“Surrendering to an invisible HP seemed to me about as smart as handing over the keys of a Rolls-Royce to a tipsy valet. But my pastor asked me to suspend disbelief. He told me to start by trusting my HP with something simple. Something I didn’t care too much about. Like parking spaces.”
“Parking spaces?”
“Yup,” Belinda said. “So a week ago I told my HP, get me some kick-butt parking spots, and maybe then I’ll let you handle the more important stuff in my life.”
In the crowded lot, she turned in to a space that was only steps away from the entrance. “You want to know the crazy thing?” She rested her arms on the steering wheel and shrugged. “I haven’t had a lousy parking spot since.”
“Parking spots?” Emily said in an amused voice. “You’d think a higher power would have better things to do, like maybe tackling the problems in Syria for starters.”
“Not according to my pastor. ‘No job too small for the HP’ is what he always says.”
Two days later Belinda left town for a training seminar, and for the first time since she’d arrived at the rehabilitation hospital, Emily was left to her own devices. She decided to take a long stroll around the grounds of the hospital with her walker. Maybe if she really pushed herself, she would surprise Belinda by being able to walk on her own when she got back. Fall was breezing into Birmingham, and the leaves chased one another across the yellowing grass. Emily made jerky progress along the sidewalks surrounding the hospital. Several joggers and dog walkers were also out, enjoying the celebratory flavor of the crisp air.
Emily spied a nest in a low-hanging branch of a dogwood tree and left the sidewalk to investigate its contents. Big mistake. The grass was slick from the sprinkler system, and she took a misstep with the walker and slipped and fell, a sharp pain slicing through her right leg.
She was spotted by a groundsman who was trimming crepe myrtle trees for the coming winter. He summoned staff members to carry her back to her room. Her orthopedist sent her to X-ray, and after he saw the results, he delivered some truly discouraging news. Her tibia was fractured, and the break required the surgical insertion of a titanium nail and screws.
Emily felt like throwing her water pitcher against the ugly yellow-green wall of her hospital room. Every ounce of her energy had been focused on learning how to walk unaided so she could eventually be discharged from the hospital. Belinda had offered her a room in her home until she was ready to be on her own. She’d been itching to begin a new life—perhaps in a vet’s office—but now all plans would be delayed.
It was noon, two days after her spill, and Emily was recovering from the agonizing surgery and nursing a nasty cold. As usual, she was listening to Caroline’s clock radio, which Mona had kindly brought her as a memento. The only time she turned it off was when Belinda came by for her visits, and she never, ever missed the Minerva show.
The deejay on the oldies lunch hour kept saying, “What a bee-you-tifil day,” and outside her window she had a view of a row of Bradford pear trees blazing with golden foliage. The hospital staff seemed intoxicated by the tart autumn temperatures, their cheeks as ruddy Gala apples, their laughs and smiles more frequent than usual. Emily couldn’t stand being cooped up in her room. She was so sick of being bedridden. She was also desperate for a conversation with Belinda, but her friend was at a team-building retreat in the wilderness, swinging from ropes and scaling walls. She’d be out of touch for at least a week.
Emily blew her nose. Her bed sheets were a field of balled-up tissues, and her pajamas, which had been changed just this morning, already had a grubby feel as if she’d perspired in them for days.
She clicked through a parade of evangelists and infomercials on television and finally turned it off. For the first time since Belinda had come into her life, she felt the acute ache of loneliness.
The next day Emily’s cold settled into her chest, and her mood shriveled to black. Her melancholy was fast and unexpected, sinking into her bones and settling over her like a blanket of soot. Not even the thought of Belinda cheered her.
She’d been socked in by the same sort of despair just after Caroline’s death. Was she the kind of person who was susceptible to dark moods? Maybe in the past she’d used drugs and sex to outrun her demons. Well, she wasn’t outrunning them now. She was so disheartened, she’d invited depression to her table and was feeding it heaping helpings of self-pity.
Every once in a while she’d hear a wee faint voice in her mind saying, “You giving up after you’ve come this far?”
You betcha, she’d answer. Life’s a bitch and then you die. Her chest was so congested she was tired of breathing.
“It’s Beatlemania weekend, and we’re taking you way back to 1967,” said the disc jockey through a flurry of interference.
Where’s an HP when you need one? she thought, remembering her earlier conversation with Belinda.
Could there really be someone up there looking after her? Where was He, after all, when she’d lapsed into her coma in the first place? Maybe He was just too busy finding parking spots for people.
“Help!” the Beatles sang in urgent voices. The volume on the radio seemed to get louder. “I need somebody.”
Emily’s mouth opened to call out for the nurse, but her words were lost in a gurgle of fluids. Was she drowning in her own mucus? Maybe she was getting pneumonia. If she died, who would miss her? Belinda? Maybe a couple of the nurses? But after a few months they’d forget she ever existed.
“No job too small,” Belinda’s words repeated in her mind.
Okay, Emily thought, I’ll go ahead and ask for help. She’d gotten too weak to speak, so she shaped the words in her mind.
Help me. Please. Whoever is out there. She waited. Her lungs were expanding in her chest cavity like wet sponges, but other than that, nothing happened. What had she expected? Bluebirds nipping at the corners of her sheets? Rainbows spilling in through the windows?
Disappointment cut through her like a knife. Obviously she’d wanted to believe but had refused to admit it, even to herself. Where was her so-called help? She’d asked for it. She needed it.
Suddenly her chest tightened and a cough jettisoned from her lungs. Emily jerked her head up from the pillow.
“So you’re up. I just got here,” Belinda said, sitting beside her bed. She laid a cool hand on Emily’s cheek. “Dang. You’re burning up. I better call the nurse in.”
“Belinda,” she croaked. “How did you—” Emily was too spent to finish the sentence.
“I left the training session early. I just had this strong feeling you needed me. What in the world happened to your leg?”
Emily’s cold had edged dangerously close to pneumonia, and she spent the next few days coughing up thick globs of phlegm and soiling her bed sheets with sweat. She still struggled with depression, but it was like a gray cat she could shoo away if she tried.
Belinda visited daily, bringing a bounty of goodies like white chocolate Lindor truffles, glossy fashion magazines, and strawberry smoothies, which Emily sipped through a bendable straw.
She hadn’t forgotten her feverish half-awake plea to the Heavens. Nor was she sure what to make of Belinda’s sudden appearance. Was it an answered prayer, or just dumb luck? Over the next few days she conducted a series of tests. She’d silently ask for the nurse to find a good vein on the first try or request an undisturbed night’s sleep. So far, if there was indeed someone watching over her, he or she was doing a decent job.
Thirty
“Who’s designing Susan’s wedding gown?” demanded a bone-thin woman in the second row of the auditorium, her elbow thrust out from her hip in a defiant stance.
Ryan’s neck prickled with annoyance at her query, but he refused to let it show on his face. He’d just finished delivering a speech to a local Rotary Club when he opened the floor for questions. Obviously a r
eporter had crashed the gathering. There had just been a story in People entitled “Ryan and Susan to Renew Vows in Wedding of the Year.”
“What does that have to do with the recent legislative changes in Georgia?” he said with a good-natured smile, referring to the topic of his speech.
“Rumors say it’s Christian Dior,” said the woman. Her lipstick was a bright shade of crimson.
“Anything else?” Ryan gave the reporter a warning glance. “On the issues I’ve raised today?”
He addressed a handful of questions, which thankfully didn’t involve Susan or his upcoming nuptials, and then he thanked his audience and stepped down from the podium.
“Let’s hustle you through the back exit, sir,” said Gordon Hoyle, the security person he’d been forced to hire. “There’s a media mob out front.”
Ryan sighed and picked up his briefcase. Ever since Susan’s appearance on Talk to Me, the press had trailed the two of them like a pack of hyenas. It was worse than when he lived in New York. The paparazzi had gotten far bolder over the years, shoving cameras inches from his face, booing him when he refused to give them the shots they craved.
Initially he’d been furious with Susan. Why would she want to jeopardize their hard-won privacy by appearing on national television?
Darcy, on the other hand, had sided with Susan. She reminded him how he used to bask in the media attention during his bachelor days.
“Do you expect Susan to be so different from you?” Darcy had said. “She’s not a saint, you know.”
His sister’s comments humbled him. It was unfair to expect more from Susan than he had from himself. The pre-accident Susan would likely have shunned a Talk to Me appearance, but he was slowly learning to quit making those kinds of comparisons. Every week he had an hour-long session with his counselor, Jennifer Carr, and she was helping him to accept Susan as she was. He’d put all his and Susan’s pre-accident memorabilia into a box and stored them in the attic, and he’d stopped calling Minerva.
Gordon gestured it was time to leave, and he and Ryan ducked behind the stage and made their way through a series of hallways until they reached a metal exit door.
“Let me make sure this area is secure,” Gordon said. The security guard was a densely muscled bald man with a pulsing blue vein on the side of his skull. He cracked open the door and peered outside for a few moments, and then motioned for Ryan to follow as he walked across a small asphalt loading area.
“I told your driver to meet us here,” Gordon said. Just as his Lincoln Town Car pulled up, an old woman wearing hot pants and white vinyl boots sprang out from behind the Dempsey Dumpster.
“Mr. Blaine, I need to speak with you.”
“Stay back, ma’am,” Gordon said, blocking her path with his broad form. “Get in the car, sir,” he ordered Ryan. “I’ll handle this.”
“Please, Mr. Blaine,” the woman pleaded, frantically trying to get past Gordon. “I’ve written. I’ve tried to call. I even went to your house.”
So this was the woman he’d been warned about. Last week she was caught hiding among the hedges near his front door and was charged with trespassing. A judge issued a restraining order against her, but apparently she’d chosen to ignore it.
“It’s about Susan,” the woman continued as Gordon grasped her slight shoulders. Ryan’s driver was standing by the passenger door, waiting for Ryan to get in the car so he could shut it behind him.
“She’s not who you think she is,” the woman said. “Please, Mr. Blaine. You gotta be able to sense it. It isn’t just your imagination. It’s real!”
Despite her strange getup, the woman had a sharp look of intelligence in her gray eyes. Would it hurt to hear what she had to say?
“Wait,” he said to the driver. “Gordon, let the lady talk.”
Thirty-One
“You don’t look like a Mortimer,” Belinda said.
Mortimer Stiles, the anonymous donor who’d been paying Emily’s bills for the last several months, had stopped by the rehabilitation hospital for a surprise visit after hearing about her recent leg surgery.
“What does a Mortimer look like?” Mr. Stiles asked with a slight French accent.
“I don’t know,” Belinda said, cheeks flaring pink. “Bald, pince-nez, an ascot?”
Mortimer Stiles had a full head of chestnut-colored hair, bushy dark eyebrows showcasing a pair of vibrant green eyes, and broad shoulders that tested the limits of his gray wool pullover. He reminded Emily of Michael Landon during the Bonanza years.
“Sorry to disappoint,” Mr. Stiles said.
“Oh, you’re not a disappointment,” Belinda said. “Not at all. I mean...We’re so glad you’re here.”
“Emily, when I was told about your awakening, I was so deeply affected I wanted to do something for you,” Mortimer said.
“That’s very kind of you,” Emily said.
“Not at all. You don’t know it, but you’ve done me a great favor.” He paused, rubbing the knuckles of his left hand. Emily noticed the absence of a wedding ring. “Your story made me feel hope again after a long period of not being able to feel anything.”
“Really?” Belinda said, studying him with greater interest.
“Yes,” he said, meeting her gaze. A shadow crossed his face as he continued in a faltering voice. “I experienced a terrible loss recently. My son John was in a water-skiing accident last year and he lapsed into a coma for over three months. Unlike Emily, he never came out of it. He was only fifteen when he died.”
Belinda, who was already quite fair, turned as pale as bread dough.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Stiles,” Emily said.
“Call me Mortimer. Please,” he replied.
Emily glanced at Belinda, who hadn’t said a word and seemed to be mulling something over.
“I didn’t want to live anymore,” Mortimer continued. “I used to be such a positive person, but John’s death changed my view of the world. I didn’t understand the point of existing in a place that allows children to die. But...” He smiled down at Emily. “When I heard about you, Emily, something inside of me shifted. For the first time in weeks, I allowed myself to believe in—”
“Hope,” Belinda said softly.
“Yes, exactly,” Mortimer said with a nod. “I didn’t mean to go on about my own losses. I just wanted you to know why I feel so—”
“I know exactly how you feel,” Belinda said. She looked startled by her sudden announcement, as if she hadn’t meant to speak so boldly, and her voice grew more hesitant. “What I mean is...I was also drawn to Emily...for a similar reason.”
Both Emily and Mortimer were silent and alert, waiting for her to continue.
“I had a loss as well. My child.” Belinda shrank into her chair. “She was just...thirteen.” Belinda leveled her gaze at Emily. “It’s her music I’ve been listening to and her nail polish I’ve been wearing, but I’ve never been able to say the words before. My little girl, my sweet daughter...Chelsea...she...” Her whole body shook as if disgorging something deep from inside. “She died.”
“Belinda,” Emily said, fervently wishing she could jump out of the hospital bed and come to her friend’s comfort. Darn her useless legs. She glanced at Mortimer, who read the helplessness in her eyes.
“Chelsea. That’s a beautiful name,” he said softly, rising from his chair. Then he gently took Belinda in his arms and held her. Rather than resisting him, Belinda melted against his chest, where she cried softly.
After a few moments, Belinda pulled away from Mortimer somewhat reluctantly. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I told you about my daughter. We don’t even know each other.”
“You confided in me because you knew I’d understand,” Mortimer said.
“Thank you,” she said, and her glance drifted to Emily. “I’m so sorry, Emily. I didn’t mean to cause a s
cene. You’re convalescing; you don’t need—”
“Yes, I do,” Emily quickly replied, her eyes filling with tears for her friend’s heartbreak. The loss of a child. Life’s worst tragedy. Yet Belinda had still managed to give Emily so much comfort. What a precious gift she had in her friend. “Thank you so much for telling me about Chelsea. And now would you please come over here so I can hug you too?”
Belinda hurried to Emily’s bedside, and the two women rocked back and forth in an embrace. “I want to know everything about your little girl,” Emily whispered to her friend. “Whenever you’re ready to talk about her.”
Belinda nodded and hugged Emily even closer. “Would you like to see a picture?”
“I’d love to.”
She picked up her purse and produced her wallet. “This is her seventh-grade picture.”
Emily glanced down at the smiling blonde. “Oh my gosh. Is this your daughter?” Emily smiled as an extremely vivid image of a young girl wearing big tennis shoes and sparkly blue nail polish flashed in her mind. “Snap! I bet she’d get a kick out of you wearing her nail polish.”
Belinda shot Emily a stunned look. “You just said ‘snap.’ You’ve never said that before. What made you say it?”
“I don’t know,” Emily said. She looked again at the photo but didn’t get any more feelings of déjà vu. “I guess I must have heard the expression somewhere before.”
“Chelsea used to always say ‘snap,’” Belinda said, shaking her head. “I got the oddest feeling when you said it. It was almost as if Chelsea had popped in for a split second just to say hello.”
Mortimer rose from his chair. “I should be leaving. I’ll let the two of you—”
“Mortimer, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you’ve done for me,” Emily said to him.
“It was my pleasure.” He picked up his satchel and withdrew a bulky manila envelope. “I almost forgot. Before I leave, there’s something I want you to have. To give you a start on your new life.”
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