Touchstone

by Sharon Sala

  Houston’s gaze never wavered. “I didn’t come to visit,” he said, and pulled out of Jules’s grasp.

  Jules took a step after him, unable to believe that this man was going to bulldoze his way into Rachel’s room without any regard for authority.

  “I have to warn you,” he called out, “she doesn’t look like she did.”

  Houston stopped. When he turned around, there was a look on his face that made Jules flinch.

  “I don’t give a goddamn what she looks like,” Houston said softly, and then turned his back on Jules and walked away.

  Esther closed her eyes, sighing with relief. This Texas man seemed to be all Rachel had hinted at, and more.

  Houston walked inside, his gaze immediately drawn to the woman in the bed across the room. At the same time he was registering the devastation of her injuries, a weight that he’d carried for almost a year was lifting from his heart. He’d found her.

  Her eyes were heavily bandaged. What he could see of her face bore evidence of the cuts and burns that she’d suffered. But it was the repetitive beep of the heart monitor that drew him across the room to her bed. For now, that blessed sound of life still in progress was enough.

  He bent down, lightly brushing his lips across her forehead. Her skin was hot—too hot. And her eyelids were fluttering as if she was dreaming. There was a deep cut at the corner of her mouth and another one above her left eyebrow. His voice was shaking as he whispered in her ear.

  “Cherokee... baby... it’s me, Houston. I’m here with you.” He laid his hand on her arm. “This is me, touching you.” Overwhelmed by emotion, his voice broke, and he had to take a deep breath before he could continue. “Wherever you’ve gone, you can come back now. You are no longer alone.”

  Then he opened her mother’s music box, which he’d carried across so many miles. The notes spilled out, forming the familiar melody of “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” and blending with the intermittent beep of machines in the room.

  The field of bluebonnets was bathed in sunlight. Butterflies and honeybees wove invisible patterns of flight above the tall, stately blooms. The gently rolling prairie was a field of soft green, and the old split-rail fence separating Rachel from the flowers was gray with age.

  Warmth from the sun’s rays bathed her skin, while an errant spring breeze played with the ends of her hair. She looked down at herself, laughing in surprised delight at the clothes she was wearing. She’d had an outfit just like this when she was eight. The dress was red, with black embroidery around the neck and hem, and she’d cried when she finally outgrew it.

  Movement on the crest of the hill caught her eye. She looked up, her heart surging with joy.

  “Mama!” she cried, and ran forward, pulling up her skirt and climbing over the fence in one effortless motion.

  Rachel paused, thinking that she couldn’t remember her mother ever being this young—or this beautiful. Her thick black hair was hanging down her back instead of up in the braid that she’d always worn. Her skin was firm and smooth, and the smile she was wearing lit her all the way through. Then her mother waved and called out something Rachel couldn’t quite hear.

  “Wait there,” Rachel shouted. “I can’t hear you.”

  She started forward, wading through the knee-high bluebonnets, shifting the pattern of their serenity, and sending the butterflies and bees up into the air.

  She was closer now. She could hear the sound of her mother’s laughter. She felt weightless, as if her feet weren’t quite touching the ground, and never in her life had she known such a feeling of contentment. The sun continued to burn, shining brighter and brighter upon the place where her mother was standing until Rachel felt that, in this moment, all the light of the world had been concentrated upon the bluebonnet hill.

  Her mother lifted her arm and waved once again.

  Rachel waved back and started to run. “I see you, Mama. I see you.”

  Suddenly the sound of music filled the air. It was “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” her mother’s favorite song. But where was it coming from?

  “Cherokee... this is me, touching you.”

  She stumbled, catching herself just before she fell.

  That sounded like Houston. But he shouldn’t be here, and neither should the music. When she looked up, a shadow was passing on the ground between herself and her mother. To her horror, her mother suddenly turned away.

  “No, Mama, no!” Rachel screamed. “Don’t leave me again.”

  Again Houston’s voice came out of the darkness behind her, the sound carrying over the notes of the music.

  “I’m here, baby. You are no longer alone.”

  She looked up the hill. Her mother was gone.

  “No,” she moaned, then called aloud, “Mama, Mama, don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.”

  Again Houston spoke to her, his voice louder, more urgent.

  “I’m here, baby, I’m here. You’ll never be alone again.”

  She turned, her heart heavy with regret. With one last glance toward the sunlit hill and the bluebonnets waving in the breeze, she started walking toward the sound of the music, led by the promise he’d made. She was so tired of being alone.

  Jewel Amalfiano, RN, opened the door to her newest patient’s room and then frowned when she saw a man sitting in the corner in the shadows. The gossip was already spreading around the floor that Rachel Austin had been the victim of a crazed fan, and seeing a stranger in the room made her worry. She paused in the doorway, giving herself leeway to call for security should the need arise.

  “Sir, you’re not supposed to be in here!”

  Houston met her gaze with a straightforward stare. He’d been expecting this challenge ever since he sat down.

  “Yes, ma’am, I am,” he said softly.

  His answer startled the nurse. It wasn’t the excuse she normally heard.

  “Are you family?”

  “All she’s got.”

  The nurse relented, but only slightly. “I was given to understand that both of Miss Austin’s parents were dead.”

  Houston glanced at Rachel and then grinned at the nurse. “I can understand your concern,” he said. “But I’ve known Rachel for years, and I can assure you that my feelings for her are not fatherly.”

  Jewel almost blushed. Almost, but not quite. She still had a responsibility to her patients, especially one who might be the victim of a crime.

  “May I see some identification?” she asked.

  Houston stood immediately and handed her his wallet. The fact that it was bulging with cash was not lost on the nurse as she looked at the picture on his driver’s license. Then she saw the address.

  “You’re from Texas?” she asked as she handed his wallet back to him.

  Houston nodded. “Yes, ma’am. And so is she.”

  Jewel sighed. “I understand your concern, but we have rules. I’m sure you want only the best for Miss Austin.”

  “Are you the best?” Houston asked.

  Again Jewel was taken aback. The man kept turning her words around.

  “I like to think so,” she muttered, and then gave Houston a hard look. “And this woman is in my care.”

  Houston took off his Stetson and stepped forward, extending his hand.

  “And in mine,” he said softly. The tone of his voice deepened. “If someone is trying to harm Rachel, they’ll have to come through me to do it. Do you understand?”

  Jewel Amalfiano came from a long line of fiery Italians, and she knew persistence when she saw it. She sighed.

  Houston saw her relent, and he spoke before she had time to change her mind.

  “I will not get in your way,” he said. “But I cannot leave her alone. I promised.”

  Jewel knew that what she was about to do was against all hospital rules. She shook a finger in his face. “Don’t touch anything.”

  Houston nodded. “No, ma’am.”

  “And that means her, too.”

  Houston turned, his eyes soft
ening and his lips parting in a gentle smile as he gazed down at Rachel.

  “That’ll be a little bit harder to do.”

  Jewel caught herself smiling, too. Then she remembered why she’d come in and waved him back to his chair.

  “I can’t make promises about what will happen to you on the next shift,” she said. “But I’ll make a note on her chart, just the same.”

  Houston took a deep breath and then exhaled softly, feeling as if he’d just crossed a small but crucial bridge. He sat quietly, watching with sharp interest as the nurse took Rachel’s vitals and then checked her monitors and IV. A few minutes later, satisfied that all was well with her patient, the nurse left.

  Once again Houston found himself alone with the sound of the mechanical beep. Frowning, he picked up the music box and began to rewind it. As he set it down, he opened the lid. The melody trickled out like water spilling over a rocky creek bed. Clear. Distinct. Constant.

  The music box she’d left behind was all that was left of Rachel’s home. He hoped to God it was enough to bring her back to him.

  An empty tamale can lay on its side at the edge of the cabinet. The sauce that had dripped onto the floor below had been dry for days, but not so dry that the cockroaches covering the mess were refusing to feed. At least a week’s worth of dishes was piled high in the sink, and the milk in the refrigerator had long since gone sour.

  In the living room, pizza delivery boxes were piled high on the floor, and the rank scent of old food filled the room. Beatty stood in the middle of the living room with the television remote in his hand, flipping through channels with no regard for programming. His stare was blank, his gaze fixed upon the curtains above the television screen. The diagram of the bomb that he’d built kept running through his mind. He’d followed the instructions so carefully, from cutting the blue sheet of Flex X to attaching the electric initiator securely to the battery pack. Everything had been exactly the way it had been drawn. And yes, it had exploded. But why wasn’t she dead?

  A frown furrowed his forehead all the way to his hairline as he hit the power button on the remote and then tossed it on the cushion of a nearby chair.

  His belly grumbled, reminding him that another day had gone by and he had yet to replenish his store of food. Morose and feeling sorry for himself, he kicked at the stack of pizza boxes and then headed for the kitchen to get a beer. Maybe later he’d order up some Chinese. A pang of loneliness hit him. He hadn’t had Chinese since before Mother died.

  He turned on the light as he entered the kitchen, sending a good dozen cockroaches into hiding. At the sight, he flinched. Mother could not abide bugs. He headed for the cabinet beneath the sink to get the spray. It was only after he’d doused the cabinets and the dishes, both dirty and clean, that he remembered Mother was dead. Quietly he walked back into the living room and stood in silent condemnation of what he’d let his home become. A dark flush came up his neck, spreading across his cheeks and forehead. Instant heat. Instant shame.

  His right eye began to twitch as his belly tied itself into knots.

  “No more,” he muttered, and set the can of bug spray aside. “No more.”

  With more purpose than he would have believed himself capable of, he went for the garbage bags, then began gathering up refuse. Room by room, he rid himself of the filth, and in doing so, the weight sitting on his heart began to dissipate as well. By the time he was through and heading for the living room with a broom and mop in hand, he had come to a new understanding.

  Beatty stroked the broom straws across the floor with a strong, rapid motion, taking satisfaction in the reappearance of gleaming hardwood in much the same way that he’d pleasured himself beneath the shrine he’d built to a woman’s beauty. It wasn’t that the bomb had failed. In fact, quite the contrary. It had served its purpose nicely. Rachel Austin had suffered as he’d meant her to. Maybe he just hadn’t been looking at the results in the right context. According to the news reports, the beautiful Miss Austin wasn’t perfect anymore. Her skin was marked, and she could not see.

  Beatty added a little skip to his step as he moved through the rooms. She’d turned away from him, choosing taller, more handsome men than himself. He giggled. What now, pretty woman? Whom will you choose when you cannot see? Even better, who will have you when your beauty is as flawed as your soul?

  Relief bloomed. This was his justice. And he didn’t have to give her up after all. She had just needed to be taught a lesson. Now that she’d been humbled, she would be happy to take him back. It only stood to reason that she would need a place to stay when the hospital released her. And since she was flawed, he was certain that her employers would be letting her go. This was perfect. She would welcome his attention with open arms. She had to. Only this time, he would be the one in control.

  With a strut in his step, he hung the mop up to dry and put the broom in the closet, then headed for his mother’s room. A slight pang of regret tugged at him as he pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  This room hadn’t changed for as long as he could remember. It was past time for renovations. And first thing tomorrow, he would call in sick and then begin readying the room for Rachel’s return.

  That night, and for the first time in days, Beatty had a sense of purpose again. Just before he drifted off to sleep, he wondered what color he should paint Mother’s walls. Maybe pink. Rachel would probably like pink. And then it occurred to him that Rachel couldn’t see what color the walls were painted. He rolled over and tucked his pillow beneath his jaw. That was okay. He’d find other ways to make the room comfortable and attractive for her. Beatty smiled. He was good at taking care of women. He’d been doing it all of his life.

  Houston stepped off the elevator with a cold can of pop in one hand and a paper-wrapped hamburger in the other. The cafeteria food in the hospital was no worse than his cooking, and some days it was better. As long as he got enough sustenance to keep him going, he would take what was offered.

  He glanced down the hall toward Rachel’s room, then frowned. Some man was just going inside. From where he was standing, he could tell the man was carrying something, but he couldn’t tell what, and from the street clothes he was wearing, rather than scrubs or a white uniform, Houston could tell that he didn’t belong.

  Houston started walking, and by the time he got to the nurses’ station, he was in an all-out jog.

  “Jewel, who just went in Rachel’s room?” he asked.

  The RN turned. Houston Bookout had become as accepted on the floor as the staff, and she was surprised by the tension in his voice.

  “Why, no one,” she said.

  He set his food on the counter. “There’s a man in there. I saw him go in.”

  Jewel pointed at a nurse. “Call security,” she said.

  “Get them up here on the double.” Then she bolted out from behind the desk and ran to catch up with Houston.

  Frankie DeNiro was high on delight. His tip had paid off after all. He couldn’t begin to imagine what he was going to get for this picture. He leaned over Rachel’s bed, rapidly snapping one picture after the other, from every angle he could get. Suddenly the little camera whirred, and he knew he’d reached the end of the roll.

  He jammed it in a pocket in his pants leg, then zipped it safely inside before taking up the larger camera hanging around his neck. Four shots later a sharp pain pierced his neck.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he squealed.

  Then he turned around and knew that he’d been caught.

  The expression on the man’s face was ominous, as was the grip he had on Frankie’s throat.

  “I can’t breathe,” Frankie gasped.

  “That was my intention,” Houston whispered, and started dragging him out of the room by the neck.

  Jewel gave the intruder a disgusted look and took the camera out of his hands. “Here, let me hold this for you while he breaks your slimy little neck.”

  Houston gave her an appreciative gla
nce. Over the past few days he’d come to like this nurse more and more. While he watched, Jewel popped the film out of the camera and let it fall to the floor.

  “Oh my, how did that happen?” she said, and then shrugged and handed it all back. “Sorry. I don’t know much about cameras, after all.”

  Frankie heard the scuffle of running feet. Security would be here any second. All he had to do was play it hot, and if he was lucky, they’d never find the other camera on him.

  “How do you expect a man to make an honest living?” he complained, ruefully eyeing the exposed film.

  Then the man who was holding him gave him a sharp jerk, and it crossed his mind that he was glad security was coming.

  “Listen, you little son of a bitch,” Houston whispered. “You don’t come near Rachel Austin again. If you do, I will hurt you, more than you can ever imagine.”

  Frankie shuddered, then rolled his eyes and pointed wildly toward Houston as the security men slapped him in handcuffs and began leading him away.

  “He threatened me,” Frankie shouted. “You heard him. You all heard him.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jewel said. “But I didn’t hear a thing.”

  Houston watched until they were gone, then darted back into Rachel’s room to make sure she was okay. He watched in silence as one of Rachel’s doctors appeared to check her vitals. Only after Houston was satisfied that she was unharmed did he start to relax.

  He settled in a nearby chair to resume his silent vigil. A few moments later the door opened. He looked up. It was Jewel. She was carrying his pop and the sack with his hamburger.

  “This yours?” she asked.

  “Thanks.”

  Jewel handed them to him, watching with satisfaction as he unwrapped the hamburger and took a big bite.

  “You’re something, you know that?” she said.

  Houston looked up, still chewing, then grinned and shrugged.

  “I just made a decision,” she said.

  He swallowed, then asked, “What’s that?”

  “If I don’t ever find a man who loves me like you love her, then I’m not getting married.”