Starting from Scratch

by Marie Ferrarella

  “You’ll work with my edit?”

  He wasn’t about to go as far as to give her a blanket promise. “I won’t ignore it.”

  “What does that mean? Exactly?”

  She was getting cold feet already, he thought. Good. Feeling magnanimous—and confident that she didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of holding her own—he said, “That if it doesn’t completely turn my stomach, I’ll take it the step further that you want.”

  “Can’t ask for more than that.”

  “No,” he said pointedly, “you can’t.”

  She had no idea why she felt as if he was putting her on notice. After a beat, she put her hand in his, sealing the bargain.

  A small part of her felt as if she’d just made a deal with the devil. But the cast-iron doors had just slammed shut behind her and there was no backing out. Not without seriously burning her posterior.

  CHAPTER 19

  1:59 p.m.

  Elisha had lost track of how many times she had looked at her watch in the last half hour or so. Each time she did, it seemed as if the minute hand had gotten glued in place and that she was stuck in some endless science-fiction time loop that had doomed her to repeat the same action over and over again forever.

  It was because of Sutherland. Sutherland and the damn poker game. It was on for tonight. Just thinking about it caused the adrenaline to rush through her veins.

  Outside, the weather was teasing the windowpanes, alternately covering them with sheets of rain and then droplets. The sun had made a few futile attempts to break through, succeeded once for ten minutes and then surrendered to the inclement conditions. She stared at the rain as it came down, her mind elsewhere.

  She was both looking forward to and dreading the poker game to which she had more or less challenged Sutherland. Dreading it because it had been a long time since she’d played those versions of the game she’d rattled off so easily. There was no doubt in her mind that she was rusty, and she hated making a fool of herself.

  In order to practice, she’d tried to get just the barest of games going with Rocky. She’d won every hand she played against him, but her success didn’t raise her confidence. The man’s facial muscles were completely incompatible with the term “poker face.” She could almost see each hand Rocky held in his eyes.

  She was looking forward to playing against Sutherland because it was going to be exciting in a nerve-racking sort of way and, try as she might, she couldn’t remember the last time that she had done anything even remotely exciting.

  Despite its hectic pace, her life had gotten far too predictable.

  She glanced at her watch again.

  2:00 p.m.

  It was still a good four hours before she was supposed to show up at Sutherland’s Tribeca apartment, where he and his poker cronies, or whatever he chose to call them, gathered for their weekly game. She sighed, slipping her sleeve back over her wrist.

  The minutes were crawling by on the back of a sloth whose feet were stuck in molasses.

  She needed something to get her mind off the pending game and the wager she’d somehow gotten into.

  Right, Elisha laughed at herself. As if that were possible. Despite the load of work on her desk—no different than any other day at the office—she couldn’t wrap her mind around anything else except the poker game.

  “The meeting’s starting, Ms. Reed.” Trina Wilcox, the administrative assistant, stuck her head into the office. Two perfect rows of teeth flashed in a smile as she delivered the reminder.

  The second the words were out, Elisha remembered that Rocky had scheduled a staff meeting at two. It was right there, on her calendar, not to mention that she’d entered it into her BlackBerry and it was also on the electronic schedule she had on her computer. How could she have forgotten? Rocky had told her about it himself.

  Maybe she was slipping into the early stages of Alzheimer’s. The very thought of Alzheimer’s sent a very cold, very sharp shiver down her spine. Though, as far as she knew, no one in her family had ever experienced it, she had a very real fear of the mentally disabling disease. Coming down with it guaranteed that she would feel and be even more isolated than she already felt at times.

  She frowned, glancing toward her reflection in the window, watching the rain wash over it on the other side. She was getting carried away again.

  Alzheimer’s. Why was she thinking the worst? That wasn’t her style. It wasn’t even a style. She didn’t have Alzheimer’s. What she had was brain overload and there really wasn’t very much she could do about that, not with the kind of fast-paced life she led.

  Until science found a way to take the mind and deliver it up to the next level, make it capable of doubling its size and functioning on a much greater plane, there was just so much that could be stuffed into a human brain. Right now, hers had the most recent articles on the treatment of pancreatic cancer that she’d downloaded and that was vying for space with the updated rules for Texas hold ’em.

  Currently, her nine-to-five duties as an editor were coming in third. Staff meetings didn’t even make it to the list.

  Elisha suppressed a sigh. She hated slipping up and she knew that if the ever-even-tempered Trina was here to remind her about the meeting, Rocky must have sent the woman. So far, he had been more than understanding about her preoccupation. He’d even encouraged her to take some time off.

  But she didn’t want it to appear as if he was playing favorites. Which was exactly what people like Carole Chambers would do, noting it down and using it as ammunition for some perverse purpose. Like blackmailing Rocky in order for her to get an unmerited promotion.

  It wasn’t going to come to that, Elisha swore. She owed Rocky too much for him to be chewed out by his father because of her.

  After closing the drawer she’d forgotten she’d opened sometime earlier, Elisha rose to her feet. She selected a notebook. Others used tape recorders to take down their notes for them; she still liked putting pencil to paper and jotting things down. The very act created tiny cells of thoughts in her head, thoughts she could later apply to the books she was editing.

  She forced herself to smile at the woman. “Tell Mr. Randolph I’ll be right there, Trina.”

  Her cell phone cut into the latter part of her sentence. She immediately drew it out of her pocket. Ever since Henry had told her about his diagnosis, she’d taken to carrying the five-ounce silver camera phone somewhere on her person at all times. Except when she was in the shower and then it sat on the counter next to the stall, its ringer set on loud.

  Dutifully, Trina remained in the doorway.

  About to wave the younger woman on her way, Elisha opened the cell phone and placed it to her ear. To create some measure of privacy, she turned her back to Trina and the open doorway.

  “Hello?”

  There was a man on the other end of the line, a man whose voice she didn’t recognize. “Ms. Reed?”

  If this was some telemarketer, sneaking in under the banner of “out of area,” she was going to verbally vivisect him.

  “Yes?” she asked impatiently.

  “Ms. Elisha Reed?”

  This time her response was testy.

  “Yes?”

  “This is Joshua Lambert. I’m one of the EMTs who responded to a call from your brother’s house.”

  Anger drained out of her instantly. Her head began to spin as every nerve ending in her body tightened in anticipation of something awful. In less time than it took to draw in a long breath, she’d slipped out of her world into some kind of frightening twilight zone.

  “Why?” she wanted to know. “Why was my brother calling you?”

  “He wasn’t,” the man on the other end corrected politely. His cadence was slow, clear, as if he had all day to explain. “His daughter was. Andrea,” he clarified before she could ask. “Mr. Reed is at Walker Memorial Hospital.”

  It was both good news and bad. She clung to the good. “Then he’s alive.”

  “Yes, ma’am, he
’s alive. He’s the one who asked me to call you. I—”

  “Thank you,” she cried, not letting the paramedic say anything else before she shut the phone.

  Henry was alive, that was all she needed to know. Anything more might counterbalance that one precious piece of information.

  Walker Memorial. Elisha rolled the name over in her head. She was vaguely aware of where the hospital was located. Somewhere on the tip of the island, just before the expressway threaded into the city.

  A taxi driver would know exactly where it was, she thought. Her mind was scattering in a hundred different directions, like a box of beads that had been dropped on the floor.

  She couldn’t focus.

  Elisha was aware that Trina was watching her as she moved first to the door, then back again. Not once but twice.

  She had to double back to pick up her purse and then again to grab her raincoat. Each time she nearly walked right over Trina.

  The small-boned woman sashayed first to one side and then the other, trying politely to get out of Elisha’s way. “Can I…?”

  But Elisha shook her head. Not in answer but in dismissal. She didn’t have time to listen to a question. She had to get to the hospital. Now. Later held too many possibilities within its boundaries. Possibilities she refused to even attempt to explore.

  On her third effort to get out of the office, Elisha finally flew by the assistant. “Tell Mr. Randolph I had to go to the hospital. Cancel anything that’s on my calendar this afternoon.” She threw the latter over her shoulder as an afterthought.

  Henry was all right, she silently insisted as she punched her index finger against the down button. A small light sprang up around the button in response. He was all right. The paramedic said that he had made the request, asking him to call. That meant he was all right.

  Her mouth curved as she struggled to push back tears. How so like Henry. Making requests instead of demands. Anyone else would have made demands. She knew she would have.

  She made one now as she got into the elevator.

  You keep him alive, you hear me, God? You keep him alive.

  It was half demand, half plea.

  CHAPTER 20

  It was a struggle not to cry.

  All the way to the hospital, Elisha fought against the urge to break down and cry. Fought against even shedding a single tear.

  She knew if she did that, there would be no stopping the torrent of tears that was rising dangerously high behind the emotional dam she’d managed to construct. And she couldn’t cry. She had to be strong.

  For Henry.

  Who would be going home soon, she promised herself fiercely. One of those multidegreed, high-priced physicians was just going to have to fix Henry, that was all there was to it.

  She wasn’t about to accept anything less.

  Mercifully, the cabdriver had given up attempting to engage her in conversation after three unsuccessful tries. Instead, he concentrated on getting her to the hospital as quickly as possible, especially since she’d promised a fifty-dollar tip if he could do it in under an hour.

  The rain was pelting the roof, sliding down the sides of the windows. Heaven was crying, but she wouldn’t.

  Elisha realized that she was sitting on the edge of the passenger seat, straining against the seat belt as far as she could go. Her hands were planted on either knee and she was rocking. Unconsciously trying to find some kind of comfort in the motion.

  She needed to get hold of herself. To pull herself together. Removing her hands from her knees, she saw that she’d been clutching them so hard, all ten imprints of her fingertips were clearly discernible. That was going to bruise, she thought. She always bruised so easily. Her skin was a great deal fairer than Henry’s.

  Henry.

  Oh God.

  With effort, she forced herself to breathe regularly. And all the while, within the confines of her mind she silently kept repeating, It’s going to be all right. Henry’s going to be all right.

  But he didn’t look like someone who was going to be all right. Not when she saw him.

  There was a battalion of machines on either side of his bed, all measuring something different, all speaking a strange, whirling, beeping language like invading aliens from another planet. A monitor to Henry’s right displayed four horizontal lines, each a different color, each with a different wave function. Some were arrhythmic, others had a symmetry to them. She cheered the latter on, praying the uniformity was catching. There was comfort in uniformity.

  It was crowded there with the machines and the bed. Hardly enough room for her prayers. Glass walls separated Henry’s room from the others within the Intensive Care Unit.

  She edged over to his bed, trying not to bump into anything, trying not to set any alarms off.

  Henry looked as white as the crisp sheet that was beneath him. As white as the blanket that had been thrown over him. White was the color of surrender. She wished someone had thought to make everything red. Red was a fighting color.

  An oxygen tube snaked its way across Henry’s face, allowing him to breathe better. She strained her eyes, trying to see some kind of movement from his chest. It took more than a moment for her to finally satisfy herself that he was breathing.

  She wanted to cheer.

  And then his eyes fluttered open and she offered up silent thanks to God.

  Forcing a smile, Elisha took her brother’s hand in hers. His skin felt cool to the touch. She resisted the urge to rub her hands over his, to get the circulation going the way she used to when they were children and he would complain about being cold. It had been a chore to her then, an imposition that held her in place when there were things she wanted to do. Things that didn’t include an annoying little brother.

  Now, she couldn’t think of anything she would have rather done than stand here, rubbing his hand. Making sure that Henry’s circulation kept doing just that. Circulating.

  “Can’t say I care very much for your new look,” she told him softly, nodding at the tube that created the impression of a transparent mustache.

  Her heart ached as she saw Henry struggle to smile at her.

  Think of yourself for once, Henry. Complain. Tell me where it hurts. Stop being so brave.

  “I…waited…for you,” he said to her in a voice that sounded so weak, she could feel her throat closing up just hearing it.

  He’d waited for her. She didn’t understand. Her mind was a complete utter blank. “Were we on for dinner tonight?”

  He tried to move his head from side to side. There was barely a perceptible movement. “No…I mean…here…I was…waiting…for you…to come here…To…the…hospital.”

  There was this tremendous pressure in the middle of her chest. As if a boulder had suddenly been dropped there, dead center.

  Don’t say it that way, Henry. Don’t say it as if you are barely hanging on to life. You’re going to be fine, do you hear me?

  “I got here as soon as I could, Henry.” It was hard to talk, hard to keep her voice from cracking. “They didn’t have your name listed at the information desk. I had to threaten the volunteer with bodily harm before he sent for someone to pull up the latest list so I could find you.”

  She felt his fingers flutter a little against her hand. She tightened hers around them.

  Stick with me, Henry. Don’t go. Don’t go.

  There was just the slightest trace of amusement in his eyes as he looked at her. Amusement and affection. “You…can’t…threaten…everyone…Lise.”

  “It got me here, didn’t it?” I’m not going to cry, I’m not. Elisha looked at her brother and shook her head. “An ambulance ride. Having a paramedic call me. I never knew you had a flair for the dramatic.”

  “Neither…did…I.” The words were light, reedy, as if he didn’t have the strength to project them any farther than just the small area surrounding his pillow. Elisha leaned in closer in order to hear him better.

  As she did, she saw Henry wincing. She knew, because
of what she’d read and not because of anything Henry would admit to her, that there was a great deal of pain associated with his condition.

  “Are they giving you anything for the pain?” Weakly, he moved his head from side to side. “Well, dammit, they should be.” Agitated, she looked around for a nurse to summon. Someone to buttonhole and demand that they come to Henry’s aid. “Where’s the nurse?”

  “I…told them…not to…I…didn’t…want to be fuzzy when…you…got here.”

  She could feel her eyes stinging. The struggle almost undid her. “Fuzzy’s good. My favorite bear was fuzzy, remember? Mr. Fuzz-bear.”

  She was talking nonsense, she thought. Her mind was jumping from the present back to her childhood. Back to when things were safe and rugs weren’t ripped out from beneath her. Back when there was no pain and everything was all right because their mother and father were there to protect them.

  I want to go back. I don’t want to be an adult. Not anymore.

  Henry was looking at her. Looking into her eyes. Her soul. “You…you’ll…take care of…the girls?” Every syllable looked as if it cost him.

  She wanted to make him stop talking.

  She wanted to make him talk forever. Because if he was talking, he was still with her. And she wasn’t alone.

  “You’ll be getting out of this hospital bed and taking care of them yourself,” she insisted with feeling. The lump in her throat kept getting bigger. “Not today, maybe not tomorrow, but you will. You will.” She could see her words weren’t changing anything. “Henry, you have to. Do you hear me? You have to get better. You have to come home. I’m not ready for this to happen.”

  “Lise—”

  “I’m not,” she cried, desperation vibrating in her voice. “You can’t leave me, Henry. I can do a million things, juggle a thousand balls in the air, but I need to know that you’re there, somewhere in the background, with your patient smile and your endless good humor. I need you.”