“I might have come up with something that’ll work,” Edward told him. “It’s going to sound crazy, maybe, and even convoluted, but I think we can do it; I think it’ll give us enough water to….”
Jason nodded.
“I had a pretty good idea last night, too,” he told the man, whose burgundy pinstriped short-sleeve shirt and khaki shorts looked like they were already too hot in the 93-degree weather.
Riffling through the notebook to find his place, he silently handed it to Edward. As he heard Malik hanging up from his call, he heard Edward give a low whistle.
“I think we can do something partway between your plan and mine and we’re good, as long as we don’t run into anyone with thoughts of fighting on their hands,” the man said, closing the book as Malik entered the office and the chime on the front door went off, announcing Yared and Earnest’s arrival.
Jason nodded as Malik sat, followed by the other men who would be left in charge of things at Rutherford Research while they were gone.
Yared, in navy khakis and an off-white polo shirt, smiled broadly as he entered the room. The look in his eyes, however, held the same hint of danger they had at every meeting.
It was not an uncomfortable danger, Jason realized, but more a wisdom frothing over the edges of the tide of his experience.
Earnest, his hair now shorter, had finally donned something less formal than a full suit: he’d left the jacket in his car, or at home, and his tie was slightly loose. His green-grey eyes held joy in balance with humbleness, and his smile radiated warmth.
With one look at Earnest’s face, Jason was flooded with calm.
All of a sudden, he just knew that the forthcoming events would work out; at least here at the office.
He took a deep breath as Edward began to debrief them on the first of three cases they were working on: tracing the life of a man who had fought in the Mexican-American War for his great-great grandchildren.
Somehow, someway, God would make sure things ran smoothly. Somehow, someway, He would help Malik and Yared – two peace-loving men on opposite sides of the religious equation – to co-exist and maybe even come to understand each other a little.
How, Jason didn’t know.
But he had to trust.
Twenty Seven
Perpignan, France… July 24, 1707
“Une fois de plus pousser, Galya,” the kind, plump woman at her side said as Galya felt her husband and the doctor’s hands trying to help keep her steady.
You try pushing in this much pain, she wanted to tell Mlle. Delphine, the cook who stood at her side.
Why neither of her sisters-in-law were there, she did not understand. She had seen neither of them since before she’d been poisoned and had not received a straight answer from the staff when she asked of their absence. She hadn’t asked Gaspar as yet, and right now, much as she wished they were there – the only womenfolk of the family who she knew – she could not change it.
As if on cue, she heard a door slamming below and she pushed.
Footsteps running up the stairs as she heard the first cries of her child; as sweat rolled off her shoulders and seeped into her hair and stung her eyes; as pain shot through her body. Footsteps that paused outside her door, and then, at the moment the doctor showed her the little boy in his arms, a knock sounding at the door.
The sounds were faint, and yet, louder than anything she could ever imagine. Galya almost felt as she had as she’d tumbled through the mirror; the sensations were heightened just as much, though this time, she knew she wasn’t traveling.
Or was she?
In the last five hours, she had pushed life into existence; life that already existed, but that God had granted their child. Life that she had felt growing inside of her, she now saw with her eyes.
She had traveled into motherhood.
“Come,” she heard Gaspar say as she waited for her child to be placed in her arms.
A son.
She had lived.
A sudden pain ripped through her, more intense than the birthing, and she pushed once more as the door swung open.
Galya heard a gasp; a familiar gasp, but her eyes were closed in pain.
"Je suis trop tard, je vois. Je suis vraiment désolé. Je suis arrivé dès que j'ai pu, cher frère, vraiment, je n'ai,” Galya heard Solange saying through the tunnel of her pain.
Solange.
The younger sister; the one who had just married; the one who would follow in her footsteps and have a child in about seven more months.
“Where is Suzette,” she heard Gaspar asking the woman.
A heavy warmth rushed to her as she opened her eyes to see her son, wrapped now in a piece of sheeting. The doctor handed him to Mlle. Delphine, and she carefully set him in Galya’s weary arms.
“She is on the way. She and the children all are. They… they went to town thinking of gifts to get for mother and child,” she heard the tiny woman say quietly.
Gaspar came, kissed her on the cheek, kissed their son, and excused himself, taking his sister along with him. Within minutes, the doctor had given her something to try to help slow the bleeding, and Mlle. Delphine changed the bedding with the help of two of the maids.
Thankfully the doctor was strong enough to lift her without too much excess pain.
“What will you call him,” one of the maids asked her after several moments.
“That will be for his father to decide with me, though I rather like Timothy, Caleb… or maybe Hezekiah,” she whispered as she looked down at the sleeping form of her son.
He was so tiny; so perfect. His eyelashes and hair were just about nonexistent, and he was still in need of a good bathing, but nonetheless, she adored him.
A knock at the door brought her husband and sister-in-law back into the room. Behind them, Suzette, Adele, Anatole-Henri, Aubert, Amabel, and then, finally, André, trailed in behind them.
Most of the children were excited, and Adele immediately asked if she could hold the yet-to-be-named baby.
“Oui,” Galya told her, “but first, I believe his father must,” she said with a smile. “And we must choose what he will be called.”
After several seconds’ hesitation and the rearranging of some people, Gaspar moved closer to her and carefully, she set the baby in his arms. One of the maids waved at her; a tiny wave, and they were gone, as was Mlle. Delphine, and suddenly, there was enough room to catch her breath.
Had she ever been so tired, or so wide awake?
And had she ever sensed so much love as right now, in this moment.
“What do you wish to call him,” Gaspar asked her as he looked down at their son.
He stood at the side of the bed, not bothering to try to find a seat, and the women and children stood gathered around him. For a moment, Galya smiled.
“I have had a few ideas, but I wish to hear yours,” she told him. “After all, he is your son, and not only mine.”
“What if we named him for both of our families… Fernand, for our grandfather,” he said, glancing toward his sisters, who nodded approvingly, “and what for the other name,” he asked her, looking into her eyes.
“Timothy,” she told him without hesitation as a ripple of pain swept through her, more intense than the others she’d been experiencing.
“Fernand Timothy Delacroix Aiton,” Suzette said with a tinkle of laughter in her voice. “I like it, though, like many names, it is a mouthful.”
“Fernand,” Amabel repeated slowly, peering up at the bundle in Gaspar’s arms. “I think we can get used to that.”
Aubert, usually quieter than the rest, raised a hand and Gaspar nodded at him.
“Can’t we just call him Timmy,” he wanted to know.
“Timmy,” Solange asked him. “That is rather informal, is it not?”
“But why do we always have to go by formality? Can’t we just say Timmy when it is loved ones? I think…” He hesitated, looking from his aunt to his mother, to Gaspar, and finally to Galya. The o
ther children watched, seemingly afraid to move.
The baby whimpered, breaking the silence, and Gaspar jiggled him a moment before offering him over to Suzette.
Galya watched her sister-in-law’s eyes as they focused on the baby, who was now whimpering even more. He made a mewling sound, and Suzette quickly but carefully set him back down into Galya’s arms so he could eat.
“I like Timmy,” the woman said. “Less pretentious,” she added.
Gaspar looked down into her eyes, and Galya watched a smile slide into place on his lips, reach his eyes, and brighten his face.
“Timmy it is, then,” he whispered. “Notre petit Timmy au dernier.”
Twenty Eight
St. Louis, Missouri… July 24, 2025
“Mama, I don’t feel so good,” Calico heard her son whisper in the night, causing her to bolt upright. “I ated somethin’ I wasn’t s’posed to,” she heard the whisper of his voice continue.
Looking around, she saw nobody but Romeo.
Had it been a dream, or was there more to it?
She carefully peeled back the sheet, stood in front of the fan for three or four seconds to try to cool down, and padded quietly toward their son’s room. She peered through the cracked door, and then opened it wider.
Angus lay there, sprawled across his little bed, sweat covering his form. Calico tiptoed over to him and felt his forehead; burning up. She felt the bottoms of his feet; hot, too. She tried to sit him up, but he remained limp and lifeless.
Something was amiss. She knew it down to her bones.
But what?
There was the heat, but it was more than that.
Something was wrong, and she had to act.
Now.
She made a small oofing sound as she gently picked her son up and took him to the couch. She went and awakened her husband as quietly as she could and then made her way to the kitchen for some ginger ale.
Water wouldn’t fix this; food wouldn’t fix it. Nothing she knew of seemed to fit what he was going through. She didn’t know how she knew, she just knew.
As she returned with a glass of ginger ale- just in case it was related to low blood sugar – she heard Romeo on the phone with Kaleo ‘Aukai. Could he come over quickly?
As she tried once more to wake Angus up, Romeo hung up with Kaleo and moved to go outside.
“I have another call to make,” he told Calico as she looked at him questioningly.
With a nod, she sent him on the errand, and attempted to get Angus to drink some of the ginger ale, talking with him to keep him awake. As she spoke to him, she went through his backpack, trying not to panic.
His lethargy and silence panicked her all the more.
They’d been at the zoo the day before. Could he have snuck something to eat when nobody was looking? Or had the dream only been meant to wake her up?
“What did you eat,” she asked her young son as she dumped the contents of his bag onto the bed.
Crumbs tumbled along with clothes, and she checked the pockets of his windbreaker.
Inside was the wrapper from an elephant ear, still smeared with what looked like peanut butter.
Going back to her son’s side, wrapper in hand, she moved to kiss him on the forehead. She took a few deep breaths and sat down next to him, whispering soothingly to him as they waited.
How had this happened? Hadn’t someone been watching him the whole time they were gone?
If not, how was it nobody had smelled the treat he’d smuggled home and eaten in private?
How could she remain calm and keep him safe until help could arrive? What kind of help did he need? Why had Romeo called Kaleo before calling the doctor’s office?
And what would they do?
“So, what seems to be the trouble,” one of the hospital’s emergency on-call specialists asked once Romeo was able to get hold of someone.
Glancing around the near-dark hallway, he was thankful for the foot-level glow-lights that gave both privacy and safety. The holographic image of a large African American man with dyed blonde hair and multiple tattoos smiled at him once his call was transferred.
“My name is Romeo Ferguson, and my son, Angus, is a patient of Dr. Milhaus. We aren’t sure what’s going on, but my wife is under the impression something is very wrong; it woke her, and she woke me,” he began, hoping the man on the other end of the line wouldn’t think he was loony.
He dared a look into the man’s deep chocolate-colored eyes and held them.
“What makes her think…?”
“Our son has juvenile diabetes,” he told the man, whose nametag read Othello. “But for some reason, he also has a fever. So we don’t know if he’s caught some sort of virus, or… or infection of some sort, but…”
Othello? Really? Romeo and Othello, conversing, he mused for half a beat as he tried to gather his thoughts.
“His temperature usually runs a hair low, but she checked, and he’s burning up. And I didn’t hear him get up all night; a first in weeks,” he told the man, who began typing something into his Imagebar system. “So, Othello… from one man named for a Shakespeare character to another; from one man to another… I need your help,” he said, hoping against hope.
“My wife Calico, she’s been through a lot; we all have. Angus has had nineteen episodes in two years,” he related. “Three states, two years, nineteen episodes. Tons of stress, and a life less than I wish I could give him. We can’t consult with his doctors in California or Mississippi anymore; we’ve got you.. the Children’s Hospital; the good doctor, Milhaus. And I need to know whether to transport him or call an ambulance,” he continued, his voice carrying further than he preferred.
Mr. Villanueva peered out of his door, looked Romeo in the eye, a question passing silently between them. As Romeo continued, the man opened the door further, cinching a red silk robe more tightly around himself.
“With all the technology of the past hundred years, you’d think someone would have come up with a cure for diabetes by now; you’d think they’d do more than link it to mental disorders and metabolic issues; you’d think they’d find a way to prevent children from dying. Diabetes and asthma, both, but no,” Romeo went on, now irritated.
Othello tried to say something, but Romeo cut him off.
“I’m sorry for going off like this, and I know it isn’t your fault, but I’m getting fed up. My son needs help; we’ve gone through this enough to know the warning signs, and this time, there were none; there was nothing but intuition telling us something was wrong, and there was,” he explained, looking back and forth between Othello’s big brown eyes and Robert Villanueva’s.
“By all means, bring him in,” the man on the other side of the holoscreen told him. Romeo looked more closely at him, seeing the shimmer of unshed tears in his eyes. “I have a son with diabetes, too,” he confided. “I know it can be scary stuff. I’ll call Dr. Milhaus’s assistant right away, and if she believes it warrants waking the doctor, we’ll do it,” Othello continued.
By the time he hung up with Othello and had turned to go back inside, not only was Robert Villanueva there, but so was his wife, Ursula. The Patils had also emerged from their room, concern in their eyes.
Prudence had tears streaming down her face in the silence, evident only because they glittered against her skin in the bare light.
“We’re coming with you,” Amos Patil whispered into the stifling night air. “Prudence and I wouldn’t leave you in a bind; in fact, I’ll drive. We can be ready in about five minutes.”
Relief flooded through Romeo, and he nodded. He watched the pair re-enter their suite.
“Call if you need anything,” Ursula told him. “I’ll get some meals together for you all so there’s something easy when you get back,” she continued, looking back and forth between her silent husband and Romeo.
Nodding again, he entered his apartment and helped Calico gather what they needed for the hospital. Within a few minutes, they were walking to the elevator, the Pa
til’s at their side.
Calling Kaleo back, he informed the man they were headed to the hospital.
“I can be there in fifteen minutes,” the man replied groggily. “Just grabbing a cuppa Joe and I’ll be right there.”
Othello greeted them upon arrival and introduced them to Dr. Theodora Wilkinson. Romeo allowed his eyes to meet those of the other man and nodded his appreciation as Calico and Prudence walked into a back room with the doctor. Filling out forms as quickly as he was able, he prayed that between the doctors, Othello, Kaleo, and God, something would happen for the best for his son.
As he handed the forms through the service window to a tiny woman with hair three different shades of purple, who in turn handed them to Othello, Romeo heard the sliding glass door behind him begin to move.
“Mr. Ferguson, Mr. Patil,” he heard Kaleo say in greeting in the quiet lobby. “Finally made it. And I brought you and Calico some tea. Noticed you weren’t big on coffee. Didn’t realize others were with you,” he said nodding toward Amos.
Romeo smiled down at the short, muscular man and thanked him. Reaching for the tray between them, he turned and waited for the buzz of the door between the lobby and the emergency rooms to indicate Othello had unlocked it.
“You coming,” he asked Amos, who seemed lost in reading some of the hospital’s literature.
“I will wait out here,” the man assured him, holding up the brochures in his hand before patting the bulging right pocket of his jean shorts. “I have reading material and music. I will be alright.”
Romeo nodded, thankful for the people who God had placed in his family’s life.
Moments later, he and Kaleo were being escorted back to the third room on the left, where he could hear Dr. Wilkinson asking Angus about his activities the day before.
Knocking, Othello glanced inside and then allowed the two men to pass into the room before heading back to his station. Kaleo nodded to Calico and Prudence, was quickly introduced to the doctor, and pulled an empty chair closer. Romeo handed one of the cold teas over to Calico, and pulled a chair up for himself.
The Angels' Mirror Pack 2: Books Four through Seven Page 102
