by Jill Sanders
“What do you want to do?”
He thought about it for a while, then answered, “Well, when I was ten I wanted to be Speed Racer.” She smiled at him and he could see the joy in her eyes. He enjoyed watching the sunlight hit her hair and wanted to touch it, to run it in his hands.
“I was going to college to become a doctor when I left school early.”
“You could always go back.”
He blinked a few times and his mind started whirling. He could go back to school. Being injured had only sparked his interest in medicine even more. Watching the doctors and nurses, he’d studied their every move when he’d been in the hospital and had wished to be part of their daily routine.
“Maybe I will.” For the first time in years, he was actually looking forward to something.
This was too much! She stormed away from the open doors and marched off towards the garage. Listening to Dante talk with that girl upset her even more.
Walking over to the back side of the garage, she was happy to see that Gino was already there.
“What happened? I told you to deal with her.”
“The dog was with her at the lake, and she moved right as I knocked the planter over.”
“Well, this is getting to be too much. If you can’t handle her, there is no reason I see for keeping you around.”
“I can take care of her. You hired me to do the job and I always finish my jobs.”
“You’d better. She is getting too close and I don’t like the foolishness she is filling his head with. Take care of her and do it in the next few days.”
“Why don’t you just fire her?”
“Because, you fool, if my brother says she stays, then she stays. He’s the head of the household after all. At least until Dante is ready to take over.”
Dante watched as Airlea walked across the grass towards him. The fall colors were at their peak and she looked like she belonged among the bright red and orange hues of the leaves in the trees around the yard.
He didn’t know how she’d moved into his mind so quickly, but she’d taken up permanent residence there since he’d first seen her over a week ago. Maybe it was the fact that she was the only person he interacted with that wasn’t related to him. After all, it was her job to see to his every need, and lately, he’d had more needs that only she could fill.
He’d enjoyed their little session the other night and looked for every opportunity to repeat it. He was feeling stronger every day and knew that it would only be a few more weeks before he was recovered to the point that she would think about moving on. He didn’t think that she had anything lined up after this job. She’d told him she’d lost her job in Greece, but had yet to mention if she planned on returning there afterwords.
The exercises she had planned for them today were taking a toll on his energy level. His left leg was throbbing and his head was splitting from all the pain, which only messed with his mood even more.
“Pick your leg up, Dante,” she said from across the grass.
“I am picking my damn leg up!” He stood on his good leg and teetered.
“If you fall, it will be your own fault.”
He grabbed for his crutch.
“No! You can do this. It a simple task.”
“I’m done.” He hopped towards his crutch. “If you want to really work on my balance—”
“I thought you wanted to walk without a limp,” she interrupted. “I guess that was someone else who told me that.” She started walking towards the house.
Damn, she knew which buttons to push.
“What has this got to do with not walking with a limp? I’m not even working on the walking part. Just teetering on my damn leg.”
“Balance is the key to life. If you can’t balance yourself on your good leg, how are you going to learn how to walk again?”
“I don’t need to learn how to walk again. I know how to walk!”
“No, you used to know how to walk.” She stopped in front of him. “You don’t have the same body you did the last time you walked. You need to learn how to walk with your new body. Your new body has pins holding bones together, it has muscles and nerves that are damaged. Just wait until those nerve endings start healing; you will have phantom pains all over your body even in places that weren’t injured during the crash, because everything is connected.”
She held out her hand for him to give her the crutch.
“Learning how to balance on your good leg will teach you how to protect yourself when your bad leg fails you. Since it’s too early to start putting much weight on your right leg, we have to start building up everything so we can prepare your body for the task of retraining it.”
Thinking about it, he decided it made sense. Handing her the crutch, he balanced himself on his leg and hoped no one was watching. He felt like a fool and probably looked like one too.
“Tomorrow we are going to take a short walk.”
“How short?” He teetered and almost lost his balance. Even though the ground was right there, to him it felt as if he were standing on a high wire.
“Steady. Focus on centering your energy.”
“Where did you learn all this?” He had never put any stock into all that new age crap.
She looked at him and smiled.
“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” She held up her hand to tell him not to talk. “I know that look. I’ve seen it in many of my patients before. You have the classic, Oh great, she’s going to fix me with magic, look.” Then she laughed. “Now you’re looking at me like I’m going to fly away on a broom. It’s not magic. It’s science, physical certainties that have been tried and tested over the years.” Then she set his crutch down. “Watch.”
She bent over smoothly and did a back bend that had his mouth watering.
“When you condition your body to do something, it becomes almost habit for it to follow your commands.” She moved smoothly into a hand stand. “This is something I haven’t done in years.” She moved back into a back bend in another simple move and had his mouth dropping open. Then she stood back up smoothly like she’d been doing that every day of her life. “Now, if we can condition your body to believe that you don’t walk with a limp, you won’t. It’s as much psychological as it is physical. If you tell yourself to limit your movements because of the pain, ten years from now when the pain is gone, your movements will continue to reflect that.”
“What else can you do?” he asked eagerly, and she laughed.
“I bet you didn’t even realize that this entire time you’ve been standing there, completely balanced.”
He looked down at himself and realized she was right. His leg held strong under him and he wasn’t even teetering. He felt as strong as a sailor on the deck of a ship in stormy weather. Looking up at her, he smiled. “You are amazing.”
“Why? Because I got you to stand on one foot in your own yard?”
Later that evening, after spending a few hours on his laptop answering emails, he looked up to see his mother bring in his dinner tray.
“Where is Airlea?”
“We don’t know. She didn’t show up to take your tray. I have your father out looking for her. Rosa said she saw her going on her walk shortly after your session, but no one has seen her since. I hope she didn’t fall and hurt herself.”
He sat up a little straighter. “Is there something I can do? Do you have the others out looking?”
“Don’t worry, we’ll find her. She couldn’t have gone far.”
“Is Lucy here? I know sometimes she walks with her.”
“Yes, she’s downstairs. Apparently she got left in the laundry room.”
Dante wished he could join the search for Airlea. “How long has she been gone?” He looked over at the clock.
“Almost four hours. I’m sure she just lost track of time. Don’t worry. I’ll have her come up and let you know she’s all right. Eat your dinner. I’ll go see what’s going on.”
Four hours later, Damiano and the c
rew came back without any clues to Airlea’s whereabouts. It was a quarter to midnight and still they hadn’t heard anything from her.
“It’s too dark out there, son. We’ll have to continue our search tomorrow.”
“Dad! She could be hurt.”
“I know, but having my men out there in the dark, someone else could get hurt. We’ll see better in the light, maybe pick up her trail.”
Dante didn’t sleep at all that night. He sat on the deck and looked off into the dark night. He was thankful that the weather hadn’t taken the turn for the worse that the weatherman had said it was supposed to. Around three in the morning, however, their luck changed. The rain started falling in huge drops and the temperature dropped another ten degrees. Lucy lay down beside him under the overhang as he watched the storm building. Then her head came off the ground and she sat up, looked at him, then sprinted off into the darkness.
Did Lucy know something they didn’t? Where was Airlea? Was she injured? Was she lost? His mind played over scenario after scenario, each one worse than the last. He felt helpless. His broken body was not only hurting him, he was sure that if he wasn’t injured, he would have found her by now. He just knew that he could have found her. Now more than ever, he felt the betrayal of his body.
She felt like a fool. How could she have gotten locked in the small shed? She had walked by it, and upon hearing what sound like an injured kitten, she’d walked in the unlocked door and looked around. Shortly after commencing her search for the animal, she noticed that the door had swung shut behind her.
After she’d searched the entire five-by-five shed and found no animal, she tried the door, only to realize it was locked. She tried to remember if there had been some sort of latch on the outside that might have locked. All she could remember was pulling a flat handle as she had opened the door. She spent the next few minutes trying everything she could to open it. She walked over to the window and tried to look out. She used a large barrel and box to try to climb up to it, but it was almost ten feet off the ground, and after realizing there just wasn’t enough stuff to stand on, she gave up trying to get out that way.
For such an old shed, it was sure solidly locked up. After the first hours, panic had set it. It was time for Dante’s dinner and she was getting worried that they would be missing her. How would she explain that she’d locked herself in a shed? How stupid would it make her look? She’d tried again to work open the door, only to come up short. She’d seen someone open a door once in a movie by removing them, but she couldn’t even try that, because the hinges were on the outside. She’d tried kicking the door, pushing it, and she even tried to ram it with her shoulder, which had only caused her shoulder to hurt.
Sitting down next to a box and a large barrel, she tried to think of other ways to get out. It was cool in the shed and she was thankful she’d worn the sweatshirt as she shivered. She was getting hungry, but skipping a meal was something she’d gotten used to with her job at the hospital.
Her eyes kept going back to the small window. How would she get up to it? And once there, how would she climb out? Was there a large drop?
She leaned back against the wall and thought. By this time, it was dark and she couldn’t even see the window anymore. She kept listening for someone, just in case they were out looking for her, but she didn’t hear anything. She must have fallen asleep, because suddenly she was being jolted awake by a loud boom of thunder. She quickly backed against the wall. When the lightning hit next, she noticed the shed door stood wide open.
Had someone come? Then in the dark she heard a low voice speak in thick Italian, “Come here, girlie.” She scooted farther back, behind a large box she’d been resting her head on.
Fear froze her breathing. When lightning hit again, she saw a tall figure standing in the doorway. The rain pelted down on him and she saw he had something in his hands that looked like a large hunting knife. She was going to die. She just knew there was no way out of this. He must have seen her, because the next time lightning flashed he was only two feet away, looking directly at her.
She saw dark eyes and the shine of the knife before it went dark again. She screamed and kicked out, hitting him in the shin. He didn’t even slow down as he grabbed her with his empty hand and pulled her up on her feet. His hand was in her hair, holding her close, and the knife was at her throat. His foul breath hit her face and caused her to recoil. She could smell his stale body odor and tried to kick out.
“There you are, girlie. We’re going to have some fun, you and I. No one’s out looking for you anymore so you can scream as loud as you want. I want to hear you scream.”
She did scream, and he slapped her across the face and yanked her around so her back was to him as he fumbled around, grabbing her chest in a vise-like grip, bruising her. She tried to kick out and push his hands away as he ripped her sweatshirt, and just when he started to yank her pants down, she heard a low growl. He turned around, but in the darkness she couldn’t register where the noise was coming from. In the next flash of light, she saw Lucy standing at the doorway, her fur drenched and her hackles up, her teeth bared as she slowly walked towards them.
“Damn dog! Get back!” he yelled, and loosened his hold on her. Now was her only chance. She dropped down out of his reach just as Lucy jumped towards them. She heard a yelp but didn’t stop as she rolled, and once she was free from his hold, she ran out the door. She didn’t know if Lucy was okay, but she knew she had to get out, knew she needed to get as far away as possible.
Dante heard her before he saw her. She was running and screaming, and he watched as she ran across the stone pathway.
“Help! Someone help! He’s got Lucy!”
“Airlea! I’m up here. Dad!” Dante stood up, holding onto the doorway as he watched his father step out onto the balcony from his room several doors down.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s Airlea!” Dante watched as she ran up the stairs, her sweatshirt was ripped and soaking wet. Her wet hair flew in the stormy wind and she had blood running down her cheek. She didn’t stop running until she was in his arms.
“He’s got Lucy! I think he killed her.” She sobbed into his shoulder.
“Where?” Damiano had pulled on his boots and coat.
“The shed, across the olive grove. I think he locked me in there. I thought the door had just locked behind me, but now…”
“Shhh.” Dante held her closer and looked over at his dad.
“I’ll get the men and go check it out.”
His mother and aunt were there now, and Kathleen said, “Be careful.” Then she kissed Damiano before he disappeared down the stairs.
“Here, let’s get you inside out of the cold and get you changed.” Kathleen took Airlea and walked her towards her own room. Dante grabbed his crutch and followed.
“Where do you think you’re going?” his aunt said from behind him.
“I’m going to make sure she’s all right.”
“Your mother can take care of the girl. You need your rest.”
He turned on his aunt. “I’m not a child. I can decide when I need rest or not. Right now I need to make sure Airlea is all right.” He turned back around and followed his mother into her room.
He sat on the chair by the door as his mother grabbed several towels and started to clean Airlea’s cut, murmuring to her the entire time. He noticed there was a small gash across her neck.
“Here now, I’ve started a hot bath for you. You’ll be all right now.”
“Can you tell us what happened?” he asked from his corner.
“Dante!” His mother looked over at him.
“No, it’s okay. I’m okay.” He watched with amazement as she took a deep breath and composed herself.
“I had taken a walk. Normally Lucy walked with me, but I couldn’t find her so I started walking by myself. I had made it past the olive grove when I thought I heard a kitten in the shed. When I got closer, it sounded like it was injured, so I went in
to see if I could help. I had thought that the door had closed and locked behind me, but… Well, I couldn’t get out. I tried everything, the door, the window. Then it started to thunder and when I looked the door was open and there was a man there. He had a knife. He said something about no one was looking for me so I could scream.”
Dante stood and walked over to her. “Are you okay? He didn’t…?”
“No, Lucy got there.” She closed her eyes and he could see that she was shaking.
“Mom?” He waited until she looked at him, and he saw the tears in her eyes. “Stay with her. I’m going to check on Dad.” She nodded. “I’ll see you in a while,” he said to Airlea. “Take a hot bath; mom will stay with you.” When she nodded, he noticed the tears were starting and he wanted to rip someone apart.