“Thanks. I think I will.” Plus, I had to return her newspaper clipping to her personal belongings.
I walked down the hall towards her room, but as I neared I heard something odd. A soft murmur of voices was coming from within. Stepping inside, I was surprised to see a small group of people standing around the bed. Sophie was on it, covered by a sheet.
“Hello?” I said, giving them a curious look. A woman stepped up to me. I guessed her age to be around sixty, and something about her looked familiar.
“Hello,” she said, then looked at my nametag and a smile spread across her face. “You’re Michelle?”
“Yes.”
“It’s so nice to meet you.” She took my hand in hers. “Mother spoke so kindly of you. I’m sorry we haven’t met sooner, but you were the night nurse and visiting hours were over.”
“Mother?” I said.
She nodded towards the bed. “Yes, I’m Patricia, her daughter, a these are my sisters, Marilyn and Estelle. And we also have some of her grandchildren here too.”
I stared in shock. “Sophie had daughters?”
She smiled. “Yes. Three of them. And two sons also. She never talked about us?”
“No, never.”
“That’s very odd. You never asked about the picture there?” She pointed to a photograph on Sophie’s table, which showed three girls and one boy. Five children.
I stared at it. “I’ve never noticed that.”
She gave me a curious look but didn’t say anything.
“So Sophie got remarried?” I asked.
Her curious look deepened. “Remarried? No, she was only married once. Actually, it was her 70th wedding anniversary yesterday. Why, what did she tell you?”
“She told me her husband died during the war, and that she never remarried.”
The woman shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense. Was she suffering from dementia? Because I never saw any evidence of that.”
“Neither did I. She was always clear, up until the end.”
“I don’t know what to tell you then. Maybe she was joking around.”
“I don’t think so.” This was all so confusing. “The man she married,” I said, “what was his name?”
“John Davenport. Why?”
“And what year did he die?”
She gave me another puzzled look. “Dad? He’s as healthy as an ox, unless you know something I don’t.”
I stared at her. “He’s alive?”
“Of course. He’s here. He went downstairs to make the arrangements with the funeral home. He should be back any sec–” She glance over my shoulder and smiled. “Here he is. Dad, I was worried about you. This nurse was asking me when you died.”
I turned slowly, my heart racing. And then there he was, Johnny Davenport, the same man who I had spent last night with on the train. There was no doubt about it. Sure, he was 70 years older, his hair gray and his posture slightly stooped, but it was him. It was the same man. Same deep brown eyes.
He looked at me curiously.
“Dad,” Patricia said, “this is Nurse Michelle, Mom’s friend.”
Johnny smiled softly, and he held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Nurse Michelle. Sophie talked a lot about you. Told me how you kept her company late at night when she couldn’t sleep. I appreciate it.”
I placed my hand into his. “You’re welcome. She was a special woman.”
He glanced at the bed. “That she was.” He looked at me for a moment, then said, “Have we met before? Something about you looks so familiar. Especially around the eyes.”
I met his gaze. “I don’t believe so.”
“Huh.” He stared at me a moment longer, then said, “Must be my imagination playing tricks on me.”
“She told me about your wedding day,” I said.
He smiled. “She did, huh?”
“Yeah, told me how you got married on her lunch hour, then you waited around so you could take the train together to Charlesburg.”
He shook his head. “Seems like yesterday.”
“She said you two had an interesting train ride.”
His eyes became alert, sparkling. “She did, did she?”
I tried to sparkle back. “Oh yeah. Gave me all the details.”
His grin widened. “She must have really liked you to share something like that.”
I nodded. “We were close.”
“Did she tell you she saved my life on that train?”
It was my turn to look curious. “No she didn’t.”
“Well, we were sitting close together, just drifting off, if you know what I mean.” He winked and I knew exactly what he meant. “And then she suddenly blurted out, ‘Tell him about the blue cow?’ as if it was a question. So I asked her what she was talking about, and she said she wasn’t sure. Something about France and a blue cow. I told her that’s strange, but she got this look on her face and said, ‘Promise me, if you see a blue cow you’ll run away, okay?’ I told her she was being silly, but she made me promise, so I did.”
“That’s interesting.”
“And a month later, I’m in the middle of France and my unit is on its way to search a bicycle factory for hidden German soldiers. We get to the building, and there, painted on the side, was a large blue cow. I couldn’t believe it. I start running like hell, telling my platoon to get the hell away, and sure enough, a few seconds later a bomb drops out of the sky and the whole thing goes up in a huge explosion. We all would have died that day if not for Sophie and her warning.”
“That’s amazing,” I said, too numb to think of anything else.
“If not for that, I’d be dead and she would have married some other lucky bastard.”
I smiled. “Don’t be so sure of that. She loved you so much.”
“I know. And I felt the same way about her.”
“I better go and leave you folks alone. It was nice meeting you, Mr. Davenport.” I held out my hand.
“Call me Johnny,” he said, and took my hand in his. As he did, another look came over him. “You sure we haven’t met?”
I smiled. “I guess it’s possible.”
“Will you be at the funeral?”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
“See you then, Nurse Michelle.”
“Goodbye, Johnny.”
I walked out and took a deep breath. After making sure I was alone, I pulled the faded newspaper clipping from my pocket and gently opened it. There was Johnny’s eighteen-year-old face, still staring out at me, and still beneath the headline proclaiming him dead.
As I stared at the 70-year-old article, I realized I had been wrong about Sophie – the other, lonely Sophie. I had thought her life held no meaning, and that her life-long love for a dead man had been a waste. But I was wrong, because her unflagging devotion had led her to me and my love of romantic tales. And somehow, with help from something or someone, we had worked together to restore her life to its rightful purpose – one with no regrets.
I smiled and refolded the paper, then placed it back into my pocket. Then I headed off in search of Paul, wanting to remove any chance of regret from my life.
# # #
Any comments on this story can be sent to the author at [email protected]. Thank you for reading.
To view Jean-Luc Cheri’s latest releases and news about what’s coming soon, please go to www.jeanluccheri.eradygm.com
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Hot Erotica:
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Due to different constraints of various ebook distributors, and also various tastes among readers, I have creat
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Regret Page 3
