Saving Elijah

immortality here. This is a onetime deal. And you'd better think about it fast, babe, because there really isn't much time left. Listen."
    I listened, but I heard nothing.
    "Listen hard, Dinah. Listen now."
    All I heard was street noise, traffic noise. But then I did hear something else, a syncopated rhythm, a boom-scraping, boom-scraping beat. This I knew was the Angel of Death, searching for the doomed with its eyes seeing everything, and whispering my son's name like a lover, like the hiss of a steam engine. Elijah, Elijah.
    "Coward!" the demon said, chuckling.
    Yes I am. I would refuse to turn off the machines, insist on saving him any way I could. And I would be obliged because they have the technology to do it, and because I am, after all, the mother, and that is my wish. But Death would always be there, poised with its poisoned sword over Elijah's mouth, just waiting. Eight years Death would wait, and I would watch an Elijah unaware, vegetative, growing taller, limbs hardening, curling inward, terrible mouth opening and closing like a fish, hooked, brain gray, arching in death throws. These years I would watch him breathing, day in and day out, in and out whoosh-pump

    he would not watch me watch him
he would not be watching
he would not be
Elijah.

    Finally I would agree to turn off the machines, and then, only then, would my boy die, be taken in the arms of the Master Angel of Death.
    "Murderer," said the demon, sniggering, as darkness descended over the earth.
    Yes.
    I stopped and I turned in the shadow of Death. The demon cocked its evil head and strummed a chord on a guitar. "You'll be damned anyway. Might as well take my offer. Best one you're gonna get. Quickly now. Do we have a deal?"
    I could not watch my son die. "Yes," I said. "We have a deal."
    The ghost smiled and stubbed out his cigarette. "Go now, Dinah," he said, but I could barely hear it over the boom-scraping noise.
    "What about you?"
    " I'll be along."
    I pushed my way through the revolving door and got on the elevator. There was a very old man standing inside, as gnarled and bent as an ancient oak tree. He was leaning on a walking stick, carved at the top with the head of a lion.
    He smiled. "What floor?"
    I couldn't think clearly, still heard the beat of the Angel of Death, closer now, as close as the pumping of my own heart within my chest.
    "PICU," I croaked.
    He pushed the floor for me. I leaned back against the elevator wall, closed my eyes. I heard the gears engage, and we ascended.
    "This is it," the old man said.
    I opened my eyes and stumbled out into the corridor. I heard him step out behind me as I went left, then I found myself in a wing with no children. I kept walking, still hearing the boom-scraping pulse. Finally, blundering forward, I saw a sign I recognized, picu. And an arrow.
    As I drew near to my son's room, I could hear Sam crying from way outside, over the hubbub of the PICU. Over the praying mothers, the humming machines. My husband must have come back, finally. And now he was wailing and moaning.
    "All right," I whispered, then walked into my son's room. Behind me, over me, around me, I heard the ghost's sepulchral voice, this voice of the grave, of torments and darkness: "Will you give me what I want? Will you be with me always?"
    Everything. Anything.
    Sam stopped moaning and looked up, mumbled something about being sorry he'd missed the EEG, he got stuck in a meeting, traffic coming uptown was awful. The nurse was refilling the feeding tube, and I could still hear the boom-scraping rumble of the beast making its way to my son, closer, always closer. But when the nurse withdrew, I began to hear something else. The lullaby. What a glorious sound, and the ghost emerged next to Elijah's bed.
    I held my breath as he sat down on the bed and leaned over my son. He played his guitar, some simple chords, and sang his song, just a little demon lullaby.

    So open your eyes while your mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be.

    I looked outside into the PICU. The old man I'd seen in the elevator was hobbling in. I blinked. How odd. And I could still hear the syncopated death rhythm that I knew would take my son.
    "Do something!" I shouted with my mouth.
    Sam turned. "Dinah?"
    The ghost stopped singing and gazed at me. "Be patient, my Dinah. I am doing something. The beast hates music. Makes it lose its way. Not too bright, that one." He started playing the song again, and he sang:

    And you shall see the beautiful things
As