Hearts of Avon

by Scott Toney

no knowing when and if she’ll ever come back out of the coma. And if she does, she may not remember you, or even me.” Francis wiped a tear from his cheek. Ben wouldn’t have known it was there if he hadn’t seen the man reach his hand up. There was no emotion on her father’s face.

  Ben wiped more of his own tears away. “Can I see her? Will you speak with the hospital and ask them to authorize me as a visitor?”

  “I don’t want to, but not for the reasons you may think. Believe it or not, I like you. You seem to be a good man. And it’s clear you care deeply for my daughter, but I’m worried she won’t come out of this, and then where will that leave you?”

  “It will leave me where I am now.” Ben looked up to the sky beyond the buildings, watching smog and clouds roll by above the rooftops. “I’m a part of this, Mr. Lilly, and I can’t just leave her behind. Maybe my voice will help to bring her back to us, to you. Or maybe I’ll sit for hours in a chair talking and no one will hear me but myself and people passing in the hall. But I’m doing this for me as much as for her. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You don’t like being told no.” There was a worried look on Francis’s face. “And what happens if I tell you to go back to the Outer Banks?”

  “Then I’ll stay here until she wakes up, in Pittsburgh, until I know she has come out of this.” He didn’t know how he would manage that. He and Mason only had enough in their mutual checking account to last them a few months. And he hadn’t painted anything that he could sell since meeting Caroline. He would do it though, somehow. He meant what he said.

  Francis took out his pocket watch for a moment, eyed the time, and then stuffed it back in his pocket. “I’ll call and give authorization for you to visit. But on one condition, if she does come out of the coma and doesn’t know who you are, then you’ll leave both our lives for good.”

  “Yes.” Ben didn’t hesitate. He wasn’t waiting for the man to revoke what he said. “She’ll wake up. You’ll see. And she will remember us.”

  “How long will you be here?” Francis asked.

  “As long as I can manage it.”

  “Don’t be a stranger. I promise to return your calls.”

  Ben shook Francis’s hand firmly and watched as he walked back into Burns White’s building. “When can you call so that I can have authorization?”

  “I’ll call as soon as I reach my office. They should allow you in tonight. Maybe I’ll see you there.”

  He’s a man of little emotion, Ben thought, but somehow I’m beginning to like him. If he saw Mark again, he determined he would ask to take him to lunch.

  Ben’s heart raced as he anticipated seeing Caroline. What would he say?

  24

  Ben held Caroline’s hand for hours as he sat by her side, just ‘being’ with her, but not actually saying much. His heart swelled. The pulse of her heartbeat beeped across the computer screen behind her hospital bed.

  Before this moment, he was working to get here, to be with her. Now he was with her and he just felt hopeless. Looking at her bruised face, he wished she would open her eyes, or that she would speak to him.

  A rose he’d brought in a vase sat in the corner of the room, poorly lit with a dim hospital light.

  Silence.

  Ben closed his eyes. I am here. What do I do now, God? How can I comfort her? How can I help her heal? I’ll give anything if you just bring her back to me.

  The dark night sky was motionless outside the room’s window.

  He had a book beside him, a Christian book called ‘Come What May’ that he’d picked up and begun reading to her. The book was about a woman and man who were separated and lived different lives after college, but remained friends. It was called ‘Come What May’ because that was what the man always told the woman. God’s will would guide their lives, ‘Come What May’.

  He hoped his voice would comfort Caroline and that she could hear him, wherever her consciousness was. He read this particular book as much for himself as for her. He needed to know that God would lead her back to him and return her to him from this storm.

  Ben closed the book after reading the first few chapters, feeling the edges of its pages with his thumb. All he could do was read, pray and hope.

  “I love you,” he said, reaching out and holding her hand before standing to leave.

  He stood there, watching, hoping she would open her eyes. Reality that she may be in the coma for a long time began sinking in. He blew her a kiss and turned to leave. Then as he began walking down the hall, he recognized a man approaching him.

  “Ben, just the man I was looking for.” Francis steadily shook his hand.

  “I’m just leaving,” Ben said. “Thank you for calling and giving authorization for me to visit her.”

  “Where are you sleeping tonight?” Mr. Lilly asked. “There’s no sense in paying for a hotel room while I have vacant rooms in my house. Ever since my ex-wife and daughter moved out it has just been me.”

  “I’m honored you’d offer, but…”

  “Nonsense, you can stay as long as you like. I meant what I said earlier. You seem like a good man. It will be good to have the company. I appreciate what you’re trying to do for my daughter. Just give me some time alone here and I’ll meet you in the waiting room, to lead you to the house.”

  “Thank you.” Ben had been caught off guard by the offer. As he thought more about it, he realized it was a good idea. Of course, he couldn’t stay there for free. Even if Francis tried declining him, he’d look for work around Pittsburgh and find a way to pay the man for as long as he was here.

  Don’t think like that. She might wake up tomorrow, he thought. Then he remembered the bruises on her face as he sat with her in the room and the complete stillness of her body. He would stay here in Pittsburgh, come what may.

  As he waited in the lobby he took out his phone and called Mason.

  “Ben!” Mason’s voice came over the phone. “How is everything? Have you gotten to see her? We’re just getting power back here and they’re releasing Excelsis tomorrow. He’ll be staying at The Seaman’s Watch for a while, as you offered, until he heals.”

  He told his father all that happened. They didn’t share the kind of love most families did, but as they talked he felt some deeper connection with Mason. It was good to have him as a rock in the chaos of the world. Mason was the one certainty in the unknown of his life.

  “I love you, dad,” Ben said before getting off the phone. He hadn’t called him ‘dad’ in years.

  Mason hesitated a moment. There was surprise in the silence. “I love you too, son. Call me. Let me know what’s going on with Caroline and what you’re doing.”

  25

  The first memory that returned to Caroline was of Irene, after the ocean swallowed their van.

  She had been in darkness for so long, then suddenly was thrust back into this memory, forced to live it again.

  -- --

  She shook as she remembered, watching in horror as the van thrust clockwise in a massive flood of waves. Water seeped in through the pores of the van. “Help! Help!” she screamed in terror.

  “Take your seatbelt off and try to escape!” her mother called out to her from the front as the van flipped in the waves once more.

  Suzie was eerily silent.

  Caroline reached for her seatbelt, trying hectically to unlock it but being too nervous to find the button. Click. She found it and began taking it off.

  “I’m so sorry, honey, I love you.” She could barely hear her mother up front.

  “I love you too, mom. We’ll be alright.”

  An angry wave of the ocean’s maw cracked against the windshield, shattering it and sending shards of glass like daggers across the van, then flooding the vehicle completely.

  The last thing Caroline saw before the darkness took over was blood. Was it her own?

  Her mind was gone for moments, darkness surrounding her once more. Then, in an echo, she heard her mom calling to her. She was pulling at her
arm.

  Caroline opened her eyes and choked on the ocean flooding her lungs.

  Eva was above her, her head in an air pocket at the roof of the van. She watched helplessly as her mother dove down and grabbed her arm, pulling her up into the air.

  Her throat burned as she convulsed, choking out the water. There was blood everywhere. It was coming from Suzie’s limp body, still strapped in the front seat.

  “Suzie!” she called out when she was able to breathe.

  “We can’t, not now.” Her mother was panicked. “We need to get out before we drown.” Crack! Crack! Eva shattered a side window with her feet. “Go!”

  Caroline went. Currents pulled at her as she used what little strength she had to escape the vehicle. All she could do was swim as hard as she could for the surface a good distance above.

  She reached air, only to take a deep breath before a wave crashed down on her. She held the breath tight as currents battered her body, pulling her down.

  Caroline kicked and moved her arms, trying to reemerge.

  As she reached air a second time, she breathed, and then saw Eva swimming away from her off in the distance. “Mom!” she shouted. But Eva did not hear. The storm raged against them, pulling them apart. Should she swim for her mother’s direction or toward the shoreline closer to her?

  A wave beat her body beneath the ocean, darkness consuming her as she was pulled back out of the memory.

  -- --

  Wherever she was, she was no longer in the ocean. But where is that? Caroline thought as she felt nothing around her form. She remembered her mother and