by J. Smith
“I had a headache, Erik,” Jenna brushed him off, nonchalantly capturing another of Erik's pieces. “I cannot be held responsible for what I said.”
And so the game went, the two battling on the chessboard, the whole while engaging in easy conversation. Though Erik knew the talk was distracting, he could not help but answer Jenna's questions, especially when she posed them so sweetly, and was so complimentary to him in her own responses. They passed at least an hour in this fashion, which was odd for Erik, since he was used to beating the Daroga in a matter of minutes.
“Mademoiselle,” Erik asked finally, looking directly at her, eyes narrowed questioningly. “When did you learn to play Chess?”
“Chess is a very popular game in my time. We had a chess club at my grade school,” Jenna said, a grin spreading across her face as she moved another piece into Erik's territory. “I was a member as soon as I was old enough to join. I stayed with the game through high school and college, eventually entering tournaments.” She continued, removing another of Erik's players. “And winning. The game always appealed to me. The intellectual challenge. The strategy of battle. Finding ways to distract a worthy opponent, leading them into defeat when they were so sure of victory.” She looked up into his eyes. “I won a couple of championship games back in my day. And I just put you in check.”
Erik glanced away from her eyes, which were holding him so captive, and glanced at the board. Sure enough, his king was at the complete disposal of her queen, powerless to her every whim. He glanced back at Jenna, her eyes blazing with excitement and pride at her accomplishment. It was all he could do not to kiss her—she looked so tantalizing at that moment. His own gaze full of wonder, he said, breathlessly, “You are amazing, Mademoiselle.”
“Can I ask a prize?” she questioned, reaching out and taking his hand in hers. “Can you please go back to calling me Jenna?” Her eyes implored him, and she continued, “When you call me Mademoiselle, you seem so far away. And I want you to be closer.”
Erik looked at her, her expression so sincere. He wanted nothing more at that moment than to wrap her in his arms. Oh how he loved this woman, and her endless efforts to draw him close. He relished the feel of his hand in hers, even though he knew he shouldn't. He had to concentrate on finding an answer to the problems that had been threatening her health, so that maybe they could fix them and … move on. He knew he had to fight this wave of desire that was currently washing over him, for this intriguing, intelligent, and beautiful woman, but, maybe, it wouldn't hurt to just let her continue to hold his hand?
“Jenna,” he asked her, his voice strained with the battle he was waging to control his desires. “Can you tell me more about your accident?”
She was surprised at his question, but he was not flinching away from her touch, and he had used her name, so she simply stated, “I've already told you everything I can remember, Erik. What more would you like to know?”
Erik wondered himself what useful information he was trying to glean from the question. He already knew that the accident was a horrendous event when his dear Jenna was plunged into a river and somehow found herself walking in a tunnel that led to his home. But was that all? “What happened,” he began, grasping to find the words that would give voice to the thoughts in his mind, “between the time you landed in the river and the time you were in the tunnel? How did you get out of this…car…of yours? Do you remember?”
Jenna thought for a moment, trying to find an answer to his question, but honestly not remembering. “I…I don't know, Erik.” she paused, trying to recall those moments once more. “I don't remember getting out of my car at all. I think I must have passed out. I remember blackness and then the darkness of the tunnel.”
Erik continued to probe, needing to know more about this mystery surrounding her accident. “What would have happened, Jenna, if people from your own time had found your car and…you were still in it?”
Jenna looked at him in confusion, shaking her head a little. “What are you talking about, Erik? You know they didn't. I'm here…with you.”
“I know you're here,” Erik said, and despite himself, he gave her hand a little squeeze, so grateful that he could, at least in this small measure, still feel her. “But what if you hadn't found yourself in that tunnel? What if you hadn't come here?”
Jenna looked away, considering, for the first time, a different outcome to that terrifying night. With a dry throat, she began, “I don't… I don't really know. I…I suppose the police would have come. And they would have sent a rescue team into the river. If I hadn't…” she took a deep breath as she contemplated what could very well have been her fate. “If I was still alive…”
Erik felt a shiver run through his body, and he looked down and away from her. “Oh, Jenna, don't even speak of that.”
“Well, it is a strong possibility that I could have died in that accident, Erik,” she squeezed his hand even tighter, seeing how hard that seemed to be for him to hear. “But if I hadn't, I would have been rushed to a hospital, where the doctors and nurses would have tended my wounds.” She thought for a moment. “I might have even been brought to my own hospital, where I worked.”
“And then?” Erik probed, trying to understand what might be happening to her, since he was still certain that somehow events in her world held sway over what was happening to her in his. “What then, Jenna?”
“It's really hard to tell.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Judging by the injuries I had when I first arrived here, I could have just been stitched up and sent on my way—maybe kept in the hospital overnight for observation.”
“And what if the injuries were worse?” He asked, grasping at any bits of information he could get from her. “You say you blacked out before you found yourself in that tunnel. What if they had found you unconscious in your car before you made it to the tunnel?”
“Well, that could have been an indicator of a more serious brain injury,” Jenna postulated, uncertain why he was asking these questions, but sensing that it was important to him that she answer.
“How soon would you have awakened?”
“I have no idea, Erik. Sometimes people who lose consciousness in accidents like that don't wake up. They enter a coma and remain unresponsive until they eventually die.”
Erik felt his blood run cold at her answer. “How long can these comas last? Weeks? Months?”
“Sometimes they can last years…” Jenna's voice trailed off as she remembered the coma patients she had tended in the hospital, as well as the cases she had studied in school. “They sometimes speculate that coma patients can hear everything that is going on around them—they know what's going on, but they cannot communicate. Others say that coma victims have very lucid dreams, where their brains create an alternate reality in which they can go on living, since they can no longer interact with the world around them. Eventually though,” Jenna added, “whether they have been aware of their surroundings the whole time, or whether they have been living in some alternate dream world, most coma patients simply die, never having been in touch with the world around them ever again.”
Jenna's words were like a vice around Erik's heart. He could not point to exactly why, but her words about the fates of coma patients somehow rang true in his mind. It made sense, Erik thought. If by chance Jenna had entered a coma—as she called it—in her own time, perhaps that had freed her soul, on some level, to somehow enter into his. And though Jenna had mentioned the concept of this alternate life being a dream world, were not dreams sometimes so distinct, so graspable, that they themselves could often seem real—as if they were lived, and not simply imagined?
Of course, he knew that this could not simply be a dream. Who would dream about his world of solitude that was so depressing and so heartbreaking in its cruelty? And he knew it was not merely her soul that had traveled into his realm, because of the beautiful, blessed, warmth of her touch.
What if it were merely a lack of understanding about their experiences that
lead the medical profession to guess that coma patients were dreaming? After all, few would believe Jenna's current situation if they had not been living it themselves. Did he himself not assume at first that Jenna was a mental patient deprived of her faculties, when she mentioned what her life was supposed to be? Would a cold, detached doctor who prided himself on objectivity, have even lingered with a patient so afflicted long enough to realize that there was more to their ravings than a very vivid dream?
He recalled his own research about the circumstances of patients who lay in a stupor, lingering and languishing in their hospital beds—sometimes moving, sometimes even opening their eyes—but never again having any meaningful interaction with the outside world. Were they also living in a universe created inside their heads? Were they dreaming of other lives to replace the lives they had effectively lost when their brains were injured? When they were being tended to by physicians, did those ministrations enter into their experiences in the new existence they were living? And most importantly, did that substitute life also end when the doctors lost the fight and their battered bodies stopped breathing?
Jenna saw the look of abject horror on Erik's face, as she described these hypothetical scenarios to him. “I feel I was very lucky, Erik.”
He looked at her with narrowed eyes, emerging from his pondering at the quiet sound of her voice. “You suffered a life-threatening accident which thrust you away from everything and everyone that you knew, and you consider yourself fortunate?”
“I do,” she said, looking down before once again making eye contact with him. “Because I found you.”
Her eyes were so sincere, so honest when she spoke that she took Erik's breath away. A lifetime of people viewing him as a curse, as a nightmare—and Jenna looked at him as a stroke of good luck. Mesmerized by the sweetness of her words and the look in her eyes, Erik could not stop his free hand from reaching out and stroking her cheek, at which point, Jenna closed her eyes and turned her face into his touch. “Erik,” she whispered, and he felt himself leaning closer to her soft, slightly parted lips.
You cannot touch her, Erik. That venomous whisper once again screamed in his mind. Your touch is poison. With a visible shudder, Erik pulled away. “It really is time I go make dinner, Jenna,” he said, rising from the table, causing Jenna's eyes to blink open in surprise. “It is past Samineh's feeding time, and you're going to need sustenance if you hope to regain your strength.” And with that, he turned and swiftly left the room.
36 HER CHOICE
Penny heard the knock at her hotel room door and placed the sweater she had been folding in the suitcase before walking over and looking through the peephole. Oh dear, she thought, as she unchained the lock. This was going to be difficult.
As she pulled open the door, she looked at the face of Jenna's doctor, and her heart broke. His hair was disheveled, his shoulders slumped. He was looking down at his feet, but she could see the expression on his face was tense. “Doctor,” she said in greeting, and he glanced up at her, and when he did, his eyes held such sorrow, such defeat.
“You're taking her away, Ms. Wilson,” he stated, his voice breaking on the last word.
“Please come in,” Penny said, ushering him into her room and closing the door, so that they were not talking in the hallway of a New York hotel. She drew him to one of the overstuffed chairs by the window. “Would you care for a drink, Doctor?” she asked, as she poured herself some water.
She saw him shake his head quietly, still looking too stricken to talk. She took her glass and sat down in the other chair, facing him. When their eyes met once more, he asked her simply, “When?”
She took a drink from her glass. “They are coming to pick her up tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” his eyes widened and his voice was hollow. “That's…that's too…” he trailed off as the enormity of her words hit him.
“Too soon?” she asked sympathetically, hating the vacant, lost look he wore on his face.
“Yes,” he whispered looking down again. “Far too soon.”
They were quiet for a few moments, him staring at the floor, Penny staring at him. When at last he broke the silence, he asked, “Why so soon? And why so far?”
Penny reached out and took his hand. “I live in Maine, Doctor. I found an excellent facility that will give her the very best of care. And I will be able to visit her often. I can finally be real family to her—not simply caring for her from afar. They were able to arrange for transport tomorrow, so I had to agree.” When he simply stayed quiet, staring at the floor in front of him, she added, “Dr. James told me that there was very little chance of her ever waking up. He said she was moving into a vegetative state.”
“That's debatable,” he argued.
“Are you questioning Dr. James' judgment?” she asked gently. “He's the Chief of Neurology. Your boss.”
He heaved a heavy sigh. “No, I know Dr. James is an excellent doctor,” he conceded. He glanced imploringly in her eyes. “But there is always hope.”
“But how much?” Penny challenged, quietly. “Can you honestly tell me you think she is going to wake up?”
“I wish it,” he answered. “I wish it with all my heart.”
“But that is not the same,” she said gently, “as believing it.” When she saw his head hang again, she continued. “Doctor, I know that you would do anything to make Jenna wake up. You've tried so hard and you've shown such care.”
“And it has all come to nothing.” He sighed heavily.
“You don't know that, Doctor,” Penny disagreed. “You have no way of knowing how you may have helped her.”
“If I had been successful, she would have opened her eyes.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “And you would not be taking her away to Maine.”
“Doctor,” Penny said, sadly. “I know that you love her, and if love could work miracles, I know you would have brought her back. “
“But love was not enough.”
It pained Penny to hear him so distraught. “Maybe not this time,” she said, sadly. “But you have to promise me that you are not going to give up on love.” When she saw him begin to shake his head, she added, “I have never seen someone give such unselfish love as you gave to my niece. It would be a horrible shame if you were to waste that on someone who could never give it back.”
“It was not wasted on Jenna, Ms. Wilson. She is special to me.” His eyes took on a faraway look as he recalled the days before she was confined to a hospital bed. “Before the accident, she dazzled me. She was so beautiful, and confident, and full of life. I was so drawn to her, but so shy. I curse that shyness, because I never talked to her, aside from a few quick words about patients. And now…” His voice trailed off as he rose to his feet and began to pace the floor. “Ms. Wilson, I should have told her. I should have introduced myself as a man, not just a doctor. I should have asked her to dinner, I should have told her she was beautiful. I should not have held myself back for fear of being rejected. And now…now I'm never going to have the chance.”
Penny swallowed and struggled to hold back the tears that had sprung to her eyes. Oh, what she wouldn't give for her niece to know the devotion of this wonderful man. He could have been the answer to all of her prayers—the final destination on her thus far disappointing journey into romance. The look in his eyes when he spoke of her…any woman would be fortunate to find that level of adoration in her mate. It seemed so consummately unfair that Jenna could not experience this type of love. But Penny knew that he could.
“Doctor, listen to me,” she stood and took his hand in hers once more. “You are young. Your whole life is ahead of you. I would want nothing more for my niece than to know your love for her. But that cannot happen.” She looked deeply into his eyes, begging him to accept the gravity of the situation. “She is gone.”
“I promised her I would never stop trying. “ He shook his head, his eyes watering with unshed tears. “I promised her I would never give up on her.”
&nb
sp; “Then don't give up,” she squeezed his hand in hers tightly, “on yourself, Doctor. The next time you find a woman who catches your eye, who dazzles you, as you put it, don't be shy. You will make some lucky woman out there so very happy.”
He closed his eyes at her complimentary words. He was touched by her kindness and her desire for him to move on, but she didn't understand. He loved Jenna. There could not be another.
“I found it, Jenna! The door. It's here,” he declared, in shock as, in fact, the small wooden door appeared by the lake. True to Jenna's description, it was made of boards that undulated and pulsed, held together by heavy rope. There was light glistening through the slats, engendering hope that there was, indeed, something new and wonderful on the other side. He looked away from the shimmering door, with a mixture of excitement at finally solving this confounding mystery and sadness at what he knew would be his impending loss. “Jenna,” he said again, “It's the way back to your world. We've found it! You can finally go home.”
Jenna smiled lovingly at him, her eyes shining, as she took his hand in hers. “I am home, Erik.”
Erik stared at her, unbelieving. “What are you saying, Jenna?”
“I'm not leaving,” she answered.
In confusion, he pressed, “But your life is there, Jenna. Your home.”
She pulled him closer to her and gazed deeply into his eyes as she whispered, “You are my life. You are my home. Erik, I love you.” She reached up and cupped his cheek in her hand adoringly, as she added, “I choose you, Erik.”
He felt her pull his head down toward hers, to join their lips in a tender kiss. When she pulled away, joy was in her eyes as she said again, “I choose you, Erik. I won't leave you.”
He cupped her face in his hands, gazing at her adoringly, completely humbled by the auspicious turn of fortune that landed this woman in his arms. “Jenna, I…” he began to declare his love for her when a breeze rustled through their hair and they heard a creak behind them. Erik pulled Jenna fully into the protection of his arms as they noticed that the door, under its own power, was beginning to swing open.