No way could I let him think I hated him for hiding the truth. His intentions had no doubt been to protect me, as he always had, but what about him? When had he found out he wasn’t my father? Had he always known, or discovered it later? Had it had something to do with their divorce?
Walking faster still, I hoped Dad would be awake when I got home. I wanted to talk to him now so I could tell him I loved him no matter what, and when he was ready and strong enough, maybe he’d give me some answers.
About fifty yards from my building’s front door, the winds picked up, carrying with them the smell of sea salt, and stripping leaves that still desperately clung to the trees. I buried my chin in my scarf and dug my hands deeper into my pockets. The sky was completely black now, hardly anyone left on the streets save for someone a short distance behind me, the clunk-clunk sound of their boots on the sidewalk echoing in my ears. Had they been there long? I hadn’t noticed because of the deafening noise of my thoughts.
I glanced over my shoulder, saw a tall man dressed in black walking behind me, and who, judging by the length of his strides, seemed in as much of a hurry as I was.
I slowed to let him pass, but instead of him walking by me, a heavy hand gripped my shoulder. At first I hoped he had an inappropriate way of asking for the time or directions, but when I spun around, his hoodie covered the top half of his head, and the shadows obscured the rest of his face. Other than the tip of a badly shaven chin, and the ghostly white skin beneath, I couldn’t make out any of his features. Something shiny in his right hand caught my eye. I looked down and gasped at the knife glinting in the moonlight.
“Your money.” He sounded raspy, and his breath smelled of stale booze. “Now.”
“I—I don’t have any. Please. I forgot my bag—”
“Pretty but stupid, eh?” He grabbed my shoulder again, his thumb digging underneath my collarbone. His knife was so close it grazed my stomach, catching on my jacket. “Give me your fucking money. Now, bitch.”
“I—I’m sorry,” I stammered, feeling small, pathetic. “Honestly, I left it—”
I didn’t see the punch coming. Only knew it had happened when his fist connected with my cheek. A crunch—from his hand, my face or both—vibrated in my ears as searing pain shot across my jaw. I stumbled sideways. He came at me again, pushed me to the ground where I lay on my back as he pressed the cold blade against my neck.
“Move and I’ll cut you.”
I didn’t budge, but he grabbed my hair anyway and slammed the back of my head against the concrete. Bright white stars exploded in front of my eyes and I heard myself let out an incoherent groan. I felt him patting down my chest, my pockets, cursing and swearing. His breath, coupled with the pain in my head, made me want to retch. When his fingers went inside my pants pockets, I attempted to swipe at his hand, but he swatted me away and punched my head again as he fired off another string of expletives about not finding my money.
My eyes rolled into the back of my head. As I gave in to the pain, wondering if I would die right there, in the middle of the street, I heard a yell in the distance.
“Hey!”
Because of the pounding in my ears I couldn’t tell how far away the voice was, or if the shout had been directed at us. Noise sounded strange, muffled, as if I’d been dropped into a swimming pool and was sinking to the bottom, left to drown.
“Hey!”
Definitely male. Deep and gruff. Closer this time, wasn’t it? The sound of what I thought were footsteps approached, fast and heavy, followed by another yell.
“Get away from her!”
When the man with the knife took off in the opposite direction, I rolled onto my side, chest heaving, mouth gulping for air as I curled up into a shivering ball.
Moments later someone crouched beside me. Someone smelling of sandalwood and laundry detergent. It was a familiar, comforting scent, but one I couldn’t place. I tried to push words from between my lips but nothing came out, and when my vision blurred again, making the human shape above me fuzzy, I closed my eyes, searching for relief.
“Eleanor? Eleanor! It’s you. Jesus! Talk to me.”
I wanted to answer, but couldn’t speak or open my eyes.
“Shit...shit... Hello? Yes, I need an ambulance.”
Through the brain fog, I grasped he’d called 911, and my woolly mind made quantum leaps to connect the dots. The voice belonged to Lewis Farrier, my upstairs neighbor. He was here to help. It meant I was safe. Tears snaked down the side of my face, pooling in my ear.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said as the weight of something soft and warm—his jacket?—spread over my chest and I felt him stroking my hair. “You’re going to be all right, I promise. I promise, Eleanor, it’s going to be okay.”
I wanted to look at him, to thank him, but the more I tried to focus, the darker everything around me became. The last of the light and all the remaining sounds merged into one, before fading to nothing, taking my words, my thoughts and every other part of me with it.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE FAINT BEEPING SOUND became louder, cutting through the murkiness that had taken hold of my brain, making fragments of memories fit together like jigsaw puzzle pieces. I’d been attacked. A man had hurt me. The smell of his rancid breath lingered in my nostrils and I felt the sharp tip of a blade pressing against my skin. Was I safe? Was he still here?
My heart pounded as I forced my eyes open, squinting and wincing at the pain when the light hit my face full on. I pushed myself up, tried to take in the unfamiliar surroundings. I wasn’t dead, at least I didn’t think so, but this wasn’t my bedroom with its teal-painted walls and the blossom branch decal I’d painstakingly stuck above my bed one rainy afternoon. The windows in this room had blinds, not the turquoise satin curtains with the blackout backing I’d found at Target and silently thanked the gods of retail for because they’d been seventy-five percent off in the sale.
No, this wasn’t home, but when I tried to move my head again to figure out where I was, another sharp pain shot from the middle of my head right down my spine.
I lifted my hand to identify the source of the pressure on my finger. It took a while to focus, recognize the object as one of those things to measure—what was it again?—yes, that was it, oxygen levels in the blood. Why was it such an effort to think?
My gaze followed the cable to a machine standing on wheels to the left of the bed, its display jam-packed with colorful numbers I couldn’t decipher, but which gave me a clue. A hospital. I was in a hospital. But who had brought me in, and how long had I been there?
As I tried to remember, my next thoughts went to Dad. He was sick. He needed me. I had to make sure he was okay. As I searched for a phone, trying not to move my head or my eyes too much, a nurse walked in. She was thin as six o’clock, with chicken-feathered, eggplant-colored hair, and when she saw I was awake she tilted her head to one side, her face breaking into a comforting smile.
“Welcome back, Eleanor,” she said. “I’m Miranda, and I’ll be your nurse today. Do you know where you are?”
“Hospital.” My voice croaked and broke over the single word.
“Yes, very good. You’re in ICU for close monitoring, okay? You had a bit of a rough time, didn’t you? How are you feeling, dear?”
I tried clearing my throat but winced again. “I...I hurt... My head feels really bad.”
“You took quite the blow to the back—”
“There was a man. He grabbed me and—” I stopped as tears filled my eyes, increasing the pressure in my skull, making me bite my lip as anger and frustration built within me. I’d never been attacked before. Had always thought I’d scream and kick, scratch and bite. When it came down to it, my fear and the element of surprise had been on his side because every single one of my muscles had frozen, and I’d done nothing to defend myself. Nothing at all. I gulped in some air, said, “Uh
, I think my neighbor...Lewis. He helped me.”
“Lewis Farrier?” Nurse Miranda smiled again. “He should be here soon.”
“What time is it?” I said, trying to lift the covers. “I have to call my dad.”
“Nine thirty.”
Nurse Miranda rearranged the sheets and blankets on top of me, tucking me in as if I were a child. I sank back onto the pillow as she handed me a glass of water. Dad would be asleep now, which meant I could call him in the morning, except when I looked at the light coming in from the window, it didn’t add up.
“But it’s bright outside.”
Nurse Miranda nodded, taking the glass from me. “It’s Saturday morning, dear.”
My heart sped up again as I struggled against the blankets, kicking them away, scrambling to get them off me. “No, it can’t be. I have to leave. I’ve got to see my—”
“You can’t go anywhere.” She crossed her arms, looking down at me with the sternest of expressions, sending a clear message she wouldn’t put up with any of my nonsense. “You took a severe blow to the head and you were unconscious for a while, drifted in and out all night. We’ll wait for the doctor—”
“I’m fine. I’ll be fine,” I said, trying to ignore the fact my head pounded so hard, I thought I’d pass out. Nurse Miranda’s face, the walls—the entire room—began to spin, making my stomach churn. Not quite defeated, I slumped onto my side, refusing to give up. I needed to get out of there. “You don’t understand. My dad’s sick. I have to see him. Please let me—”
“Eleanor?” Lewis’s deep, gravelly voice made me stop fighting and turn around. He stood in the doorway, his blond hair looked damp, as if he’d not long ago stepped out of the shower. As he moved closer, he brought the unmistakable scent of sandalwood with him, the one I’d smelled last night as he’d held me, whispered everything would be okay. The familiarity of his aftershave, the instant security it provided, made me choke on my tears.
“Mr. Farrier.” Nurse Miranda’s face lit up, looking like a kid who’d been presented with an ice-cream sundae for breakfast. “Good to see you again. Maybe you can help me talk some sense into this young lady. She’s trying to leave.”
“Oh, no, no. You can’t.” Lewis only needed two strides to get to the bed, where he reached out and patted my hand, making my skin tingle. “You have to stay here so they can make sure you’re okay. There’s no way you can leave.”
Nurse Miranda looked down at me with a told-you-so expression, and as Lewis removed his hand from mine, a scarlet blush shot straight up my arm, all the way to my face, where it set my cheeks on fire.
As neighbors went, Lewis and I didn’t know each other well, had crossed paths in the apartment building a few times since he’d moved in last August. The first instance was when I’d gone to the mailboxes, hoping to find a check from one of my clients, the funeral home called Worthy & Moore. They hadn’t paid the final installment for their website for over two weeks, despite three calls from me and multiple assurances from them they were satisfied with my work.
“Ours is but the most important of businesses,” Mr. Moore, an impossibly tall man with a glass eye, had said in a grave voice as we signed the contract a few weeks prior. “After all, it’s the last purchase you’ll ever make.”
Obviously, paying their suppliers on time wasn’t important to Mr. Moore, because when I got to my creaky old mailbox, it was still empty. “Crap,” I said. “Crap, crap, crap.”
“Anything I can help with?”
The voice made me jump. I hadn’t noticed anyone come down the stairs behind me, or the man who now stood three mailboxes away. He looked about my age, and I tried hard not to stare at his smooth olive skin, big green eyes and blond hair reaching his wide shoulders. Not nearly as hard as I fought against letting my gaze linger on how his T-shirt grazed his flat middle and strained against his toned arms.
A familiar voice crept into my head, whispering I should’ve changed out of my panda-print pajamas before lunchtime. At least attempted to put on makeup. Done more with my hair than shove it on top of my head, where I’d secured it with an old, faded, blue velour scrunchie that probably had its heyday in the ’80s. Chasing the words in my head away and chastising myself for caring one iota what he—or any man—might think, I’d muttered, “No, thanks, I’m fine,” and scurried back upstairs.
The next time we’d met hadn’t been less embarrassing; in fact, it had been worse. I’d decided to do laundry in the basement, a place I ventured only in desperate times. It was creepy, dark and dingy, and the hallway should’ve been nominated as “most probable place for a Portland murder.” That hadn’t happened so far—the nomination or the murder—not as far as I knew anyway, but I tried to spend as little time down there as possible. As I rushed around the corner to the laundry room, I collided with the person coming in the opposite direction, sending his bottle of detergent, my basket and all the clothes in it crashing to the floor.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, realizing who I’d rammed into. The mystery mailbox man.
“Totally my fault.” He took a step back and looked at me. “Hey, it’s you.”
I frowned, unsure what he’d meant with his comment. To avoid further humiliation, I kept my face down while bending over to pick up my clothes.
“I wondered where you’d got to,” he said. When I looked at him with a puzzled stare, he quickly added, “I mean because I haven’t seen you around. I’m Lewis, by the way. Lewis Farrier. We met at the mailboxes. I think I live in the apartment above you.”
I nodded, my lips glued shut by an invisible force.
He leaned in, stage-whispered, “This is the bit where you tell me your name.”
“Oh, uh, Eleanor Hardwicke,” I said, grateful for the landlord’s penny-pinching approach to lighting the communal areas, and hoping the low-wattage bulb above us would do a good enough job at hiding yet another ridiculous expression that had no doubt taken over my face.
“Pleased to officially meet you.” Lewis held out a hand, and as I extended mine, I looked down at the pair of polka-dot underwear still clenched between my fingers. Unwashed polka-dot underwear. I wished for a meteor to fall on my head or a sinkhole to open up beneath my feet, but no such luck. Instead I pulled my hand and the offending object away as I mumbled something about being late for an appointment and made another run for it.
Mrs. Winchester—my oldest neighbor, who’d lived in the building forever and knew everybody’s business—was only too happy to inform me the next morning that the “rugged man living upstairs” was a personal trainer. She’d secretly named him Luscious Lewis and insisted he should be on the cover of Men’s Health.
“You read Men’s Health?” I said.
“Got a copy in the mail by mistake once. Read it cover to cover. Five times.” She winked and chuckled, then waggled her eyebrows. “Would it surprise you to know he’s single?”
“How do you know?”
“I asked him, silly girl. Invited him in for a cup of coffee and a chat. He’s excellent company, you know. Very polite. Anyway, my point is you’re still single, too, aren’t you? And I can’t understand why. You’re clever, independent and attractive—”
“I’m not—”
“Maybe I’ll get him to ask you out. Who knows what might happen?”
I’d coughed and spluttered, told her going out with a neighbor was a terrible idea. Of course the real reason was because I’d identified Lewis as at least a million levels out of my league from the first time I’d set eyes on him. Not that it mattered. I wasn’t looking for any kind of a relationship. I’d been perfectly happy on my own for years.
I’d avoided Lewis from then on, which wasn’t too difficult. I saw him leave for work early, generally before six when I stood at my window with my first cup of coffee, and didn’t hear him moving about upstairs again until well after ten at night. He kept busy, which m
ade it easy for me to keep out of his way. Except now, as he stood over my hospital bed with a face full of concern, avoiding him had become impossible.
Nurse Miranda didn’t appear to be in much of a hurry to leave, either. She took my vitals and checked the machines for the third time in five minutes. Her diligence, I presumed, was perhaps a little less about the state of my health and more about getting a longer look at Lewis. Who could blame her? He was one of those people who could’ve been sculpted from a block of granite before stepping off the pedestal, destined to walk among us lesser mortals.
“I’ll call Dr. Chang.” Nurse Miranda directed the words at me while beaming at Lewis. “She’ll be with you shortly. I’ll leave you two to catch up in the meantime.”
I wanted to ask her to stay, tell her that, other than watching Lewis come and go on his fluorescent-green mountain bike from my living room window, I didn’t know anything about him. As he stood in front of me, I couldn’t find the courage to ask.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered after she’d left, his voice urgent. “I’m really, really sorry.”
Of all the things I’d expected to hear, this wasn’t one of them. “Why?”
“For not getting to you sooner.” He shook his head, stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans as he rocked on his heels like a boulder. “I’ve been cursing myself since last night. If I hadn’t left my bike key at the gym, or if I’d left thirty seconds earlier, I’d have been able to stop the guy. Hell, if I’d left a minute earlier, he might not have touched you at all.”
“It’s not your fault. Don’t forget, if you’d left a minute later, the back of my skull might be stuck to the sidewalk.”
Lewis smiled, his shoulders dropping. “Are you always this pragmatic?”
Sister Dear Page 3
