Sara kneeling, holding Sammy in her arms, looked up. “Will you help me? Can you walk?” Taking his silence for consent, she said, “Follow me. I’ll get the car and meet you.”
She stood to place the little dog in the arms that Juan instinctively held out. Her eyes never left Sammy as she said, “Be very careful of him—he’s badly hurt.”
She ran until she begged for breath, her steps slowed by blinding tears, praying, “Please, God, please don’t let him die,” then ran again. She fumbled to unlock the car. Her trembling fingers found success after several attempts to open the door.
She drove over the curb, sped across the pristine lawn, the tires leaving deep tracks in the soft grass. As she neared the rhododendron glen, she was surprised to see the man had only gone a few steps.
The car jerked to a stop. Tenderly, she took Sammy’s limp body and crooned, “You’ll be all right. Teddy will fix you. You’ll be your old self, my Sammy.”
She motioned for the man to get in and, for the first time, realized he was badly hurt. He stood as if undecided, dazed. She opened the door and he struggled in. She lay Sammy across his lap and, with one hand, Juan cradled the little body.
Sara drove wildly through traffic. With each turn and bump Juan groaned in agony as he drifted in and out of consciousness. She parked at the rear entrance of the professional building. Carrying Sammy, she burst through the door marked “Private.” Dr. Teddy was horrified to find Sara almost incoherent, disheveled, her clothing bloodied by the torn little animal in her arms.
One glance told Dr. Teddy that Sammy was beyond help.
“Teddy, Teddy, he’s just unconscious. He’s lost a lot of blood. I know you can save him. Stitch him up, Teddy, and he will be okay; won’t he, Teddy? Hurry, I know you will bring him around. Hurry, hurry, do something,” she begged.
Dr. Teddy took the lifeless little body and lay him gently on the table, then turned to put her arms around Sara. “My dear, you must know that Sammy is dead.”
“No, no, no. Don’t say it. I can’t bear it,” she cried before collapsing in Teddy’s arms, sobbing uncontrollably.
Teddy held her. Slowly, Sara’s sobs subsided, but the tears never ceased. A damp cloth wiped her face; the hair was pulled back and fastened with a rubber band. Sammy was wrapped in a towel and placed in Sara’s arms.
“We’ll go home, my dear. I’ll tell Mrs. Burney to reschedule my appointments.”
As they approached the car, Teddy saw the figure of a man slumped sideways; blood seemed everywhere. Alarmed, she hesitated, “Sara, who is in your car?”
Sara looked up from the bundle in her arms, bewildered.
“Oh, how could I have forgotten him? He was on the ground and bleeding when I got there. I don’t know who he is, but he helped me with Sammy.” Then she spoke the obvious, “He’s hurt, too.”
Teddy opened the door to hear Juan’s agonized groans with each labored breath. As she took his pulse, she was sickened when she looked up to see the deep gaping wound in his head and the determined trickle of blood.
She helped Sara into the backseat, then sped to the emergency room at Saint Joseph’s Hospital.
Sara waited, smoothing the only part of Sammy that showed above the towel—his whiskered little face, the soft pointy ears. Gently, she closed his eyes and her tears dampened his covering.
• • •
It was a quiet that seemed like a damp, cold fog that lay heavy and dark, and that permeated the occupants of the study, despite the cheerful fire.
Sara, her face blotched, her eyes puffed shut, lay in a sedated half-sleep on the sofa, her head resting on her hands, an afghan tucked about her feet.
Sammy, nearby, bathed, wrapped in an old paint smock that he had loved to drag and shake, lay curled around a favorite toy as though asleep. Tomorrow he would own a tiny piece of the tremendously expensive property that boasted the best views in San Francisco.
Teddy, indifferently thumbing through a medical magazine, stood. “I’m going over to the hospital for a little while, Sara. I want to know how that man is doing and if those X-rays show what I suspect. I won’t be long.”
Sara slept and dreamed that Sammy was chasing butterflies in a field of yellow daisies.
• • •
For days, Sara’s mood never lightened. Dry-eyed, she wandered about wordlessly, picking up Sammy’s toys.
Teddy handed her a well-chewed glove retrieved from between the cushions of the sofa and coaxed, “My dear, come and sit with me.”
When Sara sat down, Teddy’s arm encircled the unhappy woman and pulled her close.
“Sara, my love, you must get past this and know that Sammy is in a better place—probably wearing St. Peter’s robe or stealing his sandals. You know he was never in awe of anything or anybody.”
She lifted Sara’s tear-stained face, kissed her gently, and said, “I think I need to remind you, opening night at the gallery is only three months away and you’ve promised them another painting. How much time will you need to finish this one that’s giving you so much trouble?”
Wiping her eyes, Sara sat up. “Awhile. I don’t care if I ever finish it. The light in my studio is impossible and I’ll never go to the park again. Besides, I lost all my best brushes that day and there must be tubes of paint everywhere in the grass.”
“Well, that’s easy enough to remedy. But I didn’t realize the lighting was so poor,” Teddy said, then added, “Mrs. Mackey has fixed your favorite foods three days in a row—even a chocolate torte, and you’ve hardly eaten a bite. She’s disappointed, and Mr. Mackey is concerned about the transplants in the greenhouse. The old man worries that he is overwatering. I suspect that he thinks the grounds are all he can handle. You know he’s getting old and his bad knee bothers him a lot.
“I’m going to the hospital again tonight. Won’t you come with me? The nurse on the night shift is Hispanic and has learned that the young man is seventeen years old and that his name is Juan Miguel. Apparently, he’s asked about you and Sammy.
“I had an excellent surgeon stitch up that nasty wound and I doubt if it will even leave a scar. The two broken ribs are another matter. One very nearly punctured a lung. He’s heavily sedated; the pain is severe. He’ll probably be in the hospital another week.”
Sara spoke reluctantly. “Yes, I suppose the least I can do is thank him, although perhaps it should be the other way around—you’ve probably saved his life. I’ll get a jacket—the nights are so chilly.”
They walked down the long corridor in the old wing of the huge, sprawling hospital. Sara felt the years slip off her shoulders and, once again, she was a twenty-one-year-old, fun-loving nurse, trim in her white uniform, her long blonde hair tucked under the stiff white cap she had worked so hard for, her green eyes slanting as she smiled.
Juan seemed asleep as they approached his bed. The nurse was adjusting the blankets that could not conceal the heavily bandaged torso; his face was partly hidden by the fabric taped over his cheekbone and forehead.
Sara stared down wide-eyed with a look of surprise.
“Teddy, he’s so young. He can’t be seventeen. He looks so innocent, so vulnerable, like a little boy.”
Her eyes filled with tears. She stretched to touch the thick strand of blue-black hair that lay straight and stark against the pristine white of the pillow.
“His hair is as soft as a girl’s,” she murmured.
Juan’s hand reached up and grasped Sara’s fingers. His eyes opened to look for a long moment directly into hers. He spoke brokenly, pleadingly, “Por favor, señora, no me deje aqui. Lléveme con usted.”
Startled, Sara looked inquiringly at the Hispanic nurse. “What did he say?”
“He said, ‘Please don’t leave me here. Take me with you.’ ”
His pleading words flashed back instantly to the moment she had uttered the same desperate entreaty. Frightened, she jerked her hand away and almost ran from the room.
Teddy followed quickly. “My de
ar, I’m so sorry. I had no idea this visit would upset you so,” she said as they hastened down the long hallway.
“We’ll go home, have a glass of wine and go to bed early. You’ll feel better tomorrow.”
Sara didn’t respond.
• • •
She lay awake, tossing and turning. The begging words echoing her own pleading triggered a scene so many years long buried in the deep recess of her subconscious, but as vivid tonight as though it were yesterday. She curled against the warmth of Teddy’s back and fought the memory.
Eventually she slept to dream of the ragged, dirty little girl who sucked her thumb and sat alone with both eyes closed. The dream was so real that she heard the knock, the slurred voice of her uncle say, “It’s open,” and in her mind she could see his awkward attempts to open a can of beer with one hand and quiet the new baby on his other arm.
The woman who had been her savior stepped through the door and surveyed the squalor of the room: the crying toddler with the obviously soiled diaper, the rampaging, squalling older siblings, unmade beds, dirty dishes—the stench of filth.
“Well, well, well, Miss High-and-Mighty. What brings you to my humble abode? Slumming?”
“You could say that,” she spoke over the screaming toddler. “Not that you’re interested, but I have just come from the morgue where I identified Emily’s body.”
Of the harsh, embittered words, the child understood little, but she felt the undisguised anger and despair that floated just beneath the surface.
“Yeah? Please excuse the mess. The missus is at work and I’m stuck here with these damn kids. You’d think she’d never heard of birth control. Every time I hang my pants on the end of the bed, she gets knocked up. Maybe she can’t resist a handsome devil like me.” He grinned, his rotted teeth bared.
The woman ignored his feeble attempts at humor.
“Where is her child?”
He pointed toward the bureau. “Over there in the corner suckin’ her thumb,” adding, “I don’t s’pose Emmie left us anything for takin’ care of her kid. We’ve had her since before she could walk—goin’ on five years.”
“What care? She’s skin and bones and filthy. Why is she rocking back and forth like that with her eyes closed? Is she blind?”
“Nah. She’s a walleyed wonder—and her good eye is green. No wonder Emmie left her. We’re tired of feeding an extra kid. Hell, we got six of our own. Why don’t you take her? You nurses make good money. Sara,” he bellowed, “come over here and see your Aunt Fiona.”
Terrified, I crept around the big kids to stand with my eyes closed in front of this strange lady.
The woman stood speechless.
“I never said this walleyed kid was pretty,” he blurted defensively.
I felt her hand tremble as she lay it on my shoulder and guided me to her. An indescribable feeling of hope, of belonging, made me tremble, too, as I grasped her fingers with my dirty little hand with one clean, wet thumb. With a voice barely audible above a whisper, I begged, “Please don’t leave me. Take me with you. Please, please.”
He laughed. “She’s an oddball, all right. Just like you.”
“Strange you should be so knowledgeable about balls, considering you haven’t any,” came her acid reply.
“At least I’m not a damn queer like you.”
“No, you’re just a damn, drunken fool.”
She took my hand and, when the door closed behind us, said, “Dear God, dear God. How did I ever escape that? Poor Emily. She’s better off.”
Sixteen years later Sara was a well-educated, beautiful young woman who met the world on its own terms. After three operations, the green eyes worked in tandem. Her lashes were tipped with the same gold as her hair. She flirted and danced the nights away with her numerous admirers, but they got no further than a hasty good-night kiss at the door.
Her pitiful yesterday was a memory buried deep beneath the bliss of today.
Then there was Dr. Theodora Hassé.
• • •
The next morning, Sara slept in.
As Teddy ate a hasty breakfast, she wished she hadn’t encouraged Sara to see that boy. That may have been the reason that Sara tossed and turned most of the night.
Teddy stirred her second cup of coffee and stared off into space, her mind troubled.
Could she really mean her painting days are done? What a vacancy that would leave in her life. A well-known artist of twenty years hangs up her paintbrush? That can’t happen. She’s got to get started again, put her mind and her talents back to work, Teddy thought.
I never realized she wasn’t happy with the light in that studio. She should have a room with windows on three sides—like the witches’ turret in the servants’ old apartment above the study, that old living room…
That fleeting thought opened the door of Pandora’s box, and the ideas flooded out.
Excited, Teddy carried the embryonic plans with her to work and, at every available moment, her mind focused with amazing clarity on the image in her brain.
CHAPTER 13
The stress, poor food, hard work and the ongoing fear of the last few months have taken their toll. And now the last close call with the grim reaper has left me weak and lethargic.
I hid in my linen closet and resisted all efforts at company or to coax me into any activity.
I slept, ate voraciously, and bribed a kid from Idaho to scrounge food for me. The only time I left my nest was to raid the kitchen downstairs or go to the bathroom. With the joints I rolled to perfection, I lulled myself into a state of false complacency to keep at bay the shock treatment of the real world, the ugliness that could exist and flourish—that I had sworn never to think of again.
The partying never seemed to cease. I felt totally indifferent to the screams of laughter, the riotous sounds of conversations and the twanging music of the guitars that slid in under the crack of the door.
One morning, barely daylight, my sanctuary was invaded. The door slammed open and Alfie stomped in. He reached down, yanked the blanket off my near-naked body and yelled, “What the hell are you doing in bed? It’s past breakfast time. What’s this I hear about you? I saved your sorry ass so you could lay around and do nothing? Get the hell up and let’s go have something to eat, a cup of coffee.”
He grabbed me by a foot and dragged me out fighting for my security blanket.
“Take a shower. I’m gonna give you ten minutes, then I’m comin’ in after you.” His voice was only slightly lower than the sound of a locomotive.
I was ashamed that he should see me like this. I was back with no time to spare. I knew he wasn’t fooling and I was about half-scared.
Somebody had left a razor out. I ran that over my face and combed my hair with my fingers.
Alfie’s voice boomed. “You look like hell. Pasty-faced, pot-bellied. I need some help down at the Diggers with these crazy flower children and I’m gonna expect you down there every day for at least six hours. Got that?”
• • •
Over the next couple of months, Alfie kept me moving fast. Everybody needed something. I never adjusted; I was a square peg in a round hole. I felt like I was a hundred years old. These kids—their protests, beads, feathers, tie-dye clothes, and total lack of responsibility and direction—were as noisy and colorful as a flock of chickens.
Everything on the radio was war news. After listening to the latest bulletin, half-stoned, I said, “Where in hell is Saigon? Why are we fighting a war halfway around the world? I’m not mad at anyone.”
“To stop the spread of communism, you damned pothead. If you’d leave that weed alone and come to life, you wouldn’t be so ignorant. I’m going down to enlist tomorrow. I can always go back to school.”
Chastened by his irritated words, I said, “Well, I’ll go with you and we’ll both be heroes. Besides, I don’t want to get drafted.”
“You may as well forget it. When they take your blood, they’ll find it running green, so don’t
waste their time.”
I went with him anyway. Of course, they wouldn’t accept me and I was pissed. Even Alfie was disappointed. He was deferred because he was a medical student with high grades.
“Go home and straighten up your life. Do you think your mother would be proud of you today?”
Shamed by Alfie’s scornful question, I stayed clean for a while, then went back to give it another try.
The recruiters still found something—even I didn’t know what some of those pills were that I occasionally got in a trade.
“Go home,” they advised, “and clean up.”
I felt a twinge of conscience, so to comfort myself, I said, “To hell with the war,” and lit up.
• • •
The nagging thought of home never left me. I didn’t want to go back with my tail between my legs. And then there was my stepfather. I knew only one of us was going to survive if I ever saw him rough up my Ma again. His beer was never going to make it past the hole in his throat. A lot of water had gone under the bridge this past year of my life.
I moped around. Finally Alfie said, “Why in hell don’t you go home? Go back to school, ease up on that damn pot—give your brain a chance. You think you’re so much smarter than these crazies, do something with your life. You talk about your mother—make her proud of you. You’re what she’s traded her life for, so why don’t you go home and face that bastard down like a man. You can always kick him in the balls if you’re quick.”
His big black hand clapped me on the back. “Go home. You’re fired; your position is terminated.”
I moved my head to hide the sudden tears. When I turned to him, he smiled and what I read in his eyes, made me know I could do it.
I wandered down to the pool and leaned back in a fancy deck chair thinking of Alfie and how he had saved my life twice. Watching a group of skinny-dippers in a pool as big as our backyard at home, I was strangely unmoved by the sight of naked girls; my desire was spent and lifeless.
My mind flashed back to the stocky, brown-skinned woman who had come to the barn with an egg basket on her arm, the musky smell of her warm body as it warmed mine and pushed against me, her teasing “guapo, guapo,” and how fervently I kissed those dark-tipped breasts.
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