Chapter 97: He is Alive

After hearing Troy's story to its conclusion, I began to cry. I lay on my knees and wept as I had never wept before. Eventually, Troy put his hand on my knee and he asked me if I wanted to know what Jonathan had said after hearing the story. I had been told that this was a funny story, which it wasn't, so I did want to know.

I nodded my head and I said, "Tell me."

Troy smiled and said, "I will tell you what Jonathan said. He explained that the hedgehog and the fish represent two worldviews. According to a naturalist, the two animals are incompatible. It is only when God steps into the picture that the unnatural becomes possible. That being said, not everything that can be imagined, should be permissible. Even if a fish could mate with a hedgehog, its offspring would be an abomination.

"I don't get it," I admitted.

Gradually, I got to my feet and brushed the dirt off of my legs. I looked at Troy and asked him if he would drive me home. He looked at me nervously and I promised to take a sleeping pill as soon as I got ready for bed. "I know that I need help," I told him, "and I will get it; if not for me then for the baby."

I was just falling asleep when Jonathan walked through the doorway. I rolled over sleepily. "Is that you?" I wondered as tears spilled from my eyes. Over the last week, I had seen him so many times that I knew that I'd lost sight of what was real. Indeed, I believed that I was going insane.

"It is me," he replied. "I am alive. I haven't abandoned you."

"Where did you go?" I wondered as my night time meds drew me closer and closer into the land of dreams and nightmares."

"I was in Thailand," he replied. I'm going to Indonesia next. My stepfather is waiting for me there. He has prepared a new passport for me so that we can go to Australia. When I'm settled in Australia, I'll pick you up and we'll start again."

"Why didn't you tell me that you were alive?" I cried. "Your death has ruined me."

"I know...." he said softly; mournfully. "Troy has kept me updated, and I am sorry that it had to happen this way."

I pushed him away suddenly and shouted, "I hate you. I hate you!"

"It had to be this way," Jonathan explained. "The police would not believe that I was dead unless they saw how broken you'd become."

I looked at him for a bit as I struggled to stay awake. "If you are alive," I finally said, "then I must forgive you. Knowing that you're alive will return the spark to my step and my will to live. I understand that you have to go now, but when will I see you again?"

"It will be some time still," he replied. "Once you're fully recovered, you can go back to England and continue your studies. When the time is right, my step-father will come for you."

What I said next, I can't remember. My brain was too foggy. I seemed to remember Jonathan tucking me into bed, but it felt like a dream. When I woke up the next morning, I didn't know for sure that it had happened. Surely, I had dreams in the past that were just as vivid – and yet I held on to the hope that it had happened.

After breakfast, it occurred to me that the only way to discern the truth would be to confront Troy directly. It was a nerve-wracking proposal though. Until I called, it could go one way or the other. It was Schrödinger's cat. Until I spoke to him, I had hope. If I never asked though, I would never know.

Finally, I picked up my phone. Already, I had figured out that the best way to get an honest answer out of him would be to shock him. As soon as he picked up the phone, I shouted into the receiver: "How the fuck could you fake Jonathan's death and not tell me!"

"I'm sorry," he cried. "Please forgive me. It was the only way."

And so it was settled. Jonathan was alive, and he had come to see me the night before. "It is alright," I laughed. "He came to visit me last night and all is forgiven. He never asked about the baby though… Do you know why that might've been?"

"That's because I haven't told him," Troy admitted.

"Why?" I wondered.

"If he knew," Troy replied, "he would be so anxious to be with you that he might blow his cover. He loves you very much and being away from you has hurt him as much as it has you.

"You are a good man too," I told him. "I hope that you find a woman who will love you as much as I love Jonathan. Have you ever met any woman like that?"

"A woman once said I was a good man," Troy began, "but I broke her heart. I guess I am not that good after all. I looked her up five years later. She was married and had children. I don't know what I would've done if she'd been single though. I might have pursued her. Probably not. Anyways, there is plenty of fish in the sea. I am not sure that I am ready to choose only one."

Troy and I had spent a lot of time together lately, but he had been comforting me all along. All of a sudden it felt weird to not have that between us anymore – but in a good way. We got to know each other. I found it exciting to think about Jonathan jumping from country to country, evading justice.

I once asked Troy what would happen if Jonathan was apprehended. He assured me that everything would be okay, but I got the sense that he was minimizing the amount of danger he was actually in. Every day, I pushed him to say more but, every day, he brushed my concerns away as if they were nothing.

"If the police came around," I admitted, "I don't know if I could keep secrets as well as you and Jonathan have."

"Try not to think about it," Troy replied. "They no longer have any reason to come for you. Jonathan is dead. If they do though, if you think about it, Jonathan probably told you less than what it seems. Even I couldn't lead him to you. Furthermore, at this point, he is not worth the kind of effort that would take to capture him. As long as he has a good doctored visa – which I am sure that he does – then he is safe.

"And don't forget that he is dead and, if we needed to, we could 'die' too. It is a lot easier to fake your death then you'd think. Just look at Jonathan's 'death'. It was surprisingly easy. In the end, that is how I will go. The only question is whether it will be sooner or later. I will fake my death and retire to a life of luxury in a foreign country."

"This is all well and good," I said, "but what was Jonathan like as a youth?"

"That is an interesting question," Troy admitted. "The first time I saw him, he was a student with fine qualities; he was a scholar. He was polite and he never cursed. Before going to bed at night, he would recite English words. It was funny. When I heard that he was joining the gangway, I couldn't help but ask him why. As a scholar, it just didn't seem like something that he would be interested in joining. He just shrugged and said that it sounded exciting.

"Over time, we learned to smoke, drink, and kill. We shared an apartment that we rented and did everything together. One night, a few years later, I asked him why he had wanted to enter the underworld. He explained that, as a child, he had seen someone close to him suffer. He hadn't been able to do anything about it, but he'd determined that he would be able to take care of problems like that one day. Of course, he hadn't meant to join the underworld. It just happened to be the way that the cookie crumbled."

I looked at the sky. This time, instead of staring at one star, I looked at the whole sky. Troy was still standing beside me, but I had no desire to talk.