Brooding Angel

by Marie Ferrarella

  He leaned forward slightly, his voice dropping. It was the same tone he used with his grandchildren. “I am grateful to you for that, but I wish my gratitude could have been arrived at under different circumstances.”

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, Clancy knew the man was attempting to be kind, but she didn’t care about his opera, or about anything he had to say beyond what she wanted him to tell her.

  She was afraid to ask. She was more afraid not to ask. “But I’m going to be all right, aren’t I?”

  This was the part he never liked, the part that required him to tell the truth, no matter how painful. “It is unclear yet just how much damage there is to your spinal cord.”

  No, no, he wasn’t getting this right. That wasn’t what he was supposed to be saying. “But you fixed that, right?”

  Dr. Kleinschen heard the desperation climbing in her voice, saw the telltale tracks of it in her swollen face. Helplessly, he spread hands that were only so skilled. “I tried.”

  Tried? Tried wasn’t good enough. Tried didn’t mean succeeded. What was he saying to her? “Am I going to walk again?”

  He wanted to tell her yes. She was only a little older than his oldest granddaughter. But even if this had been Eva lying before him, he couldn’t have lied to her. “That remains to be seen. Sometimes these things clear up in a matter of weeks. Sometimes not.”

  This couldn’t be happening to her; it just couldn’t be happening. Self-preservation urged Clancy to back away, to ask no more questions. But she had always faced everything head-on. And she had to know.

  “What are my chances, Doctor?”

  Her eyes were begging him to lie, he realized. He wished he could do that for her.

  “Right now, liebschen, to be completely fair, I would say fifty-fifty.” He took her hand in his again, sandwiching the bruised fingers between his own. “I am sorry to be so blunt, but you are asking and I cannot be so disrespectful of you as to lie.”

  She felt tears of despair suddenly forming. Clancy sniffled, attempting to detain them. Crying was such a useless thing.

  “Yes,” she agreed quietly. “I was asking.” A huge spear of pain suddenly pierced through her and she gasped, startled by its magnitude.

  Dr. Kleinschen swiftly adjusted one of the clear intravenous tubes, turning a tiny valve one-quarter revolution. He looked at her as he stilled the tube’s slight sway.

  “There, that should give you a little more relief.” His voice was gentle, soothing, but her agitation wouldn’t abate. “You should be feeling better shortly.”

  Clancy sincerely doubted it. She wasn’t going to feel better until she knew she could move her legs. Until she could walk again.

  “Thank you, Doctor.” Her voice was weak, hollow. She felt so incredibly tired. Her eyes closed, shutting the world away.

  She wasn’t aware when he left.

  When she opened her eyes again, Clancy realized that the sun was no longer intruding into the room with such force. It was slanting low. She had no idea how long she had slept or how much time had passed.

  Maybe that was what she needed, she thought—sleep. If she slept, it would all go away. The pain, the fear, none of it would exist. And she would be well again.

  But at the moment, she wasn’t.

  She was still in the hospital room, still encased in bandages.

  A sliver of hope penetrated. She concentrated hard, held her breath, then slowly looked toward her toes.

  They weren’t moving.

  Though she was concentrating with all her might, willing motion into them, they remained where they were. She might as well have been looking at someone else’s toes for all the feeling she had in them.

  “Oh, God,” she moaned.

  The sound of a throat being cleared drew her attention away from her immobile feet. Someone else was in the room with her, standing just to the left of her line of vision.

  “Mary.”

  He spoke her name so softly, she thought she had imagined it. Wished it.

  A throbbing pain crossed her temples as she turned her head toward the voice. She could make out her fiancé’s face in the dimming light.

  Clancy could have cried. “Oh, Stuart.” His name came out in a stifled sob. She had never been so happy to see anyone in her life.

  Stuart moved forward into the light. Reluctance emanated from every step. Clancy squinted, as if that could somehow erase what she thought she saw. There was something distant and unapproachable about the look on his face. His shoulders were squared, stiff, as if he was preparing to face up to something distasteful. She hardly recognized him.

  “Stuart?”

  Stuart attempted to muster a smile, but found himself incapable of it. His reaction to the horror of the situation permeated every patrician inch of him. He didn’t want to be here with her like this. It wasn’t in his plans.

  Clancy raised her hand toward him. Stuart’s remained immobile at his side, as if he was afraid of touching anything. Afraid of leaving a piece of himself at the scene.

  Bewildered, lost, Clancy let her hand drop back to the bedding.

  He had to say something, he thought. He had to bring this painful episode to a close. That was what had brought him to the hospital in the first place.

  Stuart looked around, searching for something to focus on in this room full of sickness and aborted plans. Anything but the woman in the bed. The very sight of her swollen face, her battered body, made the contents of his stomach rise up into his throat, choking him.

  How could she have done this to him?

  “They called me from the hospital. My number must have been in your wallet.”

  It was her imagination making his words sound like an accusation. Only her imagination. “Of course it is.” Why would he think otherwise? They were going to be married.

  Stray thoughts knitted themselves together into a shaky whole within her head. Her wallet had been in her purse. If they had found her purse, maybe they had found her wedding dress as well.

  Her wedding dress.

  The wedding.

  She wouldn’t be able to walk down the aisle like this. Her mind evaded dwelling on the word walk.

  Clancy attempted to smile, though her cheek resisted the action. “I guess we’re going to have to postpone the wedding for a while.”

  There, she had said it. She understood. Relieved, he turned toward her, his gaze resting on the pillow just above her head. “Yes, we will.”

  She felt sleepy, drugged. Maybe that was why Stuart looked the way he did, as if he were addressing a hostile jury.

  “I’ll be all right, Stuart,” she whispered, trying to reassure him.

  Strange how she felt compelled to comfort him, when she was the one so desperately in need of comforting. But Stuart had never handled emergencies well. He’d left coping with problems up to her. And she could cope with anything. They were a team. A good team.

  Her throat felt raw as tears clawed at it, seeking release. She shouldn’t be comforting him. He was supposed to be comforting her. Why wasn’t he saying something to her to make her feel better? Why wasn’t he giving her something to hold on to?

  What was wrong with him? He loved her. Why did he look as if she was suddenly someone he didn’t want to know?

  Stuart nodded vaguely at her words, as if he hadn’t actually heard them. As if she was reading something from the morning paper that didn’t really engage his interest.

  He blew out a slow breath. Stalling wasn’t making this any easier for either of them, and he had somewhere he had to be. He stared at the intravenous bottles. “I spoke to the doctor earlier.”

  He sounded as if he was about to explain a death sentence to her. Her breath stilled in her chest, making it ache even more.

  “Yes?”

  Why was she putting him through this ordeal? Why didn’t she have the decency to break the engagement on her own? Didn’t it bother her that she would be a burden to him?

  Annoyance mounted in his voice
. “He didn’t really make the situation sound too promising.”

  Her eyes burned as she stared at Stuart. How could he say something like that to her? Didn’t he realize how much she needed to hang on to a scrap of hope? “He said my chances were fifty-fifty.”

  Stuart was confident that the doctor’s estimation was meant to comfort her and was pure fabrication. He had to back away now, before he was trapped. Thank God this had happened before they were married. Gerald Billingsly’s wife was a paraplegic, and Billingsly always looked as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Everyone knew the man’s home situation had been responsible for keeping him from moving up within the firm all these years. Stuart vowed that wouldn’t happen to him.

  “That’s the optimistic view,” he said.

  She had believed that the doctor had told her the worse case scenario. Apparently not. She had no idea how she even managed to form her next words. “And the pessimistic view?”

  Letting her cling to false hope served no purpose. She had to see that. He was doing her a service by telling her the truth. “That you’ll never walk again.”

  He didn’t understand how his words affected her, she realized, suddenly seeing him through clearer eyes than she ever had before. Stuart understood only how things affected him.

  He knew that she wouldn’t want to stand in the way of his future. “Mary, I don’t want you to misunderstand.”

  Something ominous, ugly and foreboding was raising its head. “But?” she asked quietly.

  He just couldn’t bring himself to look at her. “But at this stage of my life, I’m not equipped to take on the burden—the responsibility,” he amended carefully, “of caring for an invalid. You can see that, can’t you? I have my career to build. I’d be busy all the time. I wouldn’t be any good for you. You need someone else. Someone who’s good at this sort of thing.”

  He’d already labeled and packaged her and tossed her aside. He was pulling away from her. Cutting his losses and jumping ship.

  How could he?

  Clancy’s head began to spin again. She had loved this man and he was deserting her, just when she needed him the most.

  How could she have been so wrong about him?

  “Get out,” she ordered, her voice raspy even though she wanted to scream the words.

  She was taking this badly and a part of him felt guilty, though the guilt was drowned out by the immense flood of relief. “Mary—”

  “Get out,” she gasped, clutching at her bedclothes. Clancy fought to keep back the pain and the tears. “Get out of here. Now.”

  Stuart opened his mouth to say something, then decided it was all for the best. He had rushed to the hospital yesterday as soon as he had heard about the accident. A lengthy discussion with the attending surgeon had made up his mind for him. He had his future to think of. Nothing and no one was going to stand in the way. He would have preferred parting on amicable terms, but this was her choice. So be it.

  “Goodbye, Mary.”

  Tears were coating her lashes. She turned her head away.

  “Now,” she whispered hoarsely.

  As soon as the door had closed behind Stuart, Clancy burst into tears. They blinded her, so that she didn’t see the man in the dark blue uniform enter her room.

  Chapter Three

  She was crying.

  Mitch shifted, feeling awkward. The sight of tears always unmanned him. He had no idea how to deal with someone who was crying.

  This was a classic no-win situation. Words had never come easily to him and anything he said would probably just make things worse. But then, so would standing here, looking uncomfortable.

  What was he even doing here, holding this tiny bouquet of daisies from the hospital gift shop in his hand? His grasp on the flowers was so intense that if they’d been able to speak, they might have squealed for mercy.

  Her head was turned toward the wall. She hadn’t noticed him yet. There was still time to slip out. The urge was seductively strong and he nearly surrendered to it.

  But then a sob escaped her lips. It froze him in place, making his decision for him.

  She was in pain. Pain that was more than just the accumulation of physical distress in the aftermath of her accident. Something far greater was wrong. He could hear the difference.

  She was shedding tears of anguish.

  So he stayed.

  And waited until she turned in his direction.

  The haze of sorrow parted just enough to make Clancy aware of the presence of another person in the room. The realization seeped in slowly, like shades of colored chalk bleeding together on the sidewalk in the rain.

  She wasn’t alone.

  Yes, she was, Clancy thought the next moment. She was more alone than she had ever been in her life. She felt like she had tumbled headlong into a huge abyss with no bottom.

  Sniffling, she did her best to draw the tears back into her soul, where, she knew, they would remain for a very long time to come. Perhaps forever. It wasn’t the loss of Stuart that Clancy mourned so much as the loss of a love she had thought she had.

  She was crying for that and from the terror of possibly being an invalid from this day forward.

  Clancy swallowed, attempting to dissipate the lump in her throat as she turned her head. For a brief moment, she was disoriented. There was a policeman standing in her room, holding something in front of him. She focused, blinking back the moisture that clumped her lashes together.

  Daisies. He was holding daisies. Surprised, confused, Clancy looked from the small collection of white flowers to the man’s face. Recognition was another moment in coming. She thought she was dreaming, just the way she had been before.

  “Mitch?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, it’s me.”

  He didn’t know what to say. Each word felt as if it weighed ten pounds in his mouth. When he had abruptly walked out of her life the last time, he had never thought he would see her again. He certainly hadn’t thought it would be in a hospital.

  And that he’d be the one responsible for putting her there.

  Mitch felt like a fool, standing here with flowers in his hand as if he were some sort of trained monkey. He cleared his throat, thrusting the flowers forward slightly. “I came to see how you were doing.”

  “Lousy,” she breathed.

  Every movement hurt. In so many ways.

  Fresh tears rose and she blinked hard, attempting to banish them. She didn’t want anyone to see her crying. Especially not Mitch.

  In the six short months that they had been together, Mitch had thought of Clancy as the most optimistic soul on the face of the earth. She saw only the bright side of everything. The good. The hopeful. But, except for the burglary that had initially brought them together, she had never been exposed to the underbelly of life. Pampered, loved, protected, Clancy had no reason to be anything but optimistic. From what she had told him, she had never been tested before.

  She was being tested now.

  Mitch wondered just how bad the prognosis was. He upbraided himself for not being thorough. He should have inquired at the nurse’s station about her condition before seeing her. This was like entering an ambush without any weapons to rely on.

  “What did the doctor have to say?”

  Clancy wanted to shrug away his question, but the simple gesture would be too painful. She didn’t want to start talking about the accident, or what the doctor had told her. She was afraid she would only begin crying again. Afraid that if she began, she wouldn’t be able to stop.

  Instead, the anger she felt toward Stuart, toward his abandonment, spilled out onto Mitch. Two years ago he had broken things off between them, offering some paltry excuse about his work coming first. As if she would have ever made him choose.

  “Look, what are you doing here, anyway?” she asked curtly.

  He knew that there was a great deal more to her question than logistics. She was asking about the past. About motives. He knew he owed her an explanation, but h
e chose the easy way out. The simple way. Just this once, he thought he deserved it.

  “Don’t you remember? I was the one who pulled you out.” And the one who put you here.

  It was painful to look at her like this. She was such a beautiful, vibrant woman. To see her bruised and battered brought an anger simmering up within him that bordered on being explosive.

  Clancy stared vacantly through him, struggling to summon the scene Mitch was referring to. It existed only in a haze.

  “Then I didn’t imagine it.” The words came slowly. “That was you.” If she tried very hard, she could just remember gentle hands holding her.

  Or had that been part of a dream?

  Mitch nodded. “Hero on call.” He echoed the pet phrase Clancy had affectionately called him in an attempt to loosen him up a little. She had always said he was too serious. But he had had cause.

  The awkwardness threatened to swallow him up. He held up the flowers. “These are for you.”

  He had brought her daisies once before. On their first date. It hadn’t been a date, exactly. He’d returned for a description of some of her stolen things and had commented on the stew she was making. She’d invited him to share it. He’d surprised them both by returning after his shift was over, bringing a bottle of wine and flowers.

  Remembering, Clancy tried to muster a smile. None rose to her lips. She was completely devoid of the energy or the desire to smile. Everything had been drained from her.

  She licked her lips. “Thank you.” The hoarse sound of her voice echoed about the small room.

  He had to put the flowers someplace. They were beginning to wilt in his hand. Mitch looked around the room. The single-care unit was standard accommodation at Queen of Angels. The walls were a pastel blue. Everything was relatively new, relatively fresh. An obvious attempt at cheerfulness was infused into the surroundings. It fell short this time.

  Mitch could feel the blanket of oppression emanating from Clancy as if it were a physical thing. This was far more than could be remedied by a bouquet of daisies and a few halting, well-intentioned words.