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"Not to me. Never to me. Besides, I have servants who are bored because they have so little to do now, and you have Mrs. Broadfield."
"I'll see you outside," Dr. Malisoff said to him in a voice just above a whisper, a doctor's conference voice, and left my room. Tony remained staring down at me.
"I'll come twice a day," he promised. "And each time I'll bring you something." He put a light, happy tone into his voice, as if I were still a child who could be cheered up by toys and dolls. "Is there anything special you want?"
I couldn't think of anything; my mind was still too clouded with the tragic events and the impact of all that was to happen next.
"It doesn't matter. Let me surprise you each time." He stepped closer so he could lean over to kiss my forehead, and for a moment his hand lingered on my shoulder. "Thank God you're going to be all right, Annie. Thank God you're going to be with me and that I can do something to help you." He kept his face so close to mine, I felt his cheek graze my own. Then he kissed me again and left the room.
Mrs. Broadfield took my blood pressure and washed me down with a sponge and warm water. Afterward I lay there in a kind of daze with my eyes open, fighting back any tears. Finally I closed my eyes and dozed off.
Drake came to visit me the next day. I was so happy to see him. I was in a strange place, far from home, but I had family nearby, and family was one thing I always cherished.
He came to my bed and kissed me, hugging me gently, as if I were made of eggshells and he thought I might crack.
"You have some color in your cheeks today, Annie. How do you feel?"
"Very tired. I keep drifting in and out of sleep, in and out of dreams, and whenever I wake up, I have to tell myself where I am and what has happened. My mind won't hold onto the truth. It keeps throwing it out like last week's meat loaf."
He smiled and nodded and stroked my hair.
"Where have you been? What have you been doing?" I asked quickly, anxious to see how he had been handling the tragedy and his own sorrow.
"I decided to stay at school an
d finish the semester."
"Oh?" Somehow, I thought the whole world had stopped working for a while. Even the sun had refused to appear. Night had a tight grip on the earth. How could anyone work or live or be happy ever again?
"My teachers wanted to excuse me, but I thought if I didn't keep my mind on something, I would go mad with grief," he told me after he had pulled a chair up to the side of the bed. "I hope you don't think me too hard or indifferent for doing that, but I couldn't just sit around. It was too painful."
"You did the right thing, Drake. I'm sure it's what Mommy and Daddy would have wanted you to do."
He smiled, grateful for my understanding, but I believed what I was saying was true. No one handled hardship as well as Mommy could. Daddy always said she had a spine of steel. "CA-steel," he joked. What wouldn't give to hear one of his jokes now. "How wonderful that it's all behind you, Drake. No more studying for a while."
"But I'm not returning to Winnerrow. It will be too painful for me to return to that big empty house right now, and anyway, Tony Tatterton has made me a wonderful offer for the summer mouths."
"What sort of offer?" I asked, curious at how quickly Tony Tatterton had taken up the management of our lives,
"He's going to let me work as a junior executive at his offices, can you imagine? I'm not even out of college yet, but he's going to let me have some responsibility. He's even set me up with an apartment here in Boston. Doesn't that sound exciting and wonderful?"
"Yes, it does, Drake. I'm happy for you." I looked away. I knew it wasn't fair to Drake, but happiness seemed out of place at this moment. The whole world should be in mourning for me and my parents, I thought. The dark veil that had fallen over everything still clung to me. No matter how blue the sky really was, it would be gray to me.
"You don't sound too happy. Is it because of the medicine you're taking?"
"No." We stared at one another for a moment and I saw the sadness creeping back into his face, bringing shadows over his eyes and making his lips quiver. "No," I continued. "I've just been thinking a lot about Tony. I can't help wondering why he has come rushing into our lives and why he's being so wonderful to us. For the longest time, our family treated him as if he didn't exist. You'd think he'd hate us. Don't you wonder, too?"
"What's there to wonder about? A terrible, terrible tragedy has occurred and he . . . he's part of the family in a real way. I mean, he was married to your great-grandmother and my step-sister's
grandmother, and he has no one. His younger brother committed suicide, you know," Drake added in a deep whisper. Mrs. Broadfield was walking in and out of the room.
"Younger brother? I don't remember any mention of him."
"Well, Logan once told me something about him. Seems he had always been a very introverted man who kept to himself and lived in a cottage on the other side of the maze instead of in that big, wonderful house."
"Cottage? Did you say a cottage?"
"Yes."
