Blind Faith

by Sharon Sala

  And for the next four hours, he sat in total silence, unmoving—waiting for his Annie to let go.

  * * *

  Wyrick couldn’t sleep. The world was waiting for another soul to leave, and she could feel it. Her heart was breaking for Charlie’s grief, because she could feel that, too.

  And so she sat within the silence, waiting for the call from Morning Light to tell her Annie Dodge was gone.

  * * *

  It was a couple of hours before dawn.

  Charlie was lost in thought, remembering the year Annie turned thirty years old. At her request, he’d taken her to a little cabin on Lake Texoma. They’d planned to cook out under the stars, but it started raining, so they built a fire in the fireplace in July, and roasted wieners and marshmallows there.

  They ate until they were full, and so sticky from sweat and the toasted marshmallows that in the dark of night, they stripped naked and ran laughing out into the rain.

  “Charlie.”

  He jerked, then glanced at Annie.

  She was still, and motionless...and there was no more strangling gasps.

  Charlie stood. He knew before he asked that she was gone, because he couldn’t feel her anymore.

  “It’s over?”

  Doris nodded. “A couple of minutes ago. I kept waiting for her to take another breath, but she didn’t. She was a fighter...such a fierce spirit, and now she’s at peace.”

  Charlie moved toward the bed in a daze as Doris stepped out into the hall with her phone. Only moments before he’d been remembering making love to her in the rain. He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.

  “You are forever my Annie. Time won’t change that. Death won’t change that. Love you, baby.”

  Doris came back into the room. “Charlie, I’m sorry, but I need to finish up in here. Dr. Dunleavy was already on the way. He’ll be the one to officially release her. If you want to wait in the common room, I’ll come get you when I’ve finished.”

  He wiped a shaky hand over his face and then walked out. He got all the way to the common room and then sat down in the dark, remembering the times he’d sat in here with Annie, and all the puzzle pieces she would hand him, wanting him to find where they went. And now she was finally whole again. The last piece had been put back into place.

  * * *

  Wyrick was dozing sitting up when her cell rang. She jumped, then fumbled it trying to answer.

  “Hello? Hello?”

  “Miss Wyrick, this is Morning Light. I’m calling to let you know that Annie Dodge passed away a short time ago.”

  The ache that pierced her was real. “Ah...damn. Is my boss still there?”

  “Yes, ma’am. He’s sitting with her until the hearse arrives. It will be another hour or so.”

  “Thank you for calling,” Wyrick said.

  She hurried to the bathroom to wash the sleep out of her eyes, then grabbed her purse and left on the run, calling for an Uber to pick her up at Charlie’s apartment in thirty minutes. Now all she had to do was get there.

  * * *

  Charlie was going through the motions—sitting with the body, answering questions about her belongings. They had them packed and sitting beside his bag. He wondered when they’d done that, and then realized it didn’t matter.

  “Can you just donate them?” Charlie asked.

  “Yes, of course, if that’s your wish,” Doris said.

  He nodded, thinking as he did that when he left her today, he’d never be back in this place again. There was a sense of relief about that. Annie was free of it, and now so was he.

  An hour passed, and then another. Someone brought him a cup of coffee and then carried away the bag with her clothing.

  He kept looking for Annie in the body on the bed, but she was gone. It didn’t even look like her anymore. How did that happen so fast?

  It was going on the third hour when he heard voices, and then people were coming in the door. The men from the funeral home had finally arrived.

  “Mr. Dodge, our sincere condolences,” they said. “Do you mind stepping out of the room?”

  Charlie picked up his bag and walked out into the hall. When they wheeled the body out, it was fully covered beneath a sheet. Everything was becoming impersonal—the separation between life and death painfully blatant.

  He walked with her all the way to the exit, and then they went one way with her and he went another. A nurse let him out of the residence area and he found himself standing in the lobby, trying to remember what to do next.

  Pinkie was already on duty, and she was in tears.

  “I’m so sorry, Charlie,” Pinkie said.

  “Thank you. Thank you for everything,” Charlie said, and then walked out of the building in a daze.

  He looked up at the sky. The fucking sun was out. How the hell did it keep shining when his light was gone?

  He wiped a hand over his face and then looked for his car and saw Wyrick, arms folded, legs crossed, wearing a sheepskin coat and blue jeans, and leaning against the back of his Jeep.

  She held out her hand as he approached.

  “Give me your keys.”

  He handed them over.

  She unlocked the Jeep with the remote and took the bag from his shoulder.

  “Get in. I’m driving,” she said, and tossed his bag in the back.

  Charlie slid into the seat and buckled up, then leaned back and closed his eyes.

  Wyrick started the engine, and shot out of the parking lot and onto the street like a bullet from a gun.

  There was nothing to say that would make anything better, and so she said nothing at all. She wouldn’t look at him. Couldn’t look at him.

  But when he finally put his hands over his face and doubled over in the seat like a broken child, she cried with him, silent tears rolling down her face, feeling every ounce of his pain as if it was her own.

  Charlie Dodge’s world had come apart at the seams.

  Time was the healer, but Charlie’s sentence had just begun.

  Wyrick drove him all the way to his apartment building and up into the adjoining garage in total silence, then parked in his assigned parking place and got out.

  Charlie was red-eyed and silent when he got out, but when she handed him his keys and his bag, he took them.

  “Go to bed. Sleep until someone calls you with questions only you can answer. I’m safe. Boyington is dead. Someone flew a bomb onto his balcony while he was on it. It wasn’t me. Parks called a hit on the hit man. Don’t come back to work until you’re ready to kick ass again.”

  Then she turned on her heel, jumped in her Mercedes and drove out of the parking garage, leaving Charlie and a layer of rubber from her tires.

  Eleven

  Charlie did what he’d been told, because conscious thought was beyond him, and when he got into his apartment, he locked the door behind him and then stood in the entryway, trying to remember what he was supposed to do.

  Oh yes...bed.

  Sunlight was streaming through the living room windows. It wasn’t time to sleep, but he was weary all the way to his bones, and so he went to the bedroom, stripped and showered, then fell into bed naked, with the water still drying on his skin.

  There was no funeral to plan. Annie wanted to be cremated, and their social circle ended when Annie forgot her friends existed. He’d seen her out of this world, and now there was nothing left for him to do. When he finally closed his eyes, the image of Annie still struggling to breathe was in his head, and tears welled and rolled out from beneath his lids.

  He fell asleep from exhaustion, then began dreaming that she was drowning, and woke up as she was going under. In anger, he rolled off the bed and strode into the kitchen, banging doors and looking on shelves until he found an unopened fifth of whiskey.

  His hands were shaking as he opened it up
, then sloshed some into a coffee cup and downed it.

  “No more dreams. Do you hear me, God? No more fucking dreams!”

  He carried the bottle back to the bedroom and set it down beside his bed, then turned on the TV and drank the bottle dry.

  * * *

  Wyrick dealt with her emotions by going back to work. She went through the emails, sending appropriate responses, and then began sifting through the ones she could handle on her own.

  She had already set up an app from Bill.com to accept retainers without coming into the office, so she picked another prospective client to contact and made the call.

  “Hello, this is Wanda.”

  “Mrs. Carrollton, my name is Wyrick, and I’m calling on behalf of Dodge Security and Investigations in regards to your granddaughter, Katrina. Do you have time to speak with me?”

  Wanda Carrollton was ecstatic. “Yes, and please call me Wanda.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Charlie Dodge is unavailable at this time, but I work with him, and will be working on your case, if that’s acceptable.”

  “I don’t care who’s doing it as long as someone can find my girl.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll send you an invoice via email to pay for your retainer, and then I’ll need some background. Your granddaughter’s full name, her parents’ names, last known addresses, occupations, anything you have on any of them. Even Social Security numbers, because my research is all online.”

  “Oh, that’ll take a bit. Can I gather up what I have and then send it to you in an email, like I did my request?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll keep you updated as I go, and maybe we’ll get lucky. How long has it been since you lost touch with her?” Wyrick asked.

  “Twenty years. She was six when my son died and her mother moved her out of state. She stayed in touch for about a year and then nothing. It was like losing my son all over again. I let life sideline my desire to find her, but I’m not getting any younger, and even if she wants nothing to do with me, I’d like to know she’s okay.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll invoice you, and then wait for you to send me the info to get started.”

  “Thank you! Thank you, so much,” Wanda said.

  “I can’t promise miracles,” Wyrick said. “But if it’s at all possible, I’ll find answers.”

  “That’s all I need. Just answers, so I will have a little peace of mind,” Wanda said.

  Wyrick hung up with a sense of purpose. Work would keep her mind off what Charlie was going through. No matter how lost he got in his grief, he was the only one who could find his way out. She wasn’t scared for him, because Charlie Dodge was a survivor, but she was so sad for his hurt.

  As for Merlin, his declining health was a reality, but he was still enjoying a measure of quality with it. She had yet to fully take in what she’d been given, but it was far more than a home.

  * * *

  Back in Odessa, the doctor at Medical Center Hospital had been weaning Tony Dawson off sedation a little at a time, and Tony was beginning to show signs of regaining consciousness. When a nurse came out of ICU looking for Baxter and Macie to let them know, they hugged each other, crying tears of relief.

  “Can we see him? Has he spoken?” Baxter asked.

  The nurse shook her head. “He hasn’t said anything, but all of the signs are there that he’s becoming aware. If you’ll both follow me, I’ll take you in.”

  Macie grabbed Baxter’s hand and squeezed it, suddenly anxious. They’d been warned of all kinds of complications—that he’d wake up and not know them, or maybe not know who he was—but right now, just knowing he was coming to was a step in the right direction.

  They followed the nurse through the ward, but it was hard not to hurry. As soon as they reached his bed, they began looking for changes—a slight movement beneath his eyelids, the fingers on one hand slightly twitching.

  “You can talk to him,” the nurse said. “Just quietly, please.”

  Macie reached for his hand, stilling the twitch with her grip.

  “Hi, Tony, darling. It’s Mom. Dad and I are right here beside you. We want you to know that you’re not lost anymore and you’re safe.”

  Baxter gently patted his son’s arm. “Hey, T-boy. Can you hear me?”

  All of a sudden Macie gasped. “He just squeezed my hand. Oh, Baxter! He heard us.”

  Baxter was so emotional he was shaking. “We love you, son. Just keep getting better and come back to us.”

  Tony moaned, and when he did, the nurse was immediately there.

  “It’s the pain. He’s just beginning to feel it,” she said, and adjusted the drip on his IV.

  “Just rest, Tony. It’s the fastest way to heal. We’re just outside in the waiting room and we’re not leaving here until you come with us,” Baxter said.

  Tony’s lips were moving slightly, but no sound was coming out, and then he was gone again.

  “He’s out,” Baxter said, and patted Tony’s hand. “We’ll be back, son. Rest well.”

  Macie leaned over the bed and kissed his cheek.

  “Love you, honey. You’re going to be okay.”

  * * *

  Charlie suffered the hangover from hell the day after he’d emptied that fifth of whiskey, and to add to his misery, he received flower deliveries from the Dunleavy family in Denver, as well as flowers from Morning Light.

  He didn’t want to look at flowers and remember Annie dying. It was going to take years, if ever, before he could think of her without remembering her last days. In sickness and in health, until Alzheimer’s parted them and death took her.

  So he gave the flowers to the women from his cleaning service, who also did his laundry.

  He got a text from the Dawson family, telling him that Tony was regaining consciousness and squeezed their hand when they spoke to him.

  It was an affirming thing to know that the kid was healing, and he sent a brief text back, thanking them for the update. Even though that news was good news, it didn’t change his focus. He’d known for months now that he was going to lose Annie. He thought he was prepared, and now it appeared he was not.

  He had to find his new normal, and to do that, he was going to go AWOL. He needed different surroundings and something different on which to focus, so he texted Wyrick that he was out of town for a couple of days, but didn’t bother telling her where he was going. He didn’t have to. She had that damn app on his phone that tracked him wherever he went, so if she cared enough to snoop, she’d know.

  The next morning, he packed up and left with no destination in mind, and drove north on I-35 into Oklahoma. Somewhere near McAlester, Oklahoma, he saw a sign advertising Robbers Cave State Park, which was somewhere he’d never been, and left the interstate on Highway 270 heading east.

  On the way, he called their office and reserved a cabin for a couple of nights. It was almost noon when he drove into Wilburton, Oklahoma, population: 2,843.

  It was a tiny town nestled within a beautiful grassland valley between the San Bois and Winding Stair mountains, both of which were heavily forested.

  He already had a cabin rented, so he stopped at Roy’s Cardinal Grocery Store on Highway 2 on the way to Robbers Cave Park, to stock up on food. He had been told when he called to make a reservation that there was a restaurant on-site, but he wasn’t in a socializing mood.

  After buying what he wanted, he stayed on that highway until he came to the park, then followed the signs to the office to sign in and get a key.

  The woman behind the counter was reading something on her phone when he walked in. She looked up and quickly put it aside.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  “I’m Charlie Dodge. I have a reservation for a cabin.”

  “Yes, Mr. Dodge. You wanted one with a view in the old part of the park?”

  “Yes.”

  “Cab
in One is empty. It’s actually the first one ever built in the park. I think you’ll like it. There’s not much ground behind the cabin, but the view from there off the back of the mountain is amazing.”

  “Thanks,” he said, and as soon as their business was done, she gave him the key and a map of the area.

  “The hike into Robbers Cave is pretty this time of year. They’ll bring clean linens to your cabin, so leave whatever you want picked up out on the stoop, and they’ll trade you clean for dirty,” she added.

  Charlie wasn’t planning hikes, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. He took the map and the key and left.

  A short while later, he pulled up in front of the old rock cabin and parked. It took a couple of trips to carry in his bags and the groceries, but once he was inside, he began putting things away, then poked around the one-bedroom cabin, noting the television, the kitchen and the wood-burning fireplace, before checking his phone. He already knew there was no available Wi-Fi and that service was going to be spotty here, but he didn’t care. He turned up the thermostat to warm the place up, gave the bathroom a quick look, and then he went into the bedroom, kicked off his boots and stretched out on top of the spread.

  The room smelled of pine and lemon oil, and a faint odor of ashes. He heard a scratching sound near the window and wondered if there was a mouse in the cabin, but when he looked, he saw it was just branches from the bushes outside.

  The silence lulled him into a sense of well-being. Within moments, he had closed his eyes. In the distance, he could hear the faint sound of children laughing. It was a good sound, and it felt good to stretch out his legs, even if his feet hung off the end of the bed.

  The thick walls muffled all but the loudest sounds, and when the heater kicked on, it added a low hum within the room. Charlie was finally asleep.

  * * *

  It was midday when Wyrick received Wanda Carrollton’s information. It was enough to get started, and she needed to stay busy. Getting that text from Charlie had been disconcerting, but not surprising. Charlie Dodge was a grown-ass man who’d gotten himself back from Afghanistan in one piece. If he felt the need to disappear for a while, she understood it.