The Dead and the Gone

The day after Alex finds Harvey’s body, he collapses from the flu and spends a week feverish and delirious. At one point, he thinks he’s back in his normal life and that Mami is taking care of him. The next day, he dreams about Kevin, Harvey, Father Mulrooney, Carlos, and Aunt Lorraine, and Julie laughs at the things Alex says while in this state of delirium. On December 20, his sisters can’t get him to wake up, but the next day finds him alert and able to eat. He even notices that the electricity is on.

December 22 is Alex’s birthday, and he starts to emerge from the worst of his illness, which was bad enough that Bri and Julie worried that he would die. He knows it’s his birthday and that there was something significant about it, but he can’t remember what it is and simply falls back asleep. On December 23, Alex wakes and learns that Bri isn’t in the apartment because she left to light a candle for his birthday at St. Margaret’s. Julie tells him how hard Bri worked taking care of him, showing more strength than she has in months. However, she has been gone for 24 hours at this point.