AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Well, good. It sounds like she’s coming around. I’m sure the doctor will want to keep her overnight. You’re welcome to stay.”
After the nurse bustled away, Ravinia looked back down at Catherine. “What are you doing?” she asked her. “Is this for real?” She watched her breathe for several moments. “Was D. your lover? Was he Janet’s husband?” she asked again, pressing.
Catherine’s lips moved, but no sound issued forth.
“What?” Ravinia gingerly leaned forward, trying to hear. She waited, her heart trip-hammering.
Finally, she heard Catherine say on a soft breath, “Dead gun.”
“Dead gun?” Gooseflesh rose on her arms as she waited for Catherine to respond, but the only sound was her aunt’s heavy breathing.
Ravinia stood in silence for long moments. She could see her aunt relax into the pillows, and she felt the release of some tension in the room she hadn’t known existed. Gazing thoughtfully at the book, she riffled through the pages. Well, there were a lot more entries and a few hours left till daylight. She could get a lot of reading done.
Settling herself into a chair, she read a few more passages, and then she asked suddenly, “Or is D. Janet’s father?”
Catherine just slept on.
Sunday dawned gray and cold, and Savvy turned toward the window, waking up disoriented at first, and then bang. She remembered everything in a rush.
She sat straight up in bed, felt muscles shriek in protest, and froze where she was in bed. A white world was unveiling itself in the patchy sunlight that filtered in after the storm. At least the snow had stopped, but the sky was still filled with scattered clouds, which looked like they might turn ominous.
There was a small overnight bag on the only chair in the room. She hazily recalled Hale coming back in and dropping it there. Gingerly, she stepped out of bed, walked to the chair, unzipped the bag, and reached inside, pulling out a neatly folded, clean, dark pink sailcloth blouse. Kristina’s. Savvy hesitated a moment, remembering the bag sitting in the backseat footwell in Hale’s car. Well, she really couldn’t put on her own soiled clothes, but the idea of putting on her injured sister’s garments felt wrong somehow.
Nevertheless, she slipped her arms down the blouse’s sleeves; there was no way she would even try on her bigger-chested sister’s bra, although if it was ever going to fit her, she supposed it would be now. She felt a poignant rush of love for her troubled sister, and she stood there a moment before pulling on the fresh underwear and dark brown slacks. There was no way she was going to be able to get that zipper over her distended abdomen.
She made a trip to the bathroom, then carefully arranged the hem of Kristina’s blouse over her gaping zipper. Catching her reflection in the mirror, she made a face at the horror show that looked back. Her hair looked like it had been through a blender, reddish-brown tufts sticking out like they were trying to escape her head, and the dark circles under her eyes were testament to the previous wild night.
Everything from the waist down was sore. No big surprise there. Though they wore the same shoe size, her sister’s slip-on leather mules were a little tight. Savvy’s feet had grown during pregnancy, and she wasn’t sure they were going to go back to their previous size.
Anxious to find out about Declan and her sister, she headed for the door but was met by Nurse Baransky, who clucked at her and said she would get Savvy a wheelchair.
“Don’t you ever go home?” Savvy asked.
“It’s been one emergency after another,” she said. “I’m leaving soon.”
“I don’t want a wheelchair,” Savvy said and walked out of the room before Baransky could stop her, albeit hunched over protectively a little bit as there was definite pain involved. But she didn’t care. The same kind of adrenaline rush that had overtaken her when she was ready to deliver was moving through her bloodstream again. She needed to know about the baby and her sister.
“Kristina St. Cloud is in recovery from surgery yesterday,” she said to a nurse at the first station she came to. “She’s my sister.”
The woman looked up at Savvy, who self-consciously ran a hand over her hair. Without a word to her, she placed a call and asked for someone named Patricia, then listened for a few moments. After she hung up, she seemed to be considering her words carefully, as she directed, “Take this hall to the ICU waiting area.” She pointed to the east. “Dr. Oberon will meet you there.”
“Oberon’s my sister’s doctor?”
She gave one terse nod, said, “Her surgeon,” then quickly went back to her work.
Her attitude turned Savvy’s heartbeat into a hard knock, the pounding increasing with each footstep. The nurse hadn’t wanted to talk to her. Hadn’t wanted to answer further questions. Had wanted to be rid of her as fast as possible.
Please . . . God . . . , she thought, reaching an intersection at the end of the hall and seeing the intensive care unit sign above a closed door with a small glass window. Savvy peered through one of the windows and saw Hale in the hall beyond, his head bent, listening to a man with wavy brown hair who wore a white lab coat and a grave expression. Oberon, she decided, her throat dry.
She pushed through the door, and Oberon looked up. Hale turned his head at the doctor’s sudden shift of attention, and in his eyes she saw the answer she was dreading.
“No . . . ,” she whispered.
“You’re Mrs. St. Cloud’s sister?” the doctor asked.
“Yes.” She could barely get it out as she read his name tag. Yes, Oberon. She glanced down, and the floor seemed to buckle and sway.
“She died early this morning. There was too much pressure,” the doctor said, but any other words coming from his mouth were buried under a buzzing in her ears and the edges of blackness creeping into her peripheral vision.
