Sweet Water

by Lena North

  “He refused to eat,” Dante whispered, and put a bowl on the floor. Then he filled it with kibble, picked Joe off the bed and told him to dig in, which he did with gusto.

  When he’d eaten, Dante put him on the bed again, and he settled in on his uninjured side. I curled up behind him, put my nose in the soft fur just behind his ear and drifted off to sleep, breathing in the scent of him.

  “Dante,” someone whispered, waking me up, and I opened my eyes to find Jamie leaned over the big golden dog next to me in my bed.

  I blinked.

  “Dante,” he repeated slightly louder.

  I blinked. What in the hell was he doing?

  As I watched in silence, he put a hand on Joe’s side and shook him gently.

  “Hey, man, you have to wake up,” he said.

  I got it then, and had to hold my breath to stop a loud giggle from slipping out. He thought that Dante somehow could change into a dog.

  “What the hell?” Dante said from the door.

  Jamie straightened abruptly and jerked around, looking at Dante who had changed clothes and was drying his hair with a towel.

  “Yuh?” he said stupidly.

  “You think I’m a dog?” Dante muttered, but his eyes were glittering with held back laughter.

  “No,” Jamie said, realized how idiotic that was and backtracked immediately. “Maybe. It’s not so far-fetched when you think about it. You people seem to be able to do all kinds of hooky-spooky stuff, and that dog even looks like you.”

  Dante was about to say something, but Mac and Kit walked into the room, and Jamie held up a hand.

  “Get the dog out of here, pronto. I don’t know how you even got it in here.”

  “Mac and Dante flirted with the nurse on night duty, and Kit snuck past her,” I explained.

  “Huh,” Jamie said, and added, “Kudos to you because I don’t know how you did that either. She’s old as dirt and sourer than a gooseberry.”

  “Well,” Mac drawled. “Either you have it…” he paused and looked pointedly at Kit. “Or you don’t.”

  Kit flicked a finger at him but they chuckled, and I smiled.

  “I’ll send the nurse off to the storage for something, and you can get the animal out of here. I’ve cut you a lot of slack, but we can’t have him in the hospital.”

  I gave Joe a hug but Jamie was right, so I didn’t protest when they led my dog away. Then I fell asleep and barely stirred when Dante got into the bed behind me.

  “Sleep, Jiminella,” he murmured. I breathed in the scent of him too and relaxed.

  My parents’ angry voices woke me up next, or maybe it was Miller’s refusal to let them into my room.

  “I’ll deal with them,” Dante sighed, and got out of bed.

  “Don’t be mad,” I pleaded. “I’m so tired right now, but if they come back later…”

  He made a huffing sound, but I kept talking.

  “They weren’t as bad as you paint them, and I forgave them for not being perfect a long time ago. They’re not going to change.”

  He made another huffing sound, pulled his hair into its usual twist at the nape of his neck, straightened his tee and walked out the door.

  The shouting increased immediately, and it was mostly my mother.

  “You have got to calm down now, Mrs. Sweetwater,” Dante said calmly, and my mom stopped screeching. “Jiminella is still sleeping, and she’s doing fine, but we have to let her rest,” he added smoothly.

  “You have no right –” she started, but Dante cut her off immediately.

  “Do not talk to me about rights,” he barked. “Nellie has forgiven you for everything that happened, and I’ll make an effort to do the same, but let me tell you – it will not be easy.”

  There was a long pause, and I could easily imagine how daunting my parents would find Dante when he sounded like that.

  “She has forgiven us?” Mom asked, in a voice that was suddenly so low I barely heard it.

  “She did that a long time ago,” Dante replied, and I could hear that he’d calmed down again.

  My mother promptly started sobbing.

  “Petronella,” Dad muttered, trying to soothe her and probably embarrassed by her tantrum.

  “You name is Petronella?” Dante asked, and I knew what he’d started to figure out, so I smiled.

  “Yes, it is,” Dad replied because Mom was apparently still overcome with emotions. “I’m James,” he said, but added, “Everyone calls me Jimmy, though.”

  “You gave her your names?” Dante asked, apparently needing clarification of something that was glaringly obvious.

  “Of course,” Mom said, sounding insulted and not teary anymore. “She’s our baby, and we love her.”

  “Well, shit,” was Dante’s reply, but he seemed to have realized how rude that was because he went on immediately, “Right. Nellie should sleep for a while, and then she needs rest. If it’s okay with you, I’ll just ask her to call you as soon as she can. I don’t know what the doctors will order so it might be a day or two, though.”

  That was my Dante, I thought. Diplomatic and calm.

  “Okay,” Mom murmured. “How is she?” she asked quietly.

  There was a pause, and then Dante surprised me.

  “We can go down to the cafeteria if you like. I need some coffee, and I’ll tell you what I know.”

  “Appreciate it, son,” Dad boomed, happy that the drama seemed to be over, and probably in need of coffee too.

  Their steps faded away, and the door opened slowly.

  “Jinx?” Miller murmured.

  “I’m awake,” I replied.

  “I know,” he said. “Just wanted to check if you’re okay.”

  “I’m used to them,” I said calmly.

  “Guess so,” he said and was about to say something else when he was pushed to the side by a nurse carrying a tray.

  “Ooh, the men you know, girl,” she giggled when the door had closed behind her, and when she saw my surprise, she went on, “All the nurses are beyond flustered, let me tell you that. The doctors too. One gorgeous bad boy after the other walking around in the corridors or standing guard outside your door. And your fiancée…” she trailed off, and I waited for her to tell me what the hospital grapevine thought about Dante.

  She didn’t disappoint me.

  “We almost swooned when we heard about what that gorgeous man said to Doc Jamieson, about you being his treasure.” She used a hand to fan herself, and I giggled too. “You are so lucky,” she concluded.

  “I know,” I told her because I was, but my reply just made her laugh even more.

  Then there were tests, and even though I was alone in the room with her, she was so gentle and kind that I started to wonder if I’d perhaps taken my fear a little too far. Maybe being a doctor myself, at least part time, wouldn’t be so bad, I though. Dante came back in the middle of her checkup, walked straight to me and took my hand.

  “Are you okay, baby?” he asked gently.

  I saw the look on the nurse’s face and thought that she would surely swoon for real this time, so I giggled and told him I absolutely was.

  “Do you need anything?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I replied. “I need Mrs. C. Do you think someone could drive her to Prosper?”

  “Tony is taking her to you later today,” he replied, and I squeezed his hand again.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  The tests were apparently good because they released me from the hospital with strict orders for what I could do, and even more orders about what I couldn’t. Dante drove me to Double H, but he didn’t stay for long, and when he drove off, Kit was following him on his bike.

  Mary and Mickey’s mother Gwen fussed around me until I’d had enough and escaped to the front porch to wait for Mrs. C. When I recognized Tony’s old car coming down the long driveway, I bent down to put the cone on Joe, and then I walked down the steps.

  I had been calm through my whole ordeal, mostly, and f
elt in control. I’d honestly thought I’d been fine, but when Mrs. C climbed out of the car, I felt how my lips trembled. I started crying, quietly, and when she saw my face she took the few steps between us quickly, and I let go. I fell into her arms, sobbing and pressing my face into her shoulder.

  “I was so scared,” I gasped.

  “I know,” she mumbled and wrapped her arms tighter around me.

  “I thought they would kill Dante, and then they killed Jo-hoe…” I wailed.

  She remained calm and just held me, murmuring something I couldn’t hear through the buzzing in my ears. I cried and cried until the tears had washed away that awful night and even though my head had started to pound mercilessly, I felt better.

  “I had to go to the hospital,” I sniffled. “I don’t like hospitals.”

  “I know,” she repeated. She caressed my back slowly, but her voice was suddenly hard.

  “They told you?” I asked quietly.

  “We all know. Most of the men had made their way back to the lab when you got there. They all heard, and I thought Danny would have a riot on his hands,” she replied.

  “What?” I asked, leaning back a little.

  “Oh, Jiminella…” she murmured. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I wish you’d told me.”

  “I’ve tried for years to forget it. Pretending that it didn’t happen seemed like the best option I had, so I pushed it to the back of my mind and tried to not think about it. I’ve never told anyone,” I explained.

  “Okay,” she said and started leading me up the steps.

  “Jinx,” Tony called out, and his voice was hard too.

  “Hey, Tony,” I said, turning to give him a wobbly smile.

  “Don’t ever tell me the names,” he said.

  “Wh –”

  “We know you told Johns. But please, don’t tell me the names of who did that to you. I’ve never killed anyone, but I would if you told me.” he clarified.

  “Oh, Tony,” I whispered.

  “In fact, it’s probably better if you don’t tell anyone in Marshes,” he added.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “You should probably not tell me either,” Mrs. C said primly.

  That startled a short laugh out of me, but her face remained serious. Holy cow, I thought. She meant it.

  “Okay,” I promised.

  Tony walked up to us, lifted my hair and looked at the surgical tape covering the eleven stitches they’d put on my scalp.

  “Jesus,” he muttered and gave me a hard glare. “Every kid in Marshes knows not to go into the river,” he said, sternly.

  “I know that too,” I said, but added for clarification, “Now.”

  He grinned at me then and patted my shoulder.

  “Good that you’re still with us, Jiminella,” he said. “I’ll leave you for a while,” he added, adjusted his cap a little and got into his car.

  We sat on the porch and talked for a long time. Gwen came out with tea and scones, and Wilder was around somewhere, but she didn’t disturb us. As I shared what had happened, my headache faded into a dull throbbing, and I started to get sleepy. Mrs. C noticed and pulled one of the pillows into her lap.

  “Rest for a while?” she asked, and I slid down and closed my eyes.

  I was halfway into dreamland when I felt her hand glide softly over my hair.

  “Sleep now, my darling girl. My world was dull and gray without you, so you need to heal and come home,” she whispered.

  I woke slowly to the sounds of voices murmuring next to me. Wilder had joined us.

  “I shouldn’t have taken it away, but I won’t insult you by trying to give back the money Paolo left you. I’d like to invest it in a small business in Marshes, though,” Wilder said.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Mrs. C protested.

  “My mother loved him more than life itself. I…” she hesitated, but barged on, “I didn’t like him. I’m sorry, but that won’t change. But my mother loved him, and when you came here today, I realized that Jinx loves you. She’s always so calm, but I saw her with you, and how you held her. So, yeah. I have to do that.”

  “Oh, Wilder,” she murmured hoarsely, and I felt how she took a few deep breaths. “I’m sorry for how my son –”

  Wilder interrupted her immediately. “You have nothing to apologize for. I’ve thought a lot about it, and you don’t. Paolo was a grown man, making his own choices. He made the wrong ones at every turn, but that’s on him. Not on you.”

  “Thank you,” Mrs. C said after a while, and she sounded calm, but I felt her hand clench on my shoulder, so I opened my eyes and started to sit up.

  “Hey, sleepyhead,” Wilder grinned.

  “What’s this I hear?” I asked and smiled back at her. “You’re going to be business partners?”

  Wilder snorted and turned her grin to Mrs. C.

  “Yeah. Didn’t see that coming,” she said.

  Mrs. C chuckled and muttered, “Oh, trust me. Neither did I.”

  I smiled as they shared their first joke. Two of the most important women in my life had found a way to talk to each other, and my heart swelled.

  “Before you know it, you’ll be like sisters,” I teased, and both of them started laughing.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Ninety-nine percent safe

  Jamie came to visit me at Double H a couple of days later and, to my relief, he brought Dante with him. I took them all the way to the back of the big garden behind the house, and we sat down without saying a word. I didn’t know how to begin, and I was nervous.

  “I’ll leave if you want me to, Nellie,” Dante said when the silence stretched out. “Jamie said I should be here, but –”

  “Please stay,” I said and took his hand. “I’m not sure I can do this,” I admitted.

  “Yes, you can,” he replied calmly. “We’ll do it together.”

  “He told you?” Jamie asked finally.

  “I was partially conscious, so I heard you,” I replied.

  “Ah,” he mumbled.

  “Why didn’t you tell me before, Jamie? When we were in Uni?”

  “Awe, mostly. Embarrassment. Guilt. Anger… You name it, I felt it,” he said.

  “I don’t understand,” I whispered.

  “Awe, because of what you managed to do. Embarrassment and guilt because I hadn’t been able to do it. Anger at them for what they did,” he said and smiled a little. “I was angry for years,” he admitted.

  “Me too,” I confessed. “I still am sometimes.”

  “Yeah,” he sighed.

  “How many kids did they…”

  “There were six of us, seven with you. We had rooms in the same corridor, so we met if we were brought in at the same time. You were the only one they kept apart, but we heard about you all the same,” he told me.

  “Where are the others?”

  He looked down on his lap, and my heart sank when I saw the pain on his face.

  “Only four of us left, five with you,” he said, sighed and went on, “Three of us were from the islands. My cousin, my older brother and me. Only my cousin and I are alive today. There was a girl your age from the mountains somewhere and two brothers from Prosper, but the older brother is not with us anymore.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “My brother and the other kid? Suicide, both of them,” he said, and his matter of fact voice didn’t match the burning anger in his eyes.

  Dante’s hold on my hand tightened, and I felt him shift slightly, but I kept my focus on Jamie.

  “Because of what they did to us?” I asked.

  “They were the first ones who were brought in. My guess is that the doctors, the scientists, didn’t know what they were doing, so they tested all kinds of things on the first kids. Refining their methods, in a way. They’d also been there the longest. Something had been off with them for a while, and shortly after you got the program shut down, the boy in Prosper shot himself. My brother held out for a year
, but he was mostly drunk, or high, during that time. Then he drowned.”

  “But you said it was…” I trailed off, not sure if using the word would hurt him.

  “Suicide. You can use the word, Jinx. And it was. There’s no way he drowned. How could he –”

  He cut himself off, and a strange look moved over his face, but then he collected himself, and he stated calmly, “We’re strong swimmers on the islands.”

  “Okay,” I said, thinking that it seemed like weak proof that it had been suicide, and I had a feeling that there was more to the story, but since the boy was dead, maybe it didn’t matter.

  We moved on to talk about the tests they had done. It wasn’t easy to bring the memories to life, but after a while, the words came easier, so I relaxed a little and realized as we spoke that our experiences were in many ways the same. I didn’t tell him about all the things they’d done to me and didn’t share how I cheated on the intelligence test, though I had a feeling that he held things back too. Dante remained silent, never letting go of my hand, and I wasn’t sure he even breathed, but I felt his warmth in my mind the whole time.

  Then we were silent.

  “You learn to live with it,” Jamie sighed, finally.

  “Yeah,” I replied.

  I felt empty, almost cleansed in a way.

  “Are you in contact with the others?” I asked.

  “My cousin, yes, of course. The other two, no. We said we would be but…”

  “Okay,” I murmured, thinking that I’d try to find them.

  “How did they get you into the program? How did they find you?” he asked then.

  My mind went completely blank, and I shook my head a little.

  “Jinx?” he prompted, with a worried look on his face.

  I squinted my eyes and pressed my lips together.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  “What?” Dante breathed.

  “I don’t –” I swallowed, and whispered, “I don’t remember.”

  Jamie straightened and put one hand around my wrist to keep track on my pulse, at the same time as he started asking questions. Fifteen minutes later, he got up, pulling his phone out of his back pocket.

  “I’m setting you up with a specialist. This afternoon if I can make it happen, Jinx. I’m not an expert, but you know as well as I do that it’s likely you have retrograde amnesia. I’d say it’s from the hit to your head. It’s not uncommon,” he said, and I nodded but didn’t respond, mainly since I didn’t think my voice would work. “Hard to cure in some cases, but not life-threatening,” he added thoughtfully as if quoting from a textbook.