In a Heartbeat - Elizabeth Adler [78]
It’s dark in here, so dark all the time. Perhaps I’m already there, already buried. . . .
An icy sweat bristled on his skin, and the hovering nurse picked up his hand, anxiously testing his pulse, his heart rate, his blood pressure, the myriad blinks on the machines, the inflowing and outflowing liquids in surgical tubes and catheters.
“No doubt, there is brain activity,” she said aloud.
Then I’m not dead, Ed thought, relieved. Not yet. There’s still time. Still time to tell her I love her, that I want her, that I can’t live without her. I can’t get down on one knee right now, but please marry me, Zelda. . . . I need to hear your voice so bad, my darling . . . hear you say . . . Yes. . . .
Somewhere a phone trilled. He heard the soft squish of the nurse’s rubber-soled shoes, the crisp rustle of her cotton skirt, the murmur of her voice. Then she came back again.
“I don’t think I should be doing this,” she said, sounding hesitant, “but that young woman of yours is very persuasive . . . and what the heck, I guess it can’t do you any harm.”
She was holding something cold against his ear . . . a telephone . . . and he heard Zelda’s voice.
“Ed, I’m here in Charleston, honey. I haven’t left you, so don’t you worry. And you know what, honey? I know all about you now, more than I ever knew before, and my heart goes out to you. Mamzelle Dorothea is wonderful. She sends her love to you. She told us the whole story, of how she helped you. And, Ed . . .” Her voice broke and she paused for a moment to calm herself. “I just want to tell you how proud I am of you. And how much I love you. Oh, honey, do you hear me? Somehow, I have to believe you can. I can’t allow myself to think that you are not there. Wait for me, Ed. I’ll be back with you . . . tomorrow . . . and remember I love you. I’ll always love you. . . .”
The nurse took the telephone away—his lifeline to Zelda—and a tear slid down Ed’s now-cavernous cheek.
“Oh my God,” the nurse said in a slow, stunned voice. “Oh my God. He heard her. He recognized her.”
Ed heard the soft squish of her shoes again, only this time she was running. He heard the excitement in her voice as she summoned the doctor.
Thank you, God, he said to himself, and another tear slid from under his closed lids.
And thank you, Zelda. I am still alive. And I promise I’ll wait for you, honey. At least until tomorrow. . . .
He was dreaming that he was back in Charleston, but with Zelda and Mamzelle Dorothea. Only they were all young again, or in Mamzelle’s case, younger. . . . Of course Zelda had not figured in that scenario in the past, but she was here now, hovering in his dream. His guardian angel.
He did see his brother again.
He was a junior at Duke, there on that hard-wonscholarship that paid only his tuition. If he wanted to eat and have a place to live, he had to work for it.
“Nothing in life comes free,” he had said, heady with anticipation when he received the letter of acceptance. For a hillbilly kid from the Great Smokies, where ambition raised its head no higher than owning your own acre and growing enough to feed your family, he was a success. Or anyhow, on the way to success.
It had not been easy. But somehow he guessed his life wasn’t meant to take a smooth path.
He had worked in the fields all that summer, earning enough to buy a couple of pairs of jeans, a few T-shirts, a sweater and a warm jacket, and a pair of new boots for his freshman winter at college. He had twenty-five dollars left over to get him through until he found a couple of jobs in Durham, where, hopefully, he would make enough to pay his rent and food. He was on cloud nine until the time came to say good-bye.
Mamzelle Dorothea handed him a sealed envelope. Suddenly he did not want to leave her.
“Take this and