Ghosts & Shadows Pt. 04

"Hang on, Simon. My boss got one of the best neurosurgeons in the world on the way here. He'll be here any minute. She'll be in good hands. What happened?"

He rubbed the tears from his cheeks.

"She was.....walking back from lunch. A cab....the cabbie....cops said he had a heart attack, jammed the accelerator, hit her just before she reached the curb. She...she was thrown 30 feet through the air. She was....she was.......so broken...."

Just hearing the words, without seeing it, made my stomach turn.

"Mr. Davidson?"

Bret Wallinsky was a tall Brit, wire haired, big nosed, and the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life. He was dressed in slacks and an open necked shirt, under which I saw a large silver Star of David pendant.

"Gail called me and gave me the details. I've been on the phone with Dr. Sloane and some specialists here. I don't have my team here, but I'll do what I can and the key people are on their way from London right now."

"Thank you, doctor."

He shrugged.

"I owe your boss more than I can ever repay her. She came to my aid when I desperately needed a friend. I'll do everything I can to bring your daughter back. No guarantees because it sounds like she's suffered an extreme amount of damage, but I don't like to lose patients, it makes me cranky. If you pray, that wouldn't hurt."

She was almost on us, her gaze focused on the doctors and nurses and on Wallinsky's back when she saw me and Simon. She froze, like the proverbial deer in the headlights. I wondered how she could have gotten here so quickly, unless she was visiting or had changed her place of work from San Francisco to New York.

She wore jeans and a blouse, open a few buttons from the top and showing a little bit of tummy. It was 30 years too young for her, but she made it work by looking like a 30-year-old! She wore no makeup, no lipstick, her hair windblown, and she was still the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

Simon looked up and saw her.

"Mary! Mary...."

She turned and walked away, first quickly and then almost running.

"Mary....?" Simon said to her back, relief turning to confusion. He stared at me and something inside me snapped.

I ran through the doors to the critical care waiting section. As I reached the hallway, I saw her almost trotting to the left down a long corridor. A couple of nurses stared at me as I broke into a run but I ignored them. When I reached the end of the corridor I looked first to the left and then to the right. To the left was another long corridor gleaming empty under hospital lights. To the right, halfway down the hall, I saw doors marked, "Men" and "Women".

The door to "Women" was swinging shut. I walked swiftly toward it, not running because I didn't want to attract too much attention. I stood in front of the door, then pushed it open. A heavy-set woman in nurse's white stood washing her hands in front of the mirror. The door to one of the cubicles was swinging shut.

She gave me a questioning look and was starting to say something.

I pulled a card out of my wallet and jotted a number on it. I handed it to her and she accepted it with a questioning look.

"Get out of here and call this number. Don't tell anyone what you saw. Call the number and tell the person that answers what just happened and you can expect a fairly comfortable bonus this Christmas. You call security, and your life is going to be a living hell from this moment on."

She just stared at me and I could almost read her mind.

"I'm not going to kill her or hurt her but, if I did, you'd be a witness and you're walking out of here to testify against me. Think about it. This is the biggest decision you're ever going to make in your life."

Maybe she thought I was mob, or some spook, but she just cast one glance back at the cubicle and walked out.

I walked to the cubicle. I could see her feet, clad in comfortable flat shoes, under the edge. I was sure she had locked it from the inside.

"Come out Mary! You don't have to talk to me. You can pretend I'm not here but she needs both of us. Come back with me."

There was only silence. I thought I could hear her breathing.

"I don't know what your problem is, Mary. If - if it's that email I sent you...I apologize. I was just pissed, royally pissed at you, but it doesn't matter now. We need to go back, together!"

No answer. I am not a dramatic man, not given to dramatic gesture. Still....!

"Get away from the door, back up as far as you can Mary. I won't apologize if you get hurt if you don't."

I gave her 30 seconds and kicked it open. The lock broke with a loud metallic clang and the door banged hard against the inside, then swept closed again. I reached out with one hand to push it open. She sat inside on the closed toilet seat, feet under her, her arms closed around them to make her as small as possible inside the stall. She was looking down.

Even now, she wouldn't face me!

I didn't touch her.

"I am going back to the critical care waiting area, Mary. You're going with me. You're going to get up and walk with me.

You don't have to talk to or acknowledge me. You can stand on the other side of the room, but you ARE going back now! If I have to, I will pull you by the hair or drag you down this corridor. Don't doubt me, Mary. You are going back with me."

"Why?"

One word! The first word I had heard her say in more than two years.

"Because our daughter may be dying. She may die tonight. That little girl may breathe her last. If she wakes up for even a moment, before she passes, she is going to see both of us together! If it's the last thing she sees on this earth, she will see us! That's why!"

I never expected it, but she reached her hand out to me and I pulled her to her feet. I backed out of the stall and let her pass by me. She was careful not to let our bodies touch. As I stepped out, I saw two hospital security guards heading for us, just before they were intercepted by one of the private security men hired by Gail. After a brief flurry of conversation the three men stared at each other, then at the two of us walking toward them. Then they turned around and walked away.

I followed my ex-wife down the corridor, watching the way her ass swiveled as she walked. I'd always loved that ass. Probably not as well as Richard Kelly, but I had loved it.

Simon threw himself into her arms and she comforted him the way you'd comfort a sobbing child.

"It'll be alright," she said over and over. "God couldn't be that cruel, Simon. He isn't that cruel."

We sat in the waiting area with another family and watched cable news. Mary ordered a hamburger for Simon, delivered by one of the two security guys bought by Gail. Simon ate part of it, then bent over one of the couches and threw it all up. The security guys cleaned it up.

Mary made him lie down and eat a few saltine crackers, washed down with water but he couldn't be still. He was up and pacing and then he had to leave the waiting area. Mary walked with him.

At 7:30 p.m. my cell rang and Peter said, "I've been in surgery and I just heard. I called a friend and he told me what's happening. I can be at the house in 30 minutes and I can take a friend's jet and be there in two hours."

"I know you want to, but there's no need."

I told him what was happening.

"Wallinsky, I think I've heard the name. Gail said he was the best?"

"Everybody says he is. Even if he wasn't, I wouldn't let you operate on your sister, Peter. How could you live with yourself if she...if she...died under your scalpel? That's too much for anyone."

After a moment: "Alright, but I'm getting someone to stand in for me and Marlena, Austin and I will be there by tomorrow morning."

About ten that night, after Simon had been back and left again four times, I finally found myself getting hungry. The security guys, who seemed to know everything, were back in an hour with a hot pastrami with sauerkraut, a huge, fat dill and a cold Pepsi. I wondered how they had known what to go get. I don't know why, but it tasted better than anything I could remember eating in a long time.

Then I remembered that Nicole and I had shared one when I was teaching her the delicacies of fine dining at a Jewish deli in Jacksonville, when she was only nine years old. I had forgotten that. It's funny the things your mind pulls up at a time like that.

I realized I was crying and looked up to see Mary staring at me with an indecipherable emotion on her face. She had told the security guys what to get. She hadn't forgotten everything about our years together.

I'd always been able to read her before but, like the guy at St. Augustine, my wife had gone away and she was never coming back. She wasn't the woman I had known.

At 2 a.m., a tired-looked Wallinsky walked into the waiting room. He ignored me and headed for Simon, who had slumped over, his head almost on his chest, until Mary tapped him and he saw Wallinsky.

"She's not out of the woods yet," he said, putting his hand on Simon's shoulder. "We won't know, until I get my team in place, the extent of the damage to the brain from the bruising and bleeding. Fortunately, she's stabilized. She's tough. She's a fighter. She's got a strong heartbeat. I'm fairly confident she'll live."

An embarrassed Wallinsky pried Simon off of him. Mary grabbed him and guided him to a couch. I shook Wallinsky's hand and tried to thank him.

"Don't thank me until she's the girl you remember, and she's back with her family. I think she's got a shot, but she suffered a horrendous amount of damage."

"But, like you said, doctor, she's tough. She'll make it. She is a fighter."

He looked at me and nodded, "Like her father, Mr. Davidson. I don't think you realize the regard in which Ms. Hunt holds you. She looks upon you as much more than a valued employee."

"Likewise."

Then Wallinsky was gone. Simon had pulled himself together.

"Hugh, I'm going to stay here. Mary will stay for a while. Why don't you go back to the apartment and get some sleep and you can spell Mary in a few hours."

At 3 a.m. I stood wearing Simon's pajamas as I stared out at the New York nightscape through Simon and Nicole's balcony window. My reflection stared back at me.

A figure appeared behind me. I hadn't heard anything, but she would have had her own key. I saw the nightlights flickering through her image reflected off the glass. Her features swam in and out of the moonlight as shadows drifted across the moon.

"Ghosts and shadows. They seem to follow you."

She shook her head.

"You're the ghost, Hugh. Why won't you stop haunting me?"

CHAPTERS NINE AND TEN TO FOLLOW