Trilogy

She nodded, struggled, then spoke: "Other... man... with..." she ground out before he throat gave way and coughing consumed her.

Stephan pushed a button and a nurse came, a therapist of some sort followed: the nurse put a mask on her face and cool mist poured into her lungs while the therapist adjusted flow rates, and that told Catherine all she needed to know. Her lungs had been damaged, severely, by the napalm. She lifted her head, saw the paraphernalia attached to her thighs and hips and guessed she'd fractured her pelvis. She wiggled her toes, felt them, then saw them both move under thin blanket and sighed her relief: her spine was intact! She was going to survive.

She looked up, looked at her son. He was watching her and she knew that he knew she was deducing everything for herself, and he smiled knowingly.

After a half hour the therapist removed the mask: "Do you feel like trying again?"

She nodded: "Yes," she whispered. "The man with me... Luke? How is he?"

Stephan looked away: "He's alive. He was here yesterday."

"Yesterday?"

"Yes. He was released last week. His backside was burned, badly."

"His backside?"

"His, what? His bum?"

"His ass was burned?"

"Yes." Oddly enough, Stephan had no idea why his mother laughed so long, or so hard.

But he had a lot to tell her, and now was as good a time as any.

+++++

She was sitting up contemplating the eggs on her plate when he walked in the next morning.

"My God. The rumors are true. It lives." His eyes sparkled when he took her in, yet Stephan looked at the young American with something akin to unbridled hatred in his eyes.

"You look... well," Catherine said. She couldn't believe how her heart had soared when the boy walked into the room.

"You mean, aside from the pain in the ass thing?"

"What happened?"

"What? After the bombs?"

She nodded.

"Fuck, I don't know. A few minutes later it started raining paratroopers, then the helicopters arrived. I think it was a bit of an anti-climax, though. The bombs took most of 'em out."

She nodded again. "The Janjaweed? In the cave? Did he..."

"Nope. He was too fuckin' close to the entrance. Fried, if you know what I mean. I think he died before they loaded him on the chopper."

"What happened to us?'

"Well, my fault, I guess. I was trying to cover you and the force knocked us back into the cave. I came down on you pretty hard." Luke looked away guiltily.

"Thank you. I doubt we'd be alive if not for your quick thinking."

Stephan looked away, then walked quietly from the room: "I think I'll leave you two alone."

Luke watched her son leave, then turned to her: "What's that all about?"

"He's always been quite possessive."

"Really? We've been talking a lot the past week or so. Seems like a good kid. Second year of medical school?"

"That's right."

"So? What's up?"

"We talked last night. About you."

"Me?"

"You. For some odd reason he seems to think you're very attached to me."

"Really?" But he did not look away. "Wonder what gave him that idea?"

"Well, we had a long talk."

"Fuck."

"Remember what Nimiri said? About that word?"

Luke nodded, looked away. "Did you see him? Before..."

"No."

"That fu... that cobra came back. Sometime in the night, I guess. He fought it, I think, and killed it with a rock. But not before..."

"Yes. I understand. His was a good soul, don't you think?"

"You know it."

"So. Show it to me."

"What?"

"This pain you have. This pain in the ass."

+++++

Stephan was with her later that afternoon when she woke from a nap.

"Did you talk with him?" he asked. "About what I told you?"

"A little."

"What did he say?"

She shrugged. "Very little I need share with you right now. Mainly things that happened in the cave."

He nodded: "He was transferred to the Paris bureau yesterday. Did he tell you?"

"No."

"I thought you'd like to know."

"Yes. How is your father?"

"He is worse. I hate tobacco."

"He understood what he was doing. It was his choice."

"But it wasn't mine choice, was it? Not mine to go through his death in such a way."

"Your sister? Does she help?"

"Not at all. She is like her mother. What the Americans call 'arm candy.' Or an air-head."

"Perhaps she'll learn a thing or two from you. One never knows."

"No, I suppose not."

"And your studies?"

"Well, I think."

She nodded. "Stephan, you know I love you. You'll always be the light of my life."

He looked at her and nodded, held up his hand: "I won't keep you from him, mother, if that is what you wish."

"It is."

He nodded his head and smiled. "I know, Mama. I know. I just hope..."

"We are all just strangers to one another, Stephan, until fate steps in and lends a hand."

+++++

Weeks later Catherine was wheeled from the hospital by her son and a reporter for the New York Times. They drove a few blocks to her house on the rue Maitre Albert and the two men helped her walk into her home for the first time in almost a year. Some time passed before the men emerged. One, the younger of the two, held out his hand and the other took it. They smiled at one another.

"Forgive me, but I think perhaps I will not call you Dad. Is hope that is not offensive."

The older of the two laughed. "I'd settle for being friends."

"Perhaps. In time, yes."

+++++

The old man's words had penetrated the wall, you see.

"You act like religious peoples," the old man had said. "You lucky be alive and you fight!"

But there was more to it than that, you understand. Something, perhaps two lights in the sky, perhaps the nearness of death, had brought two people irreversibly together. The bond so formed had been forged in fire and cleansed by memory.

He loved her. It was that simple.

And she loved him.

There was nothing left to say.