Thirteen West (35 page)

Sally shook her head.

"He's going to make it,"
Alma
assured her.

"Did they say so?" Sally asked.

"No one will tell me a thing. But since he's survived so far, his chances are pretty good. Call me on the ward later."

Sally nodded.

"And remember—when they ask keep saying it was an accident. You called me because you were worried about him. Don't breathe a word about that stupid note."

"I'll remember." Sally caught
Alma
's hand. "I couldn't have helped him without you."

"If I hadn't been dumb enough to give you Valium the whole thing might not have happened. You'd have gone down to see Frank in his car and—"

"I wouldn't have. I was too afraid of him then."

"Just stay off Valium. Frank better stay off everything."
Alma
smiled ruefully. "Poor Sally, it's been a tough affiliation for you. Turned you off psych nursing for life, I suspect."

"Frank's alive," Sally said. "Right now that's all I care about."

"Look, don't you go spreading out your life for him to walk on. Guilt isn't a good base to try to build anything on. Guilt sucks."

"He asked for help and I locked him out. It's my fault."

"You crazy?"
Alma
said. "No one makes a person OD. They do it to themselves. That's what I mean about guilt. Don't keep it hanging around your neck like a damn lead pendant. You got to feel for someone before there's a relationship worth bothering about. You have to reserve the right to yell at them and get mad when the spirit moves you. Otherwise the whole damn thing is shit."

Alma
frowned at her. "You pay attention, girl. You think about what I'm saying when you sit it his room and watch him coming out of this. You remember what I tell you or else you'll be in another room someday soon looking at a dead man."

"I only want to help him," Sally wailed.

"Then love him or leave him alone. Pity is shit. Guilt is shit. Love or nothing."

"Excuse me." A nurse stood beside
Alma
, eyeing her white uniform curiously. "You're the people with Mr.
Kent
?"

Sally sprang to her feet. "Yes."

"I wanted to tell you we're transferring him upstairs. He'll be in 207B."

"How is he?"

"His condition is stable at present. The doctor will be able to tell you more."

"Can I go to his room and wait?"

"I don't see why not. Talk to the charge nurse when you get there."

"Take it easy,"
Alma
advised. "If they're sending him upstairs they're pretty sure he's going to make it. Otherwise they wouldn't bother to dirty a bed." She glanced at her watch. "I'd better get going. One last word. You can't save people like Frank. They have to save themselves."

Chapter Twenty-Two

Frank had finished scraping and painting Sarah's gazebo several days ago. He sat in it now, watching a small red-headed bird drink from the bird bath. Strange how a man who'd never had any interest in observing nature could now lose himself in bird-watching. He didn't know the names of all of them yet, but he believed he could recognize individual ones by their behavior.

Solo was huddled under a bush, watching even more intently than he was, never realizing his twitching black tail gave his position away to every bird in the neighborhood.

Just as he'd begun to feel at home here, it was time for him to leave. Last night he and Sarah had talked about what he thought of as the final curtain at Calafia. She'd repeated the words
Alma
had offered to Sally when she was waiting in the hospital to see if Frank would live or die. Love or nothing.

No wonder she'd left without looking back.

Sarah was no longer the Sally he'd known, just as he was no longer the Frank that Sally had known. That Frank had been obsessed by Sally, not in love with her. And Sally had never been in love with Frank. How could she have been, considering his behavior?

He watched Sarah come out of the house with glasses on a tray. Predictably, iced tea or lemonade, no hard stuff to tempt him. He had no desire to drink or take drugs. He hoped the need would never fasten its teeth in him again, but he couldn't be sure it wouldn't happen.

After Sarah joined him and they both were sipping limeade—she'd surprised him—he said, "Tell me why you married your husband."

She tipped her head to one side, a habit she had when thinking, and finally said, "I believe it was mostly to get rid of him."

Taken aback, he said, "That seems a paradoxical reason."

"Not really. I was more comfortable with him as a husband than as a persistent suitor. But it was a mistake. All we had in common was Linda. I was rather relieved when he found someone else and asked for a divorce."

"You didn't love him?"

"I'm not sure I know what love is."

"That makes two of us. I married Doris for all
Alma
's wrong reasons—guilt, pity, wanting to help. Worst of all, I see now I did it to try to redeem myself. We had a boy, Daniel. He turned out okay, surprisingly, though I've lost touch with him in recent years. As you might expect."

"You said
Doris
was dead," Sarah reminded him.

"She was never happy with me. She preferred a livelier life than the one we had, so after while she went out and looked for it. She was killed when the guy she was with drove off the road, too drunk to see the tree he smashed into."

"Shall we drink to our failures?"

He shook his head. "That's the past."

She turned away from him to run her hand along the gazebo railing. "You did a beautiful job with this. It looks like new."

"You did a beautiful job with me, too. I may not look it, but I feel like new."

Still looking away from him, she asked, "Was it
Doris
's death that started your downhill spiral?"

"I was in hospital administration by then and already drinking—it just escalated. Until you rescued me. So now that I'm almost as good as new, it's time for me to go."

Sarah started to lean toward him, drew back and said, "Must you?"

He nodded.

"But how will you get along?"

"Dan took away the Corvette and, because I'd added his name to all my bank and investment accounts, he was able to take half the money I had and put it where I couldn't get it to drink up. Told me what he'd done. Said if I ever came to my senses, to find him and he'd give everything back to me. I called him all the names in the book at the time."

"That's tough love at work."

"Yeah, I know the lingo. Told you he was a good kid. Savvy, too. Anyway, I do have money out there somewhere. You don't have to worry about that."

"Money and Dan," she said.

Frank shook his head. "He has his own life."

She put her hand on his arm. "I'll miss you."

He looked at her hand, white against his tan, and realized it was the first time she'd touched him since he'd begun to get better. He put his hand over hers, waiting to see if she'd draw away. She didn't.

"I'll miss you, too," he admitted. "But I have to go." He inclined his head toward the bird just lifting away from the bird bath. "I need to try my wings alone, to see if they'll hold me up."

She sighed. "You've changed."

He gave her a lop-sided grin. "We'll hope it's for the better."

"Well, you could hardly have gotten much worse," she said tartly.

"Remember the days of ECT at Calafia? Do you realize what you've done to me was something like what I did to you all those years ago. Shock treatment. Inexcusable on my part, I admit, yet for you it yanked repressed memories of past abuse to the surface so you could learn to deal with them."

She considered this for a long moment. "You may be right, though I certainly wouldn't recommend your method. So you believe my taking you off the street and forcing you to dry out cold turkey was a form of shock treatment?"
   

"Absolutely. I don't think I'll ever understand exactly why you did it."

She shrugged. "You spent a few truly miserable weeks drying out. Could be I was just paying you back."

They looked at one another, something elusive passing between them that he couldn't quite grasp the meaning of, something linking him to Sally/Sarah. Her expression told him she felt it, too.

"I may come back," he said abruptly, letting go of her hand.

She took her hand from his arm. "If you do," she said slowly, smiling, "I may let you in."

The End

About The Author

Jane Toombs, the Viking from her past and their calico grandcat, Kinko, live on the south
shore
of
Lake Superior
in
Michigan
’s
Upper Peninsula
wilderness. Here they enjoy refreshing Springs, beautiful Summers, colorful Falls and tolerate miserable Winters. Jane is edging toward ninety with her published books and has over twenty-five novellas and short stories to her credit. She’s been published in every genre except men’s action and erotica, but paranormal is her favorite. She’s a member of a closed twelve author promo group called Jewels Of The Quill, where she’s “Dame Turquoise” at

Also from Books We Love, Golden Chances Books 1 to 7, Hallow House, Books I and II, and Ten Past Midnight. Six stories and three poems on the dark side of paranormal. Everything from ghouls to the heart-eating Egyptian beast who decides one's fate. Even the touches of romance are definitely different. But what traveler can expect the norm when on the wrong side of midnight? Ten past midnight All's not well. Every road leads right To hell..

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