Wishes & Tears

by Nancy Loyan

  He had held his son all night as he slept knowing that he needed comfort as much as the boy. An unsettled feeling had kept him awake all night checking the clock on the mantel in the LaDue’s guestroom.

  He wanted to think that Faith’s warnings were the nonsensical ravings of a mad woman. As the hours passed, though, he was on edge. At the first rumblings of the quake, he cuddled his son to his chest. They rode out the trembling waves, bouncing on the mattress as if on a boat in a storm-tossed sea. He calmed Andrew by comparing the earthquake experience to that of the fun rides at the amusement park. As the paintings, objects d’art, tumbled to the floor and chaos erupted in the LaDue household, he held on to Andrew.

  Only when the shaking ceased did he believe they were safe. They emerged from the bedroom into a home of hysterical women. Constance’s mother had collapsed on the sofa in one of her “spells.” Her husband frantically held smelling salts up to her nose while a servant fanned her. Constance was prone on the fainting couch being attended to by her maid. He imagined the scene being played out in most of the other Nob Hill mansions. As a physician, there was nothing more for him to do than handhold the matrons.

  When he stepped out of the house and observed the chaos erupting in the city below, he knew that his services were needed in a more critical way. People were dying out there. He could hear the shrill cries of pain and suffering, could see the damage and the dancing flames. He felt a professional and a human obligation to enter the fray to help in any way possible. As he checked on his motorcar parked in front of the massive stone and stucco mansion, a policeman approached.

  “Are things as bad as they appear?” the doctor asked the young policeman, who seemed ill prepared for such a cataclysmic event. His eyes burned dark and damp with fear.

  “Worse, much worse. The gas lines ruptured feeding a fire that’s spread through the business district.”

  “Surely, the fire department?”

  “The main water main’s busted, only a trickle in the taps. Chief Sullivan’s dead, killed as he slept in the firehouse. The cupola from the California Hotel went right through the roof. There’s panic in the streets. So many displaced people, dead, and injured. Looters are beginning to take advantage.”

  The doctor shook his head.

  “We might be needing that motorcar, sir. Word’s come down to confiscate motorcars and horse teams to aid in rescue efforts. All hell’s broken loose and we need all the help we can get.”

  “I’m a doctor and am prepared to do what I can.”

  “Then you’ll be needing the motorcar.”

  “My feet can carry me. There are others out there who are not so fortunate. Transportation might make the difference between life and death. Please, take the motorcar.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes, I can walk.”

  He had the sudden urge to return to his home on Sacramento Street. He had to return there to pick up his doctor’s satchel and supplies and decided that it would be the best place for Andrew to be. The boy needed familiar surroundings at a time like this. At the LaDue’s he would be ignored and alone. In his home, he would have Faith to watch over him.

  He suspected that his home and its contents were secure, thanks to Faith. Faith. He snapped out of his thoughts and watched Faith run toward them, her drab skirt billowing, tendrils escaping from her unkempt pompadour, her graceful arms flailing, her complexion aglow in the morning mist, her eyes like glittering sapphires. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed any of this before. He had spent so much time ridiculing her that he never really paid attention to her. He looked at her as if for the very first time. Without any warning, another tremor, weaker than the first, rocked the earth. After instilling panic to the panic-stricken, it stopped as quickly as it began.

  “Faith!” the doctor warned, scrambling to get to her.

  She looked up to see a concrete gargoyle sailing through the air, ornamentation displaced from a rooftop. As she turned to get out of harm’s way, she felt the sharp pain of impact. Darkness swallowed up the pain as she drifted out of consciousness.

  Chapter 8

  Faith’s head felt as if it was being squeezed in a vice while being banged on top with a sledgehammer. The pain throbbed with such excruciating agony that she hoped it could be cut out of her skull, anything for relief. As she attempted to raise her head, it felt so heavy that even a slight movement made her dizzy.

  She tried to open her eyes but they felt as if they were being held down by lead weights. When she tried to speak, her lips were numb. Her entire body was feeble and immobile. The only alert sense was her hearing. She needed to hear familiar sounds for evidence of her being alive and not in some altered state of being. The sounds she heard were mechanical pumps, the swoosh of rushing air, and intermittent electronic beeps. The sounds were unmistakable. She had been in a hospital before.

  Her mind was foggy and filled with strange images dancing in her mind. Vignettes of disconnected scenes, like jumbled movie previews, appeared: a red Jaguar sinking, a tall man elegantly attired in formal black, a little boy snapping a slingshot, a teetering Irish maid, the ground rumbling, and trees swaying. The visions were both a comfort and an irritation. She squirmed, the ability to move her limbs offering a sense of relief. She softly moaned.

  “Nurse! Nurse!” a familiar woman’s voice frantically called.

  Faith turned her head toward the sound. Heavy footsteps bounded in, shoes squeaking as they drew near.

  “She seems to be snapping out of it,” the familiar woman’s voice said in breathless excitement.

  “It’s hard to say with head injury cases. Each one is unique,” the other husky, unfamiliar female voice replied.

  “She was moving and making sounds.”

  “Let’s see if she does it again. Why don’t you try talking to her?”

  “Faith, Faith. This is Clarice. Remember me? We’ve been so worried about you. We thought we lost you. Come on, honey, say something. Do something. Let me know that you’re gonna be okay,” she pleaded.

  A recollection of she and another woman sipping Chardonnay in a swanky hilltop restaurant entered Faith’s mind. The other woman was …

  “Clarice,” Faith formed the words in a strained whisper.

  “Yes! Yes!” Clarice squealed.

  Faith eased her eyes open until they captured the image of a statuesque African-American woman looking down at her. Clarice’s wide, ivory grin lit up her caramel face. Long wild hair, “Diana Ross hair,” as Faith had called it, framed her strong, angular bone structure. Tears streamed from her ebony eyes as they caught Faith’s.

  “Praise God, you’re out of the coma!” Clarice shouted, raising her arms and looking up at the ceiling. “I’ve been praying for your recovery so often, it’s about time God listened.”

  Faith cracked a smile at the sight of her best friend. She still felt hazy and confused.

  “What … what happened to me?” Faith asked.

  Clarice looked at her. “That’s a good question. You’re the only one who can provide the answer.”

  “I have a horrible, pounding headache.” The pain continued to grip Faith’s skull.

  “I’ll get the doctor,” the nurse, who stood nearby, said.

  “The doctor?” Faith asked. “Doctor Forrester?”

  The nurse cocked her curly gray head. “There’s no one by that name here.” After casting a glance at Clarice, she turned and walked out into the hall.

  “Doctor Forrester?” Faith repeated. She closed her eyes and for a fleeting moment, the towering figure of a darkly handsome yet arrogant man flashed in her mind.

  “Mrs. Donahue,” a man asked, startling her from her thoughts.

  She opened her eyes. The slick black hair and the title “Doctor” stitched on his white lab coat was all the men had in common, she decided.

  “I’m Doctor Chan,” he introduced, squinting his slanted eyes beneath thick eyeglasses. “You are one lucky woman.” He removed a stethoscope from h
is lab coat pocket. “Where did you get that nasty gash on your head?”

  “The … the earthquake,” the words escaping from her lips.

  “What earthquake?” he asked.

  “The big one.”

  “No earthquake here, big or small.” He chuckled.

  Clarice, who had stepped aside to let the doctor check on his patient, shifted on her feet and cleared her throat.

  The doctor turned to her. “Probably the head injury.”

  Clarice nodded.

  The doctor turned his attention back to Faith. He set the chestpiece of the stethoscope against her chest, moving it up and down the front of her hospital gown, the earpiece plugged in his ears. As his stubby fingers brushed her, she could remember another’s hands. Doctor Forrester’s slender fingers were like a gentle caress as he held a chestpiece against her. She tingled and then shivered at the memory.

  Doctor Chan removed the stethoscope and shoved it in his lab coat pocket. From another pocket, he withdrew a penlight.

  “How did I come … back?” Faith mumbled.

  The doctor arched his brows, forming bushy triangles. “You were comatose for four days.”

  “How did I come back from … there?” she asked, a vague memory of being in a different place and time, far removed from the modern technology that surrounded her.

  The doctor bent over her. With one hand he held open her eyelid, with the other he flashed a beam of light. He repeated the process in the other eye. Content with his inspection, he turned out the light and stuck it in his pocket.

  “How did I come back?” she asked again.

  Doctor Chan cast a glance at Clarice and winked.

  “Head injuries will cause strange thoughts and actions. She’ll be fine in a week or two. As the brain contusions shrink and disappear, she’ll be back to normal.”

  “Faith’s never been normal.” Clarice smiled.

  “None of us are,” the doctor answered with a smirk. “I’ll check on the patient again tomorrow morning. In the meantime, I’ll have the nurse give her some Demerol.”

  Faith watched the doctor shuffle out of the room.

  Clarice stepped toward Faith’s bedside, pulling up a nearby chair. She slunk her big-boned frame in it and sat facing Faith.

  “You’re gonna be just fine. You gave us quite a scare.”

  “I did?”

  “You did. Jeez, at first I thought you up and killed yourself. When I saw your car being pulled out of the Bay on the ten o’clock news, I almost died myself. My Reggie said that I almost turned white. Anyway, some restaurant employee said he saw your car roll off the cliff side parking lot. Police called in divers but there was no … no body,” Clarice explained.

  “It … it’s coming back to me, slowly, but it’s coming back. I do remember crashing into the water. I’ve never been so afraid in my life. Just thinking about it is giving me chills. I … I waited for the car to sink, for the interior to pressurize so I could open the door. I escaped. I swam up to the surface and … and … ”

  “Yes, yes?” Clarice asked, leaning forward.

  “I remember awakening in my bedroom but it wasn’t my bedroom. That’s when it happened,” Faith said, memories of a warped past she couldn’t quite comprehend permeating her mind. As the strange thoughts appeared, her headache seemed to peel away at each layer of returning recollection.

  “What happened?”

  “When I realized that I had gone back in time. That’s it! I went back in time! Somehow, I’ve come back!” She even startled herself at the revelation. Her heart rate increased and she began to hyperventilate.

  “Shh … now stay calm.” Clarice grabbed Faith’s trembling hand.

  Faith looked down at the IV plug, the tubing leading from the top of her hand to a plastic bag on a metal stand. Clear nourishment flowed down inside the tube in steady droplets. She stared at them as if they were alien objects and her eyes opened wide.

  “Oh, God! I’ve come back!” she gasped, shutting her eyes.

  “You’d better rest now, honey. I’m just glad you’re doing better. I’ve been worried sick.” Clarice patted Faith’s hand and set it down at her side.

  “Clarice?” Faith opened her eyes. “Where was I found?”

  “On Sacramento Street, down a ways from your house. You were found lying in the middle of the road covered in blood from a head wound, with no ID. Do you know that your picture was flashed on the news in an appeal to identify you? Here, I thought you drowned in the bay and a few days later, I see you on TV. I called in. I’m beginning to think I should just skip watching the news.” Clarice stood, smoothing her tailored fuchsia suit.

  “Thank you.”

  “For what, honey?”

  “For being here.”

  “That’s what friends are for. Now, you rest.”

  “I’m so confused.” Faith sighed.

  Faith was riding on a roller coaster of emotion and confusion. As she lay in her hospital bed, awaiting recovery from the mysterious head injury, she had a hard time separating reality from fantasy. She assured herself that the time travel episodes were fantasy. Clarice explained that people who suffer traumatic injuries often create a world in which to escape the pain and recover.

  She just couldn’t understand how the world revolving around Doctor Forrester, Andrew, and Bridget could seem so real. Their faces were so vivid, their voices so distinct in her mind. She could even smell the doctor’s spicy scent and the brandy on Bridget’s breath. Her imagination had never been so real.

  Recalling events, imaginary or real, she wove them into the facts explained by Clarice. Five days had lapsed from the time her car sank in the bay to the morning she was discovered unconscious on Sacramento Street. No one had an explanation as to where she was during that time span. Though she had suffered a deep gash and head injury, there was no weapon or object where she lay. Other facts struck her as more than coincidental when Clarice revealed them.

  “You really don’t remember much do you?” Clarice asked during a later visit.

  “So much is vague and some of it is downright weird.”

  “Weird? Like the clothes you were wearing when you were found.” Clarice frowned, scrunching up her face.

  “What was I wearing?”

  “Honey, something you wouldn’t be caught dead in. Some dowdy long black skirt with a matching shirt-like blouse, orthopedic shoes, and some pouffy chignon hairstyle topped with a frumpy little black frilled hat.”

  “Oh, no,” Faith gasped. It was the ugly black uniform Constance LaDue had chosen for her. “What … what was the date?”

  “April 18. Why?” Clarice shrugged her broad shoulders, not understanding the significance.

  “The date of the great 1906 earthquake.” Faith grew suddenly hot and nauseous. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t possible.

  “Yeah, I guess it was.”

  “I … I was dressed like a governess in 1906 and was found on Sacramento Street on April 18,” she said out loud, as much for herself to hear as for Clarice. “It isn’t some injury-induced dream, after all. I’m not going crazy. It happened. It really happened.”

  “What?”

  “I went back in time a hundred years and, somehow, I came back.”

  “I wouldn’t be saying that too loud around here,” Clarice surveyed the room and the empty hall.

  “I’m telling the truth.” Faith reached up and grabbed Clarice’s arm. “You’re my best friend. You have to believe me.”

  Clarice stared at her. “I want to believe you. I really do. It just doesn’t make sense. Then again, none of this makes sense. Ever since Bradley walked out on you, nothing has made sense.” She shook her head and stepped back, confused.

  “You’ll help me?” Faith pleaded.

  “With what?”

  “With finding out the truth, of proving that I traveled back in time.”

  “If you believe it, why do you need proof?”

  “I have to prove it to mysel
f and have to know why. I need to know where my destiny is.”

  Chapter 9

  Faith had some unexpected visitors. Detectives from the homicide unit of the San Francisco Police Department had shown unusual interest in the progress of her recovery. She learned that, to her surprise, they had posted a uniformed patrolman to stand like a sentinel outside the door to her room.

  When the lead detective swaggered into her private room, she was startled but not shocked. Clarice warned her about the department’s interest in her case.

  “Now that you’re feeling better, Mrs. Donahue, I thought it’s time we had a chat,” the plainclothes detective said as he approached her bedside. He had a short Jack Webb-style haircut and even flashed his badge with the same amount of authority and flair.

  “Joe Friday, I presume?” Faith asked, not being able to help herself. She forced a smile as she scooted up in her bed.

  “Sergeant Schmidt, homicide,” he introduced, tucking the badge within his inside suit pocket.

  “Whom did I kill?” she asked in a light tone, feeling queasy.

  “You didn’t kill anyone.”

  “That’s good news.” She met his intense steely gray gaze.

  “You’re the one I thought had died.”

  “Oh?” She had this sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that gravitated to her face.

  “Your husband’s sitting in jail under suspicion of murder, your murder,” he said in a no-nonsense tone that matched his facial expression, or lack of it.

  “Brad?” She gasped.

  “Bradley Clark Donahue III.”

  She shook her head, a shiver crawling up her spine. “I don’t understand.”

  “I think you know a lot more than you’re saying. You don’t have to be afraid of him. He’s under lock and key. There’s enough evidence to keep him there. You’re even guarded.”

  “I know.”

  “What happened the day and evening when your car ended up in San Francisco Bay?”

  “I don’t remember much.”

  “Try. What did you and Bradley discuss? Was he angry?”