I dead—or alive? Dreaming—or awake?

  An antiseptic smell, reassuringly familiar, teases my senses.

  A quiet p-shhh breaks the silence. Then another.

  What’s that sound? I force my eyes open, flinching against the glare, and fluoro pink platform boots assault my vision. I blink, frown, blink some more, then do a serious double-take at the jet-black, wild rocker wig.

  “Gran?”

  She blows out her cheeks. “Thank goodness. You had me worried.”

  And she’s got me worried. Nobody’s grandmother wears stuff like this, least of all when they’re seven years dead.

  “Darling,” she says, “we need to talk.”

  Damn straight we do. Starting with the Rock Chick gear.

  She looks at me with that have-an-extra-cookie twinkle in her eye and my heart squeezes tight. It’s been seven long years, and though I’ve tried every which way to make contact with her, she’s never come. Not once.

  “Why?” I ask, unable to keep the hurt from my voice. “Why now? I needed you, Gran.”

  She shakes her head. “You missed me, Faith. You didn’t need me.”

  Faith’s my name? I roll the name around in my head, but it doesn’t feel familiar. That’s weird.

  The p-shhh’s keep p-shhhing.

  I frown. “Why don’t I remem—”

  “Later,” she says. “We have more important things to deal with.”

  She indicates the floor and I follow her gaze. Instant vertigo hits, and every last vestige of calm deserts me faster than you can say ‘hallucination’.

  My thoughts scramble. I close my eyes, then drag in a shaky breath and look again. My head reels. I’m floating. In mid-air. Up near the ceiling. With my dead gran beside me and my plum-painted toes dangling below.

  I glance at Gran, but her expression tells me nothing. I blink, swallow, and look back down.

  Down at the no-frills bed. Down at the young woman in it.

  Long, dark hair frames her delicate features. And though one side of her face is marred by a mess of brown tape and a mouth tube, a shadow of memory dances at the edge of my consciousness. I should know this woman.

  The memory refuses to solidify, but whoever she is, it doesn’t really matter. I’ve got bigger issues to deal with—like what I’m doing up here, and how to get back down.

  She’s asleep. Her eyelashes, long and dark, stand out against the pallor of her cheeks. A pallor that’s accentuated by that striking blue-black hair of hers.

  Blue-black hair.

  My breath catches. Is my hair bl—? No. Don’t even think it.

  Too late. I have.

  And suddenly I’m back there, living it all, fear and horror exploding in my mind.

  Crap, shit, no-no-no. Scrabbling. A handhold, a fingerhold, anything.

  Icy dread licking down my spine. Stupid. So stupid. Biggest mistake ever.

  The railing falling away. No—the railing’s fixed. It’s me falling away.

  A moment of slow, silent grace. A leaf on the breeze. Hair brushing against my cheek. Then deathly, gut-swooping, mind-stalling acceleration. Oh God. Please, no. Not this.

  A blue, blemish-free sky. And regret. Could’ve, should’ve, would’ve, won’t.

  Terror freezing my heart, loosening my bowels.

  Abruptly, I hurtle out of freefall and back to the present.

  Heart pounding, lungs heaving, I look at Gran. Her black-kohled eyes, their expression beyond serious, meet mine. My stomach turns in on itself.

  “Okay?” she asks.

  I take a shaky breath. Am I okay? I don’t know. What the hell kind of nightmare was that?

  The p-shhh’s continue in the background, and my breathing gradually slows as my panic subsides.

  I glance around and see the irony: I’ve simply swapped one nightmare for another.

  Where is my reality?

  My hair. What colour is it? With a trembling hand I pull a few strands into my line of vision—or try to. But my hand doesn’t move. Something’s wrong. My arm’s just hanging there, limp.

  I try to lift the other hand. No movement there, either. Not even a finger-twitch. Dry-mouthed, I look down and wiggle my toes. Nothing.

  My heart thumps painfully. What’s going on? I can move my head, but that’s all.

  Quadriplegic? I quickly banish the thought. Then un-banish it and, swallowing a ball of fear, look Gran’s way.

  “Am I paralysed?”

  “No.”

  Then what? The fear-ball dissolves, leaving bile in its place.

  “Think, Faith. Remember.”

  I swallow back acid. “I just did. It wasn’t fun.”

  “Not that. Everything. Remember it all.”

  I frown at her, then let out an exasperated sigh. Those pesky little p-shhh’s. I embrace my irritability—easier to cope with than fear—and look down towards the noise. There. The culprit is a fancy-looking bedside monitor with an exciting array of buttons and graphs and numbers and symbols. My eye is immediately drawn to the red flashing heart.

  Like rising damp, tension fills my body.

  I look up, away; anywhere but down there. It doesn’t work. That flashing little heart has seared my eyes and imprinted itself in my brain.

  I watch the woman with the too-slender arms and the pasty white skin, and for long, desperate moments I pretend. I pretend she could be anyone. I pretend this isn’t a hospital room. I pretend I don’t feel it.

  But I feel it, all right. Our link, twanging between us, guitar-string taut. My limbs, limp and lifeless, as good as dead. My gut, churning with the conviction I wish I didn’t have.

  That fall was real. This is all real. And that woman, whoever she is, is me.

  Chapter Two

  That’s me down there. Me. I draw a shaky breath.

  Gran watches me watching—me.

  My brain do
esn’t want to believe the message my senses are sending. “Why don’t I recognise myself?”

  “That’s just the way it works, darling. When you’re on the other side you recognise everything: your home, your family, everything you left behind. But you’re not on the other side. You’re . . . here.”

  Wherever ‘here’ might be.

  “Then why did I recognise you?”

  “Because I’ve met you halfway.” Gran looks at her watch. “Right. Chop chop. You’ve conquered the first hurdle: acknowledgement. But we don’t have time on our side, so let’s not dilly dally.”

  It doesn’t feel real. None of this does. It’s like I’m looking at it all through smoky glass.

  “Darling,” she says, gentle but firm, “this isn’t the time for navel gazing.”

  Navel gazing? I try to keep the hurt out of my eyes but, dammit, how can she say that? I’m not navel gazing; I’m trying to get my head around this out-of-body experience that just won’t stop. Jeeze, it’s not every day a girl is woken by her dead gran, discovers she can’t move, dangles from the ceiling like a forgotten party streamer, and doesn’t even recognise her own face.

  “Faith, this is important. Life-and-death important.”

  The words fall like stones in my gut. “You mean I’m dying?”

  Gran hesitates. “Your situation is . . . delicate.”

  “Define ‘delicate’.”

  She doesn’t.

  My heart races. That horrific, deathly freefall mocks me. “Am I dead? Just tell me.”

  Gran was never this quiet when she was alive.

  I look down at the body in the bed. I’m pretty sure I see the rise and fall of her—my—chest, but I’m not sure about anything anymore.

  “Come on, Gran. What happened? What’s wrong with me?” More to the point, why don’t I know?

  Gran says nothing. Her eyes skitter away from mine. What is she not saying?

  I cast my mind back, but all I remember is falling through the air. Nothing about where it happened, how it started, how it finished, why . . . Nothing about anything, actually.

  That’s strange.

  My heart kdumps.

  Chest tight, I fish for any old memory. Anything that might help me reconnect with myself.

  Nada. There’s not a damn thing. Where Faith should be, it’s just a gaping abyss.

  “What’s going on, Gran? Why did I fall?” I turn back to her, just in time to see her body disperse.

  Panic flares in my gut.

  “Gran!”

  I reach for her but, of course, my arm doesn’t move. And then she’s gone. Dissolved, for crying out loud. As in, beam her up, Scotty. What the fuck?

  Adrenalin shoots through my limbs. My fingers and toes tingle. Where did she go? Did she mean to do that or . . . My nerve-endings thrum with dread. Is Gran okay? Or did someone just kill her in front of my eyes?

  No. You can’t kill a dead person.

  Can you?

  I gulp down my fear and try to think logically. But there’s nothing logical about this. Besides—the hairs on my neck rise—someone’s watching me. I can feel it.

  “Hello?” I suck in some air and glance boldly around, but I’m not kidding them and I’m not kidding me. I’m scared. Pee-my-pants scared. I want to run far, far away. I want to curl in a ball until the bad dream ends. Dive back in my body and zip myself in.

  But I can’t do any of that. I can’t bloody move.

  Below, something starts to beep. It reminds me of a bomb ticking down to zero. My scalp crawls. I’m trapped, stuck up here, unable to do anything except turn my head like a sideshow clown. I’m completely at the mercy of whatever—whoever—is coming to get me.

  Beep beep beep. Louder, faster, beepa-creepa-beep.

  A nurse rushes in, glances at Faith-in-the-bed, jabs at the monitor.

  “Gran?” Where is she? She might be dead, but at least she’s company.

  Silence. My chin trembles. I clench my teeth tight, refusing to cry. How do I get back to ground level? Forget ground level: how do I move from this spot? How do I get off the ceiling?

  My breath comes shallow. Nausea claws at my gut. My head swims. My insides flip like a freshly landed fish. And that blasted machine is beeping as if it’s about to self-destruct.

  The nurse shouts for reinforcements.

  Gran reappears, furtive and anxious. “Darling. Please calm down.”

  “Gran!” Relief leaves my insides quivering. What I’d give to be able to hug her right now. “Where did you go? What happened?”

  Gran says nothing but I feel her love like a blanket. Somehow, without moving any closer, she warms me and calms me and gives me strength. My breathing slows, my pulse settles, the nausea retreats, and the beeps regulate, eventually stopping altogether. Nurses work with Faith-in-the-bed, checking her vitals, making sure she’s comfortable, talking in low voices as they fiddle with wires and drips, monitor and ventilator.

  We stand—float—whatever—side by side, watching it all. Gran doesn’t speak. That seems to be her fall-back position.

  Finally, when the last nurse has left, I eyeball Gran until she gives up studying her fingernails and meets my gaze.

  “Gran. Please. Just give it to me straight. What’s going on?”

  She sighs. “Darling, I’m not allowed to meddle. In fact—” she casts a furtive glance over her shoulder, lowers her voice “—I’m not even meant to be here.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s against the rules.”

  Rules? Gran never gave two hoots for rules.

  “Everything changes once you’re dead, Faith,” she says, and I have the spookiest feeling she’s just read my mind. I watch her through narrowed eyes. She returns my gaze impassively.

  “Well . . . thanks for being here, I suppose.” I try to smile, but my face feels like it’s forgotten how. “Why are you here?”

  “Because you need me. And if I have to leave, darling, I promise I’ll be back when the coast is clear.”

  I have a sudden image of Rock Chick Gran diving into a darkened doorway, gun in hand, Catwoman jumpsuit clinging to her octogenarian figure.

  Focus, Faith. Think.

  “I fell, didn’t I? It’s something to do with that.”

  She doesn’t reply, but her eyes don’t stray from mine.

  “Something happened, and you want me to remember, and you’re not supposed to be here but you are anyway, so it must be important.”

  Still she says nothing, but her gaze is so intense I know I’m right.

  “You’re not going to get in trouble for this, are you?” I ask, with no idea why a dead person would ever be in trouble.

  Gran shrugs. “Probably. But that’s my problem, not yours.”

  How can she say that? She might get arrested, assuming that can happen in Heaven. What if she disappears and never comes back? I’ll be stuck here on my own, forever—which could be a very long time—and that would definitely be my problem. Or . . . my stomach drops. Maybe they’ll kick her out. Send her to Hell.

  I shoot her a bug-eyed look and open my mouth to speak, but she speaks first.

  “I mean it,” she says, with that same warring look she used to get whenever she spoke about the Inland Revenue Department. “Don’t worry about me. You have enough on your plate.”

  She pauses as a nurse returns to check on Faith-in-the-bed. Saline bag replaced and medication updated, the nurse takes the medical chart from the pouch at the end of the bed and starts writing.

  “See?” says Gran. “Worry about yourself, darling.”

  Then she cocks her head to one side and I hear it too. Footsteps in the corridor, and they’ve stopped outside my room.

  # # #

  The door swings open and a man walks in, coffee in hand, exhaustion on his face.

  He stops when he sees the nurse. “Sorry, I didn’t realise . . . I’ll come back,” he concludes, turning to leave.

  “No, don’t go. I’m nearly . . . There, all done
.” The nurse, a pretty young thing, smiles at him. “And you must be?”

  “Nathan Sutherland. Nate. Nice to meet you—” he pauses long enough to check her name badge “—Bridget.”

  He proffers a hand, slants her a smile. Bridget shakes his hand, a blush rising on her cheeks. And I don’t blame her. He’s tall, olive-skinned, built in all the right places; the best view I’ve had since I woke up in this nightmare.

  But however casual he looks in jeans and tee, hair tousled in a just-stepped-out-of-the-shower kind of way, there’s something about him that reminds me of a prowling panther.

  “Well, Nathan—Nate—I’ll see you round.” Bridget heads for the door, sneaking another peek at him from under her lashes.

  “No doubt.” Another heartstopping smile.

  Oh yeah. Definitely panther.

  “Who is he?” I whisper.

  Gran shakes her head, a smile playing around her lips, a soft look in her eyes, and I wish I could read her mind.

  Nate pulls a chair alongside the bed and sits, right ankle hooked over left knee as he watches Faith-in-the-bed.

  “Hey, Pixie,” he murmurs, and something moves and shifts in my mind. That name, that voice. It’s familiar. Elusive, but familiar.

  “I’m here,” he says. Glances at the takeaway cup in his hands then back at her.

  “That’s a big deal, by the way.” His lips curve in a half-smile. “You know how much I hate hospitals.”

  He takes a mouthful of coffee, grimaces down at the cup. “Lukewarm. Great. Something else I hate.”

  His eyes drag over the tubes and wires, settling on that parchment-pale face in the bed. “I don’t much like seeing you this way, either.”

  He breathes deep. Closes his eyes briefly. Runs a hand around his neck.

  “God,” he says, voice ragged. “Look at you.”

  Silence.

  Another gulp of coffee.

  He looks at the wall, the floor, the coffee, his shoe, the monitor, the middle distance. Finally his gaze returns to Faith-in-the-bed.