by Brynn Stein
“Be with—” She was incredulous and squeezed his hand. “Elliot Graham. You scare your living friends half to death and you’re worried that you can’t be with your dead one?” She paused and shook her head, then dropped it and their hands to the mattress. “I don’t even believe I just said that sentence.”
“Has anyone told Ben what happened?”
“No, Elliot. We have not.” She said in a snippy tone, picking her head back up. Elliot wished she’d stop moving so much because he was having a hell of time tracking her and he was getting sick to his stomach. At least she left his hand where it was on the mattress. His whole body seemed heavy, as if someone poured cement over him and it was drying quicker than he could remove it. “You’ve been in and out of consciousness for two days. They had to do emergency bypass surgery. It was touch and go for a while, Ellie. They called me and I managed to convince your private pilot to bring me up.” She tickled his fingers and smiled that shit-eating grin of hers. “I think I owe him a lap dance or something.” Leave it to Sheri to trade sexual favors for something like that.
“Someone needs to tell Ben,” Elliot croaked, then swallowed hard.
“Ellie—”
“Really, Cher. He’ll worry. Wouldn’t you want to know?”
“Yes, but—”
“But nothing. He’s just like anyone else.”
“He’s dead,” she droned on.
“Sheri, stop.” Elliot was too tired to have this argument again. The beeps of the machines were getting on his nerves, the lights were too bright, and his throat and chest still hurt. He wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, but he had to take care of Ben first. “Please get someone to go out with a laptop and tell him.”
Sheri’s expression softened, and she brushed a lock of hair from his face. “Okay, Elle, I’ll call Malcolm and see what I can do.”
“Okay. That’s all I ask.” His eyes were getting heavy again, and he felt himself falling asleep.
“PATRICK, YOU scared me.” Ben’s voice is shaky, and I can tell how upset he is.
“I didn’t do it on purpose, Ben.” I grin.
“I know.” But he doesn’t seem ready to forgive and forget. “But I can’t lose you. We’re not even fifteen yet, Patrick. No one should die before they’re fifteen.”
“And yet I’m sure they do all the time.” I’m a realist at heart, but now is probably not the best time for it. “But I’m not dead, Ben. I’m still here. My head hurts like Sam Hill himself is using it to drive nails, but I’m still here. And besides, not even death could keep me away from you. I’d find a way back somehow.”
ELLIOT WOKE with a start.
How am I getting Patrick’s memories here?
Sheri was asleep in the chair beside him in a position any contortionist would envy.
“Cher.” His voice sounded somewhat steadier than the last time he visited consciousness.
She woke up slowly, then grabbed his hand. “You okay, Elle?”
“Yeah,” he answered but wasn’t exactly sure it was true. “I was confused about something and wanted to talk about it.”
She leaned closer to him, concerned. “What is it, Ellie?”
“I’ve been having… flashbacks, of sorts. I see things the way they were during Ben and Patrick’s time. At first I thought it was just imagination, but the more I see…. Well, I think now that what I’m seeing are Patrick’s memories.”
She scrunched up her face in disbelief. “How can that be? He died in SC, didn’t he?” She scooted to the edge of her chair, her shoes scuffing on the floor. Elliot instinctively moved to look at what made the sound and winced. God, his incision hurt.
Sheri handed him a button with a cord leading to a machine he hadn’t noticed the last time he was awake. “Here, Elle. They said to push this when you’re in pain. It’s morphine, so it’ll most likely make you loopy or knock you out, but they said it was important to keep your pain managed as well as possible.”
Elliot nodded his understanding, but he didn’t want to go back to sleep yet, and she was right. He was so sensitive to morphine, it would more than likely put him to sleep—or at least out of his head—and he wanted to finish this conversation first. “I’m pretty sure Patrick died in SC. I know he died in battle in the South somewhere.” He turned his hand over in hers and she squeezed it. “But… well, at first I thought he could be in the house and in the tree house because his body was buried nearby. I haven’t gotten to research that yet, but that was my theory.”
“Was?” Her eyebrows crawled under her long, dark bangs in query.
“Well, that wouldn’t account for getting one just now.” He became fascinated with their hands again because he didn’t think he could handle seeing her incredulous face.
“One what? Memory?”
“Yeah. I just dreamt through Patrick’s eyes again. He shouldn’t be able to contact me here. Should he?”
“Elle, you know what I think.” She rubbed her thumb in circles on his hand. “You’re an imaginative guy. They’re simply dreams.”
“How can you say that? You’ve talked to Ben. You know he gave me his memories. I’m not imagining this.” Elliot met her gaze at that statement. He was getting a little miffed at Sheri’s disbelief. “And it’s not only dreams. I see scenes when I’m awake too. So, unless you’re suggesting that I’m having a psychotic break and these are hallucinations….”
“No, Elliot, that’s not what I’m saying.” She gave his hand a little shake, seemingly to get his attention. But she already had it. He wasn’t looking away again. This was important to him, and he was going to face it head-on, despite Sheri’s continued argument. “But you said yourself that he wouldn’t be able to get to you here.”
“Well, Cher.” Elliot adopted a tone of voice he usually reserved for obtuse business partners. “He obviously can. It just doesn’t fit into my current theory. So I need to come up with a new one that fits all the facts. I don’t know what that is yet, but I’ll figure it out.”
Sheri broke the staring competition first. “Well, don’t discount the imagination theory. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Okay. Fine. It’s on the list.” Elliot scoffed, then pointed to the door. “Now go call Malcolm and get someone out to talk to Ben.”
“Can I visit with you a little first? I’ll call when I go back to the hotel the next time you fall asleep. Now that I know you’re going to be okay, I may actually use the room I rented. I’ve been staying here in the hospital most of the time since I got to Pennsylvania.”
“How long can you stay?” Elliot reached for her hand again. “In Pennsylvania, I mean. I know you probably have catering functions and stuff to get back to.”
She took his hand and leaned toward him. “I plan to stay as long as you’re in here. I only had three events coming up anytime soon. One the day after I got the call about you. For that one I had most of the food prepared anyway, so I called another caterer in town—kind of a friendly rival—and she agreed to take the food to the party and serve it, clean up, all that day-of stuff—for half of the fee, of course. And I just passed the other two events off to her, with the clients’ permission. Debbie’s a good caterer and she’ll do right by them.”
“Cher,” Elliot squeezed her hand. “You can’t put your business on hold just to stay here with me. You’ve worked hard to make a name for yourself.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think missing a couple of events is going to kill the business, and—”
“But you’re giving the other lady more business, more word of mouth advertising. There can’t be enough catered events that there’s not competition among the caterers.” Elliot lifted his head off the pillow.
Sheri chuckled and shook her head. “Oh, there’s competition all right.” Then she leaned even closer, leaned her chin on his hand, and gave his wrist a little kiss. “Look, Elle, I barely need the business anyway. I’ve got the trust fund that would have me living just fine without working at all. I just
love to cook. But even if I lost the business”—Elliot opened his mouth to protest—“which I won’t, I want to be here for you. I need to be here for you.” She raised her head and playfully smacked his hand before pulling hers away and sitting back in the chair as if to settle in for a long stay. “Whether you want me to be or not.”
Elliot pressed his morphine button and fell back to sleep a short time later.
THE NEXT time he woke was to a nurse gently jostling his arm. “Wake up, honey. The doctor needs to speak with you.”
Elliot was groggy but tried to sit up. “Oh God.”
The pain erupted in his chest. It wasn’t the same kind of pain he had felt in the tree house, but it was excruciating.
“Be careful there,” she warned. “Your incision is going to hurt if you move too much. Just tell me when you want to move and I’ll see if I can help you a little, so it won’t hurt so badly. But you don’t have to sit up. We’ll just raise the bed.”
Elliot carefully eased onto his back and the nurse helped him scoot over to the middle of the bed. It took forever, and Elliot was in so much pain he could barely breathe. The nurse handed him the button to the morphine machine and folded his fingers over it.
Oh good. I like this thing.
He depressed the button, hoping it just took the edge off the pain and wouldn’t put him back to sleep, but he was willing to take the chance.
“Mr. Graham.” The doctor offered his hand by way of greeting. “I’m Dr. Sowder. I’m the cardiologist in charge of your case while you’re here with us.” Elliot felt the morphine try to pull him under, but he focused hard on what the doctor had to say. “That was good thinking on your part, getting the QR alert bracelet. We accessed your medical files and called Dr. Abernathy down in South Carolina to okay a coronary-bypass surgery. We contacted your medical proxy and took a voice authorization instead of waiting until she got here. There really was no time to wait.” He hovered at the base of Elliot’s bed, which made Elliot wonder if all hospital-based doctors did that. Dr. Proust had too, that first time. “You gave us all quite a scare.”
“Didn’t do it on purpose,” Elliot slurred as the morphine started to affect how much he thought about what he was going to say before he actually said it.
Dr. Sowder chuckled a little and jostled Elliot’s big toe as if in solidarity. “Well, the bypass surgery was a success, obviously, and since we had your chest open, we replaced your pacemaker with an ICD, an implantable cardioverter defibrillator. Basically it’s a pacemaker that can also provide electroshock when needed to convert your heart back into regular rhythm.”
Elliot unconsciously brought his hand to the place on his chest where the pacemaker now sat.
“The battery pack is still just under the skin and will work the same way as the pacemaker you had. It’ll just help with actual defib too.”
When Elliot only nodded his understanding because he was losing his battle with the morphine, the doctor quickly added, “We want to keep you in here for a while to make sure you don’t have any more episodes and to make sure the ICD is doing what it’s supposed to do.”
Elliot had no idea what Dr. Sowder may have said after that; he was pulled completely into dreamless slumber.
THE FIRST thing he asked Sheri when he woke up was what she had found out in reference to Ben.
She dropped her head dramatically in a way that said I give up. “You have a one-track mind. And not the best track, let me tell you. If you have to have a one-track mind, sex is a much better track to—”
“You’re stalling.” Elliot drummed his fingers on the rough hospital sheets, awaiting her answer.
“Only a little.” She grinned. “Malcolm is out of town on business, but Daniel said to give him a call when you woke up, and he would go out and talk to Ben with you on the phone. He said he wanted witnesses, if only via cell phone, in case he’s killed by a flying lamp.”
Elliot rolled his eyes at Daniel’s attempt at levity. He knew the guy wasn’t really afraid of Ben anymore. Elliot turned his head toward the bedside table, and seeing only a pitcher of water and a cup, said, “I don’t know where my phone is.”
“Well, you could use mine, but you don’t have to. One of Terry’s men picked yours up and put it in your jacket pocket. I hung your coat over here.” She went to the coat hook behind the door and retrieved his jacket, then laid it on Elliot’s lap.
He fished out the phone, brushed off a tiny piece of dried leaf from the screen, and called Daniel. Sheri mouthed coffee and hitched her finger toward the door. He knew she meant she was going to get coffee, not asking if Elliot wanted one because the doctor had limited his caffeine for the foreseeable future, and unfortunately Sheri had been there when he said it. When Elliot nodded his acknowledgment, she left the room.
“Elliot?” Daniel’s excited voice answered on the other end. “Man, it’s great to hear your voice. I thought Sheri’d be the one to call back.”
Elliot chuckled. “Nope. You’re stuck with me, Darrell.”
Daniel laughed at the return of the nickname, then sobered and asked, “How you feeling, Elle?”
“I’m doing okay for someone who looks like he’s lived through an autopsy.” He scratched at the hospital gown just above his heart. “You ought to see the scar on my chest.”
“Ooooh, inviting me to see your scars. What would Ben say?”
“You know, if I could reach you, I’d smack you.” He readjusted the phone to his ear, rolling his head around on the pillow to help hold it in place.
“Why do you think I say these kinds of things on the phone?”
Elliot appreciated the humor, but he had called for a specific reason and didn’t want any more delay. “Can you head out to the plantation house sometime soon and call me back when you get there or something? I want to talk to Ben.”
“Already on my way.”
“You’re driving while you’re on the phone?” He jerked his head up in sudden concern, but then had to scrabble for the phone as it slipped down the pillow.
“Do I look stupid to you?” Daniel stopped abruptly. “No, wait. Don’t answer that. But of course not. Well, sort of, because I’m driving, and I’m conversing with someone through a cellular device, but it’s routed through my car. Completely hands-free.”
Elliot chuckled as he tried to find the semicomfortable position he’d had before dislodging the phone. “Okay. As long as you’re being safe.”
“Safety is always my number one concern.” There was a leer in Daniel’s voice.
“Ummm,” Elliot stuttered and glanced nervously toward the phone, but he knew Daniel was teasing. He wasn’t propositioning him. He was simply being Daniel. That was his sense of humor. “How long before you get there?”
“Not long. Maybe five minutes?” Daniel answered. “You caught me on this side of town anyway.”
“Okay.” With his head rolled to the side to hold the phone again, Elliot could put his right hand down. He circled his shoulder and elbow in turn, working out the kinks they’d developed.
“So,” Daniel was saying into Elliot’s ear. “I won’t lay into you about all the ways being up there by yourself with a barely managed heart condition was always a bad idea. I’ve told you that before and you didn’t listen to me, so I’m assuming you’re too hardheaded to listen to me now as well.”
“I don’t know.” Elliot picked at a thread on the sheet. “I’m feeling kind of stupid too, actually. If I die here, I can’t get to Ben.”
“You don’t have to die at all.” Daniel’s was voice loud in his ears as Elliot pulled on the thread and watched the fabric bunch up in response. “Not anytime soon, anyway.” Elliot tangled his finger around the thread and pulled harder. “I’ve researched congestive heart failure too.”
“Stage D, Daniel.” Elliot yanked the thread hard enough to break it and the sheet pulled away from where it had gathered together.
“Even Stage D doesn’t mean you’re going to die tomorrow.”
&nb
sp; “It means all that’s left are intrusive treatments. Even more intrusive than cutting open my heart and rearranging the highway of my arteries, not to mention jamming something in there that will literally shock me when my heart can’t be bothered to get with the program.” Elliot worried the newly developing hole in the sheet with the pad of his index finger and quieted his voice, hating to admit this part, but needing to say it anyway. “So, I should probably stay closer to home than Pennsylvania.”
Elliot heard the mirth in Daniel’s voice. “So, you’re saying we were right and you shouldn’t have gone that far away.”
Elliot smirked joylessly. “I’m saying I’m ready to come back home as soon as they release me. I’ll get someone else to do the work on the house.”
“Really? You can’t just say we’re right?”
Elliot refused to answer Daniel, and silence stretched out between them for long moments. He tried to make himself stop fidgeting but only succeeded in changing the object of his attention. He started playing with the tape around the IV on his left hand and succeeded in peeling up a tiny corner.
Daniel finally broke the silence when he said, “I’m pulling up to the house now. I swear, Elliot, if I get killed, I’m going to haunt you.”
Elliot chuckled. “Join the club. That seems to be the thing to do these days.”
He could almost hear Daniel shake his head at that.
“Okay. Phone on speaker. Laptop at the ready. Going in.”
Elliot waited while Daniel entered the house, and it occurred to him that he’d have to ask Sheri where Daniel got a key. He heard Daniel’s voice over the phone.
“Ben?” There was a long pause. “Ben, I know you have to be here. Where else would you go? It’s not like you stepped out for a bite to eat.” Elliot heard something crash and found himself picking at the tape even more diligently. “Hey, watch it! If you don’t stop throwing things at me, I won’t let you talk to Elliot.”
