Secrets of Forever

by Marie Ferrarella

  She was aware that this was a long shot, but at least now there was one.

  “I’m sending Cash out to bring her back to Forever,” Olivia was saying. “Any way you look at it, this is going to prove to be very interesting,” the sheriff’s wife told Ellie.

  Ellie couldn’t help but laugh. “You do have a way of understating things, Olivia. Well, I’d better get up and get dressed. Eastwood is going to want to be there for this auspicious reunion. And who knows, maybe this really will get Miss Joan to finally come around.”

  “One can only hope,” Olivia replied wistfully.

  * * *

  Ellie never dawdled in the morning, not even when she was a little girl getting ready for school. She had always been too conscientious. However, this had to be the fastest that she had ever gotten ready in her life. Less than ten minutes after she had received the phone call from Olivia, she was up, dressed and out the door with a piece of toast in her hand.

  Eduardo had just come down the stairs when Ellie hurried past him to get out the front door.

  “Hey, where’s the fire?” he asked.

  She didn’t want to stop, but she did. She wasn’t in the habit of ignoring her grandfather.

  “Olivia found Miss Joan’s sister. Cash is being sent out to bring her into town and I just wanted to tell Neil the good news that all isn’t lost.”

  “Oh, so it’s Neil now, is it?” Eduardo murmured to himself with a knowing smile. “Interesting,” he commented, nodding his head as he went into the kitchen. “Very interesting.”

  * * *

  Ellie lost no time driving to the Davenport residence in town. She knew for a fact that Dan was always up early because he needed to get to the medical clinic and open it for business. It had been that way ever since he had first arrived in Forever and reopened the clinic. Ellie also knew that with three children, Tina was perforce an early riser, as well.

  She had no idea what Neil was accustomed to doing, but she knew he’d welcome this news and would want to hear it as soon as possible.

  Ellie only needed to ring the doorbell once and the door flew open.

  Tina’s youngest was standing in the doorway. The moment Jeannie saw who it was, an amazingly sympathetic look came over her small face as she asked, “Are you sick, Ellie? Do you need to come in and see my dad?” The girl obviously associated anyone who came to their house with being a potential patient of her father.

  “No, honey. I’m just here to give your dad and his houseguest, Dr. Eastwood, some really good news,” Ellie told the little girl.

  “What news is that?” Neil asked, coming into the living room and joining Jeannie and Ellie.

  He smiled broadly at Ellie. The events of yesterday evening were still very much on his mind and he found himself reliving them over and over again—and wanting to generate even more memories.

  Assuming that Ellie might be there for that very same reason, Neil started to tell her, “You know, I don’t have anything really planned for today, so if you’re interested—”

  But he wasn’t able to get any further than that because Ellie blurted out, “Olivia’s located Miss Joan’s sister. Cash is on his way now to pick her up and bring her back here.”

  It suddenly occurred to Ellie that she didn’t even know where the woman lived or how long it was going to take Cash to get her and bring her back to Forever.

  “You really do keep managing to surprise me,” Neil told her with a shake of his head. He was aware of why they had been looking for the other woman and he honestly hadn’t held out much hope for success, but then, he had been wrong before. “You think this long-lost sister that’s been turned up can talk some sense into Miss Joan’s head?”

  “To be honest, I have no idea,” Ellie admitted as Jeannie stood in the room, taking everything in, happy to be there with the adults. “But it’s worth a try. I think finding Zelda—”

  “Hold it. Her name is Zelda?” Neil questioned incredulously. “You mean like in that game?”

  Ellie was aware of the fact that the name was not exactly a common one anymore and that the mention of it tended to bring up images of a video game, but that couldn’t be helped.

  “Everyone’s got to be called something,” she told him with a shrug. “The important thing is that she’s on her way here and she might be able to get Miss Joan to listen to reason.”

  Neil had his doubts. “What makes you think Miss Joan will listen to her any more than she’d listen to anyone else?” he asked.

  “Hope,” Ellie answered simply.

  He hadn’t been here all that long and already he’d known that was going to be her response. “Ah, that old chestnut,” he said, nodding. He wasn’t trying to belittle her belief, he just didn’t put as much stock in hope as Ellie did.

  Ellie shrugged, dismissing his attitude. “Better than nothing.”

  “That’s true,” he said. “Okay, let’s hope that your old-fashioned theories bear fruit because, frankly, the longer Miss Joan waits to have this done, the more of a risk she’s running of having a fatal heart attack or something along those lines.”

  He wasn’t saying anything that Ellie, as well as the others involved in Miss Joan’s world, didn’t already know.

  * * *

  Olivia decided that it was for the best if Dan and Neil met Zelda first before they descended on Miss Joan with her in tow.

  Zelda turned out to live in a small suburb outside of Dallas. She was a tall, thin woman with a gaunt face, salt-and-pepper hair and dark eyes that looked as if they could bore right into a person’s soul. There was an overwhelming sadness about her.

  “Look,” Zelda told the two doctors, “I appreciate what you people are trying to do, but I seriously doubt that I can talk Joan into anything. We haven’t spoken to one another in over thirty years, not since—” She stopped for a moment then changed direction. “Well, not for over thirty years,” Zelda repeated. She became even more solemn. “Her last words to me were ‘I never want to see you again. Ever!’ That’s not exactly somebody who would be willingly convinced by anything I had to say.”

  “A lot of time has passed,” Ellie reminded Miss Joan’s sister. “Maybe Miss Joan is ready to forgive and forget, she just doesn’t know how to go about it. Did she even know how to contact you?”

  Zelda shook her head. “No, but I doubt she even tried.” She was long past tears, but the solemnity she bore went deep. “I can’t even blame her. What I did was pretty unforgivable.”

  Neil paused, scrutinizing her. He had seen that look before, on the faces of people resigned to living a life in perpetual hell for something they felt they had done, something they were guilty of.

  “Let me ask you something,” Neil said.

  Zelda raised her chin, bracing herself. “Go ahead.”

  “Have you forgiven yourself?” he asked.

  Zelda squared her shoulders, looking like a woman who was about to become extremely defensive. But then it was as if the air had just been let out of her. “No, I haven’t.”

  “Don’t you think it’s about time that you did?” he asked. “Because, if you can’t forgive yourself, then how is Miss Joan supposed to forgive you?”

  Zelda shrugged, a hopeless expression on her face. “I guess that, deep down, she’s not,” she answered.

  “That’s not going to help her any,” Neil told the estranged sister. “And, deep down, under all this, Miss Joan needs help. I think the fact that she does might be scaring her most of all.”

  Zelda sighed, mentally taking a step back. “Well, if you really believe that I can actually help, then count me in. I want to be able to help Joan in any way that I can because I can never make up for what happened.”

  “You need to put that behind you,” Ellie told the woman. “What counts now is the present and, after that, the future. Everyone in this town cares about your sister. In h
er own unique, inimitable way, she has made a big difference in a lot of people’s lives. They don’t want anything to happen to her if it can, in any way, be prevented.”

  Zelda nodded. “Understood. I’m willing to do anything I can,” she repeated.

  Neil nodded. “All right then, let’s do this,” he told Zelda and the others.

  * * *

  The noonday rush had just concluded and activity at the diner was settling down when Ellie and Neil walked in.

  Miss Joan looked up, her expression impossible to read. “I thought there was a disturbance in the atmosphere.”

  She still didn’t look entirely friendly, as if she was holding herself in check. “If you two are hungry, take a seat. But I’m telling you that if you’re here to try to talk me into letting you operate on me or alter me in any way, you’re just wasting your time and your breath. I don’t want to be cut open, and if that means that my time is limited, well so be it. I’ve made my peace with that and you should, too. Now—” she looked from one to the other “—what can I get you?”

  “A better attitude,” Ellie told her.

  “Sorry, fresh out of that. And my attitude is my own business, missy,” she informed Ellie.

  “That would be fine if there’s nothing to be done for you, Miss Joan, but there is and it’s not even anything major,” Neil insisted.

  “That’s a matter of opinion, sonny.” She gestured toward herself. “These are all original factory parts and they’re staying that way.”

  “I see nothing’s changed. You always were as stubborn as a mule,” Zelda said as she entered from the side and walked up to the counter. The woman had managed to slip in unnoticed because Miss Joan had been so focused on the two people talking to her.

  Miss Joan paled the moment she heard her sister’s voice. And then her eyes narrowed into small slits. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Trying to talk some sense into you,” the other woman answered. “You have people here who care about you, who are used to putting up with your abuse just because they’re worried about you and want you to be well. Don’t you realize how important that is? How precious? How can you even think about throwing all that away because you’re too afraid to listen to reason and have some simple procedure done?” Zelda asked.

  As the others looked on, they saw Miss Joan’s face grow red as fury set in.

  “Get out of here!” Miss Joan shouted at her sister, pointing to the door. “Get out of here this minute!” And when no one made a move, she all but growled, “I mean now!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Rather than leave, Neil took a step forward. He didn’t handle this sort of stubbornness well and he was on the verge of having it out with Miss Joan. And at this point, he had nothing to lose.

  Sensing what was about to happen, Ellie put her hand on his forearm, silently stopping him. When he looked at her, she slowly moved her head from side to side. This wasn’t the time or the place for this sort of confrontation. Too many people were in the diner and she knew that Miss Joan wouldn’t appreciate this kind of public display. They could try talking to her later, when she was relatively alone. That was their only hope of getting through to the woman.

  For a couple of moments, Neil appeared to struggle with indecision but then he finally relented. He blew out a breath and, in an effort to hold on to his temper, he turned toward the door.

  “Let’s go,” was all he trusted himself to say at the moment.

  Meanwhile, Ellie hooked her arm through Zelda’s and turned Miss Joan’s sister around toward the door, as well. She urged the woman to leave with them.

  “You know this just isn’t right,” Neil said heatedly as they walked out of the diner. “I never met anyone so damn bullheaded, so incredibly perverse—”

  “I know,” Ellie agreed. “But we can’t kidnap Miss Joan and force her to have the surgery,” she pointed out. She shrugged as she went down the front steps. “Who knows, maybe if we leave her alone, she’ll come around on her own.”

  “And maybe pigs’ll start flying,” Neil retorted, still angry.

  “Well, if I were you, I wouldn’t hold my breath in either case,” Zelda advised, a really sad expression on her face.

  All three reached the bottom of the steps, and were about to head into the parking lot, when the diner door slammed against the opposite wall behind them.

  They all turned in unison when they heard Laurel, one of the younger waitresses, plaintively cry, “Wait!” as she came running down the steps, trying to catch them before they left.

  Ellie barely got the words “Why, what happened now?” out when Laurel came running up to them, looking terrified.

  “It’s Miss Joan!”

  Neil took the steps two at a time, reaching the diner door in the blink of an eye.

  “What happened?” he asked, repeating Ellie’s question as he, Ellie and Zelda poured back into the diner.

  Laurel was right behind them. “Miss Joan just grabbed her chest and keeled over. She didn’t even say a word, she just went down,” she cried breathlessly. Grabbing Neil’s arm, she was in a state of panic as she looked at him with wide, frightened eyes. “She’s not—not—not—”

  The young woman couldn’t bring herself to even frame the question.

  The other waitress on duty, Vanessa, was kneeling on the floor beside Miss Joan’s still body, holding her hand and desperately trying to bring the older woman around.

  “I think I found a pulse,” Vanessa told Neil as he knelt next to her.

  Relieved to have the doctor back, the young woman scrambled to her feet to give him room.

  The diner owner was on the floor, looking so incredibly pale, she had everyone thinking the worst had transpired.

  All eyes were on Neil. No one spoke, no one even dared breathe, as he quickly examined Miss Joan, taking in her vital signs and trying to assess her condition.

  Unable to keep silent any longer, Zelda finally demanded, “How is she?”

  The expression on Neil’s face was grim as he looked at Miss Joan’s sister and then at Ellie. “It’s not good,” he answered. “I need to get her to a hospital as fast as possible.”

  “The closest hospital to Forever is over fifty miles away,” Angel told him. Like everyone else at the diner, Miss Joan’s cook had ventured out from where she was working and gathered around the fallen woman.

  “You go fast, the ride there will kill her,” Ed Hale, one of the many regulars at the diner, predicted.

  “Yeah, but if he drives slow, she might die on the way,” Allison Farrow argued.

  “I can fly her there,” Ellie told Neil. Her mind racing, she made a mental note of everything that needed to be done. “Someone get Harry,” she ordered as she headed for the door. “He needs to know about this. Angel, you call Cash,” she told the woman. “Tell him what happened.” The last person she looked at was Neil. “I’ll be right back,” she promised. And then she raised her voice. “I need everyone to clear their cars out the parking lot. I’m going to have to land my plane there,” she told the people in the diner just before she raced out of the front door.

  Zelda suddenly came to life. The diner’s patrons were all looking at one another, their concern all but paralyzing them. No one was making a move to get to their vehicles.

  “You heard her,” Zelda said in a voice that could have easily been mistaken for Miss Joan’s. “Get those cars out of the way right now! She’s gonna need to land her plane.” Turning to Neil, Miss Joan’s sister asked, “What can I do?”

  Neil was working over Miss Joan, trying to make sure that her heart was not going to stop again. He didn’t want to press his luck.

  He barely glanced at Zelda, afraid to look away from the pale woman on the floor.

  “I think you already did it,” he told the woman.

  Zelda knelt beside her sister
and took hold of her hand, squeezing it as tightly as she dared. Her eyes began to fill.

  “Damn you, old woman. You can’t die before you forgive me, you hear me? Don’t you dare die on me!” she ordered, tears sliding down her thin cheeks.

  One of the diner’s patrons had gone to the medical clinic to get Dan. The latter all but burst in through the door.

  “What happened?” he cried as he knelt on the floor beside Neil in front of Miss Joan.

  “She had another attack,” Neil said, summing it up simply. “This one was a lot stronger than the last one. There’s no way to avoid it, she’s going to need an operation,” he told Dan. “Ellie went to get her plane. In all likelihood, we’re fighting against the clock. We’re going to have to fly Miss Joan to the hospital.”

  And then, since he was relatively unfamiliar with the hospitals around that region, Neil asked, “What’s the name of the best hospital in close proximity?”

  Dan didn’t even have to think. “That would be Lincoln Memorial. They’ve got a great cardiology department. I know one of the doctors there,” Dan added.

  “I think you’d better call them,” Neil told him, never taking his eyes off Miss Joan. The woman was barely holding on. “Tell them we’re bringing them a cardiac patient and we’re going to need to use one of their operating rooms stat.”

  Harry came in at that moment. He was clearly terrified when he saw his wife on the floor of the diner.

  “Can you save her?” he asked Neil, his voice trembling as he bravely fought not to break down. He knew he needed to remain stoic for Miss Joan’s sake.

  “I damn well am going to try,” Neil answered, momentarily looking up and exchanging glances with Dan. “I’m going to need you to come with me,” he told Dan. He felt that if they were both there, accompanying the woman to the hospital, Miss Joan had more of a fighting chance to survive than if only he was with her on the flight, even though it was going to be a short one and he was bringing an oxygen tank and a defibrillator with him.