Divinely Yours

by Karin Gillespie

  Instantly, Caroline was alert. She flopped on her back to face Mona. “Emily?”

  Mona nodded. “You were right all along. Emily came out of her coma.”

  Caroline batted away her bedcovers. “Where is she?”

  “University Hospital. She was transferred there this morn­ing. She wants to see you. I’ll take you there myself.”

  “Hallelujah!” Caroline said, bounding out of bed with the spryness of a cheerleader. “I knew she’d come around.”

  “I’ll wait for you in the office while you get ready.” Mona paused for a moment, toying with the buttons of her cardigan. “By the way,” she added in a soft voice, “Ms. Waters is no longer with us at Magnolia Manor. I’m sorry she was unkind to you. She’s my niece, you see, and I thought I’d give her a chance, but—” She shrugged her shoulders. “She made some very bad decisions while I was gone.”

  “Good riddance to bad rubbish. I’m just glad you’re back,” Caroline said, grinning as she grabbed her toilet kit from the top of the dresser.

  She took a steaming hot shower and the water felt like a thousand warm fingers on her back. After toweling off, she flung open her closet and withdrew her Sunday finest, a purple linen dress with a matching feathered straw hat and dotted veil.

  “That’s what I call hat-titude,” Caroline said with a cackle as she perched the hat on her head. This was an auspicious oc­casion, and she wanted to be dressed to the nines.

  “Look at you,” Mona said, clapping her hands together when Caroline stepped over the threshold of the office, hold­ing a beaded clutch. “Won’t Emily be pleased.”

  As they rode to the hospital in Miss Mona’s Buick Regal, Caroline got a case of the butterflies. What would their first meeting be like? She didn’t really know her room­mate; all of their conversations had been completely one-­sided. Was Caroline just enamored with the fairy-tale version of Emily she’d created in her mind? Maybe Emily would curse, and talk about turning tricks and drugs. Maybe Caroline wouldn’t want anything to do with her.

  Put a lid on it, she chided. She had a feeling about the young woman. Yes, it was true Emily had stumbled on hard times. Didn’t everyone do that now and again? Hadn’t she had her own dark night of the soul fifty-odd years ago when her husband was running around on her? Obviously, Emily had temporarily lost her way, and she’d gotten a wake-up call. And yes, it was one hell of a wake-up call, but Caroline knew some people required more than just a tap on the shoulder.

  She and Mona arrived at the hospital and were directed to Emily’s floor. A burly security guard stood outside her room, clipboard in hand.

  “Name?” he said.

  “Caroline Brodie and Miss Mona Scales.” Caroline frowned. “Is anything wrong?”

  “Just trying to keep out curiosity-seekers,” the security guard said. “I got a Caroline Brodie on this list, but no Mona Scales.”

  “I’ll wait out here,” Mona said, touching Caroline’s elbow. “You go ahead, dear. And good luck with our Emily.”

  Caroline nodded and adjusted the angle of her hat. Just as she approached the door, it swung open and three doctors emerged, two males and one female.

  “It’s impossible to keep this kind of news under wraps,” the female doctor said. She was a wisp of a thing haloed by a cloud of dark hair. “The local television station’s already called, but I think her recovery will attract national—”

  The male doctor looked up and noticed Caroline standing outside the door.

  “Please tell me you’re Mrs. Brodie. I’m Dr. Perry,” he said, extending a hand.

  “Is Emily in there?” Caroline tried to peer over the doc­tor’s shoulder.

  “Yes, she is, and she’s anxious to see you,” Dr. Perry said. “Thank you so much for coming.”

  “A den of grizzly bears couldn’t keep me away. So is she...”

  “Completely conscious, although she drifts in and out of sleep,” Dr. Perry said. “The only person she wants to talk to is you.”

  “And I can’t wait to speak with her.”

  “I’m sure you can’t. But before you do, there are a couple of things you should know. First, Emily has no idea how long she’s been in a vegetative state. It’s best if you avoid discuss­ing particulars with her while she’s in such a frail condition.”

  “Yes,” Caroline said.

  “Secondly, although it’s a miracle that Emily has regained consciousness, there’s no telling how long she’ll be with us.” His voice became solemn. “It could be for a very brief time. The last person on record who came out of a lengthy vegeta­tive state spoke with family members for several hours and then died the next day of a stroke. We don’t know what we can expect from Emily, but in cases like hers, it’s prudent to pre­pare for the worst.”

  “I’ll prepare myself for the best, Dr. Perry, thank you very much, and you should too. If the man upstairs brought her this far, He can surely bring her a tad further.” She smoothed the pleats of her dress. “Can I please go in and see Emily now?”

  “Be my guest,” Dr. Perry said.

  Caroline tiptoed into the room, just in case Emily was sleeping, although how anyone could catch even a single “z” in such a brightly lit room was another matter altogether.

  Emily was laid out on the bed, flat on her back as usual, but for the first time ever, her eyes were closed. She was so mo­tionless Caroline felt a flutter of panic in her throat. Was the girl still alive?

  “Emily,” Caroline called out, surprised by the roughness of her voice. She cleared her throat to chase away the frogs. “Emily,” she said, this time much louder and clearer.

  The young woman was an expanse of immobile cotton. Caroline was about to reach out and touch her cheek when she remembered how she’d always roused Emily in the past.

  “Inky Dinky parlez vous,” she sang.

  Emily’s body twitched several times. Caroline kept singing, this time a little louder, until ever so slowly the young woman opened her eyes.

  “Caroline? Caroline, is that you?” she slurred. Emily’s face broke into a weak smile, showing a row of strong healthy teeth, just as Caroline had imagined in her dreams.

  “Yes, Sleeping Beauty, it’s me,” Caroline said, a quaver in her voice as she rushed to the bedside to grasp Emily’s hand. “I’m here now. Don’t fret.”

  “Thank God,” Emily said. “I was afraid you were just part of my dreams. But you’re real.”

  “Realer than most folks, I can promise you that.” Caroline scrambled in her pocketbook for a tissue. It was as if the girl had reached inside her ribcage and given her heart a little pinch.

  “There’s so much I want to say.”

  Caroline patted her hand. “Don’t be straining yourself now. There’ll be plenty of time for that.”

  “Can you come see me again?”

  “’Course I can.”

  Caroline didn’t know how she’d make it back to the hospital, but she would get there, come hell or hurricane.

  “Caroline.” He voice was as faint as a fly under glass. “Please don’t leave me again. I don’t know these people. You’re all I have.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true,” Caroline fibbed. As far as she knew, the girl had no people to speak of. Certainly none dropped in during the time they were roommates. “But I promise, I won’t leave you.”

  “Caroline, never leave me,” Emily said again, stretching out the syllables of Caroline’s name as if she loved the sound of it on her lips. How silly she’d been to fret over Emily’s past. There wasn’t a lick of toughness in her expression. The hard-edged street woman had been worn smooth by the coma, leav­ing a girl as innocent as a newborn chick.

  “And next time you come, bring the radio. I missed Mi­nerva last night.”

  “Will do, lamb. I missed it myself.”

  Emily’s head lolled to her side.
Caroline could tell she was struggling to stay awake for her benefit. “How long have I been away, Caroline?”

  She’d asked the one question Caroline wasn’t allowed to answer. Thankfully, before she could decide on a reply, Emily had fallen asleep again.

  When Emily woke up the next morning, Caroline was no longer in the chair beside her. She was about to call out for a nurse when she heard a man talking just outside her room.

  “You know I’m not supposed to take phone calls at work...Just call the plumber. I think we used A-Rite last time. Look in the phone book...I’m pulling the same duty as yesterday...I told you about it last night, the woman who’s been in a coma for over a year.”

  Emily’s limbs stiffened. So that’s why she had a parade of doctors in her room. How could she have lost an entire year? Christmas, Easter, Arbor Day…It was incomprehensible. What in God’s name had happened to her? Her mind whirled as she tried to process the news. It was far too much for her to absorb in her weakened state, and her consciousness started to ebb until she passed out completely.

  When she woke up, Dr. Perry and his staff were in her room. “Emily,” Dr. Perry said. “Are you awake? I’d like to speak to you.”

  She didn’t reply. The truth weighed upon like a load of bricks; she could scarcely breathe. Emily didn’t want to talk with these people. She needed Caroline. She longed to hear her sing and to feel the calming touch of her hand. Where’d she gone? Hadn’t she promised she wouldn’t leave?

  “Caroline,” she said in a plaintive voice, her eyes filling with tears. “I want to see her. Bring her back to me.”

  Dr. Perry exchanged an uneasy glance with his colleagues and fidgeted with the band of his steel wristwatch.

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

  Not possible! Why was he being so contrary? Wasn’t it bad enough that she’d lost a year of her life? That she was a medi­cal anomaly? Couldn’t he grant her this smallest of wishes?

  “I want Caroline,” she said petulantly. Their trained seal would not perform until she came back. “Did you send her away?”

  “Of course not, Emily. Please look at me. There’s some­thing I need to tell you,” Dr. Perry said. His voice was apolo­getic, tinged with pity. “It’s bad news, I’m afraid.”

  Over forty years ago Caroline had lost her only child, a stillborn baby boy named Russell. Now she was getting a second chance. She felt as if she’d birthed Emily and coaxed her back into the world. Certainly the young woman would need Caroline as she found her way in life again. Dr. Perry seemed to agree. After Emily had fallen asleep, he’d entered the hospital room with Miss Mona and asked her to step outside.

  “Would you consider staying here in Emily’s room for a while?” he said to Caroline. “We’ll bring in a portable bed. I believe she’ll have a much better chance for recovery if you’re near.”

  Miss Mona assured her that her spot at Magnolia Manor would stay open as long as she needed it. Dr. Perry said she could take her meals free in the cafeteria. They’d both had pleading basset-hound eyes. As if staying with Emily was something she needed to be talked into! Of course she’d do it. For the first time in years, her heart felt as light as a puff of smoke. Truth was, in some ways she needed Emily more than Emily needed her.

  “What about my things?” Caroline asked. “I need some­one to fetch them for me, especially my radio. I promised Emily I wouldn’t leave her again.” Miss Mona assured her she’d have someone bring everything over that afternoon. She and Emily would listen to Minerva together tonight. It was like old home week.

  “De Camptown ladies sing this song, doo dah,” Caroline sang as she went back inside the hospital room and sank into the beige armchair beside Emily. “Too bad there’s no rocking chair,” she remarked.

  “I’ll have one brought over from the nursery,” said Dr. Perry.

  “That would be right decent of you.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Brodie,” Dr. Perry said. “I’m sure Emily will be thrilled to see you when she wakes up.”

  “I’m not moving a muscle,” Caroline said. “I’ll be right here like I said.” She paused and put a hand to her temple. Her eyes felt loose in their sockets, as if something in her head had short-circuited.

  “Mrs. Brodie, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she lied, reaching an arm out as if to steady herself. “I just need to...” Her vision blurred, and the words she wanted to speak swam away from her like minnows in a pond. Her chin fell to her chest, and she slid from her chair and collapsed on the floor.

  “Mrs. Brodie!” Dr. Perry shouted.

  They were the last words Caroline would ever hear on Earth. The pain in her temple was so sharp, it felt as if it were slicing her skull into two pieces. Just when she thought she’d go mad from the ceaseless burning in her brain, the pain receded. It was replaced with a peace that wrapped itself around her like a downy cocoon. She was suspended in her cozy chrysalis, traveling toward a yellow disc of light in the distance. It looked comforting and welcoming, like the light spilling from a cottage window in a dense black forest, and she was drawn to it. As she drifted in the direction of the light, she remembered a movie she’d seen on late-night television about ghosts. “Go into the light, children,” said one of the characters, coaxing troubled souls to cross over to the other side. Lord have mercy. It was her time to cross. She was one of those who’d left her body. She was dying. No! She couldn’t go. Not now.

  No matter how enticing the light, she refused to leave Emily behind. She would renounce the light. Kick and curse her way back into her body. Wasn’t that how it was done in the movies? She tried it, but the cocoon cushioned her jabs and muffled her cries and she continued to be propelled toward the light until she was engulfed in it. Caroline didn’t know who would be waiting for her in the sweet by-and-by—her late husband, Max, her dear-departed mother, Baby Russell, or the Devil him­self—but instead she saw the face of a woman in a navy-blue suit and white knee socks who said, “Welcome to the Hospitality Sector of Heaven. My name is Joy, and I’m your greeter.”

  “Heaven?” Caroline’s eyes adjusted to all the brightness and she found herself standing in a small cubicle, like some­thing you’d see in an insurance office. “Missy, send me right back where I came from. There’s someone on Earth who needs me.”

  “Yes, she does, Mrs. Brodie,” said another voice. A woman with a corona of fiery red curls stepped out from behind the first lady. She wore a long white gown and a black spiked collar around her neck.

  “Who are you?” Caroline asked. “A Hell’s Angel? Don’t matter to me. I can’t let Emily down.”

  “And you won’t,” said the redhead. “You can still help Emily from here. You have my word on it.”

  Caroline whimpered, desperately wishing she could return. She’d only had one visit with Emily. It wasn’t fair to leave her so soon. But as much as she wanted to go back to Earth, there would be no reprieve, at least not according to the redheaded woman with the spiked collar. A weakness in a blood vessel of her brain had caused an aneurysm. Although Dr. Perry had rushed her into surgery only minutes after she’d collapsed, she could not be resuscitated. Her body was creaky and worn out, and it was her time to leave the Earth.

  Twenty-Seven

  “Look at her,” Rhianna said, staring at Emily’s blank expression on the computer monitor in her cubicle. “She’s giving up. Ever since you died, she hasn’t said a word to anyone. All she does is sleep, and she’s refusing physical therapy.”

  “I get by with a little help from my friends,” Caroline sang into the hands-free mouthpiece. Dr. Mullins had emailed his syllabus to Rhianna, so she and Caroline were fa­miliar with every lesson Skye had learned during her Earth classes.

  “We’ve both been singing nonstop for nearly a week,” Rhi­anna said.

  Caroline, who had spent the last week in ND quarters get­ting oriented
, had been given special permission to join Rhi­anna in her quest to help Emily. Since she’d arrived in Heaven the network of lines in her forehead had smoothed out; the once loose skin at her neck was tight and firm, and her steel-wool hair had darkened to charcoal.

  “Sleeping Beauty, it’s Caroline. Open those baby blues.”

  Emily’s expression on the monitor remained unchanged, like one of those grim statues in Stonehenge. Caroline flinched and looked away. “I’m not getting through to her. Why can’t she hear us?”

  “She’s surrounded by a wall of discouragement,” Rhianna said. “She doesn’t think anyone cares about her. The voice of her self-pity is louder than we are. It’s drowning us out.”

  “I care about you,” Caroline said, blowing a kiss in the direction of the computer screen. “Please snap out of this, sugar pie.”

  “This just isn’t working. We’re going to have to try some­thing else,” Rhianna said. “Emily’s counselor is coming in to visit her in a half hour. I have another idea, but it’s going to take some teamwork.”

  Belinda Hobbs clip-clopped her way into Emily’s room in her dangerously high heels, leaving a mist of honeysuckle per­fume in her wake. She’d come to visit every day since Caro­line died.

  “Hi there. How you doing today?” Belinda said brightly. She said the same thing each day as if she expected Emily to answer. Her bracelets clinked together as she arranged herself on the chair beside the bed. Her physique was a study in roundness; she looked as if she were smuggling a collection of melons under her snug-fitting suit.

  Emily didn’t speak or meet her eyes. She’d gone back to staring at the ceiling, hoping that if she stayed still and silent long enough, she could will herself back into her coma.

  Keys jingled and a heavy purse was dropped to the ground. “I haven’t seen you cry yet, Emily.” Paper crinkled. Belinda moved her chair closer to the bed and Emily could smell the cool puff of peppermint on her breath. “Crying might help. Doesn’t Caroline deserve a few tears?”