When the Wind Blows - James Patterson [31]
Max missed them terribly, almost before they were out of sight. Bailey and Elizabeth. Nice kids. Good people. Maybe they could have been friends if she could have hung around for a while.
And she missed Matthew of course. She missed her own little brother so much. It tore a huge, ragged hole in the center of her chest.
As she soared high across the brightly golden meadowland that adjoined the woods, she felt achy and alone. Inside somewhere, she knew she wasn’t meant to be alone.
She was just a little kid herself.
A-rumpty-rump-dump.
A-rumpty-rump-dump.
Chapter 30
DAVID’S ARMS were thrown limply over my shoulders, and I was dragging him through a desolate, bone-white desert that seemed familiar. The sun was a big clock in the sky and the second hand was ticking off the seconds between life and death. I’d been here before.
“Hurry, Frannie. Please,” David panted. He whispered hoarsely against my cheek. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but you have to hurry. We don’t have much time.”
I was tired, so tired from dragging David’s limp form, and yet I couldn’t put him down. “Hold on,” I said to David. “Please.” I felt his warm sticky blood at the back of my neck and my hair bristled. Tears flowed down my cheeks.
“I’m here,” he said. “I’ll always be here for you.”
His feet dragged in the sand. He was so heavy. I adjusted my grip, but didn’t stop moving forward. My arm muscles were incredibly sore and weary. I could feel his heartbeat against my back, but it was faint, almost gone.
As he always did, David began to tell me stories about our marriage. Joyful, happy stories that only reminded me about how full our life had been. Two successful practices; serious talk about having a child, maybe two or three kids if we were lucky.
“We should have had kids, Frannie. We shouldn’t have waited.”
“Don’t,” I said. “Please don’t, David. I don’t want to hear this.”
But he wouldn’t stop. “Remember our fifth anniversary? We stayed at that perfect little inn in Vermont, you know the one. Made love all day, Frannie. Had breakfast, lunch, and dinner in bed,” he said.
“Of course I remember, David. I’ll never forget Vermont.” He started to hum. It was the lovely, haunting theme from A Man and a Woman. He’d adored that movie. I had, too. We’d seen it five or six times. I stopped walking suddenly.
“Are we there?” David asked.
I looked into the distance. I saw only the glare and shimmering heat of the endless desert.
“Yes,” I said. “We’re here.”
I let David down from my back and tenderly laid him out under the sun. I stretched his strong arms straight out to the sides. His hands and feet were bleeding; so was the gaping bullet wound near his heart.
“I’m sorry for what I did,” David said. “I’m so sorry, Frannie.” I didn’t understand what he was saying, why he was sorry, but I nodded as if I did.
I took off all of my clothes and made the softest possible pillow of them. I tucked the pillow of clothes gently under his head. It was the single most heartbreaking thing I have ever done.
“Thank you,” said David. He looked at me with clear, loving eyes. “I knew you wouldn’t let me die.”
Then David died again—just the way he always did, every single morning.
The alarm on my windowsill went off. I awoke from the disturbing dream. It seemed so real, but of course David had died in a parking lot in Boulder, not in some mysterious desert.
I opened my eyes in my tiny bedroom at the animal hospital. My bare arms were stretched back and holding on to the headboard above me. My eyes were teary, my cheeks wet. My chest ached, as if I’d been struck with a hammer. I remembered that not so long ago I’d had a good life. There had been someone I loved, and who loved me.
I kicked off the jumble of blankets. An image came to me and shocked me a little. The dream, the nightmare fantasy, was starting to break up, and though I was losing the pictures, I felt steeped in shame.
I saw a man with blond hair in a denim shirt. He was wearing a smile as bright as the sun. I saw myself turning toward him.
I