“Don’t even think of moving from that seat, Melissa. ‘Notes for Christian?’ What in the world do you mean, Lizzy?”
Melissa took ahold of Liz’s arm as she felt her friend start to twitch wanting to escape.
“Yes, Lizzy. What exactly do you mean?” The expression on Melissa’s face was a clear sign to Liz. Do not say anything incriminating.
“I was only making an off-hand comment in the most innocent way about how you and Christian Cutterson sometimes talk to each other and do not always see eye-to-eye about certain aspects of where the talking is leading.” Melissa’s expression turned darker with every word that came out of Liz’s mouth. Melissa turned to her mother and saw with some dismay the grin had gotten bigger.
Melissa gave in and rolled her eyes. She waited for Anna to launch into her normal spiel of how to hook the guy for the comfort of the future. Instead, Anna patted Melissa’s knee and left the room, her walk infused with motherly righteousness of knowing what was best for their children. It permeated Anna’s walk with pep, adding a sashay to her step, as if everything she had secretly planned was falling to into place.
When she was absolutely sure Anna was out of the room, Melissa jumped up and came very close to choking her best friend.
“What on earth came over you? Do you know how much ammunition you just gave her? I am never going to hear the end of ‘Christian this’ and ‘Christian that.’ She’s going to talk about him so much that I am going to end up hating him just for the principle fact that she likes him and approves of us together.”
Liz looked at her friend and saw what she had been waiting to see the whole time. Instead of answering Melissa, Liz leaned back and dug her cell phone from her pocket. She flipped it open, making Melissa laugh, and hit a button.
“Hey, Christian, it’s Liz. Yeah, I’m fine. I have some odd news. Can be good, can be bad, depends on the point of view you want to use. I spilled the beans to Melissa’s mama that the two of you talk. Yeah. Okay, hold on.” Liz held out the phone to Melissa. She heard Christian give one explosive oath that was loud enough Liz was glad the phone was away from her ear. They listened together as the oath turned into a rant along the lines of how could this have happened? Liz unhanded the phone and left Melissa on her own.
“This is very dangerous for our way of life, Melissa. Do you have any ideas about rectifying this situation?”
Melissa leaned her head into her hand and wished her best friend did not have such a loose tongue.
“Christian, calm down. I did not even get to explain the situation to my mother so I don’t know how this is going to affect us because my mother made no comment about it. She just gave a haughty look and walked from the room.”
“What if our parents get in contact with each other? They have the potential to make things really difficult for us if they get the idea to match us together.”
“You can’t go right to the worst-case scenario. Why put yourself through that? She is going to ask me about you and us and how things are going every single day. I’m already hating you a little bit.”
Christian actually laughed. “No worries, baby. I will strive to make sure that never happens even if we have to go on the super down-low. So, what are you wearing?”
Melissa laughed and felt the tightness in her chest ease. After telling him to get back to work, she flipped the phone closed and handed it back to Liz. Then she sat and stared out the window and wondered when her mother will be beginning her onslaught. She turned to look at Liz.
“First of all, you need to get into the twenty-first century and get a smartphone because, whoa, is that thing old. Second of all, how on earth did you get his number??”
Liz laughed. “No I don’t. I love my little flip phone. When I get mad, it’s so satisfying to slam it closed. Second of all, I got it from Conner. You’ve seen the way he looks at me, right? Well, I decided to make him a little jealous and ask him for Christian’s number. It backfired a little because he mostly backed off a lot, but I have a feeling I can still get him.” Liz paused a moment, to think about Melissa’s brother Conner. She zoned back in to Melissa smiling and shaking her head.
“You are completely one of a kind. And a little crazy, honestly. Hopefully all this isn’t going to bite me in the ass too hard.”
They turned and walked from the room together, one looking for a way to occupy the next five minutes, the other looking for something that would occupy her worried mind for . . . ever.
~ ~ ~
Two days later, Melissa leaned on the doorjamb as Dr. Chrome examined her sister. There was a lot of poking and “Say AHHHHH” with the resounding little girl “AHHHHH.” It seemed to her to take longer than it should have. When he was finally done, he tucked Ashley back into bed and walked from the room, shutting the door behind him.
Anna and Melissa were waiting anxiously for his diagnosis. He took off his glasses and shook his head. Melissa’s stomach plummeted to the basement. With his glasses in his hand, the expression on the doctor’s face looked graver than Melissa preferred.
“I have no idea how she caught it, but it looks like a case of a very rare disease that the medical world thought was eliminated decades ago. It’s something called Dimoritality Fever. It has the same qualities of Tuberculosis and Hay Fever and it adds a few more traits of its own. I am also going to warn you, and I’m sorry that you need to hear it this way, but because we thought it was eradicated we no longer make any type of medicine to treat this illness. What I mean is, that at this stage of the illness, it’s, well, it’s fatal.” There was a beat of horrific silence. The doctor reached over and held Anna’s hand for a moment. As he turned to leave, Anna stopped him.
“Wait, I need you to look at Max as well. He seems to have the same ailment as Ashley.” Melissa could feel her whole world crumbling around her. She tried desperately to hold it together and shockingly enough succeeded.
“Mom, go sit with Ashley. I’ll take Dr. Chrome to Dad and make sure that stubborn man does as he’s told.” She reached out and held her mother close for a minute and then turned to take the doctor to her father’s office.
He sat, regal and more than a little pale, behind his massive desk. It looked as if he had just had one of his coughing fits and every few seconds would look toward Melissa’s favorite window seat. It broke her heart a little to catch him needing her when she wasn’t there. She knocked on the door and walked in without waiting for a reply.
“Hey, Dad. This is Dr. Chrome. He just finished examining Ashley and has given us some very painful news. Since the two of you sound like you have the same ailment, Mom and I decided to have you examined as well. And I want to hear no whining or protesting. Do what the doctor tells you. Or else.” To her utter shock, her ‘don’t worry about me’ father nodded and waved the doctor over.
More of the same as it was with Ashley. “Say AHHHHH” but the resounding “Ahhhh” wasn’t as strong as Ashley’s had been, troubling Melissa even more. The doctor poked a little longer and then sighed and nodded to Melissa. They exited from the room together. The graveness seemed to be etched into the doctor’s face.
“It seems Max is suffering from the same fever that Ashley has. Have they taken any trips together? Did they go somewhere separately and then spend a large amount of time together? I need to find out how these two came to have this illness. It’s very rare and I’m not entirely sure if it’s contagious or not. You and your mother and brother don’t seem to have the disease but it never hurts to be sure.” Melissa felt as if every nerve in her body had gone dead except the ones in her ears.
After the doctor left, Melissa searched the house for her mother. She saw Conner and shook her head. She saw Grace and shook her head. Melissa finally found her mother in the sitting room attached to one of the guest bedrooms. Melissa hadn’t even known the room existed and saw why her mother was ther
e. It was very secluded from the rest of the house. The door was almost invisible unless you were looking for it.
Melissa hesitated when she saw her mother’s shoulders shaking. Wanting to avoid a scene, Melissa began to back out of the room.
“If you are going to interrupt someone, then don’t do it and then leave. What did Dr. Chrome say about your dad?”
Melissa sighed and for the second time that week, sat and took her mother’s hand.
“Dad has the same thing that Ashley does. How did they get it? Did they go on a trip together? She’s only six. Where could the two of them have gone?”
Anna sighed deeply and looked at Melissa.
“Do you remember the trip you and your dad took when you were her age to our summer home in Maine? That charming house that is incredible in the warm months? Well, when you kids each got to be this age, he would take you there for three months and have some bonding time with you. With you, it worked a little too well as now you don’t leave him alone. With Conner, it was just right because he is a charming young man who will follow in his father’s footsteps. With Ashley? I don’t think your father or I ever had a prayer as that child is more yours than ours. I don’t know how on earth it happened. How are we ever going to live without them?”
Melissa was instantly alarmed by the tone and expression her mother was using. “We can’t think about that now. We have to stay positive they will get better. I know we noticed late in their sickness and it was rather sudden that they started to show symptoms, however it could be okay.” Clearly her mother didn’t hear a word Melissa said because all Anna did was pat Melissa’s knee and look off blankly into the distance. Melissa stood and walked from the room, suddenly desperate for a shoulder. She pulled out her phone and dialed one of the few phone numbers she knew by heart.
~ ~ ~
Swinging her car door open wide, Melissa launched herself from the car and got herself into arms that meant almost as much to her as her father’s quicker than lightning. They were strong and could offer exactly the comfort she needed. She looked up into the ice-blue eyes and knew she had made the right decision calling Christian. Even with harsh words shared between them, Christian knew that Melissa needed him. Christian ushered her into his house and they got no further than the foyer before Melissa broke completely. Christian tried to stem the flow with questions.
“You were basically hysterical on the phone. What’s wrong? Does your mother know you’re here?”
Melissa shook her head against his shoulder and instead of pushing her, he did the only thing he was good at. He swept her off her feet and settled with her on the couch, a position they knew well. But instead of it leading somewhere familiar, Christian kept it very platonic and stroked his fingers through her hair until she calmed down enough to talk.
“I don’t know if you have heard my dad coughing over the last few weeks but it has started to get worse. The day you snuck over was the first time I had heard Ashley do it as well. She has started to get worse. Tonight we called the doctor. He was nice enough to come to the house and after poking at them for almost an hour, he diagnosed them with a rare and thought-to-be-cured disease. A fever. It’s-It’s . . . It’s fatal.”
When she heard Christian suck in a breath, her dam broke, again. She wrapped her arms around Christian’s neck and cried until she was asleep from sheer exhaustion.
Christian looked down at the emotion-wrecked woman in his lap and didn’t quite know what to do. He stood up and walked into his room. He should have put her in one of the guest rooms, his modest little house had five bedrooms besides the master, but he couldn’t bring himself to make her feel a guest. He wanted her in his bed when there wasn’t a lustful thought fueling the decision. She looked so pale against his dark sheets. He knew sleep was elemental right now and dug out his phone.
“Hey, Liz. I just wanted you to know that Mel is here with me. She’s had a pretty bad night. If you could come over? Yeah. I have a feeling that once she wakes up she is going to need you. Thanks.” He hung up and sat on the other side of Melissa. He wiggled flat and was surprised when in sleep she rolled over and curled into him. Her hand landed over his heart and fisted there in his shirt as if she was holding on for life. He wondered just how truthful that was. Did she hold his heart?
Chapter 2
Melissa woke feeling as if someone had run her over with a truck. She sat up and looked around, not remembering exactly where she was. Suddenly, it hit her that it was Christian’s bedroom. The shock of the day before came back to Melissa and the urge to go back to the bliss of unconsciousness was too strong for her own comfort. She got out of bed, scrounged around for some clothes, and came up with a big T-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts.
As Melissa walked toward the kitchen, she heard the tinkling of her fairy, the jangle made by the bracelets on her best friend’s arm, and tried desperately to choke back every thought of crying. Giving herself a mental pep talk as she entered the room, one look at Liz had all of her self-encouraging words draining from her head. She ran to her best friend and felt such relief as those toned arms encircled her.
“So, do we have to kick some doctor ass or is what Christian’s telling me true and your house has some crazy disease flying through it?”
Melissa couldn’t believe it but she actually laughed. It sounded closer to a hysterical cackle to her own ears but Melissa didn’t care in the least.
“Dr. Chrome is highly respected in his field and has been our family doctor for years, since I was little. Mom thinks it’s from that cabin we have in Maine. They recently built a chemical plant near there. Dad was worried about it, and he seems to have had good reason to be worried. They’ve only been back a few months. Dad took each one of us when we were little. He knows mothers bond well with their children. He wanted to make sure he was just as strongly bonded. How am I—”
Liz held up a hand to stop Melissa from mentioning all thoughts of eventually living without Max and Ashley. “So now we must go back home and be with them. What must Ashley be thinking? She needs you, and you are nowhere to be found.”
It was just the right thing to say. Melissa moved like a rocket around Christian’s house, getting dressed, finding her purse, and bulleting to her car to speed home. Christian felt as if he’d been sucked into a whirlwind.
“Jesus, you really do know her, don’t you?”
“Yes, I really do.” Liz couldn’t quite keep the smug expression off her face. “And if you aren’t careful, you’re going lose her. I know for a fact that you love her. Wow, that lightened your tan considerably. She is amazing. You’re going to realize it too late and she’s going to love someone else. Light the fire under your ass, my good man. Get over the fact that your families will go ape-shit at the thought of you two settling down together. That’s my pep talk of the day. I’m going to the spa. I have a feeling we have some stressful times ahead of us.”
Liz sashayed to her car and as Christian waved her away, he began to think of all the ways he could light his own fire and make sure it didn’t consume him.
~ ~ ~
Melissa walked into Ashley’s room and seeing her sister resting, wondered if her presence would disturb Ashley. Melissa sat down on the edge of the bed and reached out to gently stroke Ashley’s cheek. Little eyes fluttered open and what Ashley could muster as a smile spread across her face. Melissa smiled back, fighting tears, and the overwhelming sense of fury at the unfairness of it.
“I want to get up and play.” Melissa chuckled a little.
“Of course you do. I’m sure all of your toys miss you playing with them all day.” Melissa grabbed a book from the shelf. “How about a story for now?”
Ashley nodded and leaned her head on Melissa’s shoulder.
Melissa read to Ashley until she was asleep again then just lay there for a while holding onto her sister. Anna came
to the door and saw her two daughters snuggled together and had to choke back her own tears. Melissa looked up suddenly and smiled a little. She eased away from Ashley and followed her mother to the kitchen.
Melissa sat and watched as her steadfast “I always rely on the help” mother began making tea.
“For some reason, in every type of situation, my parents always made tea. So I figured I would try my hand at it.” As the water boiled, she came and sat next to Melissa.
Melissa wondered if she looked as tired as her mother sounded. The teapot began to shriek and both women jumped. Anna got up and made two cups of tea. Melissa added sugar and a drop of milk. The heat seeped into her hands and she prayed it seeped further, deeper, to her bones.
“How is it that watching someone die is almost as taxing as the person actually dying must feel?” Melissa glanced over at her mother, wondering if the stretched-out silence meant her mother was going to be candid for once and was surprised when she said what everyone was thinking.
“Because. We are going to have to live without them soon. They are going to be at peace and not suffer anymore. We are going to suffer without them every day until the hurt goes away to some distant corner where we don’t have to feel it anymore.”
Melissa remained silent and had to admit her mother was right. All she wanted to do was hide, escape, run away from the crushing fear of knowledge that her dad and her baby sister would eventually be gone.
“Why is the truth always so hard to hear?”
~ ~ ~
The days wore on. Melissa ran from bedroom to bedroom, helping her mother and the rest of the staff in caring for two ailing people. They grew weaker, paler, and thinner. The number of tears that were shed and tissues that were used to mop them up filled garbage bag after garbage bag. The men who came to take the trash away would have been shocked the heavy bags they hefted were full of nothing but tissues.
Heartbeat Echoes Page 3