Cast a Pale Shadow (36 page)
Read Cast a Pale Shadow Online
Authors: Barbara Scott
"She was happy, Cole. Her cousin said you made her last days happy."
"It is still hard for me to remember the happy part." He had painfully relived the lost memory of Cynthia's death when Trissa told him of the phone call. But he did not remember calling the family after. Fitapaldi said he had so conditioned himself to fragment his memory into survivable pieces that he might never know the whole of his past.
Before they left Michigan, Cole went to visit his father. Trissa and Fitapaldi went with him, but they waited in the lobby. "I told him I'd never be back," Cole shrugged. "I don't think he cared. I don't anymore either."
They used some of the money the boarders had given them to fly back to St. Louis. When Fitapaldi bid them goodbye at the airport, Trissa spent an extra moment in his affectionate embrace.
"In my dreams, I had a father just like you. We both owe our lives to you. There is no way to thank you enough."
"You are the healer, Trissa. There was no medicine I could have prescribed to perform the miracle Cole found in you."
"We found in each other," she said solemnly.
Fitapaldi turned to the man who waited next to her and held out a hand for a farewell handshake, a gesture that would have been all that the old Cole would have allowed. It was not enough. When their right hands touched, he clapped his left arm around the psychiatrist's shoulder and drew him into a hug.
"Thank you, Lorenzo, for never giving up on me. I promise I won't either." In his pocket was the name of a colleague in St. Louis that Fitapaldi had recommended. Though a long road still lay ahead of them, the doctor promised that the journey was well begun.
In the plane somewhere between Chicago and home, Trissa warned Cole not to be surprised if she sometimes called him Nicholas in the throes of passion. She admitted it was hard to tell the difference in the dark.
"I'm having that trouble myself sometimes," Cole answered. "I think that's called being whole."
The End
About Barbara Scott
Barbara Scott is the award-winning author of eight published novels including historicals:
Tug of War
,
Listen With Your Heart
,
West of Heaven
, and the
Spirit
Trilogy
:
Haunts of the Heart
,
Willing Spirits
, and
Spirits' Rest
. Her two contemporaries are
Talk of the Town
, a romantic comedy, and
Social Grace
, a related work, coming in September. She first began entertaining audiences with her writing in the second grade. At various times, she wanted to be a foreign correspondent, a Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist, a cartoonist, and a Broadway musical star. Now she is content to create characters who fulfill all her ambitions. Her favorite part of writing is when her characters come alive and develop minds of their own.
Barbara is a former special education teacher who also writes textbooks and does educational consulting. She shares a home with her sister and three rambunctious terriers. You can learn more about her at barbarascottwriter.com
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