Soul Caress

by Kim Shaw

  Eventually, Kennedy made her way back to the bed and lifted the phone onto her lap. She needed to call someone. Her first thought caused her to freeze, her fingers poised over the number pad. She was about to call Malik, having temporarily forgotten the anguish of the past few weeks in her excitement. Once again she was reminded of how much he’d meant to her and how much she’d lost. For the past few months in moments of deep agony and of great elation, Malik had been the person she’d sought to share things with. From the moment they’d met, he’d been there for her, unwavering in his support. Yet that had been shattered and now that he was gone, she was at a loss. She sighed heavily and dialed a number.

  “Hello, you’ve reached Dr. Pitcher’s answering service. Is this an emergency?”

  “No, it’s not an emergency, but can the doctor be paged?” Kennedy asked.

  “May I have your name and the nature of your call?” the operator asked.

  “My name is Kennedy Daniels, and I’m one of Dr. Pitcher’s patients. The message is that there’s been a change in my condition, and I’d like to come in for an exam as soon as possible.”

  “Thank you and is this number you’re calling from the best number for him to reach you, Ms. Daniels?”

  “Yes, I’m at home. I’ll be here all day. Thank you.”

  Kennedy returned the phone to the cradle, and leaned back against the headboard of the bed. While she waited anxiously for the doctor’s call, she thought about calling Skyy, but remembered that her friend was on an early morning flight back to Italy.

  Calling her parents was completely out of the question because while she was no longer enraged at what they had done, she was still not ready to talk to them. Madison had enough to deal with and even if she was up to talking to Kennedy, Madison might tell her parents about her call. Sharing good news with them was the last thing she wanted to do right now, especially since her fury had not quite reached the cooling point. The biggest thing that could have happened to her had just occurred and there was not one person whom she could share it with. That made it all the more bittersweet.

  Seated that afternoon in Dr. Pitcher’s office, Kennedy explained what had occurred from the moment she’d first opened her eyes that morning. In place of the snatches of light and blurred shadows of objects devoid of color, which Kennedy had been limited to seeing for the past five months, were more defined images in which she could distinguish shades of color and shapes.

  “Well, let’s just take a peek at what’s going on,” Dr. Pitcher said.

  He examined both eyes thoroughly, using a variety of testing devices. Kennedy had been through so much testing since the accident that she knew precisely what he was doing each step of the way. Nevertheless, he explained his actions as if it were her first time.

  When he’d finished his tests, Dr. Pitcher’s reserved excitement gave Kennedy further encouragement.

  “Kennedy, it appears that the PTVS caused by the deceleration of your brain during the crash is reversing itself. I do have to remind you that since we know so little about this condition, we still cannot predict what degree your sight will ever return. This could be just the beginning of a remarkable, full recovery or—”

  “It could be the end…the best that it gets. I know that, Dr. Pitcher. I’ve been telling myself that all morning, but still…it’s more than I’ve had to hold on to since the accident so I’m going to have a little faith.”

  “As well you should, young lady. I’d like you to come back in at the end of the week. We’ll take another look and see what’s happening. In the meantime, give my office a call if there are any other improvements or, if you experience any pain or discomfort. All right?”

  “Yes, thanks, Dr. Pitcher.”

  By the time Kennedy returned home, she was at war with herself. She wanted to call someone, but realized that she really didn’t have much to tell. It was bad enough to have her hopes pumped up, but to get those who loved her excited before she knew exactly what she was dealing with would be cruel. Besides, the one person that she would have shared her news with she no longer had access to.

  In the days that unfolded, Kennedy continued to see improvements in her vision. By the time she returned for her second visit with Dr. Pitcher, she could see bright colors and was able to read the eye chart at the fourth line, although it remained blurry.

  “L, P, E, D,” she proudly called as Dr. Pitcher pointed from line to line.

  This time Dr. Pitcher performed a test to determine the contrast sensitivity in Kennedy’s eyes.

  “It looks like things are progressing steadily, but you still have a ways to go. Driving is still out of the question because you have a very low contrast sensitivity. That means when driving you would be unable to see traffic lights or spot other cars and pedestrians with dependability.”

  She was on cloud nine as she left the doctor’s office that second day and despite the possibility that she had reached the height of her recovery, she continued to grow more excited and optimistic. She continued to take Muppet everywhere she went, which was a good thing since even when walking down the street, she still could not distinguish between the sidewalk and curbs. None of that mattered, however, because she was getting better with each passing day. Besides, she and Muppet had become best friends and considering how isolated she had begun feeling, she was grateful to have Muppet at her side.

  That night Kennedy took herself out to dinner at an upscale restaurant to enjoy her liberation and was able to read much of the menu on her own. She celebrated with a delicately prepared filet mignon and a vintage wine, smiling more in one evening than she had in a long time. For the first time she let herself believe that she would get back to where she once was in her life again, although without Malik in it, she did not know for sure if the past was a place she really wanted to be, anyway.

  Chapter 26

  “I feel like I’m in somebody’s wildest dream,” Kennedy said as she looked down over the boot-shaped country of Italy where it dipped into the Mediterranean Sea as the plane prepared for its final descent.

  “Well, my dear, let me pinch you so you’ll realize that you are very much awake,” Skyy said.

  “Ouch!” Kennedy exclaimed when Skyy did, in fact, take a piece of the flesh on her left arm between two fingers and squeeze.

  She stared out of the window, still reeling over the fact that she could see anything at all, but amazed by the magnificence of what she could behold.

  “If Italy is half as beautiful on the ground as it is from up here, I can see why you love it so much,” Kennedy breathed dreamily.

  “Girl, everything is beautiful to you these days…it’s like you’re seeing the world for the first time, huh?” Skyy said wistfully.

  Kennedy nodded in full agreement with her friend. There was no denying that now that she had been given the gift of sight again, everything that came into her line of view was stunning. She promised herself not to waste one minute with her eyes closed.

  When Skyy had called her from Rome a couple of weeks after her vision began to return, Kennedy had been like a balloon about to burst. Skyy had barely said hello before she blurted out her news. Two weeks later, after wrapping up some business obligations, Skyy had hightailed it to D.C. in order to witness this miracle for herself. It didn’t take much convincing on Skyy’s part to persuade Kennedy to travel back to Italy with her and as the plane landed, she thanked her friend for knowing intuitively how beneficial taking a trip like this would be for her right now.

  They landed in Latium and spent four days in Rome at one of the most beautiful villas in the city. Villa Torlonia, which had recently undergone a major restoration project, was one of the last examples of Roman cultural patronage. The gardens boasted seventeenth-century grace and the grounds were adorned with vintage statues and lamps. The Casino Nobile hosted an exhibition of the Roman School that was a showing of over one hundred works of artists who lived and worked during World Wars I and II. Kennedy had to struggle to keep her jaw from
dropping every time she entered a different room or area of the property, so breathtakingly stunning everything was.

  Skyy had to drag Kennedy away from Rome kicking and screaming, giving her assurances that the rest of Italy would be equally as captivating. They traveled up north to Lombardy, where they spent two days at Venice at Abano Terme, one of the many spas that have developed on the slopes of the Euganei Hills. There, the volcanic highlands had an abundance of areas where hot water springs gushed out. Skyy introduced Kennedy to mud therapy. The treatments were highly recommended for rheumatic illness and problems with the respiratory and female genital organs. While she had none of those problems, she left Abano Terme feeling as if she had been given a brand new body.

  In Milan, Kennedy learned that Skyy had had an ulterior motive when offering to be her tour guide to Italy. It seemed that Samage Designs had an opening for a person to handle the project finance planning for the company and little Ms. Busybody, a.k.a. Skyy Reynolds, had pitched Kennedy’s credentials to the company. The very day they arrived in Milan, Kennedy was seated before one half of the namesake, Keith Samage, and was discussing her qualifications. When he made an offer, it was a tongue-tied Kennedy who requested a couple of weeks to consider the unexpected but greatly appreciated opportunity.

  Every day they ate traditional Italian meals, starting with breakfast, which was usually colazione and cappuccino. Lunch was the big meal of the day for many Italians, consisting of antipasto as a start, a pasta, rice or soup next, followed by a meat or fish served with vegetable or salad. By the time they reached the fresh fruit and the espresso, Kennedy would be ready to fall out of her seat. That did not stop her, however, from enjoying a scrumptious dinner, topped off with one of the hundreds of flavors of Italian ice cream.

  They visited Florence and traveled south to Naples. There, Kennedy viewed the archeological sites of Paestum and Velia, falling deeper in love with the country with each day. When they reached Sicily, where they were to spend their last few days, Kennedy knew that she had a very big decision, indeed, to make.

  She also learned that there was more than business and the love of the country that had kept her best friend on this side of the globe for the better part of the past year. Salvatore Giuliano, a painter who lived just outside of the city of Palermo, was a dark Sicilian man who was soft-spoken and mild-mannered. He treated Kennedy warmly and with genuine hospitality during their stay at the small villa he owned with his brother, Francesco. Although Skyy divulged little information, the way he held Skyy by the elbow lightly or touched the small of her back intimately told Kennedy all that she needed to know. She was happy for her friend, but secretly wondered if she, too, would have to cross the globe in order to find the man of her dreams.

  Chapter 27

  “Girl, I’m telling you, you are going to absolutely love living in Italy. Getting away from all the crap you’ve been dealing with in this stale-assed Chocolate City will make you’ll feel like you’ve died and gone to heaven,” Skyy said.

  “I hope so, because life here has been a little hellish lately,” Kennedy remarked. “I’m just concerned about the job. I mean, all I’ve ever done is money, analyzing financial data and overseeing the money aspects of projects. This job is such a departure from all of that, I don’t know if I’ll be any good at it.”

  Kennedy was having a hard time digesting all that had happened in just a short time. Her dream vacation in Italy had turned into a whirlwind job interview, followed by a rapid decision to move there and subsequent uprooting of her life.

  “Obviously, Keith thinks you will be or he would never have given you the job. And what’s so different about what you’ll be doing? You’re good with numbers, you have a vision, no pun intended, for making projects come to life from a financial perspective and you’re a workaholic.”

  “Correction. I was a workaholic. No more of that. I made it perfectly clear to Keith that my eighteen-hour days were a thing of the past. I have no intentions of putting down roots in Italy. I’m going to travel and see the world. And I need to get back stateside often enough to keep up with Madison. I took this job on the condition that we deal with one project at a time. No promises on either side. He said he was cool with that.”

  “He’s a man of his word. But, I have to tell you, you may be the one who falls in love with a new country and a new job and never want to leave. You see what happened to me,” Skyy said.

  Kennedy threw a hand on one hip and shot her friend a disturbed look.

  “Okay, maybe not a good example. Look at it this way, Kennedy. It’ll give you a chance to put some space between your family and you, which you definitely need. I love Elmira like she was my own Mama, but you’ve got to admit that she can be a bit much. You need some time to be with Kennedy and figure out what you want out of life without anyone else sticking their big noses into your business. And, I know you don’t like to talk about him, so I won’t mention his name, but the time away will help you to get him out of your system. If that’s in fact what you want to do.”

  “What do you mean, if that’s what I want to do? It’s over between Malik and me, period. I’ve had to accept that because that’s the way things are. There’s no use crying over what’s done, is there?”

  “Yeah, that’s what your mouth says, but Kennedy, my dear, your actions say something entirely different. You’re not dating. You’re not even looking. That tells me that the man is far from being out of your system.”

  “It’s strange because when I really think about it, I realize that I didn’t even know Malik for very long. I mean, we didn’t have time or the ability to do all the things that couples usually do. Because of my blindness, we never went to a movie, never rode bicycles or even saw a concert together. We spent most of our time sitting in my apartment talking. I mean, how do I know that I really even knew the man?”

  “Kennedy, you’re the only one who can say how well you knew him. You’ve got to search your heart and determine that one for yourself. From the outside looking in, I can tell you that whatever it was you had going on with brother man, it was deep and it left a major impression on you.”

  “Yeah, kinda like the measles.” Kennedy laughed sarcastically.

  “Now there’s a greeting card. Catching love is like catching the measles,” Skyy said and laughed, too.

  “You know something, Skyy, I’ve got to be honest. I wholeheartedly believed that it was my parents’ interfering and the constant weight of their opinionated commentaries that ruined my relationship with Malik, but I don’t believe that anymore,” Kennedy admitted.

  “No?”

  “No. I mean, their meddling didn’t help, but—”

  “Yeah, and his taking that money from your father didn’t help things, either,” Skyy reminded.

  “Very true, but perhaps if I had had more faith in him and in us, I would have stood up to them from the get-go and avoided all of that in the end,” Kennedy said.

  Skyy chewed on her friend’s words for a moment without speaking.

  “Don’t tell me you’re getting wise on me in your old age,” she remarked at last.

  “What? Please, you know I’ve always been wise. That’s why you hang out with me—hoping some of it rubs off on you. No, what I’ve gotten is even wiser, as if that’s possible,” Kennedy joked.

  “Uh oh, look at you. You’ve got your sense of humor back along with your eyesight. Watch out now,” Skyy teased.

  “Stop trying to analyze me and help me pack the rest of this stuff,” Kennedy said, tossing a roll of heavy-duty adhesive tape toward Skyy.

  “Who the heck is this chick you’re subletting to, anyway? Shoot, I don’t see why we can’t just stick all of your belongings in the spare bedroom, lock the door and be done with it.”

  “Spoken like a woman who has never officially moved out of her parents’ home.”

  “No need to get nasty, Miss. All right, let’s hurry this up, though, because I want to go out tonight. There’s a new band playing
at The Dive and we are going to be in there,” Skyy answered.

  “Why do you know more about the social scene in my state than I do?” Kennedy questioned.

  “Because unlike you, I haven’t been so occupied by love that I’ve shut myself off from the world.”

  “Skyy—” Kennedy warned.

  “My lips are sealed,” Skyy said, making a mock showing of zipping her lips.

  A few minutes later, with a look that said she was about to burst at the seams, Skyy made one final comment.

  “You need to see him one more time, before you leave for Italy. You owe it to yourself, Kennedy.”

  Kennedy let Skyy’s words hang in the air. The only sound was the crumpling of newspaper as they wrapped her breakables and loaded them into waiting cardboard boxes.

  Chapter 28

  As Kennedy dressed hurriedly, the telephone rang. She knew that it was her mother yet again, calling from the hotel to find out what was taking Kennedy so long. She pulled a yellow cashmere sweater over her head as she walked toward the kitchen where the only phone that hadn’t been packed away remained.

  “Yes, Mother,” she said, snatching up the receiver.

  She pointed the remote control toward the living room and pressed mute on the television at the same time.

  “Kennedy, it’s getting late. Are you all right, dear?”

  “Yes, Mother. I’m just running a little behind, but I’ll be there soon. Where are Dad and Madison?”

  “They’re right here. Honey, why don’t you let us come to you. We can pick you up and perhaps have dinner at that nice little place up the street from your apartment.”

  “No, Mother. We’re eating at the hotel. I don’t need you to come and pick me up. Now, I’m walking out of the door right now. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Bye.” Kennedy hung up before her mother could protest further.