by S. L. Baum
“Doesn’t it have to cool down before we can eat it? I wouldn’t want you to burn the inside of your lovely mouth with molten lava cheese,” Sam reasoned, and then kissed her.
“Yes, it does.”
“How much time does that give us?”
“About fifteen minutes, after it comes out of the oven,” she told him.
“I promise to use every second of that time to my advantage.” Sam smiled.
The lasagna was taken out of the oven, the salad set in the fridge, and the fifteen minutes was put to very good use… and was actually stretched to twenty. What finally pulled them apart, and led them to the table, was the growl coming from Krista’s stomach. Sam cut the bread and poured the wine, while Krista slid a spatula into the pan of cheesy pasta that had cooled on the table.
As she placed the salad into two small bowls, a sharp burst of pain had hit her temple. Krista brought her hand up to her head and sat down. The pain quickly moved all the way down her body. She closed her eyes for a second and waited for it to pass.
“Are you alright?” Sam’s face filled with concern. She was working too hard; if she wasn’t at the medical center, she was at Ben and Marlene’s. On top of that, Sam was pretty sure she wasn’t getting enough sleep; the few times he had seen her in the past few days, she seemed run down and tired.
Krista kept her eyes closed and nodded her head. The pain was beginning to lose its edge. “Crazy headache pain, that’s all.” She opened her eyes. “I’m good now.”
“Have you talked to Doc about those headaches?”
“I get them from time to time. I was told by my old doctor that it’s probably a light sensitivity,” she lied.
Sam looked at her with skepticism. She’d had one on Halloween, outside, in dim light. “But Halloween…”
“Yeah. I looked straight into one of those strobe lights while I was walking with Doc,” Krista offered in explanation. It was the best she could come up with. “Seriously, it’s fine now. I’m hungry. Let’s eat.”
“I get to worry a little, don’t I?”
“A little,” she agreed. She dug into the lasagna with the spatula and placed a cheesy, saucy square on each of their plates.
Sam looked down at his food. “It looks wonderful,” he told her.
“Thank you. I really do love to cook. I just don’t like all the clean up involved, so I get lazy. Plus, cooking for one isn’t as fun as sharing a meal.”
He cut into the pasta and took a big bite. “You should definitely cook more often. This tastes amazing. And I promise to always be there for the clean up part.”
“You might have just sealed the deal.”
“I make a pretty mean egg-in-a-hole. Thanks, Mom,” he said, as he looked upward. “And she taught me how to slow cook a spicy chili, it’s crazy good. Abe is the pancake master, which he has passed down to me. But he still won’t share the spice mix for his stew.”
“Ooh, very secretive.”
“He guards it. I’m not even kidding. There is a locked drawer in the kitchen. Abe just keeps saying, some day you’ll get the key. It’s a bit obsessive.”
“Okay, that’s pretty funny.” Krista laughed.
Krista and Sam fell into a comfortable conversation; it was an easy flow, from one topic to another. Food, school, work, and childhood memories… stories were shared back and forth. There were no awkward pauses anymore, but occasionally a comfortable silence would fall over them and words were not needed. They smiled, laughed, and even blinked back a few tears.
Krista cleared their dinner plates when they were finished, and as she turned on the water in the sink, she decided it was the most pleasant evening she’d had in years.
Sam brought the leftover food into the kitchen, opened a drawer and pulled out the plastic wrap. He tore off a long sheet and secured it over the lasagna pan. “Can I come over tomorrow night, for reheated lasagna?” Sam asked as he put the pan in the fridge.
Krista dried off the plates she’d washed and put them in the cabinet. “I’d love that, it’s just as good the second time around.”
Sam came up behind her, his hands lifted up the hem of her shirt, and his arms wrapped around her middle. “And can I stay tonight?”
“Only if it will be just as good, the second time around,” she said, spinning around to face him.
That face, those eyes, that crooked, sexy, half smile. Sam wasn’t going to let this one go. He wanted her, and not just physically, he wanted all of her. “I think we can do even better. Don’t you?”
Krista took his hand and led him toward the bedroom. “Let’s give it a try.”
When Krista woke, she was alone. A dozen folded swans of various sizes littered the bed all around her. The largest one had her name written on it. For Krista: Unfold me.
I had a paper due today, and I’ve been procrastinating. I woke up early to finish it. Thanks for dinner… and for desert. I’m going to be thinking about you all day. ♡Sam
Before heading to work, as she drove over to check on Marlene, she ran her hands across the unfolded paper swan that she’d taken in the truck with her. She wanted to keep it close. That little heart next to his name had twisted her up. She wanted to be loved, but at the same time she didn’t want the complications of it. You should have waited, she told herself again. She’d entangled herself with him, when she should have been concentrating on other things.
As Krista pulled up to the house, she noticed Ben’s truck was still parked outside. He was supposed to be on a shift. He shouldn’t have been home.
Krista rushed into the house. “Hello. It’s me,” she called out.
“Upstairs,” Ben answered.
“Why are you home?” Krista asked as she ascended the steps.
Marlene was lying in bed, with her running shoes on. “My fault,” Marlene breathed.
“I saw her down the street, sitting on the side of the road. I was coming back home to get my other jacket, because I noticed a stain on this one, and I saw her there,” Ben told Krista. “What were you thinking, Marlene!”
“Shut up, Ben. I’m tired of hearing you say that. I thought I’d push myself today. I got a couple of good sprints in before I lost my breath,” Marlene huffed, a proud smile on her face.
“Silly woman,” Krista sighed as she sat down on the bed, next to Marlene. “You could have waited for me. I would have run with you. I would have beaten you too.”
“Not on that first sprint.” Marlene giggled breathlessly.
Ben whipped his jacket off and grabbed a new one from the closet. “You are too much. I can’t listen to this.” He spun around and left the room “I’m going back to work!” he yelled out as he clomped down the stairs and then out the door, slamming it behind him.
“I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I might have made my husband angry with me,” Marlene said with a frown, but she didn’t look the slightest bit guilty. “I’m so thirsty! Could you please get me some water?”
“Sure. Be right back.” Krista hopped off the bed and went down to the kitchen. When she got back with the water, Marlene drank it down in one long continuous gulp.
“Thank you. I hate to ask, but can you get me another?”
“No problem.”
Krista returned with a second glass and Marlene drank it down a second time.
“Thanks again.” Marlene set the glass down by the bed. “I woke up today and I just had this energy. It was bursting to get out of me. It made me feel really alive again.”
“You’re still alive, Marlene.”
“Fine. Functional. It made me feel like a functional adult, who could do anything she wanted to. And I just wanted to run, to feel the wind in my hair, and the burn in my lungs, the strain on my legs, and that pride of accomplishment. Being sick all these months has taken that away from me. And if for some reason, if this thing with you and me doesn’t work, I wanted to feel like that again… one last time.”
Krista sat back down on the bed and rested her head on M
arlene’s shoulder. “You’re such a good woman, and you didn’t deserve to have this sickness grow inside of you. I’m so sorry you are dealing with so much emotional turmoil like this. I know how hard it must be to believe that things can go back the way they were, that life will go on, and that your heart will continue to beat, and be stronger than ever. But it will. It will all happen.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s a really shitty answer,” Marlene sighed.
“Yes, it is,” Krista agreed.
“I don’t want to wait any longer.”
A few days later, Marlene got her way. Doc was in an exam room with Pete when Krista popped her head in. “Ben asked if you could go by their place.”
“Anything wrong?” Doc asked.
“He didn’t say.”
Doc nodded his head in understanding. “Pete, I trust you can hold down the fort.”
“Will do. We don’t have any more scheduled appointments, anyway.”
“Krista, you should take off in a few. You look run down today. You need to go home and get some rest,” Doctor Baker told her.
“I have no idea why she even came in today,” Pete added. “I told her that when she came in this morning. Dark circles under her eyes, pale, sickly looking… If she makes me sick, I swear…”
Krista stuck her tongue out at him. “I love it when you talk about me when I’m right in front of you, Pete.”
“There is nothing right in front of me.” Pete looked around blindly. “Because Doc is on the way out, and Krista has taken the rest of the day off.”
Krista smacked his arm.
“I think we have a poltergeist, Doc. I just felt something strange.”
Krista smacked him harder.
“It’s an angry poltergeist.”
Doctor Baker chuckled.
“Fine. Fine. I’m leaving.” Krista spun around and left the room.
“It’s gone, Doc. The presence is gone.”
“Bye, Doc. Bye, Pete,” Krista called out as she went to the door.
“Did you hear something?” Pete shouted.
“You really are too much sometimes.” Doc shook his head. “I’ll be leaving now. Close up early if you’d like. It’s a slow day.”
“Thanks, Doc. I hope everything is good over at Ben’s. I’ll give it a half hour before I take off,” Pete told him.
“Sounds good, Pete. Thanks. You’re doing a great job here. I probably don’t say that enough. But I just want you to know that I appreciate all that you do,” Doctor Baker said, giving Pete a pat on his back. “Don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Why thank you, kind sir,” Pete said with a smile. “That means a lot to me.”
Doc exited the medical center and checked his phone. Krista’s text instructed him to drive straight home, so that is exactly what he did. Krista was waiting for him there, with Ben and Marlene. They were all in his extra bedroom. Marlene was passed out on the bed, with Krista sitting beside her, and Ben pacing the small area near the window.
Doctor Baker could see the steady rise and fall of Marlene’s chest, and he watched Krista’s face wince in pain. He rushed to Marlene’s side “What happened?”
“I think she went out running again. I found her in the kitchen. She’d collapsed. She could barely talk when I got to her, but she’d made me promise to call. I had to bring her here,” Ben told Doc. “And now I can’t seem to wake her.”
“It was a heart attack,” Krista confirmed. “I can feel it.”
“How do you feel?” Doc asked her as he checked Marlene’s vitals. “Are you in pain?”
Krista nodded her head. “Seizing in my chest, like somebody is squeezing me to death. It’s hard to breathe.”
“Is there anything I can do to help, to ease your pain?”
“No. There is nothing that will help me now. I just need to finish the process, get Marlene and I to the next step.”
“Do you mind if I check you over?” Doc asked Krista and then turned to Ben. “I will make sure Marlene is stable. I promise.”
Krista and Ben silently nodded, and Doctor Baker went to work. He checked their pupils, measured their blood pressure, took their temperature, and then listened to their heart and lungs. He tried to get Marlene to react to stimuli, but there was no response. When Doc put his instruments back in his bag, Ben moved to his wife’s side. He held her hand and whispered into her ear.
“You’re going to wake up, sugar, because I need you here by my side. I can’t even find my car keys without you. I’ll empty the checking account without even knowing I did it if you aren’t there to yell at me about the budget. Baby, you can’t leave me.” He kissed the palm of her hand and placed it against his cheek. “I don’t want to have to walk through life without you.”
Ben looked from his wife to Krista. His mind was trying to process, trying to accept that he was losing his wife. He stared at Krista and saw the pain in her face. He knew his wife was sick, but he couldn’t figure out why Krista suddenly was.
He watched as Krista reclined herself on the other side of the bed and placed a couple pillows between her and his wife. It seemed like some sort of silly barrier to him. He shook his head.
“I’ve never seen Marlene look so pale.” Ben stood up, let go of his wife’s hand, and went to stand near Krista. “What’s wrong with her?” he asked Doc, pointing to Krista.
“She’s dying, Ben. She’s doing what she’s been telling you she would. She’s dying so Marlene can live,” Doctor Baker answered without a hint of doubt in his voice. He wasn’t going to argue with what he could see right in front of him. There was no other explanation for Krista’s sudden symptoms. Doc turned back to Marlene. “Marlene is stable, but unresponsive, it’s like she’s in a coma,” he remarked.
“It’s my presence at the moment of what would be her death, it induces a deep sleeplike state,” Krista explained. “Ben, you’d better be ready. When I drift off to sleep, she’s going to wake up. Get her out of here. You’ll have twenty-four hours to leave town. Remember, once I wake back up, she can never be less than a hundred feet from me, ever again. If I were you, wouldn’t chance even that.”
Ben silently and slowly nodded his head. Was this really happening? Were both women dying? Would his wife really wake up and be given a second chance? His thick head finally saw the truth. A peaceful calm settled over his body. “I remember what you said. I’m so grateful for this. Thank you. Oh my God, thank you.” Tears ran down Ben’s face and he held his wife’s hand.
“You’re welcome, Ben. She wants kids. Make sure you give her kids,” Krista whispered.
“I will. I’ll give her a dozen if she wants them,” Ben cried.
“Doc, keep my body safe. I’m trusting you.”
“Don’t you worry about a thing,” Doc told her. “I’ll guard you with my own life.”
“It’s happening.” Krista’s eyes were too heavy to keep open any longer. She closed them and grabbed the sickness and death that was festering inside of Marlene. Come to me, she told it. She is no longer yours.
Searing pain invaded her entire body, burning her from the inside.
Everything went blank.
Chapter Sixteen
Marlene’s eyes popped open and she gasped for breath. She sat up in bed and looked around her. Krista was lying beside her, Ben was kneeling next to her, holding her hand, and Doc was standing near the bed. “She did it. She took it from me. I felt it leaving.”
“Thank you, Jesus,” Ben breathed. He pulled his wife off of the bed and hugged her tightly to him, kissing the top of her head. “I was afraid you’d never wake back up.”
“It felt like all these strings were being pulled out of my body. Hundreds of long strands being drawn from me. It was the strangest feeling,” Marlene told her husband. “Oh, the poor thing. Look at her, lying there. I just want to give her a big hug and thank her.” Marlene reached toward Krista but Ben yanked her close against his side.
“Surely it can’t hurt,” Marlene protested.
“Marlene Richardson,” Doc caught her attention with a booming voice. “This is something none of us can make a judgment call on. We can only go on what Krista has told us, and she said to get you out of here immediately. So I’m telling you, get out of this house, right now. And I expect you to be gone from Cedar Creek by tomorrow morning.”
“We will be,” Ben assured Doctor Baker.
“She truly is my angel,” Marlene whispered right before they left.
Doc listened for the front door to open and then close, making sure they’d gone, and then he turned his attention to Krista. He put his hand on Krista’s forehead then touched his palm to hers. Her skin was cool, too cool, in his professional opinion. He held her wrist and checked for a pulse, but could find none. He moved his finger to her neck and checked there. Again nothing.
Doc opened his medical bag and took out his stethoscope. He listened to her heart. Nothing. Her lungs. No sound. The girl was dead. He took a reading on his thermometer – ninety-four point eight degrees Fahrenheit. That was entirely too low. In a normal death, temperature didn’t drop that fast. But there was nothing normal about Krista, was there?
Doc pulled a blanket up to her shoulders. He didn’t think it would make a difference, but if she’d simply fallen asleep, that’s what he would have done. He’d rather think of the girl lying in his spare bed as someone asleep. Doc went into his bedroom, grabbed the book from his nightstand, and went back to where Krista lay. He sat in the recliner in the corner, opened his book, and started to read. He had no idea what else to do but wait.
Sam stood outside the guesthouse behind his Uncle Abe’s place and knocked on the door for the third time. He’d just come from the diner, where Pete had told him that Doc sent Krista home early. Pete said that Krista looked run down, and Doc told her to go home and get some rest.