by David Kersey
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX - Recovery
By seven pm there had been several visitors. Pastor McMillan had come with his wife, and left some sweets. Annemarie, Autry’s wife, had visited, as well as Beulah Moorehead, the grandmother of the boy who allegedly pulled the trigger. The poor woman broke down and sobbed in Adele’s presence. She, as the story goes, almost died from a broken heart, and then by her own hand. She was so apologetic, saying she didn’t know Danny had found the deceased Mr. Moorehead’s rifle in the attic. She still doesn’t know how Danny got up on the ridge that evening. Her car was still in the drive when the police came the next day. When they showed her a picture of that dear boy, so mangled and mutilated, she knew it was him. And the rifle they found up the hill from his body was definitely her husband’s. She fell in line with the rest of the town’s folk. Danny did it. It grieved her so much that she considered suicide. The image of Danny getting eaten by a bear haunted her every moment. It was nearly too much to endure. She hoped Adele could understand her sorrow. Adele had tried to comfort the poor soul, but she knew there could be no words to soothe the woman’s troubles. She would be scarred for the rest of her life.
Jack arrived at the same time as Autry. Autry set the jar of the old time NIL on the night stand, then took a seat. Jack stood over Joshua, who was awake, grabbed the prone man’s hand and shook it. “Good to see you back, young man.”
“I’m back, huh? Where did I go and did I have fun?”
Everyone chuckled. Adele was beside herself with joy. Voluntary, conscious interaction, replete with understanding and purposed expression in return. A sign of cognitive functioning.
“Joshua, can you lift your right arm?” Adele used a trick question. It didn’t matter all that much if, at this stage, his muscles had started to rebound from atrophy, but an attempt at moving the correct arm was the trick. That would indicate an understanding of a directive. In response, Joshua lifted his right arm to almost vertical, then let it fall limply.
“Autry brought some NIL. Do you want some now?”
“Yep.”
Autry poured the NIL into the cup he had also brought along. To everyone’s surprise, Joshua passed the glass under his nose, holding on to the glass with a sure grip. He wet his lips, then drank. That was a feat of memory. Things were looking good.
Jack had reserved a room at the local Red Roof Inn, but Adele declined to join him there. She explained that at eight o’clock a nurse would roll in a guest bed as soon as visiting hours were over. Jack understood, and went to the car to bring the items Adele had requested.
At 8, all had left except Adele. Joshua was still awake, and reached out to grab her hand. “Adele, I heard what the woman said earlier. About her grandson. Danny she called him. I didn’t want to cause her more grief, so I just listened.”
“I’m glad you now know. The kid had a high powered rifle with telescopic sighting. He didn’t miss. Hit you right there where the neck and shoulder meet. Namanda said she only heard one shot.”
“Namanda. Where is she?”
Adele debated. She would attempt another trick. “I don’t know.” It was an attempt to see if Joshua still had telepathic ability.
“I would like to see her.”
“The Mehras left before anyone knew it. No one knows where they are.” She hated to lie to him, but it was a test to see if he could read her.
“I want to get up. Help me get to the bathroom.”
“No sir, not yet.” She lifted up the bottom of the covering sheet. “Let me see you wiggle your toes.”
“Are they wiggling?”
“No, they didn’t move a hair. Joshua, the feet are the first to go and sometimes the last to recover when your body atrophies. Walking is not going to come easily. Let’s wait on physical therapy. Do you need the bedpan?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you want me to do it, or do you want to wait for the nurse?”
“I don’t care. You do it, I need it now.”
Adele slid the pan into place and waited.
“OK. I’m done.”
The nurse was rolling the guest bed into the room when she spotted Adele returning from the bathroom with bedpan in hand. “You don’t have to do that. Just call for me, that’s what I’m paid to do.”
“Just part of being a mother. Listen, he wanted to get up and walk. He’s not ready yet, do you think?”
“No. He’s nowhere near ready for that. Don’t encourage him to try it, he could hurt himself.”
Adele slipped into the bathroom and changed into her night clothes, then lay on the bed next to Joshua’s. “Do you care if I turn on the TV for a while?”
She looked over when Joshua did not respond. He was again sleeping. She turned on CNN, and listened to the same old stories….trouble in Syria, information leaks, scandals here and there. She was nearly dozing when she heard………
“We have a story breaking on the good news front. Word has just come into us out of Somerset, Kentucky. You all remember the Jesus-type man who was credited for being the savior during the flu pandemic? We’ve just been told that today he has come out of his nine month long coma. We’ll follow up on that story as soon as we can have our people in the area. That’s great news, isn’t it Tillie?”
“It certainly is, John.” Tillie turned to the camera with a plastic smile and rehearsed line. “Maybe the headlines tomorrow will read, ‘He is risen’. In other news………
Patricia had called it right. Here they come.
+ + + + + + + + + +
By eight o’clock the next morning, Adele had already risen, dressed, folded up the guest bed and set it in the hallway, and been to the cafeteria for breakfast, and back. She sat in a chair, reading People magazine, when Joshua awoke.
“Good morning, sunshine. How you feeling?”
“Hungry.”
“We’ll take care of that in a bit. Did you sleep well?”
“You snore. What’s that tell you?”
“Sorry about that. So, another day in the light, eh?”
“Tell me what happened, Adele.”
“You mean about the business, and the sale?”
“Yeah. But get me a cookie or something. And some coffee. I miss the Arabica lounge.”
“I’ll be right back with something, then we’ll talk.”
She came back with Graham crackers and an orange juice. “Best I could do, bucko.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Strange deal, as it turned out. The people up there now operating the property are apple growers. McClintock Orchards. They built a greenhouse down in the valley, and planted three varieties of apple trees all around down there. They have orchards in two different states, but they wanted our property because of the NIL. They are making an apple cider energy drink. They call it Zapple juice. From what I hear they are doing fairly well with it. Anyway, after some haggling, we finally got to the closing table. I have something I want to show you.”
Adele reached into her overnight bag. “Look at this.”
Joshua was handed a check. His name the payee. He focused on the numbers. $657, 342.59. He blinked, making sure he was seeing the correct figure. “Here, you read it to me. How much is it for?”
She repeated the same number he thought he had read.
“Wow.”
“Wait a minute. I seem to have found another check. Look at this one.”
He squinted. His name the payee. The amount: $4,320.00. The payer was the Center for Disease Control.”
“And I have another little thing here. Let me see, what did I do with that?”
“Quit playin’.”
“Oh, here it is.” She threw wadded up bills on the bed. “Namanda found this under your cot in the loft. One thousand dollars.”
“Bless her heart. She could have run off with that and no one would have known better. I wonder where she is?”
“Joshua, you remember the day you had a bunch of kids in the workroom, forming an assembly line? Also, remember how there was s
upposed to be a thirty day period of due diligence? Well, it turned into six weeks before the contract came in. During those six weeks Namanda organized those kids and a bunch more. The way she worked it was three days a week the kids would pack the jars. The other days of the week the Mehras prepared the ingredients. She even taught some of the kids how to chop up and prepare the things according to the manual you made. She made up over six thousand jars before she ran out of a couple of the plants. McClintock didn’t care about her running them out of inventory, because all they wanted was the energy plants. Hachika quit sending anything from Arizona. The buyers didn’t give a hoot about that anyway. So the CDC bought all she could make. They realized with you being out of the loop that the window would close up in the future, so they bought more than was required for the flu, just to have it in storage.”
“Incredible. What a little firecracker she is. I miss her. Did the Mehras get compensated, or the kids she brought in?”
“Jack and I made a decision about that. The check you have there for over four thousand dollars represents your one-third share. Our shares were double that, and we gave up half of ours to them. So they made over four thousand dollars in those six weeks, and Namanda paid the kids out of that. How much, I don’t know.”
“So the NIL must have worked as far as the CDC was concerned?”
“Like a charm. CDC distributed the jars all over the country. Joshua, your name, and photograph, and the NIL name, became nationally known. You became quite the folk hero after you were shot. Before the CDC had the NIL, there were nineteen deaths in the U.S. attributed to the avian flu. After the NIL was distributed, there were only two. There hasn’t been any new reported cases of the avian strain since January. So, yeah buddy, it worked.”
“What month is this?”
“Middle of March.”
“I’m getting sleepy. Maybe I’ll get out of here soon. I have no idea where to go, though.”
“Get some sleep. I’m going to go meet Jack for a while, then I’ll be back later.” She wasn’t about to tell him where he was going to go. That would have to come later.
Autry came to visit at noon. He found Joshua watching an old rerun of Night Court. “Hey there, champ, how ya’ feelin’?”
“Hello, Autry, come have a seat. Autry, whatever became of Tracy?” Joshua turned off the television.
“Well sir, now that is a story all in itself. You know I locked her up overnight. You remember that, doncha?”
“Yeah.”
“Well in comes this Gloria lady, sick with what turned out to be da bird flu. She was gittin’ some NIL for her husband, but she was a comin’ down with it unbeknowns. She uses the bathroom there at the station, and gits to talkin’ with Tracy in her cell. Tracy winds up gittin’ the flu too. So, anyway, I let her go and run her down to the Tennessee line. She gits nabbed down there by the NSA and gits carted off to NSA HQ up in Fort Meade, and they arrange for her to fly to Belgium. Far as I know, she made it back home to her folks place. But, man, did she ever cause the flu to spread inside the NSA. It was a mess until that Bingham lady got ‘em a supply of NIL.
“What happened to the Mehras, Autry?”
Autry looked away from his friend, hoping Joshua would not be able to read his mind. “I don’t reckon I know. They just up and disappeared one day.”
“Autry, pour me some NIL, would you?”
“Shore thing. Here ya go.”
“Adele told me about Zapple cider. Have you had that yet?”
“Yeah, I tried it. Gotta admit, it does boost up yur git up an’ go, but it gave me the jitters. Ain’t nothing like that NIL there.”
“Have you heard from Van Vance?”
Autry once again had to look away. “No sir, don’t reckon I have.”
“How about that teenage boy over near Bowling Green? Jimmie O’Brien I think is his name.”
“Got cured. He had the cancer, ya know, down where it hurts. He don’t no more. Him an’ his ma an’ his aunt made an appearance on national TV durin’ the time the NIL was hotter than a pistol. Done the NIL name good, them people did.”
“I wonder what Adele is doing. She’s been gone quite a while.”
Autry didn’t answer. Too much subterfuge going on. “Well, sir, I gotta git back on the job. If’n I don’t see ya tonight, I’ll for shore be back tomorrow.”
“Thanks for visiting Autry. You’re my best friend, you know?”
“Aw shucks. I’ll be seein’ ya.” Autry sauntered out of the room, then ducked back inside half way. “Your mine too.” Then he was gone.
Adele, with Jack, didn’t arrive until after four o’clock.
“Where have you been? You’ve been gone for going on eight hours.”
Adele looked at Jack, who pulled out a packet from his coat. He handed it to Adele. “Are you sitting down, my boy?”
“Don’t make me laugh.”
Adele opened the manila envelope. “What do you think of this?” She handed Joshua a printout, from a Realtor, that displayed a picture of an A frame home, tucked into the trees. Beside that picture was another one showing a body of water.
“What is this?”
“It’s our new summer home, honey. We hadn’t planned on doing this in March, but we did plan on doing it in late April. But since you invited us down here by waking up, we went ahead and did it. The cottage has a splendid view of the Cumberland River. And that ain’t all, dear. Take a look at this.”
“Oh my. Really? You bought this, or what?”
“It sleeps eight, sweetie. It isn’t new, but it looks it. We took it out for the shakedown today, and it runs like a top. I think it’s the nicest houseboat on the river. We bought it today, and we will keep it at a marina that is walking distance from the cottage. We completed the deal on both things while we were gone today. So what do you think?”
“I am really happy for you guys. This beats the heck out of that little flat spot up on the ridge.”
“It surely does. Joshua, I hope you will consider staying in either the cottage or the houseboat. You could find something to do around here. You’re so good with carpentry. It wouldn’t take you long to find jobs you’d enjoy doing.”
“That’s a thought. I am really anxious to get up out of this bed. That’s what I want first of all.”
“Tomorrow you will do just that. They’re going to start the physical therapy right here in the hospital. And now Jack’s got something he wants to ask you.”
Jack neared the bedside and took hold of Joshua’s hand. “Joshua, we’d like it if you became our son.”
Tears appeared in Joshua’s eyes. He took a moment to respond, then said, “I do.”
Adele bent down and hugged him, kissing him on the forehead. “I love you, son,” she said, holding back the tears.
Jack and Adele stayed a few more minutes, then said they wanted to go shopping for kitchen supplies for the boat and the new home. They also said they wanted to sleep overnight in the houseboat, but that they’d both be back in the morning.
Joshua slept all through the night, dreaming of cruising down the river, fishing pole at the ready.