by Sharon Sala
Cinnamon came in and sat down beside her. “Honey, are you still feeling bad?”
Ellie nodded and pulled the covers up over her shoulders.
“Want me to go get someone to come see about you?”
“No. Surely I’ll feel better soon.”
Cinnamon patted Ellie’s leg. “Is there anything I can do?”
“I’m just going to sleep.”
“Okay, but I’m here if you need me.”
Wyatt came in behind her. “What’s wrong with Ellie?”
“She said she doesn’t feel good and wants to sleep, which means we need to make ourselves scarce.”
Except for the faint wails of the crying baby, the room got quiet. Within a few minutes Ellie drifted into a fitful sleep filled with crazy dreams and old memories—memories that kept waking her in a state of panic, then dropping her off into limbo again.
Hours passed.
The pain in Ellie’s side had become so severe she was shaking, and the fever in her body so hot she’d thrown off the covers. The room was cold, but her pain and fever were rising. That’s when the hallucinations began.
The monster was coming. She could hear the shuffling sound of his steps against her carpet. The sounds morphed into voices out in the hall. There were sirens in her yard—loud ones—screaming, screaming, like the voices inside her head.
Momma face down on the bed. She’s not dead. See everyone, she’s not dead. Then Momma rolled over. Her face was purple and even though her eyes were slightly open, Ellie could see that she was no longer there.
All the tires were flat on her car and she was running, trying to get home before Daddy found out, but when she got home there was blood everywhere.
A light appeared above her head, but it wasn’t from the Jesus window. Someone was running a vacuum cleaner. Tell them to stop. She didn’t want to hear the noise.
Blood everywhere. Daddy moaning. Gunshots. The smell of gunpowder up my nose. Sirens in the yard again.
The look of horror on Doris’s face. Poor Doris.
Poor Ellie, the keeper of secrets.
Luther Dunn had been asleep for nearly an hour when he suddenly opened his eyes. His skin was burning, his belly on fire.
Ellie!
He threw back the covers and left his room, unconcerned that he was naked.
A nurse on the night shift saw him running up the hall and called for help in a panic, certain he was having a psychotic episode. “Luther! Stop! You’re not wearing any clothes and you’re not supposed to be out of bed. What’s going on?”
“Ellie is sick. She needs a doctor or she’s going to die.”
“What?”
“Run, woman,” Luther cried, and took off down the hall to Ellie’s room, dragging her with him.
Once they reached Ellie’s room, the nurse was shocked by Ellie’s condition. When the nurse turned on the light, Ellie rolled over on the side of the bed and vomited. She was feverish and incoherent.
The flurry of activity on the floor increased tenfold as an ambulance was called and nurses came running. Someone wrapped Luther up in a bedsheet, then an aide took him back to his room. He went willingly, knowing he’d done what needed to be done.
By the time the paramedics arrived, Ellie had slipped into a state of unconsciousness. She never knew when they wheeled her out of her room on a gurney, or the frantic 2:00 a.m. ride to All Saints Hospital in Memphis. They wheeled her into ER in an unresponsive condition with a fever of 105. Shortly thereafter she was diagnosed with appendicitis and on her way to surgery.
The diagnosis took a deadly turn after they opened her up to find the appendix had already ruptured. After that, it was a race against time. A half hour into the surgery her blood pressure suddenly dropped, adding another measure of intensity to an already dire situation.
An anesthesiologist suddenly shouted. “We’re losing her.”
The doctor looked up at the dropping pressure just as she flatlined.
In that moment, Ellie Wayne was dead.
“I need a crash cart.”
Ellie felt light and empty of every negative thing she’d ever endured. The field of daisies in which she stood was filled with butterflies and hummingbirds vying for the nectar, while the sun lit a path toward a large stand of trees, just like the ones above the creek behind her house.
Ellie pointed, laughing at a pair of hummingbirds that were dive-bombing each other for the rights to a single bloom. “Look, Wyatt. That’s you and me fighting over the last pancake.”
Wyatt moved up beside her and put an arm around her shoulder. “I love you, Ellie.”
She looked up, smiling. “I love you, too, Wyatt.”
Cinnamon came up behind her and handed her a handful of daisies. “From me to you with love,” she said.
“Thank you, but why so solemn? Look at this place! It’s beautiful. How can you not be happy here?”
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Wyatt said.
“What do you mean? You and Cinnamon are here. Why can’t I be here, too?”
“You’re dying, Ellie. They’re trying to bring you back to life but it’s not happening.”
All of a sudden the sun was gone and the sky was black. The wind began to whirl, tugging at their hair and clothing and pulling the petals from all the daisies until they spun in the air like snowflakes in a storm.
“Go back, Ellie. Go back,” Cinnamon said.
Ellie screamed at them, desperate to be heard against the rising wind. “We’ll all go back!”
Wyatt pushed her away. “We can’t. You’re not strong enough to take us back with you. If you don’t go now, we all die. You have to go back, Ellie. You have to live.”
The storm was within her now in a new and frightening way, ripping at what she’d been, but she wouldn’t give way.
“I don’t want to live without you. I can’t. I won’t.”
Wyatt and Cinnamon began to disappear. But even after she could no longer see them, she could still hear Wyatt’s voice, shouting at her, begging her to understand.
“Yes you can. Yes you will. Go back, Ellie. Go back, or Daddy will have won.”
A nurse looked up. “I’ve got a pulse.”
Someone muttered, “Thank God.”
The surgeon shifted back into gear. “Let’s get this finished, people.”
Aaron Tyler got to work to find a note on his desk stating that Ellie Strobel wouldn’t be in for her session because she’d been taken to the hospital in the night.
Frowning, he picked up the phone and called the nurse’s desk. “This is Dr. Tyler. What happened to Ellie Strobel?”
“I just came on duty. Let me check, Dr. Tyler.”
Aaron waited a few moments, and then the nurse was back.
“She was taken by ambulance to All Saints around 2:00 a.m. It says here she was unconscious, with nausea and high fever. Oh. And one other notation here . . . something about being alerted to her condition by Luther Dunn, although I’m not sure what that means.”
Aaron’s stomach knotted. “I think I do. Thank you.”
He hung up, then glanced at his calendar. Ellie had been his only session this morning. There was plenty of time for him to go check on her. Even though this did not fall under the auspices of his duty to a patient, he knew if he didn’t go, there would be no one but strangers seeing to her welfare. But before he went, he wanted to talk to Luther—if, of course, Luther was willing to talk to him.
He left his office and ran into Charlie on the way down the corridor. “Charlie, do you have a minute?”
“Yeah, sure Doc. What do you need?”
“Walk with me to Luther Dunn’s room. I need to ask him a couple of questions, but he doesn’t really know me, so I’d prefer you went along as a familiar face.”
“No problem. Is he in trouble?”
“No.”
“Good. I like the old Hippy. He doesn’t make waves, which is more than I can say for most of the patients in here.”
&nb
sp; “Yes, I suppose that’s so.”
A couple of minutes later they were at his door.
Charlie knocked then poked his head in the door. Luther was sitting in a chair in front of the window with his back to the door.
“Hey Luther, it’s me. You have a visitor.”
There was no indication that he’d heard.
“Wait here for me,” Aaron said and went in. He walked around the chair where Luther was sitting to face him. “Luther, I’m Ellie’s doctor. I wanted to thank you for calling attention to her condition last night.”
“You’re in my light.”
Aaron jumped, then moved off to one side. “Sorry. I didn’t realize.”
Luther turned his head and looked straight into Aaron’s eyes. “They all died last night.”
Just like that, the air went out of the room. Aaron reached for the wall to steady himself as a wave of despair rolled through him. “No . . . God, no.”
“Only Ellie came back.”
And just as quickly, oxygen returned. “What do you mean?”
“You’ll see.”
“I’m on my way there now.”
“She won’t talk to you, but that’s okay. Later she will remember you cared enough to come.”
Aaron walked out of the room with Charlie at his heels. “Is that true, Doc?”
“I’m about to find out.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ellie never knew how many times Aaron visited her in intensive care. When she finally woke up enough to realize where she was, all she remembered was seeing the tulips from her window.
She wouldn’t think about being dead, although she remembered it had happened. Knowing Wyatt and Cinnamon had willingly sacrificed themselves to save her was breaking her heart. She wasn’t worthy of such a sacrifice. Whatever pain and discomfort she was feeling she considered just punishment for surviving when they had not.
The day they moved her from intensive care to a regular room, she was still weighed down by guilt and unable to accept what she’d lost. And then she heard the voice.
You can’t get past it without going through it.
Ellie heard it—got it—and finally lost it.
It started with an ache in the back of her throat. Then her vision blurred. She reached for a tissue and knocked the water off her table. When it hit the floor with a splat, sending ice and water all over the floor, she groaned and reached for the call button.
A few moments later, a nurse answered. “What do you need?”
“I spilled my water,” she said, quietly swallowing a sob.
“We’ll be right there.”
The connection was gone, but her pain was not. She kept hearing Wyatt’s voice . . . Yes you can. Yes you will. And the tears began to roll.
A janitor came in to clean up the water. “Hey, no need to cry about that. I’ll have it cleaned up in no time.”
But Ellie couldn’t stop. Pain grew within her faster than she could let it out. Tears fell harder, choking her, ripping her up from the inside out.
The janitor called for a nurse.
By the time the nurse arrived Ellie was sitting up in bed, sobbing.
“Ellie. Are you in pain? What’s wrong? You have to tell me before I can help you.”
“They’re dead. They’re all dead,” she cried, then threw herself backward and began to scream.
The first thing Ellie heard when she came to was the silence. She didn’t know how long she’d been out, only that she’d been drugged. She recognized the feeling and the taste in her mouth from meds she’d been given at Mind and Body.
She lay without moving—trying to figure out what had happened—what was different. It took her a few moments to realize the crying baby was gone.
She put her hands over her ears, then took them off, then put them over her ears again, testing to see if the quiet was real. And it was.
She couldn’t believe it.
It had taken nearly a year for it to happen, but the crying had finally stopped. So her inner child wasn’t sad anymore, but she wished she could say the same for herself. Without Wyatt and Cinnamon, she was horribly alone. The true state of her life was like a knife to the heart. How did one live without joy? How could she find the courage to move forward?
I rejoice in your peace.
And just like that, the panic that threatened her receded, leaving a message in its wake. As long as she kept God in her life, she would never be completely alone.
God is forever.
She took a deep breath and then let it out while holding on to the wash of solace.
“I won’t forget that again.”
Memphis—July
Ellie had been packed since before breakfast, although the car that would be taking her home wasn’t due to arrive for another hour. She was, in the words of Nurse Jolly, who had never quite forgiven her for taking the scissors, a success story in spite of herself.
Dr. Moira Ferris had given up trying to understand the link between Luther and Ellie—mostly because Luther refused to cooperate and Ellie couldn’t explain it.
Dr. Tyler felt somewhat like a parent watching a child leaving home for the first time. He didn’t know if she was completely ready, but it was time to let her fly.
He glanced at the clock, then shut down his laptop and headed for her room to wish her well and tell her good-bye. He was almost out the door when he remembered something and ran back to get it.
Ellie hadn’t worn a dress in more than a year, but she was grateful to Doris for having the foresight to send it to her. It was the little dress with the cap sleeves and the tulip skirt that she’d worn the night she graduated high school. It felt right, since leaving here was, in a way, another graduation. And it was pink, which was for Ellie the color of joy, and this was a joyous occasion.
She eyed herself in the bathroom mirror, feathering her funky new haircut and then used up the last of her lipstick.
“Just in time,” she said, and tossed the empty tube in the trash.
It was exciting to know she would, once again, be making her own decisions, buying her own food, stocking her own home with the necessities of life, although it was daunting to be doing it alone. Just as she was stepping into her white sandals, there was a knock at her door. She walked out of the bathroom as Dr. Tyler peeked in the door.
Aaron stopped in the doorway, stunned by the sight of her, then he smiled. “Ellie. You look beautiful.”
“Thank you. I’m excited.”
“I can imagine. Are you nervous about anything?’
“No. I spoke to Doris a couple of days ago. She was our housekeeper and a really nice lady. She packed my clothes at the house, and saw to getting my car serviced. I needed a new battery and an oil change . . . stuff like that. She also found the keepsakes I’d asked for and boxed them up. The rest will be sold with Daddy’s car and the house, but the lawyer is dealing with all that. All I have to do is load my things in the car and wave good-bye to Memphis from the rearview mirror. I think Doris is a little glad I’m leaving so she won’t have to actually quit. I doubt she could have taken much more of me. Truthfully, I am stunned by how loyal she stayed to the family, putting up with Momma’s prayers and Daddy and me, although to be fair, she didn’t know about Daddy.”
Ellie paused, the corner of her mouth turning up just enough to prove she was happy. “She once said that living with me was like working in a boarding house. There were too many people. Daddy upped her pay and she stayed on.”
Aaron listened to her rattle, just like Cinnamon used to do, but he knew it was Ellie. He couldn’t help watching for signs of panic, or the telltale picking of hangnails that was a sure sign she was keeping something back, but he saw none of it. “Do you have your finances in order?”
She nodded. “I don’t suppose you knew it, but I inherited everything when Momma died. Daddy still had a job at Strobel Investments, but the business, house and property were mine. The irony was he didn’t know Momma had changed her will unti
l he’d killed her. She’d done it after she found out about what he’d done to me. There is an executor until I turn twenty-one. I’ll be fine.”
“Good.” One more worry checked off his list of concerns. “Do you know where you’re going?”
“Waco, Texas.”
He didn’t bother to hide his surprise. “Waco? What’s in Waco?”
“Baylor University. It’s a private Christian-based university. I think it will suit me.”
“Ah . . . and I think you’re right. But I wouldn’t feel like I’d done my duty without warning you it’s going to be hard and sometimes dangerous for a young girl like you, living on your own.”
The minute he said it, he got one of those, I-can’t-believe-you-just-said-that looks for which she was famous. Then when she laughed, he knew he’d somehow put his foot in it again.
“I’m sorry for laughing, Dr. Tyler, but that has to be one of the dumbest things you’ve ever said to me. My past was not sheltered. I spent thirteen years in school without a single friend and managed to graduate with a 4.0. I went home to a mother who talked to God more than she talked to me, and a father who made my life a living hell. I killed a person to save myself. After all that, living alone will be a breeze. Ellie Wayne was naïve, but Ellie Strobel is not. Stop worrying.”
“You’re right, but you’re still going to need therapy. I will find a good doctor for you in Waco. Will you promise to go see him?”
“I guess, although I don’t feel like I need any more help.”
Aaron knew that wasn’t the case. There would be days when the world crashed around her, and days when she felt too alone. She was going to have to learn how to make friends. She’d never had a real friend in her entire life. This was a skill children learned in kindergarten, although by that time, Ellie hadn’t needed a friend, she’d needed a savior. And when He hadn’t come, she hadn’t bothered to look elsewhere.
“What if Wyatt comes back, or Cin? You’ll need someone to talk to. Trust me on this, will you?”
She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “What do you mean, if Wyatt comes back? They’re dead. I think you’ve been with these crazy people too long. Sometimes the things you say make me think you’re the one who needs a shrink.”
