Page 17 of Never Leave Me
“And how about you? How are you feeling?” She didn’t want to look at his legs, didn’t want to make him self-conscious, but her gaze slid there of its own volition.
He jumped to his feet and stood straight, tall, and proud. “I’m tremendous. Really. Feeling stronger and healthier than ever.”
A thrill shot through her, the same thrill she’d had earlier when she watched him walk up and down the stairway on his own. “What did the doctor say when he saw you?”
“I actually decided it was better if no one knew what we’ve got up to. At least not yet. I sat back in my wheelchair and had the physician look at you and not me.”
“Good idea.” After his abduction last year by Lionel, he was wise to use extra caution. Even if no one was pestering him anymore about Dad’s ultimate cure, the drug companies would certainly start up again once news of his healing became public.
How would he explain his miraculous recovery to everyone? Would he attribute it to the holy water or come up with some other explanation? What other explanation was there?
Harrison’s gaze probed hers, asking her the same question. After what had happened to him, how could she doubt the validity of the ultimate cure and her dad’s theories regarding the Tree of Life? After having the vision of Marian, how could she doubt the holy water’s ability to enable a time entanglement—or at the very least let a person envision the past?
Exhaustion pulsed through her, and the questions were suddenly too overwhelming to consider. She stifled a yawn. “I’m so tired.”
“Have a rest, love.” Harrison clung to her hand. “But please don’t give up yet.”
Ellen sank back into the bed and gave way to the oblivion of sleep.
5
DELICIOUSWARMTHPULSEDthroughout Ellen’s body. She stretched and opened her eyes to the darkness of the room, broken by the low light of her bedside lamp and the faint glint of dawn beginning to show through the half-open draperies. Had she slept all night? After sleeping for eight hours yesterday, how was that possible?
Was her cancer worsening? She did a rapid assessment, checking her breathing, pulse, and the pain. From what she could tell, her vitals were all normal, which wasn’t unusual. The only thing different was the absence of the throbbing in her right side.
She probed her stomach near her kidneys, expecting the sharp jab that came whenever she touched her side, no matter how much pain medicine was in her system. But there was nothing.
With a jolt of strange anticipation, she sat straight up and pressed her fingers into her lower backbone, another spot that had been hurting. She waited to feel something, anything. But the compression against the rigid lumbar vertebra resulted in nothing more than a slight indentation.
She patted her arms and chest. Where was her oxygen tube, her IV, her heart monitor? The home health care nurse must have come again while she was sleeping and taken them off.
The chair next to the bed was empty. Having the aide was another one of the things Harrison had insisted upon, especially at night. But now, she was nowhere in sight.
Ellen threw off the covers and jumped out of bed, her body suddenly keyed with an alertness that usually came only after drinking a cup of coffee. She bent over at the waist, something that had caused her excruciating pain and had been unbearable yesterday morning.
Her fingers grazed her ankles, then her bare toes. The only feeling in her back was a tightening in the erector spinal muscles along her vertebrae. She straightened and then stretched her arms above her head, expecting a burning pinch, but felt nothing more than an ordinary contracting of muscles.
Was she healed?
A giddy, surreal sensation started to waft through her, but she shook her head. No. Impossible. Surely what had happened to Harrison couldn’t be repeated. Two healings in less than twenty-four hours was too much to expect.
But even as denial barraged her mind, her heart tapped with the staccato of a drum playing faster.
The tests. Harrison had been waiting for the lab results. Where were they?
She scanned the room, then sat down abruptly.
Every single piece of medical equipment was gone. Not only was she free of the tubes and needles and wires and electrodes, but her room was free too.
Again, that giddy feeling rose inside her. She wanted to allow it to burst free, to believe a miracle had truly happened. But she’d been disappointed other times in her short life with promises ofremission of the cancers that plagued her. She couldn’t allow her hope to break free, not yet.
She grabbed her bathrobe from the end of the bed, slipped it on, and then exited her room. She didn’t want to wake Harrison at this early hour, but she had to see him and find out the outcomes of the tests. As she stepped into the long, dark hallway, the faint sound of music beckoned to her. It was a low, sweet melody that came from the direction of Harrison’s rooms.
When she stood in front of the closed door to his chambers, she knocked lightly and then stood back to listen. He was playing his violin, Vivaldi’sFour Seasons, Concerto No. 2, “Summer.” After listening for a moment, she tried the doorknob to find it was unlocked. She opened the door and slipped soundlessly inside.
He wasn’t in the main bedroom, which was dark with the bed untouched. Instead, light cascaded from the side chamber he used when he tinkered with the various gadgets and instruments he collected.
She tiptoed across the room and peeked inside to find he was standing in front of his laptop. Standing.
