by P. D. Cacek
“I do ski,” he said.
“Well, there you go.”
“She made one for all of us,” Marjorie piped in, “practically everyone she knows. I think she started right after…well, back around Halloween and you wouldn’t believe the trips we made to Michael’s for yarn. They love her there.”
“As well they should,” Nora said, “I’m one of their best customers. I like making scarves because they’re easy to do. So you think of that scarf as a hug from me every time you wear it.”
He patted the scarf against his chest.
“That’s exactly what I’ll think every time I put it on.” He cleared his throat. “Now…your present. It’s not homemade, I’m afraid.”
He pulled a small gift-wrapped box from his coat pocket and handed it to her. The wrapping, gold-embossed paper with a tiny red bow, was well done; Henry would have been pleased.
“Oh, now, Martin…you didn’t have to do this.” Nora tore open the ends and ran a shaky finger through the taped seam along the bottom. “But I’m happy you did.”
“Oh – Martin!” Nora lifted out the spun-glass snowflake by its silver thread and watched it spin. “It’s so delicate. Here, Marjorie, you take it, my hand’s not as steady as it was and I’m afraid it’ll fall.”
“They’re a lot sturdier than they look, Miss Nora,” he said as Marjorie took the ornament from her and carefully put it back into its box. “We’ve had some on our tree for years and they’re still around.”
“It’s lovely, Martin, thank you.”
“It’s something my dad did every year – gave each of us kids a special ornament to hang on the tree, so that when we grew up and moved out…and took the ornaments with us…we’d remember him. He did the same with his grandkids before he died.” He smiled down at Nora and his smile was just a little sad. “See, this way, when you hang it on your tree every year, you’ll remember me.”
“Oh, I don’t think I’d ever forget you, Martin.” She held out her hands and he took them. His skin was warm and soft against hers. “Thank you so much for everything you did for me and Henry.”
She squeezed his hands, saying goodbye, and he squeezed back.
“Well, I’d best be letting you get some rest,” he said and leaned down quick to give her a little peck on the cheek. “And I want to go show off my new scarf. Merry Christmas, Miss Nora.”
“Merry Christmas, Martin.”
He said goodbye to Marjorie and smiled back at Nora before he left. He knows, she thought to herself, and took a deep breath.
“Now, about tomorrow, Mama—”
Nora congratulated herself on keeping from groaning. Marjorie had made plans: she and her husband and the boys would come over in the afternoon with presents and holiday cookies and then, if she, Nora, felt up to it, the boys would take their granny down to the cafeteria for their holiday meal.
Doesn’t that sound nice?
“Oh, Marjorie,” Nora said and let herself slide down a little on the mattress to ease the ache in her hip and lower back. The pain was almost constant now, but she’d gotten used to it. “I will not make my poor grandbabies sit in a hospital cafeteria to have Christmas dinner, I will not!”
“All right, Mama, don’t get upset. What if…oh, I know, I’ll make dinner tonight and we can bring it here and have it in the room. How does that sound?”
Nora just looked at her daughter and let her guess how she thought that sounded.
Marjorie sighed. “Okay, then what do you suggest?”
Finally! “I want you and your family to wake up in the morning and open presents – you did pick up the presents I had for you and Daryl and the boys at the house, didn’t you?” Marjorie nodded. “Good, and if some of the things I bought don’t fit, you’ll find the receipts taped to the inside of the bottom of the boxes. All right, then. I want you to open presents and eat too much and relax and maybe call me before you sit down to supper.”
“Call you? Mama, tomorrow’s Christmas and we’re going to come see you.”
Nora took a deep breath and eased down farther. She was tired but Marjorie wasn’t going to give up until she got the answer she wanted. Her daughter was so much like her sometimes Nora could hear God laughing.
“All right,” she said and pretended it was, “but not until later…I want the boys to get their fill of all those video gamey things I bought – and don’t you look at me like that, I’m their grandmother and I’m entitled to spoil them rotten. Let them play, all right? And, call before you come over, okay? I think the nurses are planning a little party too, and I wouldn’t want to ruin their plans.”
“Okay, Mama, I’ll call.”
Marjorie leaned down to hug her and kissed her cheek on almost the same spot that Martin had kissed. The scent of her daughter’s perfume – orange blossoms and jasmine and carnations – filled Nora’s head.
“Oh, Marjorie, take the snowflake Dr. Cross gave me and hang it on your tree. It’s too pretty to stay in a box…until next year. Will you do that?”
“All right, Mama, but next year it goes on your tree. Now, you get some rest now, okay?”
“I will,” Nora promised and that was one promise she intended to keep. “Good…night, baby.”
“’Night, Mama…see you tomorrow.”
Nora watched the empty doorway until the sound of her daughter’s footsteps faded away, and then she closed her eyes.
“Hey, lazy bones…what you doin’? We have to get goin’. ”
They were standing at the foot of the bed, Henry and a smiling little boy with big brown eyes and a crooked smile. Timmy was holding Henry’s hand and had on a Howdy Doody tee-shirt.
“Going?” Nora asked as she threw back the covers and swung her legs over the side. There was no pain and her broken hip felt all mended. “Where are we going?”
Laughing, Timmy let go of Henry’s hand and darted across the room to fetch Nora’s bathrobe and slippers.
“Home,” Timmy said as Nora pulled on the robe. “We’re all going home. Mr. Henry’s making a big Christmas dinner.”
Nora pretended to be shocked. “He is?”
“Turkey and all the fixin’s,” Henry said and offered her his arm. “Come along now.”
Nora felt the last breath leave her body as she took Henry’s arm and Timmy’s hand, and went home.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Dr. Bernard Ellison
He walked through halls filled with the sweet/sharp scent of lemon disinfectant and piped-in Christmas carols. Doors decorated with wreaths made by physical therapy patients and garlands of shimmering dollar store tinsel stood open, but most of the rooms were empty, their occupants downstairs in the common room having cookies and punch and watching holiday movies on the big-screen TV. There were only two closed doors on the wing, Miranda’s and the ‘new guy’ – a young man who’d slid his motorcycle into a freeway embankment at 60 mph. Because he’d been wearing a one-piece leather body suit, most of the big pieces had stayed together, but the impact had snapped back his head, protected in its wrap-around helmet, with enough force to separate the skull from the spinal column, resulting in an atlanto-occipital dislocation.
The man had neurologically decapitated himself and his family was praying for a miracle that would never happen.
As a professional he could have told them how useless that was, but first he had to believe that himself.
“Merry Christmas! Ho, ho, ho!”
Tessa looked up from the paperback novel she was reading and smiled. “Merry Christmas, Dr. Ellison. I was hoping I’d see you before my shift ended.”
“Well, I’m glad I made it before you left. And since you’re my first customer….” Barney lifted the oversized Harry & David’s bag onto the nurses’ station. “You get first pick. I wasn’t sure who was on a diet or not, so you have a choice of either truffles or dried fru
its and nuts.”
Tessa – tall and tan and lovely and happily married – dropped her book and dove face-first into the bag, muttering, “Decisions, decisions,” before coming up with a box of truffles.
“You know you’re going to spoil us,” she said, prying the lid off.
“Never. And if I do, so what? Who can I spoil if not the best nursing team on earth?”
Tessa popped a truffle into her mouth and the look on her face said it all.
“You’re welcome.”
“Mmmm, hmm!” She swallowed and closed the box. Barney admired her self-control. “Linda said your flowers arrived this morning. I saw them when I made my ten o’clock rounds. They are absolutely gorgeous. I didn’t think hothouse roses ever had much of a scent, but you can sure smell these.”
Barney nodded. “Miranda thought the same thing. That’s probably why she kept a rose garden. Sure saved me a lot of money on anniversary gifts, I can tell you.”
And they laughed even though it was the same, or nearly the same, thing he’d said almost every day of the seven months since a drunk driver had run his wife down as she crossed the street.
It’d been a bright sunny afternoon in May, one of those rare days when people remember why they lived in California, and she’d waited until the light changed on Wilshire before crossing the street. She’d taken a late lunch to meet a friend, but wasn’t hurrying back to her office, or frantic that she would be late – she owned her own travel agency – or not paying attention as the police officer who’d called him subtly insinuated.
Miranda wasn’t like that.
Hadn’t been like that.
The man who had run her down just hadn’t noticed he was running a red light or that he was twenty miles over the speed limit or even that he’d hit someone until her body slammed into his windshield.
The police officer told Barney that he kept apologizing as they put him in the squad car, but that didn’t help any more than the man’s conviction and current incarceration. Miranda was gone and nothing the man or Barney could do was going to bring her back.
The only thing left was to keep a promise they’d made each other years ago but never thought they’d ever have to keep.
Barney stopped laughing first, but kept the smile on his lips. “So…big plans for tomorrow?”
Tessa smiled back. “Oh, yeah. It’s my turn to make Christmas dinner and both Ted’s folks and mine are going to descend on us around six. TJ’s going to be making the chocolate-pecan pie this year.”
TJ was Tessa’s eleven-year-old son.
“I’m impressed,” Barney said truthfully. “I don’t remember being able to boil water at his age.”
“What can I say, he takes after his mother.”
They shared another brief laugh before he asked, “How’s she doing?” and Tessa’s face grew serious.
“About the same. Did they call you?”
Barney nodded. One of the attendings had called to let him know Miranda’s breathing pattern had changed, which in ‘doctor speak’ meant she was dying.
But dying was an active verb. Miranda could linger for days or weeks before her lungs finally stopped and whatever was left, if anything was left of the woman he loved, would suffocate.
It was the one thing they both feared and the one thing they’d promised each other would never happen.
Barney slipped his hands into the jacket’s pockets, his right hand nesting around the syringe he’d placed there before leaving his office.
Potassium chloride – just enough to keep his promise.
“Well, you take care and if I don’t see you when I come out…Merry Christmas.”
Tessa sat down and picked up her book. “Oh, you’ll see me. Visiting hours end before I do.”
Barney nodded as he turned and walked away. Miranda’s room was at the far end of the hall and because it would be the last time he’d make the trip, he counted his steps. There were fifty-two from the nurses’ station to the closed door of Room 618…two steps more than Miranda’s age.
Barney opened the door and stepped in. A moment later he couldn’t remember having walked into the room, even though he must have, because he had to turn around and take five or six steps before he reached the door again.
“Tessa! Tessa, come here!”
Barney leaned against the doorframe to hold himself up as she ran toward him. There was concern and pity on her face as if she knew what had just happened.
“Oh, Dr. Ellison…I’m so sor—”
“Do you know French?”
“What?”
“Do. You. Know. French?”
“I – um…I took a couple years in high school, but….”
“Good.” Barney grabbed her arm and hauled her into the room. “Now, don’t be frightened, but ask her her name.”
“What? Dr. Ellison, what are you—” And then she turned and looked at the bed and let out a sound that was half gasp, half scream.
Miranda was sitting up, holding the covers up to her chest, the IV tube that was connected to the needle in her arm trembling. She was saying something, possibly the same something she’d said to Barney when he walked in, but he didn’t speak French and he needed to know what that something was. It took some effort to pry Tessa’s grasp off his arm and pull her to the bed, but he finally managed.
“Dr. Ellison…she’s…awake.”
“I know and I’ll explain everything in a minute, just—”
“I need to call this in. Her doctor needs to be here!”
“In a minute – please! Tessa, what is she saying?”
“What? Um….” She turned toward the bed.
“Ôu je suis? Ôu je suis?”
“She’s, ah, asking where she is.”
Barney left Tessa standing at the foot of the bed, gape-mouthed and bug-eyed, and walked very slowly toward the woman in the bed.
“Tell her.”
It took a few tries, but Tessa answered her. The woman frowned.
“Pourquoi?”
“Why?”
“Ask her her name.”
“Oh…um…Quel est…ah, votre nom?”
The woman’s eyes never left Barney’s face.
“Amandine Facet. Qui vous est?”
“She says…what’s going on? She says her name’s Amandine Facet,” Tessa translated, “and she wants to know what your name is. Dr. Ellison, what’s going on?”
“Shhh.”
Barney nodded at the woman. Her eyes were different than Miranda’s. Miranda’s eyes had been hazel, this woman’s eyes sea-foam green.
He patted his chest. “I’m Dr. Bernard Ellison.”
“Docteur?”
“Yes, doctor.” Turning, he hurried back across the room and forcibly escorted Tessa to the door. “Get her doctor, but don’t tell him anything except that she’s awake. I’ll…I promise, I’ll explain this to both of you when he gets here. Okay? Go!”
Tessa left on a run. When he was sure she was far enough away, Barney took the syringe from his pocket and emptied the contents into the room’s hand sink before dropping it into the medical waste container.
She was watching him, her green eyes wide, but she didn’t seem afraid and that was important. Still, he walked back to her side very slowly and made sure he kept his voice low and reassuring.
Maybe the motorcyclist’s parents were right, maybe miracles could happen after all.
“Amandine?” She nodded. “Welcome back.”
About this book
This is a FLAME TREE PRESS BOOK
Text copyright © 2019 P.D. Cacek
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission
of the publisher.
FLAME TREE PRESS, 6 Melbray Mews, London, SW6 3NS, UK, flametreepress.com
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Thanks to the Flame Tree Press team, including: Taylor Bentley, Frances Bodiam, Federica Ciaravella, Don D’Auria, Chris Herbert, Matteo Middlemiss, Josie Mitchell, Mike Spender, Will Rough, Cat Taylor, Maria Tissot, Nick Wells, Gillian Whitaker. The cover is created by Flame Tree Studio with thanks to Nik Keevil and Shutterstock.com.
FLAME TREE PRESS is an imprint of Flame Tree Publishing Ltd. flametreepublishing.com. A copy of the CIP data for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.
HB ISBN: 978-1-78758-159-3, PB ISBN: 978-1-78758-157-9, ebook ISBN: 978-1-78758-160-9 | Also available in FLAME TREE AUDIO | Created in London and New York
FLAME TREE PRESS
FICTION WITHOUT FRONTIERS
Award-Winning Authors & Original Voices
Flame Tree Press is the trade fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing, focusing on excellent writing in horror and the supernatural, crime and mystery, science fiction and fantasy. Our aim is to explore beyond the boundaries of the everyday, with tales from both award-winning authors and original voices.
Other titles available include:
Junction by Daniel M. Bensen, Thirteen Days by Sunset Beach by Ramsey Campbell, Think Yourself Lucky by Ramsey Campbell, The Hungry Moon by Ramsey Campbell, The Haunting of Henderson Close by Catherine Cavendish, The House by the Cemetery by John Everson, The Toy Thief by D.W. Gillespie, Black Wings by Megan Hart, The Playing Card Killer by Russell James, The Siren and the Specter by Jonathan Janz, The Sorrows by Jonathan Janz, Savage Species by Jonathan Janz, The Nightmare Girl by Jonathan Janz, The Dark Game by Jonathan Janz, The Widening Gyre by Michael R. Johnston, Will Haunt You by Brian Kirk, Kosmos by Adrian Laing, The Sky Woman by J.D. Moyer, Creature by Hunter Shea, The Bad Neighbor by David Tallerman, Ten Thousand Thunders by Brian Trent, Night Shift by Robin Triggs, The Mouth of the Dark by Tim Waggoner