A Touch of Honor (The Honor Trilogy)

by J. P. Grider

  "But still." The pain in my chest getting stronger, I take a slow deep breath. "How do you afford it? I mean, your car. It's like...a Mercedes."

  Ethan laughs; his eyes do not. "It is a Mercedes...and my parents left my brothers and me a huge amount of money. They had like this huge life insurance policy."

  "Your brothers don't live with you?"

  "Nope. They live...all over the place," Ethan chuckles.

  All over? What does that mean? But I refrain from asking that. "Well, how many brothers do you have?"

  He holds up three fingers on his hand that's not still holding mine.

  "Oh, you guys aren't close?"

  I hear him sigh, and I wonder if I'm asking too many questions. Maybe I should stop.

  "We're close, Honor," he muses. "Like I said, though, we prefer to live alone." He lets go of my hand.

  "Oh." My decision to end the topic is probably in both our best interests, so I digress.

  However, it seems there is still something on his mind. He fidgets with his hands, opens his mouth to speak, but doesn't. Ethan opts for silence instead.

  The smarting in my chest has not weakened and sadness overcomes me. When I look at Ethan, his expression mirrors my emotions.

  "Ethan." I move my hand to his arm as a compassionate gesture, but he abruptly pulls away.

  "No." Ethan stands and jumps down the rock.

  Dejection promptly digs a pit in the bottom of my stomach. What did I say to offend him? Maybe I shouldn't have asked about his family. Too soon, I suppose.

  As the burning in my stomach increases along with the already existing pain in my chest, I watch Ethan. He is holding his stomach, with a look of distress on his face.

  "Ethan." Without leaving my perch on the rock, I call out to him. He turns to me silently. "What just happened?" I ask.

  He walks toward me, but stops at the rock. "Tell me something, Honor. Have you ever seen a doctor about these aches and pains you get?"

  I instinctively bring my knees to my chest, suddenly feeling very open and exposed. "Yes."

  "And?" he urges.

  "And...they never find a cause...of the pain."

  "So what do they tell you?" He no longer sounds sincere.

  "They..." I shrug, "tell me its anxiety...or something like that. They give me pills."

  A look of abhorrence crosses his face. "Pills?" he scoffs. "For what?"

  "Anxiety," I answer softly.

  Ethan climbs back up the rock, leaving a small distance between us. "Honor, you know deep down there's something more."

  His comment leaves me puzzled and at a loss for words.

  When his cellphone rings, Ethan lets out an exasperated sigh and retrieves the phone from his pocket. Reading the caller id, he says, "I'm sorry, I need to take this."

  I nod as he jumps off the rock and faces the lake.

  "Hey," I hear him say. "What's up?" Ethan's silent, intent on listening to his caller. He nods but says nothing. His expression is hard to read, but suddenly I feel angry. I am not mad that Ethan took the phone call, yet heat rises through me, and I want to kill somebody. Me. Quiet, sullen Honor Nicole Stevens is all of a sudden filled with enough rage to hurt someone.

  "Head 'em out west," I hear Ethan say. "Tell him...California...or out of the country. Just get 'em off my trail...yeah...call ya later."

  Ethan turns in my direction, pocketing his phone. "Sorry, Honor," he says as he climbs back up the rock. I practically see his heart racing underneath his shirt.

  "Everything okay?" I wonder.

  Ethan gives me one of those preoccupied nods, like he's answering me but thinking of something altogether different. "Mmm," he starts, but then shakes himself back to reality. "Yeah, Honor, everything's okay." He reaches for my hand. "C'mon. I better get ya back."

  I take his hand and he helps me down. I am disappointed, I admit. So many things are left unsaid.

  Chapter Five

  The car ride to the library is somber. Ethan even shuts his music off, making the silence that much louder. While he is driving, I notice his look of contemplation, and I'm sure it's the phone call he's thinking about. Yet...he says nothing.

  When he drops me off, he reaches over and squeezes my knee. "Thanks for letting me drive you today, Honor." The genuine smile on his face soothes some of my uneasiness but not all of it. "I'll see you tomorrow at school."

  "Sure." I hope the plastered smile on my face doesn't give away my disappointment in his send-off. A simple nod from Ethan. The open and close of a car door from me. Our date is done.

  With all the vigor I can summon up, I ascend the library steps. But if I expect to linger in mild melancholy, I am terribly mistaken.

  “Honor. Honor.” Cindy, the library aide, in all hysteria, bolts towards me. “We tried to…” she’s out of breath, “call you. Oh, Honor…your mother.”

  I clutch my chest. The pain is now wildly piercing. A knife right through my heart could not be more tortuous. I scan the library. “Where?” My voice cracks. “Where is she?” Where’s my mother?”

  “The ambulance.” The aide slams both her hands on my shoulders. “They took her to Saint Clare’s…in Denville.”

  “Oh my god. Oh my god.” I’m now wearing out a three foot path in the library’s rug with my back and forth pacing. “I need to see her. Oh…I don’t even know how…how I’ll get there.”

  “Honor.” Cindy is not doing well at calming me, since not only is she just a year older than I am, she’s always so helplessly neurotic. Especially now. “They called your dad. Oh my goodness, he’s going straight from work to the hospital. Oh my god, Honor, where were you? You shoulda been here.” In the meantime, while I pace I remember that I had threw my cellphone in my backpack when we were at the reservation. “You coulda gone in the ambulance. Now what’re you gonna do?”

  “Cindy. Stop.” I hold up both my hands as if I’m stopping traffic, which metaphorically I am, since her words pour out of her mouth at breakneck speed. I’m barely able to get a thought in. “Just stop. Please.” I need to think. I reach for my backpack and retrieve my phone. Flipping through my contacts, I see Tamlin’s name. She’ll help. I’m sure of it. With trembling fingers, I press her name. No reception. Damn. I run outside hoping…just hoping to get reception. Nothing. I tear down the handicap ramp, eyeing the reception bars on my phone while I run. Stopping at the end of the ramp, I try her number again. Oh god, oh god, oh god. My hand quakes so much that I drop my phone. When I bend to pick it up, a hand lands on my shoulder. There’s no need to look to see who it is. I already know.

  “Ethan.” I cry. No, I bawl. “Oh, Ethan.” I turn to him. In his shiny, metallic, violet eyes, I search for sanity.

  “Honor?” He pulls me close. “Honor?”

  Pushing at him, I find my words. “Ethan.” I huff and I puff. “I need a ride…St. Clare’s…Denville.” My words come out in breathy whispers. “Oh my god, I just realized…I don’t even know what happened.” I turn and take off back into the library, feeling Ethan right behind me.

  “Cindy.” I call to the aide. “What happened to Mom?”

  Still in tears, Cindy cries, “Heart attack.”

  I nearly collapse, but Ethan, always near, catches me in his arms. He cradles me in his arms and we head for his car.

  Ethan does not follow speed limits, and we arrive in Denville in twenty minutes. Record time. For that, I am grateful. The whole ride I had wanted to jump out of my seat. Twenty minutes of time standing still and moving forward and me, hovering in a figurative time lapse. Helpless and impotent. Rattled and frightened.

  At the emergency room desk, I give my mother’s name, and they immediately direct us to her bed. At about the same time we reach it, a bunch of scrub-adorned medical staff rip open her curtain and start commanding technical directives. I see a man dressed in green scrubs hovering over my mother, a flat line displaying across the screen next to her bed. Dad is in the corner, in shock.

  A woman, also donning th
e green scrubs, orders me to leave immediately. I stand there…in a state of shock. Ethan holds the back of my arm and whispers, “Go to her, Honor. Touch her.” I faintly hear him but not well enough to respond. “Go to her, Honor,” he demands again. Allowing what he asks of me to sink in a bit, I realize he’s not making any sense. They won’t allow me anywhere near her, why in the world would he want me to touch her?

  “She can’t come in here.” The scrub commands, obviously overhearing Ethan.

  Oh god, I hold my chest. I look at Dad, still standing in the corner. His eyes are as wide as quarters, and he hasn’t moved an inch.

  “Honor,” Ethan presses. “Go.” This time his command is stern. “Touch her. Heal her.”

  “What?” I turn to him in question but step forward towards Mom.

  Ethan nods, “Go. You know what I’m asking. I know you do. It’s been inside you all your life.”

  But I don’t know what he’s talking about. Do I? Though something deep inside me knows what he wants me to do. “Touch her?” I whisper.

  He nods.

  “Hey. Get her out of here.” I hear from behind me.

  “No,” Ethan barks. “It’s her mother.”

  I’m already there…at Mom’s side…holding her arm.

  The scrubs back away as the deafening sound of the flat line signals there’s no more for them to do.

  “Mommy.” Both my hands are on her now – one on her arm, the other on her chest. “Mommy, please.” I cry harder than I’ve ever cried before. “Mommy, please, please, please, don’t die. I need you. I need you, Mommy. Please.” I close my eyes and lean my head on her arm. My own tears tickle my cheek. In the near distance I hear the start of a machine. – a beeping sound. The flat line noise is gone. My head jerks up. Scrubs are racing toward her again.

  “Mom?”

  The beeping steadies. I look at my mom. Her eyelashes flutter, her brown eyes playing peekaboo with me.

  “Mom?”

  Her brown eyes disappear, but I know they’re moving. I see them dance rapidly beneath their lids. When I move my gaze to her chest, I watch it rise. I watch it fall. And I never would have thought such a small, monotonous movement could be so very beautiful.

  Mom is breathing.

  She is alive.

  My breathing…however…becomes…laborious. Heavy. I can’t …get…enough…air. I see Mom…then…I don’t.

  Chapter Six

  “Oh. Ew.” I startle. The scent is horribly potent. My eyes flash open. Then they shut. I just want to sleep. But…that smell.

  “Honor. Open your eyes. You can’t sleep.” the faint voice orders.

  The pungent smell stuns me awake again.

  “It’s smelling salts, Honor, now stay awake,” she orders.

  I force my eyelids up to my eyebrows, but they want to shut. Lead weights must be pulling them down.

  “Honor, c’mon, you need to stay awake.”

  Closing my eyes, I mutter, “I just…wanna…sleep.”

  “No. Honor. You can’t.” Ethan’s voice is now near. Soft but firm. I feel his breath on my hair. Smell his sweet and spicy scent near my face. He smells like …spearmint? Maybe. Wood? Something…sexy. “Honor, please.” I hear him again. “This is important. You need to stay awake.” Ethan’s voice sounds garbled. Like it’s filled with, I don’t know, water. “Please, baby, open your eyes.” It’s not water. It’s…tears. Ethan is crying.

  I try with all my might to open my eyes. I try with all my might to hold them open. Ethan’s arm is cradling my head. It feels just right beneath my neck. “Good girl,” he says, smiling.

  “Honor.” The female, a nurse, I think, hands me a cup. “It’s cola, hun. I put some table sugar in it. Drink it up.”

  Gross. I take the cup. Put it to my lips. My eyes are still fighting me, but I think I’m winning. I sip the soda. Though it’s way too sweet, I manage to get it down. As the lead weights lift from my eyes, I remember.

  “Mom. My mother. What…”

  “She’s fine,” Ethan and the nurse reply at the same exact time.

  “It was a miracle.” The nurse continues. “Her heart had stopped. She’d died.” Ethan is holding me, caressing my arm while the nurse still goes on. “She was dead…for several minutes, but you,” she shakes her head in disbelief, “she must really love you…all you did was touch her, and…”

  Ethan cuts her off. “Yes, and Honor really loves her, too.” Then suddenly, I know he’s trying to hide something. Something about me.

  The nurse drops it, as does Ethan, but my mind is now racing, trying to put two and two together.

  “Can I see her?” I ask, desperately needing to see for myself that my mother is still alive.

  “In a little bit. We’d like you to stay here a while. Get your bearings. You passed out; we need to know you won’t do it again.”

  “Where is she?”

  “They’re bringing her to ICU right now.”

  The nurse starts typing things into her laptop, then walks out of the room.

  Ethan tries to read something in my eyes. “You okay, Honor?”

  Sighing and chuckling at the same time, I feel lost in a strange land. I know I’m here in the hospital, but I have no idea where I stand at this time. What happened? Mom stopped breathing. I reach out to her and just like that, she’s alive…and I feel like I’ve been hit by a train. “I don’t know, Ethan.” I take in a whole bunch of air; I’m just so winded. “I know my mom just… almost died, but why…am I so…tired?

  A tender smile slowly spreads across his face, and he blinks one of those slow blinks. You know, the kind that’s almost like closing your eyes, but not really. “It’s very draining…to do what you did,” he says.

  “What’d I do?” I’m so utterly confused. It’s my turn to do one of those closey-eyed, blinky-things, only I’m too tired to open them back up, so I just keep my eyes closed. I feel Ethan’s warm lips on my forehead and smell his sweet breath on my face.

  “I guess you need an explanation.” There’s a catch in his voice. Almost like he doesn’t want to tell me something.

  My eyes find strength enough to open. I blink once, in lieu of a nod.

  “When you’re outta here. I don’t want to talk here…not about this.” And the deep purple cloud that emanates from his pupils, taking on the look of the sun’s corona, alerts me to just how serious he is. I am not capable of changing his mind; I’ll have to wait until I’m out of here to find out what the heck is going on.

  With a sincere smile on her face, the nurse returns, asking me how I’m feeling.

  I lie and tell her I’m much better. Because if I tell her my chest is still on fire, my head is in a fog, and I’m just plain exhausted, she’ll never let me up to see my mom. And above all else, I need to see my mom.

  “Well,” she says to me, “let me check your blood pressure.” Wrapping the squeezie thing around my arm, we wait. I look at Ethan, and he winks, despite the pensive scowl on his face. “Ok,” the nurse says when she’s done tugging at my arm. “You’re good. Let me just get your release papers.”

  When the nurse leaves the room, Ethan returns to my side. “Honor,” he cries, empathy strong in his voice. Something is clearly on his mind. “I know you deserve an explanation and…I promise, you’ll get one.” He runs his hand through his blond hair and closes his eyes. “But not here. Not now.” He hesitates, but it’s clear there is more. “Please don’t ask me why, but until I explain everything, please don’t touch anyone.” He takes both my hands and peers into my eyes. I see something behind those worried violet eyes of his. Pain. “Promise?” he asks again.

  Taking a moment to think that over, wondering what the heck he is talking about, I answer. “Promise.”

  **

  My mother is wide awake when finally I make it to her room. Machines and tubes are popping out of her every which way, but besides that, she has a glow on her cheeks and a sparkle in her eye. She looks better than I feel. It’s strange, but
I feel so weak. My left arm tingles, and the gnawing in my chest is so present that I feel as if I suffered from the heart attack. Not my mom.

  “Honor,” Mom says, smiling so broadly it makes me smile. “Oh, sweetheart, come here.” She holds her hand out to me. Ethan stands back unseen, unsure if Mom would be comfortable with a strange boy in her room.

  “Oh, Mom,” I cry, my voice weak. “I was so scared. I thought…” I just start bawling right there. Bending over her to hug her, I think I might drown her in my tears. She smoothes my hair down with her velvet hand. “Shh, baby, it’s all right. Everything is just fine.” I squeeze myself into the edge of Mom’s hospital bed and spread out next to her, letting her hold me in her arms. Letting her comfort me. Even though she is the one who just died on the table and came back to life…what seemed to be from the touch of my own hand.

  Chapter Seven

  After spending about an hour with my mother, Ethan sitting in the waiting area, waiting, the nurse tells me my mom needs her rest. I need to go. Giving my mom the tightest hug I can, considering all the tubes entering and exiting her body, I kiss her goodnight and whisper in her ear that I love her. Of course, she loves me too.

  With all the resolve I can rally, I wait until Ethan pulls into the library parking lot to inquire about what seemed to be my supernatural ability to bring my mom back to life.

  He shakes his head no. “Go get the keys to your mother’s car.” He watches me look right at him, unmoving. Sighing, he says, “I’ve a feeling this conversation will take a long time…and I don’t want the library to close before you grab your mom’s purse…and then her car stays here all night.”

  “Fine,” I whine. “But I’m not dropping this,” I say as I hop out of the car.

  Spending about ten minutes inside, relating the story to Cindy, I anxiously return to Ethan, who has parked his Mercedes and is sitting on its hood. “Put the purse in her car.”

  I do.

  “Let’s take a walk,” he commands, again, but his soft tone conveys compassion. He takes hold of my hand, and we proceed to the wooden playground area off to the side of the library. A maze of playthings built from wood will serve as the background to, I suspect, a life-changing turn of events.