Shelly's Second Chance (The Wish Granters, Book One) (15 page)

“Do we know for a fact that
we can only grant one wish?”

Alanna shook her head. “I
don’t know. I mean, isn’t that what Morgan told us? We didn’t ask really— I
just assumed that our powers . . . ”

“Were limited? That everybody
just gets one wish? You know what they say about assume,” Joe said, pushing
himself to his feet. “You go help Shelly. I’ve got a question for Morgan. If I
can find him.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Shelly was standing at the
chapel door, as if unsure whether or not to enter. Alanna touched her arm
softly, which made Shelly jump.

“How are you doing?”

“How am I doing? I don’t even
know where to begin,” Shelly said. She put one hand out as if to push the
chapel door open, then let it fall to her side and instead leaned against the
wall. “I thought you’d be leaving now that you granted my wish.”

Alanna shook her head slowly.
“We’ve not been released yet,” she said. “I’m not clear exactly why. Seems you
still need our help in some way.”

They stood there, an odd
couple, unsure what to do next.

“That family they brought
in,” Shelly said, “the little girl who’s so hurt. I’m sure the parents have no
insurance or money. If anyone needed a wish fulfilled it’s them. Why was I the
one chosen? Why was I the one to get a wish when all these people didn’t?”

“To be honest, I really don’t
know. There’s a lot I don’t understand about this wish granting business,” said
Alanna.

Shelly looked at her, clearly
skeptical.

Morgan or whoever he works
for upstairs won’t tell us how it works, Alanna thought, and now she thinks
we’re holding out on her.

“Remember back at the hotel,”
Alanna went on. “When we told you our fate depends on what happens to you?”

“Sort of. It seems like a
long time ago.” Shelly took a couple of steps as if she was going back to the
waiting room, then she stopped and turned back to the chapel door. “If you
won’t even explain to me what’s going on, then there’s no sense wasting our
time, is there?”

“I don’t think we’re wasting
our time,” Alanna said softly. “Maybe we should both go in there.” She pointed
to the chapel. “I could use some help, too.”

Shelly looked at Alanna as if
seeing her for the first time, and wondered what she could possibly need help
with, not being alive anymore. What else is there to worry about, once you’ve
gone?

“With what?” For the first
time Shelly seemed genuinely interested.

Alanna sighed and leaned
against the wall also so they were both staring straight ahead at the bland
white wall on the other side of the hallway. “For one thing, I can’t remember
much of anything. I don’t know who I was. Joe thinks I had money. Maybe he’s
right. Maybe I was just a spoiled, rich girl. You thought that. I know you did.
But that doesn’t feel like me. I think I did have money. Or at least I was
surrounded by it. But I don’t think that’s what I was. You know? I wasn’t just
rich.”

Shelly closed her eyes. “Just
rich.” She repeated it. “Sounds like you think if you have money that’s all you
are.”

With that she turned to the
chapel door and held it open for Alanna to enter first. They disappeared into
the dark room and the door closed quietly behind them with a soft thud.

*****

It was the first time Joe had
actually wanted to go somewhere and talk to Morgan, but he had no idea how to
make him appear or get in touch with him. He thought maybe if he stood at the
hospital entrance Morgan might pull up driving a taxi. He wandered outside and
looked up and down the street.

He tried to imagine what his
past life had been like, what he did, why the sight of blood and the scream of
an ambulance siren gave him such a jolt. He concentrated on the color red and
soon an image crossed his closed eyes—not a pleasant image, as so often happens
in retrieving the past. The happy times tend to get overshadowed by the brutal
or sad. It takes concentration to remember the good times.

Joe looked up to the sky as
if to say “take me up” but he stayed rooted to the little square of sidewalk. As
he concentrated, a stronger image came to him. Someone he recognized. A short,
stocky man wearing a suit and tie—a loud tie with pictures of monkeys on it.
Joe tried to bring the man’s face into focus but all he could see was that
stupid tie. And he seemed to know that tie.

The man was waving. Waving,
it seemed, at Joe. No, he wasn’t waving. He was gesturing, warning Joe to stay
back. Another figure appeared, a man without features or definite form,
shrouded in fog with only the outline visible. Arms, legs, head, an arm raised.

Joe struggled to remember more
detail but the image faded and, just as he was about to give up, Morgan
appeared at the hospital door wearing an aide’s uniform, pushing a wheelchair
with a very old woman wearing a hospital gown, looking as if she was napping
peacefully.

“Hello, Joe,” Morgan called
when the automatic doors opened.

“Am I glad you showed up,”
Joe said and slipped inside again. “I have something important to discuss.”

“Yes, I’m aware of your
predicament.” Morgan looked around the lobby. “Let’s walk, shall we? Mrs.
Mandlebaum here needs an airing.”

Joe fell in on the other side
of Mrs. Mandlebaum’s IV stand.

“The wish did not turn out as
you expected, did it?”

“If we had only seen what was
going to happen, we would have told Shelly to wait a couple of days. But who
knew?”

“Indeed,” came the reply.
Morgan sounded almost smug which annoyed Joe. It must have shown on his face.

“What brings you here,
besides the chance to chat with me and Mrs. Mandlebaum?”

“Well,” he began, thinking
this was his one chance, yet not sure of his best negotiation strategy. “See
it’s like this. I’m really confused by this whole deal.” Yes, that was it, play
dumb. Let Morgan explain things to him. Get Morgan on his side. Work together.
“Do you have any idea what it’s like not to be able to remember who you were
and what happened in your life? Besides that I’m supposed to be helping someone
else get over a big life hurdle. See what I mean? Now if I had just one more
tool in my kit, I think I could make this thing work. I mean I’m getting a
handle on it but . . . ”

“What exactly is it you want,
Joe?

“To put it simply, a second
wish for Shelly.”

“Ah,” Morgan nodded. “And
Mrs. Mandlebaum here wants her kidneys to work. But she got one wish a long
time ago and that’s it. Has nine grandchildren and three great grandchildren
now. Rules are rules you know, and all that. Now you’ll have to make do. I’m
sorry, Joe. But I’m sure you’ll find a way to . . .”

But this time Joe was the one
to turn and disappear down one hall that led to another. He stopped at a large
window that looked out at a small courtyard between the two wings of the
hospital. A couple sat on a wooden bench. They talked and gestured. The woman
seemed upset. It could have been Joe and Alanna, Joe thought, sitting there
discussing their memories. The man stood up suddenly. As he turned, Joe saw his
face clearly. He looked straight at Joe.

It was him. Joe was sure of
it. Joe’s law partner. And Joe remembered his name—Russell—that was it. Yeah
people used to call him Russell Terrier because he was so doggedly determined.
Joe raised his hand in an automatic gesture and waved enthusiastically. But
Russell did not wave back. He stood there staring as if Joe were invisible.
There was no way to get to the little garden from where Joe stood so he
frantically gestured to Russell to walk around to the opening and then Joe ran
down the hall and around a corner until he came to a glass door. He pushed it
hard and ran down the short path to the garden and the bench but when he got
there, Russell was gone and the woman seated on the bench was fiddling with her
cell phone, texting or something.

“Excuse me,” Joe said. “Where
is the man who was out here with you?”

The woman looked at him
quizzically. “What man?”

“The man you were talking to
just a minute ago. Short, stocky, a little bald. With a beard? Wearing a sports
coat and a loud tie?”

“I’ve been out here alone,”
the woman said curtly. She went back to her phone, leaving Joe to wonder if he
was beginning to lose his mind.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

It was dark and quiet in the non-denominational
chapel. No standard religious symbols on the walls, no altar, no stained glass,
only the taped sound of a stream running and a large framed photo of a pleasant
woodland setting in spring. Instead of pews there were comfortable chairs.
Fresh flowers were set in large pots at the corners of the room. The ceiling
was fairly high, giving the room less of a hospital feel. Shelly chose a chair
in the back and sat down alone without noticing that Alanna simply faded into
the silence. She hadn’t been inside a church in years. She’d been brought up
Baptist but had lapsed so long ago that it seemed as if she’d never been one of
the faithful. She’d never really believed. And when she left home, there didn’t
seem any reason to look for a church.

She stared at the flowers and
the photo and, feeling exhausted, sank further down in the chair. Exhausted not
so much from any physical strain, but from the roller coaster of these last few
days. Is this what you’re supposed to do in church these days, she wondered.
Think about your life? Don’t you pray to God anymore? Shelly thought it would
be silly to ask God for a favor at this point. It would be good to pray for
Ben. On his behalf. But she couldn’t seem to get herself into a praying frame
of mind.

She was like all those other
people in the world who looked to God as a convenience in times of trouble. God
must be awfully sick of everyone asking for special favors all the time, she
thought. Poor God. So much to do and so many people to watch over.

She heard the door open and
the sound of muffled crying. In a moment the woman whose daughter had been so
badly injured walked by very slowly, a cloth in her hand which she used to wipe
her eyes. She sniffled and began to weep again. She went straight to the front
of the room where there would have been an altar and knelt on the floor in
front of the picture of the stream. She began to speak through sobs. Shelly
didn’t understand the Spanish but she heard the word Dios a number of times and
got the message. She felt a twinge of envy that this woman seemed to believe so
strongly in her prayer that she didn’t care what kind of chapel this was or
where. She was as close to God as Shelly was estranged from Him.

Shelly got up and walked to
the woman and, without thinking, knelt down next to her, put her arm around the
woman and began to pray in English. Prayed for the woman’s little girl. “Dear
Lord, help this poor woman’s baby girl. Help her for she truly needs your
divine intervention.” Prayed for her to get better, prayed for this mother’s
prayer to be answered, prayed for the child whose need was so great.

The woman rested her head on
Shelly’s shoulder, relieved of her burden momentarily. She stopped sobbing and
held onto Shelly’s hand as if Shelly herself were an angel sent to her aid.
They remained kneeling in silence for several minutes until they finally stood,
holding each other for support. Shelly kept her arm around the woman and
together they walked to the chapel door. It’s an odd thing about faith. No matter
how long and how deeply you’ve ignored it, when you need it, it’s there.

Shelly let the woman go with
a hug. The woman patted Shelly’s cheek as if Shelly were her own child. “Que
Dios té bendiga,” she whispered and slowly walked off down the hall. Shelly didn’t
know exactly what it meant but she knew that she had been blessed.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The doctor bustled along
reading a report, his glasses halfway down his nose, and almost ran smack into
Shelly as she turned away from the chapel. They both recoiled in surprise and
he didn’t seem to recognize Shelly, although he apologized and was about to
resume walking.

“Doctor . . .” She had
forgotten his name and felt a sudden rush of shame. How could she forget the
name of the man who had poked the inside of Ben’s brain? “I’m glad we ran into
each other. I mean not glad that we actually ran into . . . what I mean is . .
. how’s Ben?”

The doctor glanced at her
absentmindedly for another couple of seconds, then smiled in recognition.

“He’s doing fine. That is,
the operation is over. But we’ll be keeping him in an induced coma for the next
few hours. That’s not uncommon after brain surgery. We don’t want him to move
at all.”

Shelly took a deep breath and
asked the most important question. “Was it cancer?”

“We’re not sure yet. The lab
has the tissue samples. We’ll know in a few hours. You can see him after he’s
out of recovery but until then we have him in the CCU.” He paused at her
bewildered expression.

“The Critical Care Unit,” he
said, a little more kindly. “It will be hours before he wakes up, and you look
exhausted. Why don’t you go home, get something to eat?”