"Yes, she did live. But ever since then, she's had strange dreams. She dreams about colors in the sky, a luminous face, and an ethereal woman telling her to go back. William, she dreamt about you long before she met you. That's more than a coincidence."
"But she said she didn't remember dying or what it was like," William said, trying to belie the facts. "She said she hadn't known she'd died during surgery until just recently."
Cherise nodded. "That's what prompted her to visit Sara's grave. When she found out she'd died and was brought back to life, she had to know if it was somehow connected to Sara. Now she thinks the dreams are showing her what happened during that minute that she was dead."
Goosebumps prickled William's arms. He spoke in a hushed voice. "What exactly are you saying, Cherise? Are you telling me that Annie is my dead wife come back to life?"
Cherise shook her head vehemently. "No, I'm not telling you that. Annie is Annie, not Sara. But everything seems to tie in to the fact that maybe, just maybe, she saw Sara that day and something happened. I can't say what it was, I can only guess. But the truth is, for some inexplicable reason, Annie was drawn to Seaside, to your house, and to you. You and Annie are meant to be together, pure and simple. And it's time you stop coming up with excuses to keep the two of you apart and accept that."
Long after Cherise had left William thought of nothing but what she had said about Annie. It all seemed so crazy, and yet, maybe not. He'd grown comfortable with Annie very quickly, as if he'd known her for years instead of weeks. She had been the first woman since Sara died who had drawn his attention. Before meeting Annie, his life had been only about work and the kids. But after meeting her, he'd felt like his life was full again, like it was complete. Then he screwed it up with his outdated ideas of what a relationship should be.
Cherise said that Annie had been drawn to him. But he had also been drawn to her as well. And her eyes. Those beautiful blue-green eyes that reminded him so much of Sara. If truth be told, her eyes had drawn him in, but her personality and deep passion for life had been what kept them together over the months. She was everything he'd always hoped to find since losing Sara, and never thought he would.
William roamed the house, thinking of Annie in every room. In the kitchen, he pulled down the yellow mug and stared at it, remembering that first night they'd eaten dinner here. Annie had walked directly over to the cupboard and chosen the exact mugs that were his and Sara's. When they washed dishes, she had known exactly where to place everything from the silverware to the plates. And the first night they'd made love, she had taken out the lotion from the nightstand drawer, the very same lotion Sara had used each and every night. At the time, William had just brushed these strange occurrences off as coincidences. But were they more than that?
That night, when William crawled into bed, he was still pondering what Cherise had said and the strange coincidences of Annie and Sara. He wished he could go over to Annie's place and talk to her, but Annie wasn't home. Cherise had told him she was gone for two days on a photo shoot, and she'd be back Friday night. He made a resolution to see her first thing on Saturday. He wanted Annie in his life. They'd find a way to work everything out. As he lay there, all alone in the dark, he smiled as he thought of how nice it will be to finally have Annie by his side again. And how nice it will be to feel whole again.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The car careened around another curve while everyone inside screamed with excitement, except Sandy who grasped tightly to her seat, pale, and frightened. The driver was speeding along Highway 101 near Cannon Beach, and even though the highway wasn't too curvy, he was going too fast in the pitch darkness. Everyone in the car was too drunk to care that the fog had rolled in, and the driver couldn't see more than ten feet in front of him. Only Sandy cared, but every time she told him to slow down, he sped up faster, thinking it was funny.
I shouldn't have come out tonight. Sandy tried to keep her wits about her. When one of her college friends, Jasmine, had called her that Friday night to ask if she wanted to go to a party in Cannon Beach, Sandy's first reaction was to say no. But she hadn't been out for several weeks and she thought it might be fun to let loose for a few hours. All she'd done lately was work at the art gallery and stay home, working on her mom's paintings. She'd completed the Fairy Falls painting and moved on to the Multnomah Falls one. She planned on working next on the seascape that had sat in her parent's room all those years, but at the rate this guy was driving, she was afraid she wouldn't live long enough to finish it.
The car hit another curve at over one-hundred miles an hour, and Sandy felt the car lift up on its side and drop with a thud on the highway. Everyone cheered with excitement, but she gasped and held on tighter.
"Slow down! You're going to kill us." Sandy screamed over the noise of the engine and the people laughing in the backseat. The guy driving, she didn't even know his name, chuckled, but didn't slow down. Sandy turned to look at Jasmine, who sat in the backseat squished between her boyfriend and another girl. "Make him stop," she yelled at her friend.
Jasmine stared back at Sandy with eyes so dilated from alcohol and drugs that Sandy realized she would be no help at all.
The car hit a bump in the pavement and flew up before falling again and bouncing on the road. Everyone screamed and laughed. Everyone but Sandy.
Tear welled in Sandy's eyes. I'm going to die tonight. I'm going to die in a car full of people I barely know. As tears spilled onto her cheeks, she prayed for her mother to help her. Help me, Mom. Help me.
The car hit another curve and, up ahead, Sandy saw taillights. The driver saw them, too, but it was too late. He hit the brakes and squealed out on the curve, losing control, and spinning the car. The car clipped the gravelly edge of the road and flew off, rolling into the ditch. It rolled over four times before coming to a complete stop, upside down, in a field. Sandy's world went black.
"Sandy!" Annie sat up suddenly in bed, screaming the girl's name into the dark night. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she was covered in sweat. She looked at the clock beside her bed. 2:10 a.m. The dream had been so real. She'd felt each tight turn of the speeding car and each thud as the car rose and fell, hitting the pavement. Worst of all, she had seen Sandy crying just seconds before the car spun out of control and rolled into a field.
Annie jumped out of bed and hurriedly pulled on her jeans and T-shirt from the day before. The dream seemed too real. From somewhere deep inside her, she knew that it had actually happened. She had to get to Sandy and make sure she was all right.
Running her hands through her hair, Annie found her car keys and purse, and headed out the door into the foggy night. She drove as fast as she dared to the hospital, all the time saying inside her head, I'm coming, Sandy. Hold on. I'm coming.
When Annie arrived at the hospital, she saw three ambulances at the entrance, their lights flashing.
"Oh, God, please let Sandy be okay. Please, please, please," Annie kept repeating to herself as she made her way past them and through the entrance. She hurried up to the counter, where the receptionist sat, talking in a hushed voice on the phone. Annie paced back and forth, unable to contain the adrenaline that was coursing through her veins.
After what seemed like hours, the receptionist placed the phone down. "Can I help you?"
Annie stepped up to the desk with such force that her hands slapped the top. "Sandra Grafton. I'm here to see Sandra Grafton. Is she here?" she asked, her voice trembling.
The receptionist stared at her, startled. "Are you family?" she finally asked.
"I'm her mother."
The receptionist quickly went into action, escorting Annie through the electronic doors and into an empty waiting room.
"I talked to your husband a few minutes ago," the receptionist said. "He's on his way. The doctors will be in to talk to you as soon as they can."
Annie nodded and watched the woman leave. Sitting down in one of the hard, plastic chairs, Annie dropped her face into her
hands and prayed. She prayed to Sara to keep Sandy safe. She prayed to the luminous face to not take Sandy before her time. She sat, rocking her body back and forth in the chair, and prayed.
"Annie?"
Annie looked up into William's strained face. Behind him stood Sam, looking anxious and scared. Without hesitation, she stood and enveloped them both in a hug.
William held onto Annie a long time. Even after Sam broke away, he held Annie close. He felt Annie's tears on his shoulder through his sweatshirt, and that only made him want to hold on longer. Finally, grudgingly, he pulled away.
"How did you know?" he asked, amazed she had arrived at the hospital before he had. Who had called her? When he'd arrived, the receptionist had told him his wife was already here. "My wife?" he'd asked, confused, thinking she'd mixed him up with one of the other families. And then, when he saw Annie in the waiting room, he understood. The receptionist had mistaken Annie for Sandy's mother.
"I just knew," Annie said softly. William didn't even question her. After all the incidences that had occurred, it seemed only natural to him that she'd instinctively know about the accident.
"Mr. Grafton?" a voice said from the doorway. A doctor in a white jacket stood there, beckoning to him. William rushed over to him while Annie stayed behind, reaching for Sam for reassurance. The two stood there, arms around each other, waiting.
William returned, his face solemn. He faced Annie and Sam. "They're taking Sandy to surgery," he said. "She has internal bleeding and one lung was punctured and collapsed. The doctor said they'd know more after surgery."
"Will she be okay?" Sam asked in a small voice.
His tone tore at Annie's heart, and she struggled to control the tears that threatened to spill again.
William opened his mouth to reassure his son, then closed it, remembering five years before when he'd reassured his children that their mother would be fine. He'd been wrong then. Would he be wrong now? "I don't know," he finally admitted to his son. "All we can do is wait."
And wait is what they did, for four long hours as no word came back from either a doctor or a nurse. They sat in those hard plastic chairs, they paced, and they each took turns going to the machine down the hallway for coffee. Then, they waited some more.
"She didn't even want to go out tonight," William said to no one in particular as they sat there, William flanked by Sam and Annie. "Her friend called and she said no at first, then decided to go after all."
She'd been angry with him again, because he was sitting home all alone on a Friday night when he should have called Annie and apologized, begging her to come back to him. He didn't have time to tell Sandy that Annie was gone that day on assignment, and that he was planning on calling her the next day. Sandy had just raised her arms in exasperation at him, sighed, and then said she was going out. And that was the last he'd seen her before the call came from the hospital.
Annie just sat silently, waiting for William to say more, but he didn't. The stress of waiting for word about Sandy's condition was unnerving. The fact that she'd been gone on assignment for the past three days and had driven eight hours before getting home and crawling into bed didn't make matters any better either. She'd only been asleep for two hours before she was awakened by the horrific dream. Her nerves were frayed from stress, coffee, and lack of sleep.
After more time had passed, and everyone still sat silent in their seats, Annie reached out each hand, one to William and one to Sam. They both grasped on tight, holding on for dear life.
The doctor finally came in, pulled a plastic chair up in front of the trio, and began to explain the situation. Sandy had suffered three fractured ribs, a torn aorta, which had been the cause of the internal bleeding, and a punctured lung, which had collapsed. She had also broken her ankle in two places and had various cuts from the glass when the front windshield had blown out during the roll.
"The good news is she's doing much better and even though she'll have a long healing process, your daughter is definitely going to live," the doctor told William, his face breaking into a warm smile. "She had been wearing her seatbelt at the time of the rollover, and that's what saved her life. If she'd been thrown from the car, she may not have fared so well."
William, Annie, and Sam let out a collective sigh of relief.
"When can we see her?" William asked as the doctor stood to leave.
"She's in recovery now and should be in a room in the Intensive Care Unit in an hour or so. A nurse will come and get you after she's been moved."
William nodded as the doctor turned to leave, then reached out and touched the doctor's arm to ask one more question. "What about the other kids in the car?" he asked. "How are they doing?"
As the doctor turned back to face them, they saw the answer in his tired eyes before he said the words. "No one else survived," the doctor said softly. "Your daughter was the lucky one."
William convinced Sam to go home to get a few hours of sleep.
"She'll be asleep for hours," he told his son. "Get some rest and come back."
It was after seven o'clock in the morning when Sam finally left, leaving Annie and William in the small waiting room alone. It had been a long, emotional night, and Annie's whole body felt the strain of it. She knew William felt the same way too by the creases in his forehead and the dullness of his eyes. The enormity of the situation left them drained. They each felt elated at the fact that Sandy was going to live but then guilty for feeling happy, when a car full of young people had died. It was too heart wrenching to even think about, and neither one of them wanted to say the words out loud.
William reached for Annie's hand, bringing her out of her thoughts and into the present. He held it loosely, as if he wasn't sure if he should but wanted to feel her touch just the same.
"Thank you for coming here," he said, turning to look into her eyes. "I don't know how you knew, but I'm glad you did. Having you here has made this nightmarish situation easier."
"I saw it all in a dream," Annie said quietly. "A horrific dream that woke me and was too vivid to not have been real. That's why I came."
William nodded. He was beginning to believe that Cherise was right. There was some connection between Annie and Sara, and although he thought it strange, he couldn't deny it either. He was just about to tell Annie this, and that he knew all about the dreams, when a nurse came in.
"You can see your daughter now, Mr. Grafton."
William clasped Annie's hand tighter. "Can we both come?"
The nurse nodded. "Of course."
They rose from their chairs in unison and followed the nurse into the ICU and to a room. Even though the room was set apart from other similar rooms, the walls were glass so the nurses at the desk could see the patients. A curtain was drawn partway across the glass wall in Sandy's room, and the nurse's body in the doorway blocked their view.
"She's still groggy from the anesthesia and is on a lot of pain medication, so she probably won't talk yet, but you certainly can sit with her."
William nodded, and when the nurse moved out of the doorway, he had his first glimpse of his daughter. It was hard not to gasp. She looked so beat up, but he tightened his jaw and his grasp on Annie's hand. They entered and stood next to Sandy's bed.
William looked down at his sleeping daughter, thinking if he hadn't been told it was her, he never would have recognized her. Her face was cut in several places, bruised, and swollen. Small, butterfly bandages were all over her forehead, cheeks, and neck. Her strawberry blonde hair lay limp on the pillow, There were tubes in her right hand, and a heart monitor beating rhythmically. Tears filled his eyes and threatened to spill down his face. How could this have happened to his daughter? He hadn't kept her safe. Why couldn't he keep the people in his life safe?
Swiping the tears from his eyes, he looked over at Annie who had rounded the bed and sat next to Sandy on the other side. She seemed undisturbed by Sandy's appearance. Carefully, Annie lifted Sandy's hand and placed it gently in her own.
"We're here, Sandy," she said softly, looking down at the broken girl. "You're going to be okay now. We're here."
William took a step closer to the bed but was interrupted by a voice at the door.
"Mr. Grafton?" a nurse asked, causing him to turn away from his daughter and face her. "I'm sorry, but I have paperwork for you to finish filling out. It shouldn't take long."
William nodded and started to follow her out of the room but stopped and turned back to look at Annie.
Annie smiled reassuringly. "Go ahead. I'll sit with her."
Hearing Annie's voice calmed him. He headed out the door behind the nurse.
Annie sat, looking down at Sandy, silently thanking Sara, the gods, the heavens, and the universe for sparing her life. Sara had protected her. This Annie knew for sure. In her dream, she'd heard Sandy's pleas to her mother to save her, and deep in Annie's heart, she knew Sara had.
Sandy began to move, ever so slowly, turning her head toward Annie. She opened her eyes and looked up into Annie's blue-green ones.
"Mom," Sandy said, her voice barely audible, her breathing labored. "Mom, I'm so sorry."
Annie looked down into Sandy's swollen face and saw her eyes pleading with her. "Shh. Don't try to talk," Annie said soothingly. "Everything is going to be fine. You're going to be just fine."
"Mom, I'm so sorry," Sandy said again, each word requiring a deep breath. "I said I hated you. I didn't mean it." Sandy grasped Annie's hand tighter, with strength Annie was surprised her battered body possessed.
"It's okay, Sandy. I know you didn't mean it. You were a teenager. Teenagers say things they don't mean. I know you don't hate me, dear. I've always known that." Annie placed her other hand over Sandy's in a loving gesture.
Tears formed in Sandy's eyes and fell unchecked down her bruised cheeks. "I love you, Mom," Sandy said through labored breathing. "I miss you."
Annie pulled a tissue out of a nearby box and gently wiped Sandy's tears away, careful not to hurt her damaged skin. "I've always loved you, Sandy," she said softly as Sandy closed her eyes. "And I always will love you. You're my beautiful daughter. How could I not love you?"
Sara's Promise Page 18
